What do you get when you combine great food with a great email campaign? Why, you get Fork Restaurant here in Philly! We interviewed Ellen Yin, owner of Fork, to learn more about why they use an email campaign, how they use it and how it has affected their business. Fork And Email Marketing Fork [...]

A little while back we interviewed an AWesome customer of ours, Keith at the Wine School of Philadelphia, to spotlight his business and talk about how he uses AWeber. Well, it didn’t take us long to find another AWesome customer to spotlight — SEER Interactive. How SEER’s Adam And Mark Use AWeber SEER Interactive is [...]

We like to think our customers are pretty cool. We talk to you everyday over the phone, through live chat and in emails. You leave comments on the blog, post to our Facebook wall and converse with us through Twitter. Introducing Keith Wallace, CEO and Founder of The Wine School Of Philadelphia So we went [...]

Here at AWeber we try to have as much fun as we can in proportion to the hard work that we do. You may have heard some of this fun in our voices when you call in (or you may have heard some of the fun in the background – sorry!). The culture we have [...]

Social Media. Email marketing. Both are mediums through which you talk to people, people who are interested in what you have to say.

We’ve posted about the relationship of Facebook and Email, and about how it is important to use all forms of communication to get the word out to people who will listen about your business.

But are all listeners created equal?

Committal and Non-Committal Relationships

I’m sure you’ve all heard someone say ‘I have 100,000 followers on Twitter’ or ‘I have 100,000 friends on Facebook’. But you know they don’t really have 100,000 actual friends, let alone know all of those people.

Chances are they are only really friends with a small fraction of those people. The same is true for businesses and the people who follow them through their social media outlets.

All a Twitter follower (or Facebook fan) has to do to listen to you is click a “follow” or “like” button. That’s pretty non-committal; you don’t know how interested those people actually are in what you have to say. After all, they have invested very little; all they’ve done is click a button.

Email is a much more committed relationship. People have to do more than just hit a button. They have to enter their information on your form and click to sign up. And if you’re using confirmed opt-in, (which you should ) open an email and confirm that they want to receive information from you.

Email: Commitment Through Confirmation

Confirmation is a big part of the commitment process. Not only are you asking them (through your signup form) “do you want to receive my information?” but you’re sending them an email saying, “are you really sure you want to receive my information?”

This can be used as a way to make sure they are serious about hearing from you and serious about one day becoming a paying customer. This is a lot like qualifying a sale – basically making sure that they are serious about doing business with you.

Social Media: Larger Audience, Less Commitment

Unfortunately social media doesn’t have the ability to qualify any of the people you are talking to, so you’re never sure if they are really serious about buying your product or signing up to your service.

Unfortunately social media doesn’t have the ability to qualify any of the people you are talking to, so you’re never sure if they are really serious about buying your product or signing up to your service.

It’s also a good tool to help you keep an eye on what people are saying about your company. You can then better serve your customers by understanding their wants and needs.

Put Them Together for Best Results

By using social media avenues to direct people to your email campaign, you can get those people who are really interested in what you’re offering to sign up and learn more about why they should become paying customers.

The combination of social media and email is an effective way to build both audiences. In fact, we surveyed customers about how that combination has effected building their subscriber list as well as the growth of their social media followers.

As you can see, the majority of the people we surveyed either saw a boost in their subscriber base, or a growth in their social media followers.

In addition to helping increase your audience, you can also think of this combination of email and social media as a two-tier way to approach prospective customers.

First tier: Social media followers: people who might be interested

Second tier: Email subscribers: people who took the time to sign up and confirm. The fact that these people took the time to sign up to your campaign tells you that they care about what you are offering them.

Tell Us How You Use Your Email/Social Media Combo!

So which audience is better? Neither, they are just different! Using email to boost your social media voice and vice-versa is key to reaching as many people as possible.

Understanding the different levels of commitment audiences have will help you to create the right voice and content for the appropriate medium.

What’s your personal experience when using email and social media together? What techniques do you use?

