Email marketing autoresponders are powerful. But only if you know how to effectively write them. In this article, I’ll show you how to write effective email marketing autoresponders. But first a story…

I know this guy who’s a personal trainer. Let’s assume that he’s invited into a prospect’s home five times over the next three weeks. What would be the best thing for him to do when he visits?

Instead of going into their house and trying to get them to sign up for his services, I’d recommend that he spends time showing them a few exercise techniques and healthy menus. After five visits, the prospect should be very excited to work with him since he’s invested so much into their health.

Email marketing autoresponders give you the same opportunity to INVEST in your prospects

Why autoresponders work

Once you have a prospect’s email address, follow up is the next logical and critical step.

Followup is critical.
It is critical that you follow up.
Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.

Have I mentioned follow up? :-)

Remember that on average, a prospect must see your marketing message at least seven times before making a purchase decision.

What autoresponders can do

The best way to followup is to automate the process. Email service providers, like Aweber, have tools in place that will send out emails to new subscribers at pre-determined intervals. These are often referred to as autoresponders.

You can create a series of marketing messages that you know will communicate your products and services effectively and then have them emailed automatically.

From a technical perspective, autoreponders are simple to set up and use. Most email service providers have this built directly into their software.

The most challenging work for you is to know what to WRITE in your emails.

How to write an effective auto responder email sequence

List the most common problems your prospect faces. Then write out a series of emails that will walk them through solutions to these problems. Focus on “how to” solutions.

For example, if you are a personal trainer, don’t just give your prospect encouragement to eat healthy, give them a weekly menu plan they can use to lose weight.

It depends on your audience and prospects, but a good “rule of thumb” is to have one automated email send every 3-5 days.

Today’s action steps

First, if you found this post helpful, share with your friends and associates.

Next, outline your first five autoresponders. Spend time thinking about five critical problems your prospects are facing and address them.

Then, write these in a personal and helpful way.

Now go take action.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media. He is a producer, author, speaker and social media marketing coach who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

*Photo by bijoubaby

It sounds counter-intuitive but giving people an option to UNSUBSCRIBE from your email can actually increase the value of your list.

But first… something funny.

I signed up for Groupon a couple weeks ago. Pretty neat company. They send out regular deals for metro areas around the US. But it seemed like I was getting a deal a day and I was starting to get overwhelmed by them.

So I unsubscribed from their newsletter.

And then I re-subscribed.

Why? Because they made me laugh. Let me explain.

After you unsubscribe you land on a page with a video. It says, “We’re sorry to see you go! How sorry? Well, we want to introduce you to Derrick – he’s the guy that thought you’d enjoy receiving the Daily Groupon email.”

Then underneath the video is a button that says “punish Derrick.”

When you click it a guy walks around the corner, starts yelling and throws a cup of liquid in Derrick’s face to punish him.

Caught me off guard I might say. Big time. But you know what? When the message came up and said “That was pretty mean. I hope you’re happy. Want to make it up to Derrick? Resubscribe.”  I clicked resubscribe.

This was obviously a staged video that has nothing to do with me personally and yet – I felt guilty for putting Derrick through his punishment. And Groupon kept me as a subscriber.

You can see the video for yourself here.

By the way – don’t do this for your company. It’s probably not a good fit. Just saying.

The unsubscribe link

This is the small link at the bottom of an email that literally says unsubscribe. When your business uses automated software to manage your email subscribers this is automatically part of the message.

Having an unsubscribe link makes good marketing sense

Many marketers resent having to give prospects the option of opting out of email newsletters. But I think it is a good thing for your business. First, you are staying compliant with the laws. In the United States we have very specific laws governing email spam. By having an easy way for your readers to unsubscribe you are keeping your company compliant.

And even if it wasn’t the law, it makes sense to remove prospects from your list who don’t want to hear from you. Email marketing is very inexpensive, but there still is a cost to managing and sending large amounts of email.

By clearing out subscribers who are never going to buy from you, your business will be able to that much more target the leads that will.

Make a big deal out of your opt out policy

If you notice on our main Folk Media site we make if very clear that you can unsubscribe from our list at any time. This puts our subscribers at ease knowing that they have the option to cancel their subscription if we stop providing them value.

