The Real Reason Your Landing Page Copy Is Failing (and 5 Things You Can Do to Change That)

Okay, so you’ve got your product or service all ready to go. You think it’s the best thing since sliced bread and it’s going to revolutionize the world, make everyone’s lives better and make you a billionaire.

You’ve built your landing page, where you’ve highlighted the features of your product or service, told everyone how fabulous it is and explained why they should buy it. You’ve probably made videos showing how your product works and created infographics to demonstrate how it’s better than the leading competitor’s products.

You’ve created a social media presence on several different platforms to make sure people know about your fabulous product or service. You’ve made sure that your landing page has a good linking strategy. You’ve set up a PPC campaign to drive traffic to your page. You’ve bought Facebook ads, created a press release, all of the things you know you’re supposed to do when you launch a venture.

“Ahhhh,” you say to yourself. “Everything is finally in place. I can sit back and start watching the money roll in.”

And you wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And nobody clicks on the buy button.

You check your page statistics. Yes, your landing page is showing up in the SERP and people are coming to your landing page. So why is no one buying?

You decide to buy some more PPC ads, maybe you send out a bunch of social media messages via Hootsuite. You do everything you possibly can to make people see your landing page. 

Still, nothing works. Nobody wants your product.

You try rewriting your landing page copy and title tags to optimize for different keywords. You put more money into online advertising. You even consider paying one of those scary companies that promises you Facebook likes or links (which you know are all black hat schemes, but at this point you don’t care.)

Your whole life is wrapped up in this product, this website. You were expecting this to be the answer to your prayers, the thing that let you retire at 40 so you could move to the Bahamas and live out the rest of your life on a 70-foot luxury yacht, sailing from island to island. 

“Why? Why is this happening to me?!” You scream to the beige walls of your home office (which is really a bedroom you’ve converted into a workspace.) “Why don’t these people see the brilliance of what I’m offering them?!” 

Why indeed?

Have you thought about those people? Truly thought about what you are offering them and how it will affect them? Have you answered the question every single one of them is asking when they come to your website – “What’s in it for me?”

You see, when people visit any site on the Internet, they really don’t care how fabulous your product or service is. They don’t want to know about the amazing features, the multiple ways this thing can be used, or whatever else you’re trying to tell them. They really want to know how your product will make their lives better. 

They know they have a problem and they’re looking for a way to solve it. So they go to the Internet to find a solution. If your website looks like it might provide them with that solution, they’ll click on your link.

But if you don’t grab them right away… If you don’t show them how your product is the solutionthey’re looking for… If you don’t answer that question of “What’s in it for me?” They’ll just click back to their SERP page and go on to the next thing that looks like it might solve their problem.

This is commonly referred to as “engaging your customer.” It’s the fine art of showing any website visitor exactly how your product or service will make his or her life better.

Here are five things you can do to not only engage your customer, but also improve your landing page copy and conversion rates.

Note: For easy reference of the strategies in this post, don’t forget to download our Landing Page Copy Checklist at the end of the post. 

1. Talk to your customer.

Please note; I used the word “customer” here, not “customers.” Why? Because the most important thing most companies fail to understand about the Internet is that it creates relationships.

What you’re really trying to do here is create a relationship with your potential customer. After all, people buy from people or companies they like and trust. You have to earn that trust before you can get that potential customer to fork over his hard earned cash.

You have to remember that the Internet is not like broadcast advertising. Instead of being a one-way medium, much like mail, radio or television, it’s a two-way medium. People can respond to what’s on your landing page with likes and by sharing your content. They can also complain about you, your company or your product or service on other websites. 

So instead of writing to a broad audience (which is different than appealing to a broad audience), you need to write as if you are having a conversation with one person. After all, your landing page is rarely viewed by a large group of people. It’s usually seen by one person, sitting alone in his house, perhaps in his pajamas, looking for a solution to his problem.

And you have to convince him that your product or service really is the solution he’s looking for. This means your messaging has to be focused on him. Tell him why your product is the answer to his dreams. Why it will solve his problem. Why this is the right thing for him. 

You have to start building that relationship with your customer. It may take time, it may take a lot of hard work, but if you do it right, if you make it worth this person’s while to listen to what you have to say and convince him that your product is the right one for him, he will buy again and again. He’ll spread the word about how fabulous your product is, how it changed his life and how it can do the same for all of his friends, and why.

And that is the kind of advertising you just can’t buy. More importantly, it’s the kind of advertising that really will get you that luxury yacht in the Bahamas.

So how do you talk to your customer?

2. Use benefits-driven language instead of features-driven language.

What is “benefits driven language?” Actually I just modeled it in the last section. You know, that section where I was talking about the benefits of forming a lasting relationship with your customer? It was everything from the bit about your customer buying again and again, through to the bit about you really getting that luxury yacht in the Bahamas. (You were really focused on that bit, weren’t you?)

