Back when I was just getting started with email marketing, one thing I really struggled with was the right “format” for my emails. I saw a lot of people in my niche (software development) sending out link-style newsletters. This is where you “curate” or collect links to some good blog posts and send them out […]
Continue readingSubscriber Rick asks “Should I write my own emails or hire a pro copywriter to do it for me?” He explains: You might not know who I am, but I’m a big fan of your writing. Your emails that you send out every day are nice and seems like your always there in my inbox […]
Continue readingPretty soon after I quit my comfy software development job and hung out my shingle as a freelance copywriter, I found myself struggling with a dilemma: How should I pitch my services to my email list? I don’t care how “hypnotic” your emails are, it’s going to take more than 300 words of salesmanship to […]
Continue readingNot long ago I decided I wanted to introduce my boys to one of my favorite childhood hobbies: fishing. Since I haven’t gone fishing since high school, we took a trip to the nearby Field & Stream outdoor emporium to stock up on all the necessary gear. Walking into the fishing section is really overwhelming. […]
Continue readingThe first few days with a new subscriber is such a critical time… Those early emails are how they decide whether they LOVE you and want to read everything you send… Or whether they mentally “mark as spam” every time your name pops up in their inbox. Reader Lana is acutely aware of this. She […]
Continue readingI have the worst luck with go karts. This all started back in college when I went racing with a buddy of mine. I got stuck with what had to be the slowest car in the pack. There I was, the nerdy college senior, standing on the accelerator while 13-year-old punks zip by me and […]
Continue readingIn the programming world, there’s this tongue-in-cheek term that gets tossed around a lot: “Bikeshedding” Bikeshedding means: Obsessing over the trivial while ignoring what REALLY matters. This happens because these small details are easier to understand than the big picture questions that actually make a difference. Most people aren’t bold enough to venture an (uniformed) […]
Continue readingPicking up the discussion of “incubation” from last week, subscriber Lana writes: Another thing I noticed is people stop opening emails with time (life gets in the way) so the most receptive audience seems to be at the start. This is *definitely* true—to an extent. The majority of your subscribers have only a passing interest […]
Continue readingThis always makes me smile: Every so often I’ll check my page views in Google Analytics and see that dozens of older blog posts have each gotten a single page view. Usually that means that someone stumbled across my site and is digging back through the archives to read everything they can find. (Hint: 0.5% […]
Continue readingOne of my all-time favorite marketing sayings is: “Nobody ever buys a drill because they wanted a drill. They buy a drill because they wanted a hole.” This came up in my recent interview on the Freelancer Show. Resume coach (and up-and-coming email marketer) Jennifer caught the interview and says: I just finished listening to […]
Continue readingGot a question from a subscriber named Jim. (OK, OK, you got me. Jim is my dad. Yes, my dad AND my mom are both on my list. Hi Mom and Dad!) ANYWAY… After a couple of decades running his business, my dad has a list of maybe 1,000 or more past and current clients, […]
Continue readingRecently a subscriber asked for my feedback on an email he’d written. The email caught my attention instantly with the first few lines. He was telling a story that I could relate to, and I was eager to see where he was leading me. But a few short paragraphs later, my eyes glazed over. I […]
Continue readingBack in college I edited the student newspaper, so I was always sniffing around campus for juicy rumors. One of my favorite sources for stories was the “faculty senate”—a giant monthly committee meeting where all the professors would get together to debate college policies. Now the reason I liked going to faculty senate was NOT […]
Continue readingMy first reaction when I learned that LeadPages had acquired Drip was: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ After all, Drip is one of my 2 favorite marketing tools. And LeadPages? Well, let’s just say that we have a checkered past that sent me running straight into the arms of Thrive. So I was NOT a happy camper when […]
Continue readingThis is an embarrassing story I’ve never admitted in public. It’s kinda gross too—consider yourself warned. When I was around 10 years old, I used to spend the whole summer playing outside in our little suburban yard. And one summer in particular, I remember noticing that my arms were getting pretty tanned. This was a […]
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