But there is another subliminal message that this communicates to yourself and staff. You had better “provide the goods” and deliver value or you won’t keep your subscribers. And your subscribers are very important to your business. They are the lifeblood of your online marketing.

Today’s action step

Two things today. First, put language on your opt in form that says something like “We hate spam as much as you do and will never rent or sell your email address to a third party.”

Second, make sure your email service provider has a link at the bottom of your emails making it very easy for folks to opt out.

Now go take action.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, speaker and social media marketing coach who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

*Photo by incurable_hippie

Here are three quick tips that will help you attract more customers online.

1. Capturing emails

Email is king for the online marketing world. I’m a huge fan of using social media like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube. But email still beats these with it’s direct outbound communication. If you are not collecting visitors’ emails – why not?

I’ve written about how to create an email marketing strategy here.

2. Dish up some social proof

Social proof is basically using the presence and words of other people to lend you credibility. This is done through testimonials, blog comments, and other things people say about you.

Blogs make this easy to get feedback using the comment feature. I’d recommend using WordPress to power your blog and a nifty little commenting tool Disqus to power your comments. The idea is to invite feedback on your site. Invite prospects to ask questions, leave feedback and provide testimonials.

One trick to doing this is to have a group of established customers “seed” the conversation. Personally ask your current customers to comment on blog posts which shows social proof. No one wants to be the first to comment.

3. Create more content

Finally, create good content that attracts website visitors. The goal is to have a way to capture email addresses and show social proof first, then start bringing customers to your door.

Good content can include text, photos, audio or video. Focus on helping people and solving their problems. By solving your prospect’s problems you are demonstrating that you are a person and business that cares about helping THEM.

Now go take action and start attracting more customers this week for your business.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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*Photo by ecstaticist

We’ll show you how to use email to drive customers to buy what your selling.

Join us for a free teleseminar to learn the exact steps you can take to basically “print money” for your business using email.

[The live teleseminar is over - register below to download the slides and audio]

Here’s just some of the keys you’ll learn by attending this event:

• How to capture email addresses of prospects and potential clients.
• Why building an email list is a bullet proof business tool that can make you money even during recessions or slow periods.
• How to craft an email message that gets read (Hint: It has little to do with the actually message in the email).
• 3 Myths about email marketing and how it’s more powerful than any other online marketing tool you can use.
• If used right – email is a “sales machine.” The problem is most people don’t know how to set up and use it properly. We’ll cover the mistakes that you are most likely to make and how to avoid them.
• Plus: answers to all your specific questions. (In fact, feel free to ask some questions below).

On the call, you’ll be learning the same email marketing strategies we share with our private clients and that we’ve used to grow our own businesses.

What we’re going to focus on is a fast-start version of using email marketing for your small business that you can implement right after the call.

We’ll talk about the power of email, how to strategically use email to power your online marketing, the tools for managing your email marketing without sucking up all your time, and the step-by-step plain English instructions that you can start doing right away – without hiring any “guru” or agency!

Each teleseminar we do continues to grow and people from all over the world are calling in. People have joined us from India, England, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Indonesia and all over the United States.

On this call we have only 100 spots and expect to fill up fast. It is critical that you register for this free teleseminar now

After you register, leave your most important questions about WordPress and blogging in the comments section below. We’ll answer them right here on the post.

As my mentor Eben Pagan likes to say, “it’s not about communication, it’s about conversion.” You can communicate your brand all you want, but at the end of the day conversions are what matter.

Conversion should be your new goal

If you’d like to use social media to market your business, then you need to use social media to drive conversions. Yes, using Twitter and Facebook to brand your business can work over the long term. But your goal is to see some results now.

By placing emphasis on website conversions, you will make the right choices about what content you produce for social media sites, how you set up your profiles and even what links to include in your messaging.

A quick overview of conversion

Conversion simply refers to the number of online visitors who take the desired action you want them to take. So it’s important to identify what those “desired actions” are.

First, we have sales. This is a great conversion. Sales of products or services are measurable and always a good thing in business.

