Think for a moment about all the blogs you’ve visited over the past few months. Have you bookmarked the interesting ones so that you can find them again?
Like many people, probably not!
Ok, so did the sites provide a way for you to subscribe and get the latest posts, or maybe they went a step further and provided a newsletter? In other words, did they have an email list you could subscribe to?
It’s useful for you if they did!
If you subscribed to their email list you now receive their latest content when it becomes available, without having to keep visiting the site. This ensures you never miss a useful post.
What are you going to provide for visitors on your own site?
You have three choices when it comes to email subscriptions, you can provide:
- NO email list whatsoever and potentially lose the visitor forever
- A way for visitors to opt-in to your email list to receive your latest blog posts
- A newsletter that has information that cannot be found on your blog
- A free incentive to entice visitors to subscribe, then offer them a combination of valuable content and blog broadcasts
In this article I take you through setting up and email list using AWeber to automatically manage your blog broadcasts – this is option 2 above.
The following diagram illustrates the steps outlined in the article:
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The Email Subscription Process
Whether it’s for subscribing to a blog broadcast or newsletter, it’s the same process.
I thought it would be useful to outline the process a visitor goes through when they subscribe to your email list via and opt-in form:
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- A subscriber fills in their on an Opt-in Form placed somewhere on your website
- When the details are submitted the subscriber is directed to a Thankyou for Opting-in page
- At the same time they also receive a Confirmation Message via email
- When they click on the link in the email to confirm the subscription they’re then directed to a Thankyou for Subscribing page (Success Page in the AWeber configuration)
- At the same time they are being directed to the Thankyou for Subscribing page they also receive a Welcome Message via e-mail
- If you’ve configured a newsletter/marketing Follow-up Series this will start to be sent out
That process is pretty straight forward right?
Read on and I’ll explain to you, in detail, how to configure everything to get this working automatically.
Configure your email list using AWeber
Step 1: Sign-up for an AWeber account
There are many providers of e-mail marketing services, but AWeber is the best in my opinion. It’s one of the most popular autoresponder service providers and people consistently rave about their quality customer support.
As time goes on I may choose an alternative to AWeber, but for the moment this is the way I’m going.
Click here to go to AWeber’s homepage and click the “Sign Up for Just $1″ link
Register your account by selecting a pricing plan then enter your contact and credit card details. Once you’ve completed registration you’ll be sent an e-mail with your username reminder and the password.
You’re now ready to setup an email list for your subscribers.
Step 2: Create an email list for your subscribers
The first thing that you need to do is create an email list for your blog broadcast subscribers. Anybody who completes the subscription form on your blog will be added to this list. The subscription form can be placed in the sidebar, the page footer or even embedded within a post. First, if you’re not already on the screen shown below, click on My Lists in the top navigation. If this is your first time logging onto AWeber there’s going to be a default list added, just ignore this for the moment. You must have at least one autoresponder configured and so you cannot deactivate it at this time. Just go ahead and click Create A List. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Fill in the settings for your list:
- List Name – The name you choose for the email list must be unique within the AWeber system. Enter a name, up to 15 characters long, and see if it’s available. If not, try something different or just choose from one of the suggestions
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- List Description – The list description will be displayed on the unsubscribe page, so make sure it’s something your readers will understand. Ensure that spelling and grammar are correct too!
- “From” Name – This is what your newsletter subscribers will see when they receive your emails. For the “From” Name you could choose anything, your company or blog name, but I would recommend using a person name as this makes the email dialogue feel more personal for the recipient
- Address – I always recommend you get an email address setup from your hosting company with your business domain name, e.g. @smartbusinessjourney.com. Don’t go with a free email account such as @outlook.com or @yahoo.com, this won’t convey a professional image
- Contact Address – The CAN-SPAM Act requires you to include a valid postal address in your emails. I’ve included my business address, however if you don’t have a business address you can always insert your home address. You should know that the address you enter here will be shown at the bottom of each and every email you send. Therefore, you may want to consider using an alternative address to your home one – P.O Boxes for your business are permitted
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The second section on the page is for notifications when new subscribers signs up for your list. I’d advise you leave this alone – why would you want to clog up your own inbox with emails every time a new person joins? Click Save Settings. Then click on Personalize Your list at the top of the page.
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Fill in the Company Branding section by entering a Company Name. I would recommend using your website name and not your Business/Trading name. Then enter you Website URL and any Email Signature you wish to include. Image may be NSFW.
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You can also include a company logo, just click on the Upload Your Logo button and select a file. For the moment you can skip over the Social Media / Sharing and Global Text Snippets sections, we’ll come back to these in a future article! Click on Save Settings. Then click on Confirmed Opt-In at the top of the page.
