The Amy Porterfield Show

This episode emphasizes the importance of a blog in developing and maintaining brand loyalty. It discusses how your blog can be a living record of your brand's journey and offers tips for enhancing your blog's effectiveness. It features insights from master blogger Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner. Stelzner shares strategies for choosing content, engaging writers, and tracking traffic. He advocates for sending regular emails to keep readers engaged and highlights the significance of sharing-worthy content. It also delves into the role of copy editors and graphic designers in creating high-quality content. It encourages readers to download a free guide on setting up Open Graph to maximize social media visibility. Finally, the article mentions the annual Social Media Marketing World event and the benefits of attending or accessing session recordings.

How many times has this happened to you? You’ve spent hours composing the perfect email to showcase your content, you’ve carefully segmented your list to a specific audience, you’ve queued it up to send at the optimal time…and a week later, your analytics reveal a dismal click-to-open rate. Ouch!

It’s frustrating and discouraging, the kind of thing that can make you second-guess everything you know about online marketing. But it could be that the only thing holding back your campaign’s potential is the email subject line.

Get the full story--listen to Podcast Episode 43.

Don’t underestimate the power of this one simple sentence. As I’ve mentioned in the past, email marketing is the most effective means of online marketing. The gateway to that email—the first thing your customers see—is your subject line.

It has to contain hints of everything your email has to offer—the specificity of your product, the authenticity of your brand, the urgency of your offer. It has to convey not only your knowledge and authority, but also your personal empathy for your audience’s needs. Tall order, right?

Fortunately, crafting an enticing subject line is not rocket science. The best subject lines can be broken down into five basic strategies, each built along a simple formula.

Strategy #1: Focus on the Benefit

Strategy #2: Be Specific

Strategy #3: Get Relevant

Strategy #4: Make It Personal

Strategy #5: Call Out a Problem

Don’t forget—you can listen to the entire podcast and get the full details on how to craft subject lines that get your emails opened! Just click here to go to iTunes and choose Episode 43.

In addition, I have even more formulas and examples outlined for you in a cheat sheet I created for this episode. You can download it for free right now by going to amyporterfield.com/43download, or you can text 43download to 38470 and I’ll send it to you right away.

EPISODE FREEBIE Get the 10 Highly Effective, Irresistible Subject Line Formulas

FREE DOWNLOAD

There’s definitely an art to crafting irresistible email subject lines. And as with any art, practice makes perfect. Try crafting at least five subject lines each day to feel out the different approaches and find what works for you. Then pick the best one to perfect for your email that week.

Daily practice will give you the confidence to not only write your marketing emails faster, but will serve to ground you in the knowledge that you have something valuable to offer the world.

When it comes to online marketing, most people are overlooking their number-one biggest asset.

Social media activity, off-site ads, and all other tricks are a drop in the bucket compared to the power of the email list. You may have heard me say it a million times on this site, but I’ll say it again here: the energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list.

But don’t just take my word for it.

“I have literally built a million dollar business on the strength of my email list. Ninety percent of my income comes from it. Even today, my email list is still my #1 business priority and asset.” (Michael Hyatt)

“Without a doubt, our email list is the best investment we’ve ever made.” (Douglas Karr)

“Email is the most important channel for you to cultivate in your online business.” (Mike Stelzner)

These guys are heavyweights in the online marketing world; each of them has a subscriber list numbering well over 100,000. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a list in the hundreds, or even thousands, makes your email marketing strategy less important.

No matter what your subscriber numbers are, your email list is one of the most valuable assets you have in the quest to help your business thrive. When you really understand the value of that list, you’ll be more than happy to invest your time, energy and budget to help that list thrive.

In this blog post, I’m going to highlight three foundational strategies for growing your email list. Once you implement these strategies, you’re well on your way to creating smart marketing funnels that will put your list-building efforts on warp speed, as well as lead to increased revenue from each email you send out.

The Main Thing: Quality over Quantity

When my good friend David Siteman Garland (of The Rise to the Top) started out, he had an email subscriber list of just 500 people. In those early days, he did a small product launch and generated $19,800 on the strength of that list.

These days, David’s email list is much larger. What hasn’t changed is the incredible loyalty of those subscribers. Whenever I do any kind of affiliation with David, I’m astonished at the way his list gravitates immediately toward any email he puts out.

It’s all because he started with a focus on list quality.

David never fails to infuse his emails with his authentic personality. He is genuine, super funny, and a little bit quirky…all reasons why his subscribers love him and keep coming back for more.

David is a prime example of my first strategy for growing your email list.

Strategy #1: Build Remarkable Content

Strategy #2: Understand the Opportunities and Limitations of Your Email Service Provider

Strategy #3: Create Multiple Lead Opportunities

This third strategy has two parts to consider:

1) Creating Multiple Lead Magnets

2) Placement of Your Opt-In Form

There are six places where you must create opt-in opportunities for your audience:

#1: A Feature Box

#2: The Sidebar

#3: Inside Your Blog Content

#4: The End of a Blog Post

#5: The Pop-Up Box

#6: Your “About” Page

Key takeaways

Three online marketing strategies to help build your email list:

And always focus on quality, and the quantity will follow.