Second, we have lead capture. This is the process of capturing someone’s email address and name when they come to your website. Lead capture is not as intuitive for for most business owners – but in reality it can be even more powerful than trying to sell on the first visit.

I’m not suggesting you don’t have something for sale on your site, I’m simply suggesting that many potential customers are not ready to buy something on the first visit. But they would be willing to start a relationship with you.

Let’s look at it this way. If you met an attractive person at a party, would you ask them:  A) to marry you [the sale] or b) for a phone number [lead capture]?

It seems so simple when you are meeting someone in a romantic situation. But in business marketing and social media, common sense goes out the window for a lot of people.

Small business owners see Coke and Nike with billboards in Times Square and think they have to compete on that level.

Bull crap.

Change your mindset to focus on conversions first. There is a place for branding, but don’t start there.

How leads are captured

If lead capture is important, how do we do it?

There are three steps to capturing leads online using social media.

First, set up your website so it’s ready to capture leads.

Sounds simple right – but stay with me here.

I recommend capturing email addresses and names. For some industries (like real estate, insurance, or restaurants) it might make sense to get a physical address and phone number. But in most cases you will start by getting prospects and visitors to opt-in to an email list.

You will need to place an email capture form on your site and make it appealing to join your list.

I like to offer a valuable free product on my sites. It doesn’t have to cost you anything in materials. It could be an online training video or free PDF report packed with useful information.

Second – be sure all your social media sites point back to your website where you capture leads.

Again – obvious right? But wouldn’t you know it – most people don’t do this.

On your Twitter profile, place a link that routes back to your website. On LinkedIn include a link that drives traffic to your website. You get the idea.

Third – make a clear call to action in your social media profiles.

If you are a real estate agent, go ahead and say something like “to learn how I can sell your house in 30 days – download my free report [website address]”

Action step: Place a lead capture form on your business website

Start with your own site. Ninety-nine percent of people reading this article don’t have a lead capture form on their website. Take care of that today first.

Now go take action.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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Permission marketing keeps you effective and out of trouble

Permission means to give formal consent to another person. When using email to market your business, you want to have permission from your prospects and customers.

Permission is smart marketing

In his groundbreaking book, Permission Marketing, Seth Godin talks about  getting permission from your prospects before marketing to them.

Sounds odd right? You may ask – “who on earth is going to give me permission to market to them?”

But that’s the point. If you don’t have permission – they are tuning you out anyway.

And furthermore, we give people permission to market to us all the time. You probably have a buyers card for your local grocery store. They send you targeted coupons based on your purchases right?

And if you shop on Amazon, you’ll notice that they recommend books and products  based on your past purchases (ahem…marketing). You have given Amazon permission to do this.

Avoiding spam accusations

Not going to jail is an excellent reason to get permission from prospects. According to CAN-SPAM,  a US law passed in 2003, all email messages must:

• Offer a method for the recipient to opt-out (unsubscribe).
• Contain the sender’s valid physical postal address.

The law is in place to keep emails transparent and prevent spammers from attempting to hijack the space inside your inbox with their messages. You can read all the gritty details on the FTC website.

By getting your prospects to give permission before you start sending emails you will avoid spam accusations.

What permission email marketing looks like

Let’s take a closer look at what it means to gain permission when doing effective email marketing.

Move your readers through the “permission funnel”

You don’t need to take your prospects out to dinner and a movie, but it would serve you well to think about romancing them.

Yes – I said romance.

You want to make money by giving people value and then asking for a fraction of that value back in the form of money. In order to get to this place people need to know, like and trust you.

Which brings us back to that word permission again.

Here’s how it works.  The goal is to start with someone who has interest in your products and services and get them to start a conversation with you.

After this invite them to join your email list. Then you can begin to offer value.

As you show them the value that you provide, be sure to ask them to take small action steps to show their level of interest in the relationship.

This could be an invitation to a free teleseminar or an offer to download a free whitepaper or report. Psychologically you are getting them to raise their hand and show that they are committed to continuing the relationship.

Invite them to make a small purchase. Next, ask them to take a bigger action which in turn can lead to a larger purchase. During this whole process keep adding value to their business and life.

