Coffee Break Blogging

As we near the end of our series on email marketing and building our email lists here at Coffee Break Blogging, I want to talk about a more advanced topic... Marketing Automation Tools A marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft, Ontraport or ActiveCampaign.... when combined with your blog... makes a very powerful combination. In this episode, you'll learn: How to make your tool and your blog "talk" How to make your blog proactively reach out to prospects How you can use lead scoring in combination with your blog How to rescue lost sales using your automation tool

We've talked a lot about using a traditional lead magnet to build your list. But, there is another way. And it could even be more effective. And that's webinars. Webinars aren't just a way to make a sales presentation... they also work very well to build your list. In this episode, you'll learn: The psychological reason why webinars (or live events) work so well to create a bond between you and your subscriber. GotoWebinar versus Google Hangouts How to get people to register for a webinar AND join your list at the same time The "no prep" webinar that you can do immediately without any prep work. I encourage you to give a webinar a try. And record everything. You're gaining massive leverage by doing so! ;-)

Kevin Kelly said that it takes just 1000 true fans to totally make a living. 1000 true fans - who will all be on your email list - and you can make a living doing it. But, it also works as you build it up. In this episode, we talk about how you can actually make money while you build your list. We talk about the very beginning of the blog profit funnel and how to structure it so that every new subscriber has the potential to turn into a customer. We also talk about some basic metrics which will allow you to actually PAY to get people onto your list... and still make money as you do it. This is the name of the game. :-) We are now in Episode #82 of Coffee Break Blogging and once again, we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online. Today we are going to talk about how you can actually build your list and make money while you do it. And also, you could do it dependably because the other thing is that a lot of bloggers they try to build their l

There's lots of talk about how to get people onto your email list. But, then what? What do you SEND them? How do you find good material to send to your email subscribers? That is what we are going to be talking about in this episode; Episode 81 of Coffee Break Blogging. There's no greater tragedy in this business than an email list which isn't being used. So in this episode, I will show you how not to make that mistake and also, we will talk about where to draw material from, to send to your email subscribers - both using your autoresponder and your broadcast emails. You'll learn: The important mindset to bear in mind here, especially if you've been blogging for awhile. The simple tactic to use right after they subscribe. How to cross-promote different lead magnets The biggest mistake people make when sending a new lead magnet to their EXISTING subscribers How to identify "money posts" to send to your list See, there's a lot of talk out there, including by yours truly, on how to get people to opt-in to your

Well, hello there! Welcome to Episode 80 of Coffee Break Blogging. Today we are going to be discussing a little bit more about the whole idea of our email list. We are in Stage 3 of the overall 7-phase system to building up our online business. And what we are going to be talking about today is the one blog - one list strategy that most bloggers are using. Most bloggers who are building an email list have one list for their one blog. And this is certainly better than nothing... but it could be a LOT more effective. Today, we discuss the use of multiple lists for one blog and why it is so much more powerful. You'll learn: Why list segmentation is so important The most effective (and simplest) way to begin segmenting your list How you should structure multiple lists for your blog How to get people onto your "general list" This episode is important for your success with email marketing, moving forward.

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 79 of Coffee Break Blogging! Hollywood makes lots of multi-million dollar productions for us to enjoy - and we spend billions every year to be entertained by them. They must know a thing or two, right? Yes, they do. So in this episode of our series, we're going to apply the lessons of Hollywood to our emails. We are going to be looking at writing emails and how to write better emails for your list. You'll learn about: How we can use an email as an "episode" How you can build in "open loops" The usual storyline maps (like the hero's journey) and how you can use it in your marketing campaigns What comic books have in common with writing email campaigns