Instead of talking about the features of your product, it’s dimensions, it’s technical specs, it’s abilities, etc. Talk about the benefits it will provide to your potential customer.

For example: Instead of saying, “Product X has an innovative, sleek design.” Say something like “Product X’s ergonomic design allows you to use it easily for everyday tasks without dropping it, or having to hold on tightly, causing stress and muscle tension in your hands.”

See what I did there? I showed the benefits of Product X’s design. I told the potential customer why this design would be better for him. In fact, I went a little further and showed a “deeper benefit.” That would be the part about the design making the product easier to hold on to so it doesn’t cause stress and muscle tension in your potential customer’s hands.

Here’s another example:

Look at the picture of the Apple Watch ad below.

The headline indicates that this product will help you manage your time. The beginning of the body copy tells you what the Apple Watch will do by listing the features. It then goes on to list the benefits:

• It helps you be more productive and efficient
• You get more out of every moment

It even gives a deeper benefit:

• Apple Watch actually understands what time means to you

This shows that Apple is thinking about you and how you value your time. The company recognizes how precious your time is and wants to help you use it better.

So how do you find the benefits of your product? You need to ask a very important question:

“So What?”

“Well that’s not a very important question,” I hear you say. Actually it is. Because it’s the question your potential customer is going to ask every time she sees a feature listed on your website. Remember, she want’s to know what’s in it for her. So when she asks, “So what?” She really wants to know.

Here’s how you answer that question for her.

First, you make a list of all of the features of your product. Then you go through each one of them and ask that question: So what? Answer the question as though you were talking to your potential customer. Pretend that she has just asked the question in response to you telling her about this particular feature. Tell her exactly what this feature will do for her and why this benefit is a good thing. 

Let’s try this with something everyone is familiar with – duct tape. 

Lay it out like this:

Feature: Duct tape’s flexible fabric weave allows you to wrap it around anything, regardless of shape or surface.

• So what?

• You can make duct tape do what you want it to in any given situation, like if you need to repair a hose in your car.

• So what?

• That flexibility can save a lot of time and effort, especially when you’re late getting somewhere and you don’t have time or money to take your car into the shop. You can get where you need to go with a very cheap repair that will last until you can get it fixed professionally.

And so on, and so on. 

For another good example, let’s use apple sauce cups: 

Feature: Apple sauce cups are a convenient snack to pack in your child’s lunch box.

• So what?

• Its single serving portion package is easy for your child to open and eat whenever she’s hungry

• So what?

• Because apple sauce is sweet and appealing to your child, she is more likely to eat it than trade it away for junk food. So you feel like a better parent, knowing she’s getting a healthy treat and she knows you love her because you’ve packed something she really enjoys eating.

You see the basic pattern here:

• State the feature.

• Ask the question, “So what?”

• Answer the question with an immediate benefit, something your customer will experience as soon as she uses your product.

• Ask the question again, “So what?”

• Answer the question with a deeper benefit, something that appeals to the emotions of your potential customer. A benefit that makes her feel better about herself for purchasing your product.

The whole point of the exercise is to give you a chance to convince your potential customer that your product is the right one for her, before she comes up with reasons that it’s not.

Why? Because you’ve answered the two most important questions on her mind, “What’s in it for me,” and “So what?”

Answering these two questions about every feature your product has to offer is a great way to engage your customers and convince them to buy. It can knock down potential barriers that your potential customer might put up. You know, those nagging little reasons that lurk at the back of everyone’s mind, like:

• What if this doesn’t work the way I want it to?

• What if owning this thing doesn’t give me the satisfaction I want?

• What will my neighbors/boss/significant other think if I buy this thing?

Which leads me to the next thing you can do to engage and convert your customers…

3. Appeal to their emotions.

C’mon, everyone’s doing it, first time’s free, won’t tell your mom…

No, seriously, do it. Really. Everyone is doing it. Why? Because appealing to your customer’s emotions works. People don’t make logical purchasing decisions. They make emotional decisions and then find ways to rationalize the purchase to themselves so they feel better about making it.

This has been proven time and time again, and marketers use this very human trait every single day.

Think about the last car commercial you saw.

The announcer may be talking about the engine and its horsepower, or droning on about the aerodynamic design, but you’re seeing the smooth acceleration and the way it dances gracefully over the road. The camera is gliding over the sleek leather interior. You see the Bose speakers hooked up to the state of the art entertainment system, which is being watched by two kids sitting safely, happily and quietly in the back seat. Meanwhile, Dad is expertly handling the rugged mountain roads and the hairpin curves on the switchback road.

The goal here is to get you to want to be Dad, enjoying all of these benefits, which are:

• Status

• Happy kids

• A safe ride for the family

But the whole emotional appeal is to a man’s sense of self worth. “If I had this car, I could be like that guy.” The appeal is to the emotions. The benefits are used to rationalize the purchase.

