Looking Outside of STEEM to grow your Blog #3 Collecting Email Addresses
Hay everyone and welcome to my Dtube Video
Continuing with this series on how to get more eyes on your content, in this video I talk about the importance of growing your email list. The dos and the dont’s. What is and what is not acceptable. Growing your email list gives you the ability to contact your followers or your customers and gives you some control if a third-party platform such as Youtube or Dtube were to shut its doors tomorrow, or if they were to make a change in policy that you do not agree with.
Although this might not be how some people want to use STEEM, personally I don’t want to give any third-party platform control over my future and my content when they decide to change how they are operating.
I would love to hear your opinion on collecting email address on posts made to the STEEM blockchain, please do comment below.
I hope you enjoy the video
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
I've been doing it for a couple of months now: offering an RSS feed link and a mailing list to subscribe to. For now, still without incentive, but I will probably add one soon.
The problem is that since the by SteemIt itself provided RSS feed is gone, you are forced to use external services - unless you post on WP and cross-post to SteemIt, of course.
I do have WP blogs, but most of my SteemIt posts are written on the platform. (I should really change that habit and start writing from my blog again.)
The fact that I use the platform to write my posts - something most people do, btw - makes I need to rely on a service like FetchRSS which is pretty limited, even when you sign up for the paid version.
IMO, a big part of your mailing list should be automated. But you can't automate a mailing list without an auto-updating feed. I don't have a clue why it is taking SteemIt almost a year to implement a feature that would give authors on here such a broader reach. 'They are working on it'... lol.
I've been in internet marketing for 15 years before I came to SteemIt, and it still surprises me that some of the basic marketing techniques are completely ignored here. When I first arrived here, about 15 months ago, there wasn't even a single piece of info to be found on marketing.
I know have a very common link underneath my signature that shows people they can sign up for my mailing list. I am thinking about adding an incentive to it, which will make the announcement 'more visible'. It would be a more obvious CTA.
I'm really curious to see how the...
- hahaha, only now I see this is one of your posts, @paulag. I should pay more attention. (Can't watch the video right now, so I was just going by the written text)
I wanted to say that I was curious about how the 'early adopters' would feel about offering a mailing list incentive. Somehow I have the idea a lot of them would disapprove.
I could be wrong, of course.
Things might have changed.
A year ago, I got flagged down to rep 11 because I used affiliate links...
Still, I think building a mailing list is very important. However, it is not easy to get that message through to your following...
Good morning @simplymike. You have left some amazing comments here on this post, thank you for adding so much value.
I came across your youtube video last week when i was trying to do something around RSS feeds. there is so much basics missing here on steem its crazy, including the ability to get stats. Trying to attract influences here is impossible when they do not have the ability to see what works and what does not work.
We came to steem around the same time and we experienced the same thing, lack of marketing tools, lack of information and lack of knowledge and now that you mention it, I actually remember you being flagged for the links.
Things do seem to have changed a little. Many people place CTOs in their posts, but most of them are still only for internal steem stuff.
You have way way more experience in this field than me. I would love to see you do a series to help educate the steem users, I know I could learn a lot from you myself.
I'm not a wizard when it comes to those things - I mean, I'm no Jerry Banfield or Joe Parys, lol. It's more like 'in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king' - haha, story of my life.
But I do know some basics, and if I don't know them, I'm very good with Google Search :0)
Things have definitely changed since I first got here. I've come across some very interesting marketing-related articles these last couple of months. But like everything here on SteemIt, it's hard to retrace them once the post has reached payout and disappeared into the dungeons of SteemIt.
I wrote a couple of posts on how to reach a broader audience myself, but I can't find them, lol. I only set up IFTTT to save links to my published posts in Google Sheets in May of this year. To find anything I wrote before that time, I need to go digging.
There are so many good posts about the importance of SEO, or with tips on how to generate external traffic. I have a step-by-step guide on how to set up a newsletter subscription service... but as with everything here on SteemIt, after 7 days, you have to start all over again.
There's one post on SEO in particular I can always retrace, because it is also a WP blog post and ranks high in Google (as any SEO-related post should), and I go back there from time to time, just as a little reminder.
http://infobunny.com/steemit-blog-seo-optimise-steemit-blogs/
I took a quick look at @infobunny's SteemIt blog, and he has quite some marketing tutorials on it. It's a shame new SteemIt users never get to see them.
