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Recently, I found a great WordPress plug-in that automatically creates a newsletter for my website. This has really resulted in some significant traffic increases on the websites where I’ve implemented it (like 20% to 45%!). That’s great news for most website owners, but there are some things to consider.

Content

In order to make a newsletter, you’re going to need some “news”. Makes sense, right? And that news can come from many places. But the most attractive news to your website customers is news that’s aimed directly at their niche in the market. And usually, that means they want to hear from YOU, or at least someone in your company.

What kinds of things can you tell them about? Here are some ideas:

• Special Events
• Special Sales
• VIP Offers
• New products
• Tips on using products
• New service offerings
• Staff changes (hopefully new hires, right?)
• Industry news

And if you can’t think of anything in these categories, you can always just ask your customers what they want to know more about. Or post some testimonials, or pictures of recent projects.

Newsletter Subscribers

Of course, once you have news, you need someone to send the newsletter to — and that means you need subscribers. Be careful who you send to, because recently there have been several laws passed about sending unsolicited email — more commonly known as “SPAM”.

To get your newsletter started, experts suggest using the email addresses of people who have expressed a previous interest in receiving more information from you. Generally, these are the people who have asked for quotes, or who you have done work for, etc.

You can easily import any existing email addresses from an Excel spreadsheet.

Their interest in your products or services may have changed, however, so it’s important that you give people a way to tell you to stop sending them newsletters. And this new plug-in makes that an automated process. Essentially, people simply click a link and remove their own names from the subscriber list.

On the other hand, hopefully your newsletter is useful enough to customers that they share the information with others, and this software also provides a simple way for new readers to add their email addresses to your subscriber list.

Create A Newsletter

Now that you have news and subscribers, you have to design your newsletter. This can be as simple, or complicated as you like. My preference is to keep it simple, since it will be har enough to get folks to open the newsletter email — you don’t want to take a chance that anyone who does open the email is turned off waiting for graphics to download, or confused by a complex layout.

Once you design the template for the newsletter, the plug-in takes over. You tell it how often to send out the newsletter, and what posts or pages to put in the newsletter, and it does the rest.

So How Do You Get A Newsletter?

This is where Webpage By Steve comes in. Until June 30th, we’re offering a special deal for all WBS customers. We’ll install the plug-in, import your emails, and configure your newsletter to get you started — all for just $99!

If you want or need additional help, like moving your email addresses from some other database to Excel, or you want us to create content on your site on a regular basis, we can quote you a price for that, too.

But in the meantime, don’t delay — get a newsletter on your website today and see some serious increases in your website traffic!

NOTE: This offer is for Webpage By Steve customers who currently have a WordPress-based website created by Webpage By Steve. Don’t worry if you don’t – -we have all sorts of offers to get you moved over to WordPress — give us a call!

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Marketing Land – Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips

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As we discussed in an earlier post, websites can serve many purposes. From a glorified Yellow Page listing, to a sophisticated customer resource management (CRM) system, your website can be many things to many customers.

Today, I’d like to discuss a very particular type of website. It’s called a “squeeze page”. It generally has one, and only one, purpose — to get visitors to opt-in to your email list so that you can send them additional information or offers right now, and in the future.

If you have spent any time on the Internet, or if you have been researching websites, you know that one of the most difficult things is to capture visitors to your website and close the deal. The deal varies between getting them to buy something, to having them download something for reading or reviewing, or just subscribing to your catalog or newsletter.

There are many reasons why this is so difficult, but the most understandable reason is human nature. We’ve been burnt so many times by people asking us to sign up for something that we are repelled by the notion. And today, frankly, no one signs up for anything — unless they think they are getting something of value for signing up.

That’s where squeeze pages come in.

A squeeze page essentially, makes the pitch to your visitors that they need to sign up to receive something of value. It doesn’t have to be worth a million dollars — a simple discount, or a free download of an e-book will do. But you must offer something in return for their e-mail address.

Now, some — or maybe most — squeeze pages serve more than the single purpose of getting an email address, but make no mistake, the opt-in email address is at least a big part of the reason why the squeeze page exists. think about it. You’d be delirious f you could sell your widgets to 20% of the people who walked in your door – and selling items on the web is 10 times harder than that.

But I’ll bet you have had even less luck in your store getting people to give you their contact information if they don’t buy something from you. Have you ever tried the “fish bowl business card” idea? Collect business cards in a fish bowl and give away a free something-or-other once a month. How did that work for you? How long was it before you had the same 20 cards each month?

That’s where online squeeze pages excel. They are the virtual equivalent of the fish bowl. The difference is, in this scenario — every business card gets that special item you only gave to one lucky contestant each month. And you can see how much that will raise your response rates.

Here is the way most modern squeeze pages are set-up:

1. Introduction – a large, bold headline and tag line that grab the visitors attention and begin to drive them to scroll further down the page.
2. Video or audio welcome – a short — or sometimes longer — infomercial from you, or someone pretending to be you, describing how wonderful the thing is that you are giving away. And going on, almost as an aside, to tell the listener about your REAL business — and the real reason why you want them to opt-in. But the special download or giveaway or coupon — is continually referenced, to build desire in the viewer or listener.
3. List all of the pros of the deal — Use simple bullet lists and big graphic arrows and simple fonts to list all the high points of what you are giving away. Tell them how this freebie (or something with a nominal cost) is worth much, much more than what you are charging. Remember, this has got to make it seem like giving you permission to send them periodic emails is a trivial thing to ask in return. And it it.
4. Repeat the offer — A second infomercial can go here, with even more details about the offer.
5. Add “Wait, there’s MORE!” — Not a bad idea to add some additional bonuses to the offer. Doesn’t have to be of any large value – just make it worth the viewers while to have read this far down the page.
6. Opt-in form — here’s where they have to fulfill their side of the agreement. They have to complete the opt-in form to get the link for the coupon, or ebook, or download. Once you confirm their email address, they will get their item — instantly.

And that’s it. You now have their email address, they have their special offer, and you can start to develop your relationship with your customer.

Webpage By Steve can help you create your own squeeze page. We an even suggest some products you can give away or sell at a nominal price.

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If you haven’t already, slot out June 7 – 9 to come out and spend some time on the Fox River enjoying all the FREE entertainment…

Check out their website at http://prideofthefox.com for more details…

Hope to see you there!

Steve

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