Aweber WordPress Web Form Plugin

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Nov 18, 2010 in Internet Mastery | 0 comments

If you use Aweber for your email marketing you will be delighted to know that today they released their AWeber Web Form Widget for WordPress. You can use it to place your Aweber forms on your WordPress site with just a few click. There is no need to copy and paste code any longer.

With the Webform Widget for WordPress, you can easily drag and drop web forms that you have created in your AWeber account into your WordPress blog, without having to log into your AWeber account or copy and paste anything. All you need is an AWeber account and a completed web form.

Step By Step Instructions

Step 1: You can find the AWeber WordPress Web Form Widget on WordPress.org. You can use WordPress to install the widget for you, but if you’re manually installing it, make sure you upload it to “/wp-content/plugins/”. Once installed, activate it on your Plugins page by clicking the Activate link.

Step 2: To connect the widget to your AWeber account, first click AWeber Web Form under the Settings tab on the left of your WordPress control panel.

On this page, click the link next to “Step 1″.

Step 3: You will be taken to a page asking you to authorize the connection between your AWeber account and the widget. Enter your login name and password here and hit the “Allow” button.

You’ll be taken to a page with an authorization code (it will be a long string of characters) – simply highlight it and copy it to your clipboard.

Step 4: Back in your WordPress control panel, just paste the authorization code into the space provided and click the “Make Connection” button.

Step 5: Once you’ve installed this widget and connected it to your AWeber account, head over to the Widgets page under Appearance on the left side of your WordPress dashboard.

Simply drag the widget (it will show up under Available Widgets as “AWeber Web Form”) into the widget area in which you’d like your form to appear.

Sep 6: Once the widget is in place, you can choose which form you would like to appear. Expand the AWeber Web Form widget’s options by clicking the arrow to its right, then use the drop down menus to choose the list you want to work with:

And the web form you’d like to place on your blog:

Then hit ”save” to save your changes, and your form will be installed on your blog.

How to Apply the Rules of Dating to Your Business

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Nov 8, 2010 in Entrepreneurism | 0 comments

Courting your Customers: The Secrets to Perfecting the Customer Lifecycle

Do you ever feel like you’re on a perpetual first date with your prospects? You focus on wearing the right outfit, saying the right things, knowing when/if to ask for a second date, and avoiding getting broccoli stuck in your teeth.

And if things don’t go well, you have the heartache that comes with rejection…or in this case, the pain of lost revenue.
Well, I may not have the answer to your dating struggles (not to say you’re struggling). But our friends at Infusionsoft do have a proven way to convert leads into customers, turn customers into raving fans, and build quality relationships that last a lifetime. (And before you ask if I am an Infusionsoft customer, I will tell you that I am. And a very happy one!)

When you apply the principles of dating to your business, you begin to remember that your customers are people. Then you can analyze your marketing practices:

• Do you have the same canned lines for all of your dates (a generic marketing message)?
• Are you too pushy on the first date (asking for the sale too early)?
• Do you forget to call back (poor follow-up)?
• Are you taking your relationships for granted (not taking care of existing customers)?

These are common mistakes made by many business owners (and certainly many, many people in the dating world). But you can do better!

The Infusionsoft team has created a fun new video that shows one of the common mistakes businesses make when trying to connect with prospects. And when you’re done watching it, you’ll have a much better idea of what you can do to WOW your customers from the beginning.

Watch the video now.

Find out how to make a lasting impression with your customers.

(And we’ll be here to tell you if you have broccoli in your teeth…honest.)

To your success!

Forrester: E-mail marketing spending to reach $2 billion by 2014

Posted by Denise Griffitts on Jun 21, 2009 in Internet Mastery | 0 comments

Here’s an interesting report that I read on BtoB this morning.

Cambridge, Mass. – Spending on e-mail marketing in the U.S. will grow steadily to $2 billion by 2014, almost an 11% compound annual growth rate, according to a new forecast by Forrester Research.

Fueling the continuing reliance on e-mail as a direct marketing outreach are falling CPMs and high ROI, according to the Forrester report, “U.S. E-mail Marketing Forecast 2009 to 2014.”

Further, the report noted, the use of e-mail in social networks will be one of the biggest challenges for direct marketers, which face the need to bridge the gap between social and traditional inboxes with social sharing tools.

Do you have your email marketing up and running? We work in all the major systems for our clients and really like Aweber, Constant Contact and Vertical Response. You can also create some beautiful newsletters and broadcasts in 1shoppingcart if you are familiar with html. Unfortunately they don’t offer pre-designed templates at this time.