I have been thinking about creating a page on my blog with links to the best marketing-related articles, and then add a link to that page in my header, but I'm afraid it won't serve a purpose. The average user here on SteemIt believes that the internal audience is the limit. If I remember correctly, it used to be one of SteemIt's advertising pitches: 'the audience is already there' or something like that.
I'd love to help educate users, but I think the hardest part will be to make them understand it's important to look further than SteemIt alone.
The more quality articles we can get high in the search rankings, the better for the blockchain.
But if we want to educate users, we must realize we have to start at level -1. The average user has no idea about how search engines work, don't know the importance of keywords, never heard of a meta description... they are basically a blank canvas.
I think it would be an interesting challenge, though. After all, I am a teacher by profession, and I simply love teaching.
I'll continue my page-long comment as a reply on your other comment. As I had plenty more to say on the new ads and the kind of traffic SteemIt generates, but I wanted to finish this comment first.
(If this doesn't help me to rank higher in Asher's league tomorrow, nothing will, lol)
When I started out on Udemy as an instructor, the sales pitch to get new instructors was very much the same as steem. Earn money with little or no experience. Once they onboarded you as an instructor they pushed you to learn how to market your course online. I think its still more or less the same. 99% of instructors started on level -1 and guess who I met there, yep jerry and joe.
now the steem is getting more non crypto people I don't think it will be so hard to get them to understand they need to look further than steemit. simply put, steemit is a limited audience and if we have 5000 active individuals i would be surprised.
I didnt seen @infobunny before - looks like they could also use steempress. Such a pity they didn't get traction here on steem.
with regards finding your posts, I use a data query to pull all mine into a spreadsheet. Im about to head out with the kids now, but when I get back I will pull a sheet together for you, just so you have it handy
Oooh, that would be so cool! No more wasting hours looking for a post I wrote 13 or 14 months ago....
Jerry was a big guy in the B2B internet Marketing biz when I just started. I learned a lot from him and did business with him. That was like 10 years before I arrived here. I was really surprised to find him here, being a big hit again.
But what surprised me even more was the absence of all the other big names I was dealing with day in day out. There's one I found here once, but he was gone before he started.
But even then, so many people on here have been in marketing - professional marketing - before they came to SteemIt... it's really almost unbelievable.
And all of them seem to have left their skills at the door. Lol
I think you might be right about how the non-crypto people will make it easier to deliver the message.
If only I had some stats.... I mean, I have so many systems set up to broadcast my posts to a zillion different places and I have absolutely no idea what is working and what is not.
It would be so much easier if you could just show people 2 case studies that show the difference between an SEO optimized post that was promoted outside of SteemIt, and just a regular post.
Who am I kidding? I don't even know if there would be a significant difference between the two...
lack of stats is a big problem, I actaully was going to do a video on that next week. Maybe someone will do a pull request on steemcondencer after they watch my video....lol if only..... a pull request and changes the the code is way above me so I need to get people on my side.
Im just running that data query for you now. I will DM you on discord with the file
Nice video @paulag. Really thinking out of the box here. Or at least in the context of the steemisphere.
The money is definitely in the List as well as long term Relationships. Great points about losing Followers immediately if Steem closed tomorrow.
And Iam so in tune with you on creating content here on Dtube that is not crypto related. Please let's get more people doing this.
Again, thanks for your very well done video
Don't put all of your eggs in one basket as the saying goes. If you don't directly hold your contact's details, as it goes on Facebook and the like, the contacts are not yours.
I take every opportunity to invite people to sign on for my mailing list.
I hope you dont mind, but I am just going to drop a link here of your latest blog post to show how easy it is to add a call to action on a steem post to sign up to a newsletter.
https://steemit.com/dtube/@leoplaw/8vi4vwig
=D
Email list sounds like it be great to have every time there a dip in the price, a hard fork, some massive scandal, a whatever that causes anyone who is consuming and supporting you to disengage from the platform based on something out of your own control. I have in the past check in on people from leaving them comment and hoping they have something that notifies them they have a comment or chatting with people on discord. Many people that I’ve known who are no longer active on Steemit still log into discord. It’s just not a very effective way to go about it.
While I’m not quite sure if I want do an email list. I’ll add mailchimp on my list to get back around to and to look into further. With there being some free features that at least worth looking into in and trying out. Right now I want make sure I don’t have a bunch of runaway costs with no plan in how I’m able to recover operation expensive. I’m glad you talk a little about the free version giving you time to work that out. You have also give me some things I need to consider over like creating a privacy statement.