Here’s another great example:

AirBnb’s home page lets you know it’s not just a way to find affordable places to stay when you’re traveling. It’s a way to get the experience of being a local while you’re on vacation — just like the woman sitting in the sun, reading her paper in the shadow of the Eiffel tower.

Appealing to your potential customer’s emotions is a huge part of engaging and converting that person. Why? Because we’re all emotional creatures at heart. 

Who doesn’t melt at all of those adorable videos of kittens and puppies or baby otters and hedgehogs on Facebook?

Who doesn’t tear up at the touching stories on the evening news about the little boy who has cancer and the community that came together to help him raise the money to get the surgery that his family’s insurance company wouldn’t pay for?

Everybody loves a happy ending and everyone wants to feel better about themselves.

That’s why emotion is such an amazing tool in marketing. Everyone, whether they like to admit it or not, has some insecurity somewhere. We all want to belong, we all want to be loved, and we all want to be part of something. Appealing to those emotions, those desires can push your potential customer over that scary hump of, “So What” and on to “Yes, I’ll Take It.”

If you noticed in my earlier section on finding the benefits of asking “so what,” I used emotion in both of the deeper benefits examples:

• “That flexibility can save a lot of time and effort, especially when you’re late getting somewhere and you don’t have time or money to take your car into the shop. You can get where you need to go with a very cheap repair that will last until you can get it professionally fixed.”

Here I used the emotions of fear and frustration. I used the fear of not having enough money to pay for a repair, and frustration at being late and not having enough time.

I made it pretty blatant in the second example:

• “Because apple sauce is sweet and appealing to your child, she is more likely to eat it than trade it away for junk food. So you feel like a better parent, knowing she’s getting a healthy treat and she knows you love her because you’ve packed something she really enjoys eating.”

I used the emotion of love twice here, feeling like a better parent and your child knowing you love her. I also used the emotions pride and confidence, again, talking about feeling like a better parent.

You can use emotion everywhere on your website. Some great ideas are:

• Appealing to your potential customer’s sense of security – “You’ll be safe using product X in any number of emergency situations.”

• Making him or her angry at his or her situation – “The government doesn’t want you to know these secret ways to save thousands of dollars on your taxes!”

• In pictures and images scattered on the page – A picture of a mother holding a child evokes a different emotion than a picture of a frustrated man kicking his car.

Emotion is a great way to connect with your potential customers, because we are all emotional creatures at heart. Everyone can relate to a particular situation, especially when it affects him or her directly. Anyone who comes to your website has a problem that your product or service can solve. Use emotion to persuade them that yours is the right one for them.

4. Be conversational.

“Whaddya mean? Be conversational?” 

I mean write as though you’re having a conversation with your potential customer. I’ve actually demonstrated this method throughout this blog post.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that every once in a while, I refer to myself (like I did just now). That makes it feel more like you and I are talking to each other, instead of me talking at you.

I’ve also made liberal use of the word “you” because I’m talking directly to you. (That would be that whole, “talk to one person” thing.) Again, this makes the blog post feel more like a conversation. The things I’m saying here relate directly to you, personally.

Humor is a great way to be conversational because it is natural to insert humor into most conversations, if nothing else to break the ice or diffuse tension. I’ve done that a few times in this post.

And I’ve used storytelling several times during this post:

• The whole scenario at the beginning, where no one visits your website.

• The description of the car commercial and how it’s meant to make you want to be the guy driving the car in the commercial.

• The times I actually give your response to something I say as an introduction to explaining what I’m talking about. (Like at the top of this section.)

• When I was describing how once your potential customer is engaged and buys from you, how he’ll spread the word far and wide and you’ll finally get your yacht in the Bahamas.

All of this has been in an effort to make this blog post engaging and easy to read. I want you to read to the end, so you get the benefit of what I’m trying to tell you. That way you can use this information to fix your website and start converting potential customers into buyers.

Being conversational in your writing style actually makes the words easier to read and digest.

Think about the last time you read something that you thought was really stuffy and dull. It probably took you forever to wade through and by the time you were done, you couldn’t remember why you started reading it in the first place.

Now think about the last time you read something you really enjoyed. (I’d be flattered if you thought about this article, by the way.) You probably flew through it and wanted more at the end. You should have remembered the key points easily and wanted to share what you read with friends.

Frequently, the difference between boring writing and engaging writing is that one is written in a conversational style.

So what are some technical and grammatical things you can do to write conversationally?

• Use contractions – I know; your 4th grade English teacher would be mortified. But we use contractions when we speak, so use them when you write. If you go back through this article, you’ll see I use contractions all the time. (I just used one in the last sentence.) You’re, it’s, don’t, I’ve, I’ll, these are all good words when it comes to conversational writing.