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Need to learn more about how to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns? Or want to learn more about how to use AWeber to connect with prospects and customers?

You’re not alone, and we’re here to help. Plenty of business owners and marketings just like you have attended one or more of our free live webinars to learn how they can more effectively market by email.

We run 3-4 of these sessions per week, covering topics like…

• How to get your email campaign off the ground and setup in your AWeber account.
• Ideas for what to write in your Newsletters, and advice on when to send them.
• How to make sure your website visitors notice the form, and make sure they fill it out!

Some of the subject matter (such as in our How to Get Started Webinar) is for the basic/beginner email marketer, but still has some great tips for you advanced users as well!

Speaking of Advanced Users…

… we also offer webinars which cover some not-so-basic stuff such as…

• Email Analytics: how to use subscriber activity stats to create more relevant, targeted emails.
• List Building: how to make sure your list keeps growing.
• Email Newsletters: how to create effective, valuable, timely newsletters.
• Confirmed Opt-In: how to maximize confirmations and get attentive, engaged subscribers.

What If I Have A Question?

At the end of each webinar, we hold a question and answer session.

Here’s an excerpt of some questions that were recently asked:

• Can I put an image in a newsletter?

  Yes, and it’s easy. In the HTML section, just click on Insert/Edit Image, then enter your images URL. That’s all there is to it! (see this great KB article for a more detailed explanation).

• Is there an extra charge for having two or more lists? Can I use one account to manage multiple clients email list?

  Nope, and you can have as many lists in your account as you need.

• How do I set up ad tracking in my web form?

  Just enter a value (word or number) into the ‘Ad tracking’ section in the Web Form Generator. Now you can search your list by that value, and see who on your list has signed up for which of your web forms.

• What day of the week do you recommend sending out my email newsletter?

  While there is no perfect day to send an email, there are several things to consider when scheduling your newsletters. First, think of the kind of people you are mailing to (Are they in the corporate world? Send on weekdays; Are they consumers? Maybe on the weekends.) Second, check your Opens over Time report to see when subscribers have opened up your previous mailing, like your follow up messages.

• I already have a list of subscribers… can I use them?

  Yes. So long as you have a list made up of people who have requested directly from you to receive your information, you can bring them into your AWeber account using the import feature.

• Can I use AWeber with my blog?

  Yup. Place Web Forms on your Blog, and even Broadcast your most recent posts with our Blog Broadcast feature. Just give us your RSS feed, choose a template then sit back and relax!

Check the Class Schedule!

We always have a list of upcoming webinars posted here.

Just click on the link to register and we’ll remind you shortly before the webinar starts. If you’re tardy (tsk, tsk ) don’t worry; we send out a recorded version of our webinars to all registrants (even if you couldn’t attend).

I’d love to see you at our next webinar. I have a ton of fun doing them, and enjoy helping you understand email marketing and answering any questions you may have!

It’s here.

We’ve been talking about it a lot on the blog lately, and you’ve been asking “Where is it? When’s it coming out?” since the first post.

Starting today, the new Web Form Generator is rolling out to AWeber customers. Some of you will get it today, some will get it over the coming days/weeks.

Either way, you probably want to get a look at how it works…

Come Take a Look

I thought it would be nice to give a little tour and show you the Web Form Generator in action (think of it as an open house, only with less house and more web forms ).

Building web forms with the old generator got the job done, but now you can create great looking forms and do it in a way that is much more convenient (look Ma, no HTML editing!).

Enough beating around the bush… let’s see the darn thing already!

Webinar: More On the New Web Form Generator

This free one-hour session will cover what’s new and give you an opportunity to ask questions in a live Q & A session.

Register now (even if you can’t make it that day, we’ll send you a recording of it!).

Hope to see you on the webinar!

Have You Made a New Web Form Yet? Show it Off!

Are you one of the first to get the new Web Form Generator? Have you made a form with it yet?

If so, show it off – link it up below!

(If you don’t have the new Web Form Generator yet, you will soon… be sure to stop back and share your form, too!)

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