I call this a “permission funnel.” Visually, this is how this process looks.

Interest  –> Opt in (subscribe to your email list) –>  Small action (raise their hand) –>  Small purchase –>  Grow a relationship  –> Bigger action –>  Larger purchase –> Deeper relationship

It all starts with the email opt-in

When your starting with email marketing for your business, I recommend that you use a double opt-in. Double opt-in means that after a prospect subscribes to your list they must confirm their email before receiving future messages from you. It insures that you have…

you guessed it – PERMISSION.

Remember when I said to treat an email like the Holy Grail. I meant it. It all starts when your customer decides to give you their precious email address.

They are giving you permission to email them in the future. Treat that address like gold. Treat it well and don’t abuse what they’ve entrusted you with. It’s the key that will unlock many sales and opportunities for you.

How to get permission

Put your prospect at ease

Let prospects know their email address is safe with you. It is important to assure your prospects you won’t abuse, rent, sell or spam their email address. So many people have been burned after trusting their email to a company. Be very straightforward and put their mind at ease.

Help them know what to expect from you

Be clear about what value you are providing and how frequently. If you send out daily emails, state that on your opt-in form and repeat it on your thank you page.

Choose email marketing software that takes care of the details

You should know where I stand on email marketing software companies by now – See our list of recommended providers here. But I’ll say this – choose an ESP that has double opt-in, insists on CAN-SPAM compliance and has good customer service.

Today’s 10 Minute Exercise: Write your opt in promise

If permission is the goal, you need to do everything in your power to make prospects comfortable giving you their email.

Spend the next ten minutes writing out your promise. Let them know you won’t rent or sell their address. Let them know they can unsubscribe from your email list at any time.

Here is an example:

“We hate spam as much as you do. We will not rent or sell your email address and you can unsubscribe at any time. By joining our list you will receive weekly coupons and discounts to our store.”

Now go take action.

While your at it – you should give us permission to add value to your business by subscribing to our email newsletter. Each week we send out tips and strategies to teach you how to capture leads, generate more sales and double your business profits using social media. We won’t sell or rent your address to any third party. (How’s that for practicing what we preach?)

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Toolset Note: While there are many email marketing services out there, we use Aweber email marketing software. They are inexpensive, have great customer service and will help you build an effective email marketing list quickly.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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Resources:

“The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business”. FTC.

“Definitions and Implementation Under the CAN-SPAM Act”.  FTC.

“The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers”. Cybertelecom.

*photo by dotbenjamin

Your email marketing strategy will reveal your process

Make email part of your total marketing

Email has become a bastard child for many marketers. They view it as a necessary evil. The words “email blast” and “spam” have made email feel slimy. We hate opening up our inbox and seeing ads for prescription drugs and other unmentionables.

If you are on the anti-email kick, I’d like to encourage you to change your mindset. If done right, email can become a wonderful marketing tool that people will actually WANT to receive from you. It’s all how you use it. Make email marketing apart of your marketing arsenal and commit yourself to learning the most effective ways to use it for your business.

What a great email marketing strategy looks like

Think about why you are marketing

Your goals will ultimately determine your approach. If you are offering customer support via email your approach will be very different from someone who is using email as a lead generation.

One size doesn’t fit all.

You will need to use various email marketing methods depending on your goals. Here is a brief list of the types of emails you may send.

• Raising awareness
• Asking for consideration
• Call to action emails
• Instructions on how to use a product
• Retaining customers and rewarding loyalty

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus in on using email as a lead generation tool while building a relationship with your readers.

Building an email list is the holy grail of online marketing

Building an email list is the foundation of online marketing. Consider this… after you get your coffee in the morning and turn on the computer, what’s the first thing you do?

Check your email?

I thought so.

Everyone in business checks their email. Period.

Simply put, growing subscribers grows sales. Some marketing professionals estimate that you will make an average of $1 per month, per subscriber from your email list. If you have a list of 100 subscribers – you will most likely average about $100 per month income. If you have a list of 25,000….

