I don’t know about you but I’m pretty selective about who gets in my inbox. So when I start seeing things appear that I *know* I didn’t sign up for it kinda drives me bonkers. I was on a mini-work hiatus and upon coming back was inundated by emails which inspired this post.
I bring you:
3 Signs You’re Doing Email Marketing Wrong
Unsubscribe? What unsubscribe? Exactly.
Holding people hostage to your mailing list is not going to get you anywhere. Especially if they never opted-in in the first place.
It’s practically 2014, if you *still* don’t have an unsubscribe button on your email marketing messages you are doing it wrong.
And I’m not trying to be cute. You really are doing it wrong. As in- it’s not legal.
Handing you a biz card at a networking event is not the equivalent of me signing up to your mailing list.
Please, don’t automatically add people. We have to choose to opt-in.
And.. if you’re going to add me to your mailing list (without my permission) let me at least get off, easily, k? (see point one). None of that hit unsubscribe and then ask me to re-enter my email address and then count from 10-1 backward business. Keep it simple.
Email marketing without an email marketing service is not email marketing.
Say that 5x fast.
See point above. Adding hundreds of people to an email message (don’t get me started on the ones that don’t BCC) and telling them about your latest/greatest widget/blog post/sale/telesummit/FINAL OFFER OMG is *not* email marketing.
Stay classy and sign up for a service like Mailchimp (and it’s free).
Do it right or don’t do it all.
And this.
The Email/Facebook/Twitter/’insert other social media’ Bomber
In the history of mankind has this approach ever worked? This is the offline equivalent of a sleazy-car salesman or the telemarketer who is trying to sell you a device that you can plug in to your outlets to ‘save electricity’. I kid you not.
I mean seriously?! I’ve got nothing better to do than vote for a complete stranger..EVERY DAY of OCTOBER. Why not the rest of the year?!. #lesigh
Don’t be *that* guy. Don’t do online what you wouldn’t do in real life. Unless you are in the business of annoying people, it doesn’t work.
Any other email-marketing faux-pas you’d like to share?
Share your rant..err I mean comment below!
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I still remember when I was a huge LOST fan and when the finale aired back in 2010 (when watching shows ‘real-time’ was a thing) how cool it was to just type in #LOST on Twitter and be connected to a global water-cooler and see what fans around the world were chatting about during the show (or commercial breaks for the PVR-less amongst us).
Well, flash-forward 3 years later and hashtags are EVERYWHERE. #BreakingBad, anyone?
I bet your favorite beverage even has one. It’s kind of like back in the late 90’s when you started to see website addresses everywhere and probably wondered why your laundry detergent needed a website.
Makes sense now, right?
Hashtags have become ubiquitous.
Buuuuuut if you’re still scratching your head and wondering what the fuss is all about (and how you could maybe even use’em in your biz) read on! And don’t worry! You’re not alone.
Hashtags connect people and ideas.
What do I mean?
The thing that’s different about hashtags vs just following people on Twitter- is that when you click on a hashtag (#smallbiz, for example) you are presented with hundreds of tweets of people whom you may not be following but who sharing information related to a topic that may interest you. The same thing applies to Instagram, but instead your search will turn up pictures.
6 HashTag Strategies To Market Your Business, Connect and Brand Your Content
1) Live events (Meetups, Conferences)
Create a hashtag for your event which allows people to connect before, during and after your event.
Make your hashtag visible at events
Get the word out about your hashtag in your email marketing, on your event sign up page and make it visible during the event. If you have a Twitter savvy crowd, they are probably already talking about the event and looking for opportunities to connect. Make it easy and use it to your advantage!
How does it benefit your business?
The word about your event gets spread to new audiences
Connects you with people who are interested in your business/event/topic which is key for community building.
2) Twitter Chats
Twitter chats have to be one my favorite uses of Twitter. And all thanks to the mighty hashtag. There are Twitter chats for every topic under the sun. You can join chats related to your industry and exchange with your peers and keep up with trends or you can participate in chats where your target audience is hanging out. The possibilities are endless! You can also create and host your own chat.