• Focus on your potential customer – This comes back to that whole “you” thing. Because I’m talking directly to you, it feels more like a conversation. And it makes your potential customer feel important. You’re talking directly to him. (Of course, we all know it’s just words on a screen and that you’re talking to anyone who reads them, but it’s a psychological trigger that always works.)

• Use the active voice instead of the passive voice – This can really change the tone of your writing and engage your potential customer. “So what does that really mean?” you may ask. Well, according to Dictionary.com, it’s: “When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence ‘Kevin hit the ball.’ Kevin (the subject of the sentence) acts in relation to the ball.” So make sure you are acting in relation to your potential customers.

• Write so your potential audience can read it – Seriously here. If your potential audience is a bunch of high school dropouts and your website sounds like it was written by a college professor, no one in your target audience will read it, much less get what you’re saying. You have to write in a way that your audience will understand. That doesn’t necessarily mean using colloquialisms or using slang and jargon (though it can if you honestly think that will help). It does mean writing simply, clearly and to the point so your potential audience understands you.

Word has a great tool that allows you to see your readability statistics after you’ve run a spell check. This includes how much of your writing is in the passive voice (which is bad) and your Flesch Kincaid score, or approximate grade level of your writing. Here’s how you find this tool:

Go to “Preferences” and click on “Spelling and Grammar.”

Once that screen comes up, look for “show readability statistics” under the “Grammar” heading. Click the box and hit “OK.”

The next time you run a spell check in Word, you’ll see a box like this when you finish:

iWork Pages does not support readability statistics. However, there are some websites you can use to check your FK score, including: 

• Readability-Score.com

• Read-Able.com

• TheWriter.com

Open Office has an extension you can add that will allow you to check the readability statistics. It canbe found here. 

You’ll notice that for the article I ran this particular Readability Statistic box on, only eight percent of my sentences were passive (which isn’t too bad, my goal is always 0 but sometimes I don’t make it) and my FK (Flesch-Kincaid) score is 7.9.

This means someone with an 8th grade reading level could read that article. Most marketing copy aims between 6th and 8th grade. Not because people are stupid, but because it means everyone can understand it, regardless of how far they continued their education. (FYI, this article has an FK score of 7.0)

So, I owe you one last idea on how to engage and convert your customers.

5. Be convincing.

“Well, yeah,” I hear you mutter. “Of course. I mean; that’s obvious, right?”

Sure it is. You’re convinced that your product is the next big thing. It’s going to take over the world and start a revolution. Well that’s great. I hope it works.

But it won’t work unless you can convince your customers of this fact. (Oh right, those guys.) Some of this goes back to all of the stuff we’ve already been talking about in this article:

• Talk to your customer

• Use benefits driven language instead of features driven language

• Appeal to your customers’ emotions

But it can really come down to one very simple question: Are you convinced that your product really is the very best option to solve your customers’ problem? Because if you’re not convinced yourself, you’ll never convince them or get them to buy.

So how can you be convincing?

Use customer testimonials – It’s all well and good for you to say how great your product is, but when someone else verifies that, your potential customers are more likely to listen. Look at the picture below. The testimonial shows how much Danielle has benefitted from using Build to Rock.

The marketers at Build to Rock used the testimonial section built into Pat’s FoodTruckr Sales Page template to insert this excellent customer testimonial.

“But I don’t have any customers yet!” I hear you cry. Well, it’s time to get some valid opinions.

You can:

• Give samples of your product away to friends, family or even complete strangers in return for a testimonial after they’ve used your product.

• Get some authority in your field to review your product.

• Get a celebrity to use and recommend your product.

Yes, all of this can take time, but it goes a long way to convincing other people that your product is the thing for them.

You can also…

Offer a money back guarantee – It always surprises me how many companies fail to do this. But by offering a guarantee, you’re taking the risk off of your customer and putting it on yourself. You’re saying, “I am so convinced that you’ll love this product and it will solve your problem perfectly, that I’m willing to let you try it for free. If you aren’t satisfied, I’ll give you your money back.”

That kind of conviction can be just the push your potential customers need to get them to click on that buy button that has been sitting there, so expectantly, on your page. Once you free them from the fear of owning something that doesn’t work or that they can’t use, the decision to buy can be a lot easier to make.

We offer a 30-day money back guarantee here at LeadPages™ because we really want you to be happy with our product.

The money-back guarantee we offer all new LeadPages™ users.

Will you get some people who take advantage of that guarantee? Yes, you probably will. But the number of people who decide to buy, who wouldn’t have been convinced otherwise, can easily outweigh that. It’s a win-win situation all around. 

So there you are…

Now you know why your website isn’t engaging your customers and you have 5 tools to fix it. Go forth, change the world and enjoy your boat in the Bahamas.