… let’t not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Build a relationship with your list

It is important to treat each email subscriber as a person that you are in a relationship with. Think of them as a friend and someone that you want to add value to. Email your list regularly and offer them massive value. Be generous and give away some of your best stuff.

If you’re an online business with low cost products, give some away to your list. If you are a brick and mortar store, give away coupons and other offers through your list. The goal is to build a solid relationship with your email list.

Give a clear call to action

One of the most powerful uses for email is driving people to take action. With one click of your mouse, you can send an email to thousands of people inviting them to an event, offering a great deal, asking for feedback or launching them a new product line.

Give subscribers a clear call to action. People want you to tell them specifically what action you’d like them to take. Don’t disappoint. Be clear and let them know what you want them to do.

Follow up

Use email to figure out what your prospects and customers want…. and give it to them. Every lead generated must be followed up with. Prospects buy on their timetable  – not yours. Keep the prospect pot simmering.

Think holistically about using email through the entire customer lifecycle. This may take more planning on your part – but at the end of the day you are creating a system that will consistently convert prospects to customers.

Moving people from visitor to evangelist

A solid email marketing strategy can convert website visitors into raving fans of your products and services.

When you attract visitors to your website and offer them something for free in return for their email address they become high quality prospects. The second stage is to follow up with them by adding massive value and solving their problems. Thirdly, you get them to buy something and become a customer. Once they have success with your products or services they often become megaphones for your business.

Here is a simple diagram to show the progression of how you want to move people along your email system.

Visitor –> Prospect –> Customer –> Evangelist

You’re goal is to move people through this cycle and email marketing can help you do this.

Measure your results

I always say “if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist.” Most email marketing services have a reporting and tracking feature built right into their software. I would suggest that you shy away from the ones that don’t.

We currently use Aweber to power all our email marketing and they have an excellent feature that can track all the opens and clicks of our subscribers.

I can’t stress this enough… MEASURE – MEASURE – MEASURE.

How to build your email marketing strategy

Start by sending out a regular eNewsletter to get started

If you don’t know how frequent to mail to your list, start by sending one per month. But don’t just re-publish your company press releases and other materials. Make the email about your prospects and their needs and desires.

Teach your staff that a prospect’s email is the Holy Grail

You need to place the same value on an email as you do a sale… sometimes an email is more valuable than a sale.

For example, let’s say you sold a $20 product one time to a customer and never saw them again. Great. You made $20.

Now contrast this with the customer who doesn’t buy on the first visit to your site. Instead they give you their email address in return for a free report.  Three months later this person buys a $300 product from you. Then three months after that they hire your firm to do some high level $5000 consulting. A year later they recommend your business to an associate resulting in a $10,000 service contract.

Having this prospect’s email and building a relationship first is way more valuable than if they’d bought a $20 product at the start and you never heard from them again.

Treat customers and prospects differently

Customers and prospects should be on separate email lists. Once a person on your prospect list buys something, move them to a customer list. Now you can begin to invest heavily in your relationship with them and work on developing them as a better customer. Some email service providers allow this to be done automatically.

Your email should be at the front of your marketing mix

As strategy goes, email needs to be at the front of your strategy. It’s cost effective, track-able, saves time and can produce incredible results.

Today’s 10 Minute Exercise: Put email capture into every stage of your business

Talk with your staff about the importance of email

Give your staff a little pep talk about how important it is to capture email addresses. If it’s just you, be clear with yourself why email is the best way to capture leads and follow up toward getting a sale.

Look for places in your business that emails are slipping through and plug the holes

• Is your inbound sales team capturing emails?
• Do you have an email subscription box on your website?
• Are there times when you or your staff are face-to-face with customers that you can capture email addresses?

Identify all the places in your business where you connect with prospects that could be used to capture email addresses. Be certain you aren’t letting any slip through the cracks.

Sketch out your email strategy

Based on the information above, sketch out how you will capture, followup with and add value to your email subscribers and leads.

Now go take action.