Hello there! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to talk about your email list some more. We are on Stage 3 of the overall cycle of building our online business; that we are talking about in Coffee Break Blogging and Stage 3 is all about building and using our email list effectively. Your autoresponder sequence is what allows you to put a large part of your business on automatic. At the very least, it saves you a lot of work. But, what do you put in your autoresponder? So in this episode, we discuss 7 different strategies you can include in your automatic email followups. These strategies will allow you to provide lots of value to your subscribers, make sales on auto, AND get an ongoing flow of feedback from your subscribers which you can use to make better content for them. When we started Stage 3; this is going back to Episode 70 or so, we talked the one about how to get people on to your list, we talked about lead magnets, we talked about putting together opt-in forms; th

Hello! Welcome to a new episode of Coffee Break Blogging! Today we are going to talk about the perfect opt-in Confirmation Page. So this is that page that they are going to see as soon as they opt-in to your email list; as soon as they opt-in for one of your lead magnets. The question is going to be, what do they see? Your opt-in confirmation page is the very first page your subscriber will see after joining your email list. So, it is a highly important page and you want to optimize it for maximum results. In this episode, I share 7 important tips and tactics for how to maximize the marketing impact of the confirmation page. You'll learn: Why you might want to put an offer on this page (and how to price it) 3 tools for giving an immediate survey to your new subscribers How to get your new subscriber to SHARE your squeeze page on social media and get more vital impact A quick tip to get more people to actually confirm their email address How to give them a "hook" to also follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

The landing page software space has gotten extremely competitive in the last couple years - and it is now a much more complicated affair to choose which solution to use to make squeeze pages. LeadPages has been the market leader. But, is it any good? What are its real strengths and weaknesses? In this episode, I talk some "real talk" about what's good - and bad - about LeadPages. And he compares it to other solutions like OptimizePress, ClickFunnels and Ten Minute Funnels. If you're in the market, this is an important episode to listen to. So once again, David here... :-) Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging.

It is really easy to go nuts trying to figure out how to include nice looking opt-in forms into your blog. And, shopping for plug-ins is frustrating because it is hard to tell the difference between some of the available options. In this installment, we cover the top tools for creating opt-in forms for your blog. Discussed in this episode is: Thrive Leads Opt-in Monster Opt-in Skin SumoMe For each, I give my review of the plug-in... and then share which I would go with today if I were starting over. So with that being said, I welcome you to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! Let's get going!

Hello! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! In this episode, we go back to basics on this extremely important part of your email marketing and list building strategy. We can't rely on our blog sidebars to do all the heavy-lifting, so it is important that we make use of squeeze pages. Plus, the typical squeeze pages converts typically 10X to 20X better than the typical blog when it comes to building your list. If that isn't a good reason to do it, I don't know what is! And in this one, we talk about: What a squeeze page actually is How you use it alongside your blog Why you squeeze page should NOT look like your blog The 4 elements of a squeeze page Why the simplest squeeze pages usually convert better Now, for those of you who already know what these stuff are; I just want you to bear with me. I mean, understand that the Coffee Break Blogging podcast is essentially a course that goes from beginning to end in creating an online business and there are people of all experience levels that are l

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 73 of Coffee Break Blogging. In this episode, we talk about several different tools to make this happen. One of them you've likely never heard of, but looks very promising. :-) In the last installment, we talked about how your blog content itself will be the area where you can get the highest opt-ins to your list - IF you use the content upgrade strategy. But, how do you insert opt-in forms into a WordPress post or page without the editor screwing it up? WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform, not a marketing platform. This means that the post editor will tend to strip out things that you may want to put in there, including opt-in form HTML code. Today we are going to jump right in to how to easily insert opt-in forms inside of your actual blog post.