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The 25 Best Blogger Widgets

Blogger is a very popular free blogging platform. It provides very flexible and robust blogging environment where you can start your blog in few minutes. There are thousands of widgets and plugins are available for blogger blogs. Which are very easy to add and manage in your blog. In this article we will discuss about 25 best blogger widgets.

Facebook Likebox – Facebook is the king of all the social networking websites. It can be used as powerful marketing tool for expanding your business online. Facebook like box is powerful widget by facebook which is capable of accomplishing this task. It is the most popular blogger widget. It helps in increasing your facebook fans by connecting your blog with a facebook fanpage.

Share buttons – Share buttons are the most essential part of any blog or website. They helps in increasing your blog’s traffic by spreading your voice over the internet. If you want to increase your blog’s traffic and popularity then your must add these share buttons to your blog. There are various types of share buttons are available for blogger like floating share buttons, share buttons below post titles, share buttons below posts and animated share buttons for blogger.

Navigation Menu – Navigation menu is the most important component of any blog or website. A good navigation menu also helps in attracting visitors towards your blog. It will also help your blog visitors to easily navigate though your blog posts. There are various types of navigation menus are available for blogger like floating dropdown menu, facebook like menu, Mega dropdown menu, Floating menu, Dropdown menu, Navigation menu with search box,Multicolor navigation menu.

Subscription box – This widgets helps in increasing your blog subscribers. It contains the subscription links for all your important social media networks like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google plus. Your blog visitors can easily become your fans or followers on any of your social network in a single click with the help of this widget. In this way this widget helps in turning your blog visitors to your blog subscribers. Add all in one subscription to blogger.

Social media icons – Social media icons widget performs similar task of a subscription widget. It also helps in increasing your social network followers. Social media icons widget is available in various forms some popular forms  of this widget are floating social icons ,WordPress like social icons widget and spinning social icons widget.

Author box – This widget provides information about the author of the blog. It can be added to the sidebar or below every post in your blog. Add author box below post in blogger.

Syntax Highlighter – If you are a programmer or a web developer and post codes on your blog then syntax highlighter is the best widget for you. It can be easily customized according to the look and color scheme of your blog. 5 Syntax highlighter designs for blogger blogs.

Live chat widget – It is very user friendly and interactive widget. It can be used to create small live discussions between your blog visitors. It is free of cost and its installation is very easy. Add live chat widget to blogger.

Comment system - Comment System of any blog is one of the core components of the blog. Your blog’s comment system must be stylish and full of all advance features like avatar support, comment moderation, multi threaded comments. There different types of comment systems are available for blogger like LiveFyre comments for blogger, Disqus comment system for blogger, Intense Debate Comment System for blogger.

Facebook follow button – It helps in increasing your facebook followers. Your blog visitors can follow you on facebook in a single click.

Google Plus followers – This widget helps in increasing your Google plus followers. You can read our post on Adding custom Google plus followers widget in blogger.

Content Accordion – Accordion menu widget helps in managing your links. If you have large number of categories of content then you can use this accordion menu to manage those categories,.

Facebook Activity feed plugin – It displays the live activities of your blog visitors on facebook. It helps in boosting your blog’s traffic up to greater extent. Adding facebook live activity feed plugin to blogger.

Custom popular posts – It displays list of popular articles of your blog. Popular posts widget helps in increasing pageviews of the blog. Add 4 popular posts widgets to blogger.

Search box – It is the most important widget. It helps in searching content in your blog. Read our post of 5 stylish search box designs for blogger.

Empty Ad banners – If you want to make money by selling advertisement space on your blog then it the best widget for you. It displays empty advertise here banners on your blog.

Custom labels – Labels in blogger refers to the content categories. These labels are used to specify different post categories. Read our post on 5 designs for customizing blogger labels.

Related Posts Widget – It displays related posts along with the thumbnails. You can read our post on adding related posts widget with thumbnails to blogger.

Blogger contact form – Blogger’s default contact us form widget is very compact and light weight contact us form. Due to the presence of this widget there is no need to add third party contact form to blogger.

Latest Pins – You can embed your latest pins from your Pinterest Account to your blogger blog. Read our post on adding Pinterest latest pins to blogger.

Twitter Timeline – Displays your latest tweets and a twitter follower button connected to your twitter account on your blog. Adding twitter timeline widget to blogger

Notification bar – It displays any important notification or message for your blog visitors.Adding sticky notification bar to blogger.

Twitter follow button - Increase your twitter follower in a single click. Your blog visitors can follow you on your twitter network with the help of this widget.

Email subscription widget – It is very useful widget which increases your blog’s subscribers. Which further increases your blog’s overall traffic. Adding compact email subscription widget below posts to blogger.