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Toolset Note: While there are many email marketing services out there, we use Aweber email marketing software. They are inexpensive, have great customer service and will help you build an effective email marketing list quickly.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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*Photo by pshutterbug

A good email thank you page is critical

When someone subscribes to your email newsletter it is critical that you thank them immediately for taking action. A “thank-you” page is the page that subscribers to your newsletter are redirected to after they subscribe to your list. This is your chance to once again reconfirm in their mind that they made the right choice to subscribe.

Readers need you to kill their “buyers remorse” immediately

You are trying to gain trust. Be clear up front and congratulate your new subscriber for taking a step toward her goals. Obviously you’ve done a good job “selling” the idea of subscribing to your list. Now put them at ease and calm any buyers remorse.

You need to make sure your messages get delivered

If they don’t get it they can’t read it. It is critical in our spam infested world to actually GET your email into subscriber’s inboxes. One of the ways to do this is to get them to whitelist you. A good thank you page can help you do this.

Get them to like you and invite you in from the start

Your goal is to reinforce your image of a likable and trustworthy person. This goes along with helping them overcome buyer’s remorse. You can take a step further by offering free premium content and other pleasant surprises.

What should your thank you page include

A thank you

Thank your new subscribers and let them know you appreciate the trust and you will honor it.

Tell Subscribers What To Expect

Give straight talk. Let subscribers know upfront what they can expect from you now that they’ve opted in. Be honest. Tell them how often you plan to email and what you intend to share.

IDEA: One idea I’ve learned is to reinforce the value you will be providing by email by asking new subscribers to create a folder on their desktop for all the free stuff you’ll be sending their way. People love free stuff.

Reassure them again that you will not abuse their address

Go over the “we hate spam as much as you do” speech. It’s a good idea to reinforce this when you can.

Get them to whitelist you

Whitelisting refers to the process of notifying an email service provider that a particular sender is NOT spam. Most reputable email marketing services (we use Aweber for this very reason) already have established relationships with receiving email services (e.g. AOL, Yahoo!, etc.).

There is still the ability to lose emails between the email provider and your recipient and it’s a good practice to ask subscribers to add you to their “allowed senders list” and address book.

This does two things. First, it increases the chances of your mail being delivered. Second, it gets them to take some type of action on their end. This is a powerful response. You are basically building a psychological process that gets prospects to “invite you in” to their life.

How to write your thank you page

Include these subjects

• Thank you
• Protecting their email statement
• Ask them to whitelist you

Today’s 10 Minute Exercise: Write your email thank you page.

Be conversational

Write the way you speak. Don’t worry about contractions and other informal ways of writing.

Focus on them

Help your reader by showing them you are on their side. Focus on them and their needs.

Don’t forget the details

Remind them that you will protect their email, get them to whitelist you and be sure to say thanks.

Now go take action.

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Toolset Note: While there are many email marketing services out there, we use  Aweber email marketing software. They are inexpensive, have great customer service and will help you build an effective email marketing list quickly.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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*Photo by hellojenuine

You need a place to add people to your list

Having an email opt in form on your website is critical. Most people talk about getting traffic or visitors to your website. This is obviously very important. But it is more important to convert those visitors into prospects. A great strategy to do this is capturing their email address when they visit.

You may only attract a visitor once.

You need to be aggressive in your email capture. You need to do everything in your power to capture their email address. Someone usually comes to your website to get a specific piece of information. While they are on your site is the perfect time to get them to subscribe to your email newsletter.

The sooner you start collecting emails the better

Even if you don’t have a newsletter or process to follow up ready, it is still a good idea to capture emails now. Begin building your database for the future. A well built email list (one that includes prospects that know, like and trust you) is a business asset.

An opt in form is a simple email capture device

Most email marketing services will give you opt in form code

Aweber, for example, allows you to custom build the design and look of your form. Once you have it designed the way you’d like – simply copy and past the code onto your website.

How To Add An Email Opt In To Your Site

5 Easy Steps To Creating Aweber Email Opt In Forms

I currently use Aweber for our business for its robust email marketing software. I am going to walk you through a how to embed a web form using Aweber. You don’t have to use Aweber and most other email marketing services are similar. I am showing this example to illustrate how easy this is.

