Email Marketing: You’re Doing It Wrong
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.
Automatically adding me to your mailing list.
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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36 Tools To Rock Your Online Product Launch
In part one of this series, we looked at creating a smaller version of your larger product, without all the bells and whistles.
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.
In part 3 we looked at an example of a minimal viable product launch.
In this final post of the series, we will look at the tools and apps you can use to create and launch your product.
Start with a survey
Survey Tools
1. SurveyMonkey Free account includes up to 10 questions and 100 responses. 
2 .Google Forms: (free) Access with your gmail account.
3 .Pop Survey (60 day free trial)
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. 
10. Call Recorder for Mac: ecamm call recorder
11. Call Recorder for PC: VodBurner
Editing Software:
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.
17. GarageBand (Mac)
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.
23. Odesk: Same as above.
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!
25. istockphotos (paid)
26. 123rf (paid)
27. Pixabay (free)
Or create and edit your own graphics
28. Pixlr
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.
31. E-Junkie
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.
Build Buzz
Use social media to connect with your audience and get the word out about your upcoming product launch.
Recommended Tools:
34. Hootsuite There is a free and pro version. The free should be perfect if you are just getting started.
35. ClickToTweet: create tweetables to help your content spread
36. Pay With A Tweet: Want to give away your content for free and spread the word? Use Pay With A Tweet to spread your content to new audiences.
And there you have it. The tools you need to take that idea to launch. Let’s do it!
I’d love to hear in the comments below what you plan on launching and if you have a favorite tool that I may have missed!
Sign up below to get the entire series delivered in ebook format (for free*).
*does not include cupcakes
6 Ways To Use Instagram Video For Your Business
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!
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!
{Q&A} Should I Use A Social Media Management System?
I got asked this question at a recent talk I gave about the importance of community to help you leap, launch and grow and of course, social media came up! I figured that there are may be others with this burning question so thought I would share:
My answer, a resounding-HELL YEAH!
Seriously, I could not survive* without my social media management system (SMS) of choice, Hootsuite (*yes, total #socialmediafirstworldproblems) and am a big advocate of using these types of tools to manage your social media presence.
Why?
Let me count the ways:
1. Method to the Madness
Twitter.com can be full on chaotic when you first start out. Especially if you’ve gone and followed hundreds of people. The stream moves fast, there are a bajillion conversations happening and you. have . no . idea.
How a management system helps?
With a tool like Hootsuite (which I might add has a free-plan), you can import/create Twitter lists and stalk follow conversations much more closely than you can on Twitter.com. You don’t have to follow your home feed but rather zoom in on the conversations that are more relevant/interesting to you.
2. Manage your multiple personalities from one place
Got multiple identities? You know where you have a profile for your personal use and one for where you want to be a little more business-y? SMS’s have you covered. From your dashboard you can manage your multiple Twitter identities from one place and decide what to post and where. Bonus: you can also add other social networks
3. Actually Join The Conversation
Because of course you want to be able to chime in when people talk about you or share your content. Yep. Instead of scratching your head and wondering what’s going on, management tools have got you covered- you can create different streams that allow you to easily follow keywords related to your brand. For instance, I have a stream with “sidekickpm” that pulls in any blog posts that may have been shared even when my twitter handle @SandySidhu has not been included.
4. Scheduling!
Yep. I said it. And it’s not a bad thing. You can’t be on social media all the time. You just can’t. But your business can be with the help of scheduling. This topic could be a post in itself, but essentially, social media management systems allow you to plan out your social media content ahead of time, something you can’t do directly on Twitter.
- Promoting a new service? Schedule out content throughout the week.
- Launching a new product? Schedule out teasers before, during and after your launch.
- Blogging? Schedule your post to go out at different times of the week to reach different audiences.
5. Keywords, Hashtags and all that
Last but not least, one of my favorite uses of Hootsuite, is to follow keywords/keyword phrases and hashtags. These might be related to questions that I could/want to answer or chats that I want to participate in.
So, are you convinced yet? Let me know in the comments how you plan on using one!
Have a question that you want answered? Submit it here and it just may be the next Q&A featured!