3) Connect with new people!
Head on over to search.twitter.com and use the advanced search and search for hashtags related to your business. Some ideas: #blogchat #smbiz
4) Hashtag your content:
When you share content on Twitter (or Google+/Instagram/Facebook) add keyword hashtags to make your content searchable by others using or looking for those hashtags.
Start a conversation and ask your followers to tag their tweets with your branded hashtag.
Some examples: #HDGameDay which is celebrating the start of College Football and encouraging people to share their photos on Twitter and Instagram.
6) Running promotions
You can run a promotion and use a hashtag (services like OfferPop make this super easy). For example, another client is running one called: #twgoldenticket. But running Twitter promotions is for another day 🙂
Choosing a Hashtag:
It’s probably best to research to make sure the hashtag is not already in use. Try sites like http://topsy.com/ or http://www.hashtags.org/
Some Don’ts:
Hashtag spam: No one likes a spammer. This applies on social media as well.
Hashtag sparingly: #don’t #hashtag #every #word. It’s kind of #annoying.
Some Do’s
Use #hashtags related to keywords, locations, events that you want to be found for
Be creative. You can make up a hashtag. #makeyourownrules
In part 2, we looked at figuring out who has the problem you are trying to solve with your product (or service) by talking or surveying your ideal client.
Use the feedback to validate your assumptions and identify the core problem.
Prioritize features. You don’t need everything in your first product. We’re at iPhone 5 (5S, 5C?..I can’t keep up) aren’t we? And I’m pretty sure they cut out a lot of features in the first version!
Stick to solving the core problem and save the bells and whistles for later.
Creating and Packaging Your Product
Product Idea: Member-Only Content
You may decide that you want to offer a membership component to your product or service.
Some options are:
4. Password-Protected Page: You can create a password protected page on your website and only give access to paying members. This is what a Password Protected Page would look like on a WordPress site (password: test). Note: branding, pages, widgets are all still visible!
5. Create a Secret/Closed Facebook group where members only get added after they have paid for access. Pretty simple, eh? Cost: Free!
6. Ning is pretty much as out of the box as it gets. I’ve used this platform for several years problem-free and found it easy to get started. It’s easy to customize and has all the familiar social network features. They offer the mini- plan at $19.99/year for up to 150 members. At this level, domain mapping is not included so you would have a url with yourbizname.ning.com. I don’t see that as a negative though, considering you could link to your Ning network from within your site or share the link to members after they sign up and pay.
WordPress Specific
7. Optimize Press: Optimize Press provides a lot of value. You can easily setup your membership site using the templates and divide the content into sections, modules etc. and display a navigation menu and/or side bar that makes it easy to access the content and understand how it is organized. Bonus: You can but choose from many templates and create sales pages as well! You can also install OptimizePress on multiple sites that you own.
I haven’t personally used the next two but they come with rave reviews as well:
8. Buddy-Press: Everything you need to start your own self-hosted and WordPress-powered social network. (Opensource)
9. Wishlist: Easy enough to use that you really don’t need to be a techie to build a great membership site with it. The plugin allows you to build a high quality membership site that looks sleek and is easy to manage as an admin. (single site license: $97)
As you can see there are several to choose from depending on what is you need to do!
Product Idea: Video or Audio Recording
If you want to offer an interview-based product you can use Skype combined with a call recorder to record the audio or video.
12. Camtasia I’ve been a long time user of this software, first on PC and now on Mac. There are a lot of tutorial videos and you’ll be up and running in no time.
13. ScreenFlow (Mac) I hear great things about ScreenFlow and had I not already invested in Camtasia I would have used it.
14. Jing Is a great free alternative to both Camtasia and ScreenFlow by the folks at TechSmith (who make Camtasia) and you can record up to to 5 minutes.
15. iMovie (Mac) Got a Mac? Well this comes with and is easy to edit video.
16. Audacity: Edit your audio recordings- a wealth of tutorials available online if you get stuck.
18. Windows Movie Maker (PC) If you’re on PC you can download it for free, if you don’t have it already. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the higher end products like Camtasia, it gets the job done.