Step 3: Setup and customize your Confirmation Message
An email confirmation message gets sent to people immediately after they subscribe to your email list. It’s a double opt-in mechanism and asks them to confirm their subscription.
The email contains a link that the recipient must click on to confirm they really do wish to join your list, this process makes sure they are human too and not a bot! This helps to ensure the email address entered on the subscription form is valid and not a fake one, as people use fake email addresses just to grab whatever freebie you may be offering.
You can turn the double opt-in mechanism off, but it’s not recommended.
An email has been already pre-written for you, but we’re going to change this slightly to make it more personal.
First, customize the subject line.
AWeber sets a default that says “Confirm your subscription”, which isn’t very grabbing or personal. So start off by clicking anywhere on the subject area, this will allow you to edit the section.
There are a few alternatives available in the drop-down menu, but I recommend using a custom subject line. To make it more personal you should include the subscribers first name. Also, include the name of your website or blog so that the recipient instantly knows where the email came from.
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Next, customize the introduction text, which appears above the opt-in link.
Keep this short and to the point, remember you’re encouraging people to confirm their subscription.
Also, remember that when sending emails you want to keep things personal, so include the recipients name again in the message body. Click on the Insert Field drop-down and choose whatever is appropriate. I’ve gone for the {!name_fix} field as I did with the subject line.
You can click here to find a list of all field codes that can be inserted into your messages.
If you’re not grabbing the subscribers name on your blogs opt-in form you obviously can’t include it in the email messages! That’s why I always recommend you do so.
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Finally you need to configure the email signature, tell the subscriber what you’re thanking them for and include your name. That’s it, nice and simple!
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Step 4: Setup the Success Page
The Success Page is actually the second thankyou page your subscriber will see! In the Success Page section you need to enter the URL of a webpage on your website where your new subscribers will be taken once they’ve clicked on the confirmation link. You need to create this thankyou page on your website/blog first, then copy and paste the URL into the box.
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For your thankyou page you have two options:
- Keep things simple and just say thankyou, or
- Use this as an opportunity to start connecting with your subscribers
Here are some things you should consider including on the Thankyou for Subscribing page:
- Thank the person for confirming their subscription
- Welcome them to your blog broadcast or newsletter and state that they will shortly be receiving emails from you
- You can direct the subscriber to your contact page in case they have any questions or queries
Note: If you’re using WordPress and have enabled Comments for pages I recommend you disable them. I don’t think having comments on a thankyou page are necessary!
Step 5: Create a Blog Broadcast
Make sure you setup the automatic blog broadcast email for the correct list.
Ensure that the list you created a moment ago is selected in the drop-down box at the top of the page.
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Then, on the top menu navigation select click Messages > Blog Broadcasts.
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On the next screen click on the Create a Blog Broadcast button.
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Enter the RSS Feed URL for your website or blog in the box.
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Where do you find your websites RSS feed URL?
If you’re site uses WordPress click here to learn about feeds and what your RSS URL should be. In most cases this will be http://www.yoursite.com/feed.
Leave the subject line for the moment, AWeber will automatically generate this once you’ve selected a template.
Now you’re ready to choose a template.
For a blog broadcast message choose something simple. On the top right you can scroll through the available templates and as you do so a preview will be shown underneath. Once you settle on a design, select it and then click Load Template.
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Customize your chosen template however you like, but remember to keep the dynamic RSS field codes in place. These will automatically be replaced with text from your most recent blog posts.
I’m personally not going to customize the template right now. I’m just going to go with the default!
Now look at the subject line which has automatically been generated by the AWeber system. The field codes dynamically get populated with the latest blog information each time a new broadcast is sent. You could change this to be whatever you want, for example the name of you blog or website, but this might get boring each week for the subscriber. Also, how would they know what the email contains if each week the subject field was the same? I recommend you don’t modify anything here.
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Once you’re finished customizing the template move down the page to the send settings. This is where you can specify conditions for when the broadcast will be sent.
- Send Time – This is the time of day that emails are automatically sent. I recommend setting this to first thing in the morning or late afternoon. Research has shown that messages sent at these times get the highest click-through rates, which makes sense right? People are checking personal e-mails before the day begins at 0900 and then during that point in the afternoon when things are slow, around 1500.
- How often should blog broadcasts be sent – If you blog daily or several times a week do you want to be bombarding your subscribers with many emails? Or maybe you don’t publish articles as frequently? Your blogging style will determine what you configure here. Whatever you choose ensure you click the checkbox Send Automatically.
- Track Clicks – As with anything with your online business you should be monitoring, tracking and measuring performance. Selecting this checkbox will let you measure your click-through rates allowing you to optimize your email to achieve better results. This setting is on by default.