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, we are going to dive into a new way of goal-setting and business planning.

Now if you follow my content, you already know that I am a bit of a fanatic when it comes to planning for the New Year.

I love it! I love new beginnings. I love looking back on the year, examining what worked and what did not work and then building something new or improved from there. I am going to cover 3 Lessons from this year that I am taking into the New Year. Some of them were easy lessons to learn, some not so easy.

So let’s go ahead and dive in!

Lesson #1: If you don’t build in the margin now, you will struggle to find it all year.

Margin is all about finding time to breath, to be creative, and taking time away from the computer to recharge. Margin allows you to be better when you return and dive into your big projects. Finding margin is easier said than done and in this episode we are going to talk about ways to make it actually happen! In this lesson I will also share with you how you can use an at-a-glance wall calendar to see the pockets of margin in advance.

Lesson #2: Build a team around your core skills.

We all know that building a team is crucial for longterm success. In this lesson I suggest a different way to approach your next hiring decision - one that will help you do more of what you love. Building your team is one of the most important steps you may take in the new year - this lesson will help you do it better.

Lesson #3: Add some soul to your goal-setting experience.

I realized that goals without the "why" are empty promises, meaningless in fact. They can quickly deplete your energy, make you feel unproductive, create massive overwhelm and suck the creativity right out of you. Who wants to feel like that? In 2015, I am changing things up - I am approaching this whole goal-setting thing differently and starting with the WHY.

These 3 lessons are exactly why I am so passionate about helping you change your goal-setting experience. I want your new goals to move you forward, invite in new opportunities and make you feel fully alive. In my journey to a more meaningful goal-setting experience, I was introduced to Michael Hyatt’s goal setting philosophy.

He also believes in starting with the WHY, getting to the root of what we really want and focusing on what matters most.

Right now and for the next week or so, Michael will be releasing a video series on goal-setting - it’s totally free and 100% aligned with creating a more powerful goal-setting experience.

I encourage you to check it out! He put a lot of effort and time in this series and it shows. It’s quality stuff.

You can check out his free goal setting trainings at www.AmyPorterfield.com/Goals but only for a very short time, so don’t wait to check it out!

Key Takeaways:

The three lessons I learned this year that you too can apply to your planning process as you get ready for the new year.

#1: Build margin into your year IN ADVANCE. Don’t wait to find pockets of time that you can take off - be intentional about this time and protect it with your life.

#2: Get strategic about your hiring plans and build a team around your SKILL SETS - find that one person or the people that will accentuate your skill sets and talents.

#3: Create goals with more meaning. Specifically, identify the WHY before you set your big goals for the new year. Don’t set any goals that you don’t identify WHY you really want it.

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I interview my new friend, Chalene Johnson.

Chalene is a world renowned multi-passionate entrepreneur that has built and sold several multimillion dollar health and fitness brands. You might recognize her name from her top selling Beach Body Workout DVD programs.

Chalene is currently the founder and CEO of a business and lifestyle coaching company called Team Johnson, where she has taught her personal and business development strategies to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs. In light of all of this, she has managed to become an Instagram marketing master. The way she uses Instagram to promote her numerous brands is nothing short of amazing. I'm sure you’ll agree after listening to this podcast.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

Key Takeaways

In this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast I share with you a new experience I’ve just embarked upon and how this experience taught me so much about my business, dealing with the people helping me with my business and more importantly, this experience has taught me a lot about myself.

I decided to try something different and create a 3-part video series as a pre-launch for the reopening of my Facebook Marketing Profit Lab video training course.

The reason for my new approach was because I felt like it was time that I foster a deeper connection with my audience and share a bit more transparency into my personal life. I wanted to become more personable, because I know that sometimes I can come off as "all business" - (much to my husband's chagrin!)

It was time to really peel back the curtain and share intimate details about the beginning struggles of my business, the reason for my choosing Facebook as my traffic and lead generation vehicle and how my mindset and business knowledge, as a whole, has gone through this amazing transformation over the years.

I felt the need to share in this way mainly because the exact business metamorphosis I have experienced, is the business metamorphosis I truly wish all who choose to learn from me, are fortunate enough to experience too.

Here are 7 tips to creating a 3-part video series

1) Content Flow and Story Structure:

2) Video crew or One-Man-Crew:

3) Written scripts or off the cuff dialog:

4) Location choices for added professionalism:

5) Have a keen ear on set during each recording:

6) Express your honest opinion about each shot selection:

7) Become comfortable in your own skin:

So there you have it. I just wanted to share my takeaways from this major video shoot I’ve just experienced. Now that you have this new “behind the scenes” insight into the making of this 3-part video series, I look forward to reading your comments down below after you’ve had the chance to view the video series.

In this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast,  I will be exposing the recent change Facebook made to their algorithm and not only will I explain the reason for this change, I will also give you some tips to help you counteract this change and to increase your brand’s engagement in the News Feed.