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5 Quick and Easy Ways to Use Social Media to Build Your Email List

Email marketing is huge and likely will be for many years to come. In fact, in Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s recently released 2015 State of Marketing Report, 73 percent of 5,000 marketers agreed that email marketing is core to their businesses and 60 percent went so far as to say that it was a “critical enabler” of their products and services, an 18 percent increase over 2014.

Here are five quick and easy ways that you can use social media to build not just a large, but a highly targeted and engaged email list.

1. Integrate your email service with your Facebook page.

Most major email service providers will have an app that allows you to collect emails right from within your Facebook page. These apps will let you have a fully functional email opt-in form, and your fans will never even have to leave Facebook.

Related: 8 Social Media Mistakes That Are Killing Your Brand

Your fans will simply need to click on the tab underneath your cover photo to access the form. As always, it’s a good idea to offer something of value here rather than just asking your fans to sign up for your list.

2. Hold a contest.

Hold a contest that makes handing over a valid email address an entry requirement. Try to choose a prize that only your target audience would care about, otherwise you could end with a whole lot of subscribers who really don’t care about your business. A strategically designed contest can yield amazing results.

To increase interest in my annual social media live event, Social Boom, I ran a Facebook contest where the winner would receive an “All Access Pass” to the event. Within 48 hours I had more than 800 entries, each one willing to give me their email address in exchange for their entry.

The best part is that these are not just “any” email subscribers. They are interested in social media or they would have not entered a contest to win a free ticket to a social media event.

There are a lot of great, low-cost apps out there that make it quick and easy to build your own Facebook contest.

3. Use Twitter to reach more followers and build your list.

With it getting harder and harder to reach fans on Facebook without using paid advertising, many (including me!) are finding great success distributing free offers using Twitter. For instance, my free ebook, 23 Quick & Easy Ways to Get More Twitter Retweets, has been downloaded over 10,000 times, resulting in thousands of new email list subscribers, as a result of a continuing series of tweets.

Even more exciting, I do not have to actually be on site to post the tweets. There are tons of tweet schedulers out there. I use Hootsuitefor my normal tweet scheduling but, for evergreen content, such as a free offer, I use SocialOomph and build something called a queue reservoir. The software lets me set the times, frequency and campaign duration as well as recycles the tweets for later use. It is about as close to an automated email-building machine as you can get!

Related: How to Get Online Customers to Find You and Trust You

4. Use visual-based content to increase conversions.

Tweets with graphics get way more engagement in the form of “retweets” and “favorites” on Twitter than those that don't. People focus in on and would rather engage with pictures than words. That means greater reach and virality for you and more people clicking on and taking your free offers, newsletter opt-ins, etc., and joining your email list.

This does not just work on Twitter. It also works on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and most other social media sites.

5. Promote your offers.

Did you know that 42 percent of Facebook fans like a fan page primarily for the discounts and coupons they expect to get there? Facebook offers are a great way for getting your fans to "claim" a discount or coupon. As I discussed above, you can also use offers to give away your free info product.

While you can also promote these via your status updates, using paid Facebook offers gives you an added benefit: those who "claim" your offer get an email with details of the offer. This gets your name and business in front of them -- not just on Facebook -- but in their inbox as well.

While you don’t get access to their email address at this point, you will want to make sure you collect emails on the signup page people are sent to when they claim your offer.

On a recent offer, I spent $200 in Facebook advertising and 488 people claimed the offer. However, I got much more traffic than that because many of those people shared the offer with their fans and friends. The bottom line is I added 1,000 targeted list subscribers in just a few days.

Hopefully you can use one or more of these five quick and easy ways to use social media to help you build your email list.
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10 Social Media Marketing Lies And Myths Debunked!

Folktales, fantasies, fables, falsehoods, fabrications, fictions and fibs – the internet is brimming with many myths and misconceptions on how to worm your way to a meaningful return on investment with your social media marketing campaigns. These fallacies actually manage to travel faster, farther and wider than they do in other industries, simply due to the very medium through which they have evolved – digital communication.

Ask any social marketer or regular blogger out there, and they will tell you these pesky little illusions crop up all the time – and there’s actually a very good reason for this. Nearly all social media marketing lies and myths almost always begin with a grain of truth. Indeed, that’s exactly what makes them so shareable and spreadable – if they were complete and utter nonsense, then no one would ever believe them in the first place.

And so they spread, snowballing in their bogusness, picking up little verifications and qualifications as to why they are marketing gospel along the way. And pretty soon they’ve reached the screens of millions of users worldwide and they become like common knowledge.

Well, here and now we’d like to put a stop to some of them. We’ve rounded up the top 10 most common social media marketing lies and myths in order that we can debunk them.

“A lie is bad, the truth is best, but a half-truth is the worst of them all.” 

So, what are they? 