- Social Media / Sharing – Clicking this option will automatically post the blog feed on your Twitter and Facebook profiles. Leave this turned off for the moment, I’ll cover off social networking in a later article!
When you’ve finished configured the send settings click on Save Blog Broadcast at the bottom of the page.
Step 6: Create and style the opt-in form
The opt-in form provides a way for you site visitors to subscribe to your blog broadcast or newsletter. The most common place this form appears in the sidebar area, but can be placed in other strategic locations on your site.
AWeber provides many templates that you can easily customize.
On the top menu navigation click Sign Up Forms, then click Create Your First Sign Up Form.
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Have a look through the templates AWeber offers, choose one and click on it, then click the Load Template button.
Now you can customize any part of it by clicking on the various elements in the workspace below where you select the template. I’m not going to explain all the customizations, as it’s really straight forward and the interface is pretty easy to understand and use.
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Typically, website owners just collect the name and email address of their subscribers, but it’s possible to configure the opt-in form to allow input of first name and last name separately. You need to decide which is best for your needs.
Also, depending on what niche you’re operating in you may wish to add custom fields such as phone number or address, or any others you require.
By default only the first name field is displayed. That’s easily changed by moving your mouse over the name field and clicking the Edit tab, then select the radial button First & Last Name and click Save.
When you’re done making changes click on the Save Web Form button at the bottom of the form and once done click on Go To Step 2.
Step 7: Configure the opt-in form settings
After you’ve completed your customizations you’ll need to configure some Basic Settings.
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- Form Name – This is a unique name you give the form you’ve just designed. It’s for organization purposes, unlike when you created a list earlier which had to be unique within the AWeber system.
- Thank You Page – This is the first thankyou page that your subscribers will be directed to immediately after they enter their details to opt-in and hit the Sign Me Up button. It’s the “Thankyou for Opting-in” page shown in the diagram at the beginning of this article in step #2.
At the same time they’re reading this thankyou page the Confirmation Message you setup earlier will be on its way to them.
Click on the drop-down arrow and there’re five options available for the Thank You Page. What option should you choose for this page then? Well, the first three are all pages AWeber have created to save you time and effort, but I recommend you select Custom Page. Why? Because it keeps the subscriber to your site and not AWeber.
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- Already Subscribed Page – If a person has already subscribed to your email list, this page reminds them. You have the choice of allowing AWeber to display a basic page or you can use a Custom Page. I recommend you use the Custom Page as this keeps the subscriber on your website where you can direct them to your latest content and remind them they’ve already subscribed
Once you’ve done with the settings click the Save Your Form button. What should the Thankyou for Opting-In page say?
- A message that tells the subscriber that an e-mail is on the way to them and that they must click the link to confirm they are opting-in
- Ask the subscribing to configure their email client so your messages don’t get blocked. Remind them that they may have to check their Junk folder
Step 8: Install the form on your website
Now that you’ve finished setting up your list, creating an opt-in form and tweaking the settings, all you need to do is install the form on your website.
Once you’ve saved you form the next page is where you decide who will publish it, click the option I Will Install My Form.
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Here you’re simply going to copy some code so that it can be inserted onto your website.
I recommend you grab the Java code because once you paste this on your site you’re done! If you wish to make changes to the opt-in form you only have edit it on the AWeber site, there’s no need to copy and paste code again. Also, using the Java code allows you to keep track of statistics, which will be valuable when it comes to optimizing your site later on to get better results.
Copy the javascript that’s displayed and paste it into an HTML Widget Box in your blog’s sidebar.
Exactly how you do this will vary depending on which CMS you use, but it’s just like adding any other HTML element to your sidebar.
Highlight the code that starts with “<script type” and copy it. If you’re using WordPress, adding the form to a sidebar, or anywhere else on your site for that matter is easy.
Step 9: Installing the opt-in form on a WordPress sidebar
In the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets. Drag a new Text Widget into the sidebar where you want the form to be displayed, in my case this is the Primary Sidebar. Leave the Title blank and just paste the code snippet into the main text area.
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Now you’re all done, all that remains is for you to do some testing. Use your personal email and go through the entire process, ensure that when you enter details on the opt-in form your email address is added to the emai list, the appropriate emails are sent to you and you get directed to the thankyou pages in order.
Remember you can go back into AWeber at any time and change the setting for the Blog Broadcast you’ve just configured.
Comments and Final Thoughts
Configuring AWeber to provide an email list for your website is a pretty straightforward process isn’t it? However, it does take a little time to get things configured if this is your first time!
Hopefully, the process diagram at the beginning of this article made things a little easier to understand and follow?
Did you find this article useful? What’s your experience been like with AWeber and Blog Broadcast emails? I’d love to read your comments below.
The post Setup AWeber to manage the email list for your website appeared first on The The Smart Business Journey Blog Blog.
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