Now that we've talked about how to create the perfect lead magnet in episodes 70 and 71, it is time to talk about your general opt-in strategy on your blog. What are the most effective ways to build your email list from your blog? In this episode, we cover 7 different strategies for building your list effectively. These strategies are specifically chosen to increase your conversion rate on your blog and put more people onto your list. What are the best converting locations on your blog for opt-in forms? How do you integrate squeeze pages into your blog? Should you ask for their first name? When is it OK to turn OFF double opt-in? How does a two-step opt-in increase conversion rates? What's the most effective opt-in strategy for a blogger - bar none? All that, in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging.  :-)

This is part 2 of how to create a perfect lead magnet. In this part, we take the 7-point checklist from episode #70 and apply it to the "real world". What are some bad lead magnet ideas? And what are some good ones to aim for? What's wrong with the "big honker eBook"? What is the problem with offering a 7-day free course as a lead magnet? Also, we talk about why you should have MULTIPLE lead magnets rather than just one. This is an important episode, because the lead magnet sits right at the top of the blog profit funnel. So with that,  welcome to Episode 71 of our Coffee Break Blogging series. :-) Today we are going to do Part 2 of what we started in the last episode where we were talking about how to create our perfect lead magnet. So we are going to wrap that up today with this episode.

What is a lead magnet? Well, it is just something to give away to get people onto your email list. Right? Well, there's more to it. In this part 1 of 2, we're going to dive in to how to create the PERFECT lead magnet. And in this episode, I share the TWO main purposes of a lead magnet (most people forget the second one). And I'm going to share a 7-point checklist of criteria for the perfect lead magnet. And the good news is that it will save you a lot of time, because the perfect lead magnet is actually a lot LESS work. So, welcome to Episode 70 of Coffee Break Blogging!

In this episode, we delve into WHERE to host your email list. You'll learn the 3 biggest mistakes people make when hosting their email list. You'll also learn the 2 types of email hosts (and which type you should use). I then get specific and name names when it comes to the different hosts and which I believe you should use. This is a pretty core component of the blog monetization model, so we need to get it right. :-) So, once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging and this is Episode 69. And today we are going to be talking about our Email List and getting the hosting right with our email list. This is a really important topic; something that we do need to talk about and something that is a lot easier to get "right" at the start than to change the path later. So we are going to go and be on specific time on this, but first, I want to again remind everybody and ask everybody to kindly go over into iTunes and post a quick review and let me know how I am doing. If you find this episode that we are about

Hello! Welcome to Episode 68 of Coffee Break Blogging! This installment of CBB marks the end of Stage 2 of 7 of our full progression of building up a profitable blog-based business from scratch. Before we delve into Stage 3, let's review the overall bird's eye view of what we're doing here and what we've covered so far. This is our "pit stop" episode before we delve into email list building starting in the next episode. So today, what we are going to be doing in this episode is we are going to take a little pit stop and we are going to kind of review where we are in the podcast; kind of take a little bird's eye view where we stand, where we are heading, kind of how the show is going... that kind of a thing.

Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging, once again! :-) The term "pillar post" is often used to refer to that initial batch of blog posts that you create to kick off a brand new blog. But, exactly HOW do you go about creating these pillar posts? In this episode, we discuss how to do data-driven pillar posts... meaning how to create highly strategic pillar posts based on real data that will not only help you kick start your traffic, your niche standing, but also help bring you traffic into the future.

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! If you have an archive of blog content developed over the months or years past, then this is an extremely important episode for you. We'll talk about doing a content audit - an exercise you should do periodically to gain maximum leverage from your existing blog archives. In this installment, we talk about the exact methodology to determine which posts to optimize, and the 3 key things to optimize for each post. So today, I am going to give you a tactic. This is going to be a very tactical episode. And this is something that you are going to need to follow through after you listen to this episode, especially if you have been blogging for a little bit of time. This is going to be something that you definitely want to put on to your list of projects to do with your own blog and it's called a... "Content Audit"

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! And today we are going to talk about another strategy that I think that you should probably implement into your blog sooner rather than later, if you have not already done it. We are going to be talking about a Getting Started Page; having a "start here" option on your site... We've seen many blogs offer a "getting started" page, and this is something I have talked about before as well. But, what is the REAL reason why this page is so important? In this episode, we deep-dive into the real reason why you need to give your readers a clear starting point. We also cover the two core functions of the "getting started" page to ensure your's is doing the right thing.