1. If you build it, they will come

No they won’t. Whether it’s a blog, website or top of the range ecommerce online storefront, with literally millions and billions of blogs posted, page views and purchases made online everyday, without a meaningful strategy in place to market and share your content across social media channels, no one is going to be able to find your site at all. Put simply, it’s not enough to simply produce content anymore, you have to actively promote it.

2. Social is a 9-5 job

Wrong!! Social media is 24/7/365. Hopefully this won’t come as too much of a shock to any newbies out there, but that’s the truth of it. To ensure that your marketing campaigns make a meaningful impact in the world of social media, you can never, ever switch off. And that means utilising plenty of scheduling tools (we do appreciate that marketers need sleep, even if the internet doesn’t).

3. For better results, keep posting the same content

I have to say that I’m surprised that this one is still floating around out there. But it is. Reposting the same articles and links over and over again does nothing but irritate your following. Reposting the same articles and links over and over again does nothing but irritate your following.

Mix your content up and keep it interesting. Use different mediums such as images and video. Research shows that social media posts perform better, attracting more engagement and shares when they contain other media.

4. Blogs between 300 and 700 words are best

No they’re not. This myth has grown because internet audiences are supposed to have the attention span of a goldfish, right? But, in effect that’s just not true. Any blog posts that have anything at all of interest to say are going to be at least 800 words long – that’s just the nature of article writing. And it’s only blogs that have decent content and useful information that ever get indexed by Google. So, if you’re marketing, the short form, in the most part, is not good enough, and certainly not best.

In fact, long form blogs and articles perform better in the SERPs and it’s been suggested that this is due to the fact that there’s just not that many out there.

5. Negative comments will ruin your business

Some people think that the best way to avoid any public negativity is to keep away from the social side of things altogether. This is nonsense. The best way to avoid bad feedback is not to be a bad business – and that means getting on social media and promoting yourself. While it’s true that even some of the greatest companies in the world will occasionally get harassed by some Facebook hound with a bee in his bonnet, provided you’re not doing anything wrong, they will just and up looking silly. Be the best, and be proud of it on social. Simple.

6. The bigger the following, the more valuable it is 

Not always. If you follow this fallacy to the letter then you will end spending a fortune on those ridiculous Twitter posts that say something like: “Buy 10,000 followers for just $5!!” If you do this, then you may very well end up suddenly with a few thousand extra followers, but they will almost definitely be from dead accounts, and therefore will do nothing to promote or engage with your brand. Worst of all, these are so common that your genuine following will recognise immediately what you’ve done, and you will end up looking desperate, so don’t do that.

7. Social is only about discoverability

While this is true, social media is about a lot more besides. For one thing, it’s an unparalleled channel for customer service, not to mention crowd-sourcing, traffic building, customer relations, sales, business intelligence and identifying brand ambassadors and key influencers. Whatever you do, do not simply dismiss social media marketing as a means only of getting your business discovered.

8. Social is a job for interns and apprentices

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Social media marketing is one of the most important jobs in your business. A marketer is the portrayer, guarder and enhancer of a company’s reputation and personality. If you think it’s some sub-standard role that can be handled by anybody, then think again. Social is a job for the president or CEO much more than it is for an intern. Don’t underestimate its importance.

9. Google+ is a waste of time

No it isn’t – and neither are any of the other social media platforms for that matter. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn hold the top spots, true, but don’t ever forget Instagram, Pinterest or Google+. Think about it, before Facebook really kicked off, wouldn’t you have loved to be have been one of the smart ones who already had a firm foothold on the platform before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon and you had to start from scratch? Your following is everywhere on the internet. Go to them before your competitors do.

10. Sharing competitors’ content is a bad idea

On the contrary, it’s a darn good one. While it’s quite understandable as to why this myth has arisen – why should I promote a company with which I am in direct competition? – it is nonetheless completely untrue. Sharing your competitors’ content does a number of things. Firstly, it shows your own followers that you are determined to deliver them the very best information – even if it doesn’t come from you. Secondly, you will probably find that your competitors start sharing your content in return – after all, just like them, you are an expert in their industry’s niche.

There’s an old saying that goes something like “keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer”, and that’s just as true for the social media marketer as it is for James Bond. It’s never a bad idea to keep a very close eye on exactly what your competitors are up to, and one of the best ways of doing is to build a relationship with them and actively engage with material that they produce.

Final Thoughts

Like anything that’s popular, social media is subject to a lot of discussion and since it’s a relatively new platform, people (including marketers) are still learning about the best ways to leverage it. Don’t take everything that you hear at face value though, instead, do your research, come up with a strong strategy and you should see great results!

Got any more social media marketing myths that you’d like to add to this list? Please let us all know in the comments below. 

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5 Pointless Marketing Metrics You Can Stop Tracking Today

In life, many people believe that more = better. More traffic, visitors, and customers? Yep, that's better. More time in your day to do the things you love? That's better. More collaboration between Sales and Marketing? That's definitely better.