Although I’m a huge advocate of Facebook’s paid advertising, in this episode, I’m teaching a couple of FREE methods of posting content and reaching more potential customers in the News Feed.

Here’s what the recent Facebook algorithm change is all about.

They are cracking down on "click bait.” What exactly is click bait?

Click bait is when a link is shared in a Facebook post with a title that sparks curiosity but does not really tell people what the article is all about. This essentially teases people to click a link but does not give them all the information so they are not exactly sure what they’re going to find on the other side of that click.

Granted, click bait links can be an effective strategy, because people can’t help but click to find out more. And many marketers were finding success in their calls to action; that’s why these types of posts has been flooding the News Feed on Facebook.

The challenge is that the click bait strategy is making it hard for users to see content they genuinely want to see and care about. Facebook is viewing click bait as gaming the system to get out into the News Feed. Because Facebook has a viral component built into their Algorithm, these click bait post were gaining a lot of exposure.

The more people click on the link, even though they’re not sure if they’re even interested in the content on the other side of that link, the more that post shows up in the News Feed.

And that’s why Facebook became concerned with this practice and made this recent change that no longer allows click bait. Your content will be negatively impacted when you use a click bait type of posting strategy.

Here’s how to craft your post so that you’re not a victim to this algorithm change and your posts get as much News Feed exposure as possible.

Tip #1: Create or Only Share Quality Posts

Tip #2: Be Specific With the Titles of Your Facebook Posts

Tip #3: Post a “Preview” of Your Content When Posting on Facebook

Key Takeaways

Would you like to know how to spend less time trying to convert your Facebook Profile "Friends" over to "Fans" of your Facebook Page?

Would you like to learn an easy trick to link your Profile and Fan Page together so that your visitors to your Profile would have direct exposure to your Fan Page?

You will learn all of that and more in this weeks Episode of Online Marketing Made Easy - Ask Amy Podcast.

On this episode I answer a question from one of my listeners about how to get your Facebook friends to like your Facebook Page.

This is the question she asked:

 Kathy Sacks: “I have more than 500 friends on my Facebook Profile. Since it would take a long time to get that many “likes” on my Facebook Page, I’d like to get my friends on my Profile to to like my new business Page. Do you have any advice for me?”

Now, the short answer is that there is no foolproof way to move your friends over to your Page. There are a few things you can try and I’ll go over those things with you but I want to encourage you not to spend too much time trying to move your friends over to your Page.

Instead, I would encourage you to spend more time on developing your Page, the content, the engagement, your list-growing strategy, all of that can be done on your Page.

I wouldn't suggest you spend too much time on this strategy although I am going to give you some helpful tips to get you started to make that transition. I understand that if you are growing a Facebook Page you want to build your fan base quickly and it makes sense to start with the friends on your Profile since they seem to have an interest in what you are posting.

Sounds logical, although, it doesn’t happen as though we think it should.

One thing you might want to think about is this: Are those friends that you have on your profile genuinely interested in your business?  Some of them likely are but definitely not all of them are.

To be upfront, some of your Profile friends just aren’t interested in hearing from you about your business. That’s why I just want to caution you, it's likely on your Profile, you have a mix of people that are friends or just want to know you personally and have no interest in what you are doing for business. That's just how it is.

In my experience, moving friends to fans is a slow process that is rarely a raving success. That’s why I don’t want you to spend too much time in this area. However, I will say, it is worth an effort to give it a shot. Do it and then move on to bigger and better things.

I did promise you a few things that you can implement to build your new fan page with your existing friend base from your profile.

1) The first suggestion I have for you is make sure that you link your Profile and your Page.

2) For about two weeks, start a campaign where you are actively promoting your Page on your Profile. 

Use Video to promote your Page to your friends on your Profile

Lure your Profile friends over to your Fan Page by using a "FREE" giveaway

Attract New, Quality Fans with Like Ads (Instead of Focusing on Moving Your Friends Over)

7 Steps to a Facebook Marketing Plan

In my flagship program, Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, I take my students through a seven step process to create a profitable Facebook Marketing Plan. If you want a quick snapshot of all seven steps, you can check out Episode #28 where I dive into each of them with specifics

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I interviewed my good friend, Pam Hendrickson. Pam and I go WAY back. She is actually the person who interviewed me for my position with Tony Robbins, and was my first "big boss."

Pam and I have spent many hours working and traveling together. We joke that we spent more time together during certain seasons than we did with our husbands!

Pam worked for Tony Robbins for close to 20 years before going out on her own. Considering her experience with Robbins, she thought launching her first products would be easy, but she was wrong. In spite of the fact that the products were great, she made very few sales.

The turning point for her was when she learned how to give her customers what they want, and in this episode, we dive in deep about how to do that.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

Key Takeaways

Action Steps

A Special Gift from Pam for My Audience

Pam really went the extra mile by creating a special gift just for you, a free video training and report, which you can get here.