1. Login to your Aweber account
2. Click “Web Forms” in the top navigation menu
3. Click the green “Create Web Form” button
4. Fill in form details
5. Name your form
6. Select “in-line” radio button
7. Type in your customized “thank you page” address (or use aweber’s default url)
8. Click “Next”
9. Preview form – If it’s to your liking, click “Save”
10. Click “Get HTML”

Now copy and paste the HTML code  where you want it to appear on your webpage.

Today’s 10 Minute Exercise: Go find your code & Embed it

You will need a piece of code

You assignment is to log into your email service provider and find the HTML code you will use to embed the on your website.

Embed that code on your site.

Take your HTML and place it on your site. If you don’t know how to do this get your webmaster to do this for you.

Remember, it is critical that you begin capturing the emails of everyone who visits your website or blog. You have most likely gone through a lot of hard work to get people to your site. Don’t waste your efforts.

Now go take action.

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Toolset Note: While there are many email marketing services out there, we use and recommend Aweber email marketing software. They are inexpensive, have great customer service and will help you build an effective email marketing list quickly.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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Start by listening

What’s the advice most social media professionals give you when you are learning social media?

“Start by listening.”

It’s like all the social media “experts” out there just figured out conversation for the first time. Phrases like “conversations matter” and “social media is two-way communication” are trumpeted like they are profound discoveries.

If you are a marketing or PR professional you probably roll your eyes and say “since when has PR, marketing and communications NOT been about listening and community?”

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
~ Ecclesiastes 1:9

Radio stations had to build community

Long before the internet existed and this fancy new thing we call social media, people actually picked up a telephone and called other people. Radio stations got hip to this amazing technology and started holding contests, taking on air comments and even prank calling businesses and pizza shops….

Wait a minute. Radio stations still do that today.

Talk show hosts do the same. Well, minus the pranking part.

You get the idea right? Radio stations and the personalities on the air (Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow and a small army of DJs) directly communicate with their audience members, get feedback and make community connections.

What a novel idea! And this is what all those social media “experts” are telling you to do – except this time use Twitter and Facebook.

What it really takes to listen

Let’s get past my cynicism for a moment. I don’t want to insult your intelligence by suggesting you don’t know the importance of listening to your customers and prospects. But I do want to lay out a quick framework for what to do in social media if you want to optimize your listening powers.

Be present

You obviously have to have some sort of presence online to engage and listen. Sure you could use Tweetbeep or set up some Google Alerts. But the real power of listening is being INVOLVED with the community. This means you will actually have to set up a Twitter or Facebook account.

Also – don’t forget to meet people face to face. This is still the most powerful social interaction you will ever have.

Make connections

Connect with people who are already connected. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Just start by reaching out to people in social media who already have a sphere of influence. And don’t just pitch them on your business. Connect with them to learn and form a REAL relationship.

Don’t forget the power of email

It may seem old fashioned these days – but the truth is this…

Some of the businesses who are successful online may use various social media platforms, but ALL the successful businesses use email marketing. Having an email list that knows, likes and trusts you is critical for your social media success strategy.

And to listen? … simply encourage people to email you. Encourage them to reply to your messages and get instant, direct feedback. You can also use email to steer them to a Facebook page or specific Twitter post.

Action steps

First, understand that the social media “experts” mean well when they tell you to listen first. They are telling you the obvious, but it is still good for some people to hear the fundamentals. Don’t let this deter you from really focusing on what social media CAN do for your business.

Second, don’t panic. Look for simple improvements to your social media strategy. I recommend that you start with a good solid email marketing strategy before you dive into Facebook, Twitter, etc. Be sure to encourage feedback via email.

Third, make it easy for your clients, customers and prospects to actually give feedback on whatever social media platform you use. In other words,  make sure they know you will listen to their concerns. If you have a Facebook fan page, check it often to see if someone has asked a question or posted a comment. If I make a comment on your Facebook page, I want to see that you are listening to me.

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Joel Mark Witt is the Publisher of Folk Media and author of 21 Days To Twitter Leadership. He is a producer, author, and speaker who consults with businesses and nonprofits on how to use social media in marketing and communications. Get more from Joel on Twitter or Google Buzz.

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*Photo by Gianfranco Chicco