But in many areas of marketing, more doesn't always mean better. Take your marketing data, for example. Though having data about your marketing programs is crucial to analyzing your success and making changes to future programs, some individual metrics aren't actually that helpful. And with only so much time in your day, you can't afford to spend your time analyzing data that won't help you make better marketing decisions. 

If you want to get a full run-down on the metrics you should (and shouldn't be tracking, tune into our webinar on March 11 called Smart Reporting: How to Stop Wasting Time and Make Better Marketing Decisions. To register for that webinar, click here.

In the meantime, let's take a look at some of the metrics you might not want to track -- and give you suggestions for different metrics to look at instead.

1) Email Opens

When you first hear about it, open rate seems like a great metric to track -- it's the percentage of people opening your emails. You assume it'll give you an understanding of how many people are interested enough in your emails that they open them. 

But open rate can be a misleading metric. It can vary based upon the email client that someone is using to open his or her email. This is because an "open" is counted when the images load in the recipient's email. But what if someone doesn't allow images to load by default? And what if someone gets the text-based version of your email? Those folks won't get counted in your overall open rate.

So instead of looking at your open rate, look at the clickthrough rate. This metric will allow you to see not just how many people are opening and clicking on your email. That will help you better understand how many people are interested enough in your content that they want to engage with your company further. 

2) Facebook Likes

A Like on Facebook can be exciting. It shows that your audience is interested in your content and likes (no pun intended) what they see -- plus, having more Likes on your post means it could be shown more often in the News Feed. But just because someone Likes your post doesn't mean they're actually clicking through to your website -- which, you know, is a top reason why you're on Facebook in the first place. 

When you create your next Facebook post, think about how your post could drive clickthroughs. Are there certain words or images you could use to inspire people to take action? As great as a Like is to show your content to more followers, it still does not translate into action on your website. 

If you're a HubSpot customer, try using Attribution Reports to see which content is more likely to drive conversions. 

3) Ad Impressions

You may get thousands of impressions from someone seeing your ad -- you rack up an impression every time someone "sees" your ad. But counting when something is seen is actually more complicated than it sounds. Some ad programs count an impression every time the page is loaded -- regardless of whether the ad was actually viewable. This means that an ad below the fold could be loaded and counted as an impression, even if the user never scrolled down. Or maybe an ad loaded at the top of the page, but because of banner blindness, people might not realize there's an ad there. Or maybe the user has Adblock on -- even though they're not viewing an ad, they can still rack up impressions for advertisers, too.

Since tracking impressions so unreliable, it's better to look at the clickthrough rate on your ads -- even if you're not aiming to get conversions on an ad, it'll give you a much better understanding of how well your ad is doing.

Let's use a real example to put this in perspective. Let's say I went to YouTube because I wanted to see Seth Godin's keynote from INBOUND 2013 (Side note: He'll be back at INBOUND 2015 this year. Register here to see him). There was an ad on the upper right hand side for Bose. I see it, so that counts as ad one impression from me. However, I didn't click on it. So even though I saw the ad, is that a valuable metric for them? Not as much as if I had clicked on it.

So look for ways to drive conversions with your ads instead of just getting exposure. If you know that certain placements for your ads drive more conversions than others, that may be the best place to put your ad.

4) Blog Comments

There are many reasons companies blog. We blog to gain authority in our industry. We blog to rank for keywords that are important to our business in search engines. We blog to generate visits to our website. We blog to generate leads for our business. We blog to generate customers. 

One metric many companies use to when looking to achieve the above goals is the number of blog comments. Typically it is a good practice to encourage commenting to ask additional questions and continue the conversation in the comments, but you shouldn't always rely on the volume or quality of the discussion to determine whether that blog post is successful (or not).

Why? Comments don't always correlate with business-building goals. You could have a blog post that has twenty or thirty comments but generates only a handful of visits. You could also have a blog post that has one comment but generates tons of leads. The number of visits and leads generated from a blog post can give you a much better picture of the health of your blog when it comes to driving bottom-line results. 

5) Reports on Your Entire Database

Marketers are constantly analyzing the behavior and actions taken by all of the contacts in their database. But often they bucket them together into one group and do the analysis on all of their contacts.

However not all contacts were created equal. Some are from one persona, others are from different industries, and still others are from different locations. By not segmenting based on these characteristics, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Segmenting your contacts based on similar characteristics will ensure you get more accurate information. For example, if someone is the persona Small Business Owner, and someone else is the persona Fortune 500 CEO, they are probably going to respond differently to your different marketing channels. Just because they are leads for your company doesn't mean your marketing style shouldn't change. However, by segmenting them into two separate groups and when you do your analysis, you will get more accurate data on what works and what doesn't for each part of your database.

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