Upload Your Audio/Video
19. After you’ve created your video or audio content, you can upload it to your site directly or use a site Dropbox and then share/embed a link. I love Dropbox and the fact that I can seamlessly share and access files from anywhere.
20. For video you can upload your content and make it private on Vimeo and then embed on your site.
Product Idea: Email Course
21. Mailchimp: Want to create an email course (for example a 7 day challenge?) Sign up for Mailchimp and use the autoresponder series. I tell you that Mailchimp monkey has a special place in my heart..an email marketing that has a sense of humor and easy to use? Win in my books!
Outsourcing
Don’t have a creative or techy bone in your body? Or need help formatting and putting together your ebook (or anything for that matter?) Outsource, baby! You can use sites like
22. Elance Submit your project needs and sit back while the proposals flood your inbox.
Warning: You can potentially get a lot of bids and probably don’t need to look at them all before you make a selection. If it’s a one-off project be sure to look at past work, references, portfolio. If it’s for an ongoing project, I recommend starting with a small test project to get a feel for how you work together.
24. Fiverr As the name implies, five bucks will get you pretty much anything. It can be hit or miss but there are a lot of things you can get done at this price that can save you tons of time (and headache).
Graphics
Need graphics for your product? Stockphotos to the rescue!
29. PicMonkey: Seriously, LOVE this site. You can jazz up pretty much anything and have fun while doing it. I did a post that walks you through a few different sites that help you create image posts.
Selling Your Digital Goods And Services
30. Show me the money!
Fortunately, sites like Paypal,make it super-easy for you to start offering your services and get paid for them! Paypal is widely used and pretty straight-forward to setup. Once you’ve created your account, add your products/services and choose the type of buttons you want to create (e.g Buy Now or Add to Cart). Paypal will generate the code you need to embed on your webpage. You can also take recurring monthly payments using Paypal.
Now that you’ve created that ebook but need a way to deliver it? While Paypal is the go-to site for sending/receiving money, they don’t offer product delivery. So unless you want to manually email each person that buys your product, you’ll need to use a site like E-junkie to deliver your product. E-Junkie integrates with Paypal and provides the code necessary to add to your webpage.
Create An Interest List
Start building an interest list before your product is ready. Use out of the box landing page apps and drive people to sign up to your early-bird list. This should be done in parallel to your product creation. You don’t have to wait for it to be on sale to get the word out and start promoting it.
Recommend Tools:
32. SeedProd: Lets you collect email address and work in maintenance mode on your website. WordPress plugin. (one time fee).
33. LaunchRock: Set up landing pages in minutes, either on your own self-hosted website or directly on Launchrock.
If you’re thinking- “Great! Another platform that I don’t have time for!”
Don’t worry this one won’t take too much of your time..it only involves 15 seconds!
If you’ve already been using pictures for your business, why not add a little video?
If the thought of getting in front of the camera makes you squeamish, here are 6 ways you can use video and not all of them involve you being in front of the camera and don’t involve jumping back on the content hamster wheel.
Why Should I Use Instagram Video?
It’s tough as business owners to *always* be thinking about creating content but the reality is an era of competing for eyeballs, it’s another way to stand-out and build a connection with your existing and potential customers. Not to mention, if you aren’t big on writing, you can create blog posts with your short Instagram videos and talk about them.
It’s also a lot easier than creating and producing a 2-3 minute vlog post.
Use what you have: Most of us are armed with smartphones these days so no equipment costs and no editing required!
And you’re probably doing a lot of the things below anyways..now you just have to remember to take 15 seconds to record!
6 Ways To Use Instagram Video For Your Business
1- Behind The Scenes
Show the behind the scenes of how you can use your product or even something that is coming soon:
In this example, Natalie Sisson shares her excitement about receiving her upcoming book gift certificates:
2- Show And Tell
This one pretty much speaks for itself! Why not show how to do something?
If you’re a fitness instructor show us how to do a specific stretch. If you’re a makeup artist demo how to get that perfect smokey eye (help!) or if you are regularly share recipes show us how to make something! The possibilities are endless!
3- Live Events
Share live coverage: If you do live workshops, conferences, retreats, classes..grab 15 seconds of video and share what’s going on (and maybe even tap into people’s FOMO for next time!)
4- Answer FAQs
You can jump in front of the camera and answer frequently asked questions. Or do a quick walk-through like I do below.
5 Review Products
If you like to review products on your blog whether it is books, gadgets, tools..why not jump on camera and talk about it?
6- Engage your community
Talk to them. Plain and simple!
You can do a LOT in 15 seconds!
And it doesn’t have to end there. You can embed your freshly created vids on your blog (I’ll cover that in another post). Woohoo! More yummy content to share. Win!
So what will you be creating? Let me know in the comments below!
In the series, “Creating A Cupcake: Instead of the Whole Cake”, I’m taking at look at how to create a smaller version of your digital product before going all out with the full version. This approach, known as a minimal viable product, allows you to focus on delivering a very specific feature without all the bells and whistles and build on it as you incorporate feedback and learn.
I see it as the K.I.S.S approach to product development (keep it short and simple) and can be applied to pretty much anything. For example- starting out with social media? Instead of trying to DO IT ALL- start small, join a few key platforms and then take it from there!
In this post, we will look at an example of a minimal viable product and the tools that were used to create it.
As a techy who loves to try every tool out there, I definitely have to reign myself in more often than not!
Creating A Minimal Viable Product
For instance, when launching Thrive Hive, an online community for women entrepreneurs, we could have chosen anyone of the following options:
($ no to low cost, $$ moderate, $$$ high)
Option 1: Set up a custom white-label network using Ning which starts at $25/month not to mention the setup time involved. $$
Option 2: Set up a new WordPress site with a membership plugin- costs: hosting, domain, membership plugin, development time $$$
Option 3: Use our existing websites + private Facebook or Google+ group $
Choosing The Tech
Cost was not the only deciding factor when we decided to go the direction we did (which was option 3) but rather what was it that we were trying to accomplish and who were we trying to serve.
We could have easily spent months developing a custom site and then promote it and share it with our communities. This would mean more time developing and less time learning what worked and what didn’t work. It also meant getting people in the habit of spending time on yet another site.
Removing Barriers To Increase Engagement
The same would apply to using Ning, while the development cost would be less we would still have to encourage people to spend time on another site.
However, our target market is already on Facebook (sorry, Google+) and spending tons of time there. Did we really want to add the barrier of having to go somewhere else to engage? Probably not.
Our goal is to connect women entrepreneurs in different stages in their business, share each other’s content and organize online events such as chats and hangouts.
After surveying our audience and getting clear on what was missing in the groups they were currently participating in, we were able to narrow in on our focus and priorities.
Now that’s not to say we would never consider the other options and we could re-evalulate if we outgrew the existing setup, but it was out of scope for our minimal viable product.
Payment: Paypal recurring payments for subscriptions
Community: Private Facebook group
Communication: Google group for social media posts + Aweber (for sign up + autoresponders)
Group activities: Twitter chats (#thrivechat) and Google Hangouts
Because we used our existing websites and free platforms we were able to keep the actual cost down and the only expense was our time.
Time to development: From idea to launch we were able to execute on this in only 4 weeks (between 2 businesses).
As you can see, when creating your minimal viable product, it helps to look at what solutions already exist but to choose based on what you are trying to accomplish. And as you learn and grow, you can make changes to the technology that you are using.
In the comments below, I’d like to hear what you are launching and if you are considering the “cupcake” approach!
In the final post in this series, we’ll look at some tools you can use to easily create and launch your first digital product.
I like to practice what I preach..check out the new live online-workshop I am running in beta on August 30th.
Sign up below to get the entire series delivered in ebook format (for free*).
I don’t know about you but I’m pretty selective about who gets in my inbox. So when I start seeing things appear that I *know* I didn’t sign up for it kinda drives me bonkers. I was on a mini-work hiatus and upon coming back was inundated by emails which inspired this post.
And there you have it. The tools you need to take that idea to launch. Let’s do it!