Including my twitter at the end and not make it to overwhelming is something I’ll give some thought to as I have a desire to at least grow that. I just don’t want someone to come to the bottom of my post and see a massive wall of text and links. I’m not quite sure what would be considered the “ideal” amount of space to use before a reader gets overwhelmed or has a higher chance of just skipping over it.
I’ve come across people who information section at the bottom far exceeds there blog post in length to the point it’s just overwhelming. I’ve seen some “here are my 10 community I’m in and there giant oversized logos/footers included, here are 5 cryptocurrency wallets you can support me at, here every single social media account I have ever created.” As a reader that just makes me go “eeek” and I move on before I make it to the upvote button at the bottom” Somewhere is that balance.
yes I too have seen footers and calls to actions longer than posts, and I am not suggesting that. Do have a look at @leoplaw latest post and the call to action to sign up for the newsletter
https://steemit.com/dtube/@leoplaw/8vi4vwig
Mailchimps free features are rather impressive, and there is no way I would start to advocate people spending money to get them selves up and running. I have used mailchimp for a few years now, and I was able to keep under the limit for a good long time by cleaning down my list ever so often. If someone didnt open say the last 15 newsletters, then I would send them a mail asking them if they wanted to continue receiving mails, if they didnt reply, I would remove them from my list. No point in having dead weight.
What would you do if discord closed the door over night? Not saying this will happen, but reliance on a third party is dangerous. Steemit gets a lot of traffic, we know this because steemit inc are able to monitize it with ads now. there could be a lot of people that visit your blog once, like your content but never find it again. Giving them the ability to sign up to your newsletter gives you the opportunity to capture some of the traffic steemit.com gets.
It's a useful content you just put out there paulag thank you
well, you can have a personal blog page and use steempress to link it to steem through wordpress.
Then collect the emails through mailchimp. I do not see why not. Its another onboarding process for steem and if there are a lot of people doing that then more people can trickle onto the platform in a natural process
So i would say, good idea
I do it on my brand account for which I use steempress. Its one of the first things you learn as a blogger off steem. my experience when I started on steem was that a 'call to action' in a post is frowned upon by the steem community and well its hasn't do us much justices.
Exactly. CTAs are not very welcome here. But hey, a year ago, affiliate links weren't either. And now you see them everywhere. Maybe it's just something that needs to be introduced gently by a couple of people with a little authority, together with a heap of information about the how and why.
I can't imagine people being against it if they know how effective it can be.
"I can't imagine people being against it if they know how effective it can be."
100%
That's a good idea am considering creating my own blog with wix but,I thing WordPress will be better because of the steemit plug-in that way I can repost on steemit from my blog.
steempress with wordpress is fantastic and there are many positive reasons to use it. I think one of the big advantages is that steem can be a little scary for many, but a standard blog, well people are so use to it so they are not so afraid. you can also keep an eye on your traffic, see what is doing well and what is not doing well, something you can no do with steem yet when posting directly
True talk.I guess is settled then is WordPress all the way
Finally made up your mind, then? Lol.
The possibilities of WP are almost endless, whether it comes to content creation, traffic generation, building a followers base,... anything you can think of. And there is of course SteemPress. All the benefits (??) of Steem, combined with the million more possibilities of WP.
A lot of people's work here deserves a bigger audience than just the members of the platform, and WP is the tool that can, no: will make that happen.
steempress rocks. I am now using it on my non steem blog and I am hoping it becomes a valued added benefit for my blog over others that blog about the same topic as me. right now I am in soft launch mode. I havent done much in terms of notifiy my users what it is all about. In stead I am letting them get use to the look of the new comments section and letting them see some rewards might just spark curiosity ( which is having an effect because I have had some direct emails asking about it)
Feel free to take a look at one of the posts with steempress in use. The content is not up your alley but im just showing you so you can see how it works.
http://theexcelclub.com/how-to-parse-custom-json-data-using-excel/
in simple terms what I am hoping is that people will start to engage, earn rewards for doing so which they can then offset against the prices of my courses. I do hope to power up by brand account here on steem so I can give the rewards.
It is really great idea to implement it like that. And an A+ for your 'sales pitch' - I mean, you've put it in such a way that it will indeed be effective.
But I wondered ever since I tried implementing Steem comments through Steempress on my own WP blog: do people who do not have a SteemIt account have any option to comment?
I couldn't find one on my blog, and now I can't seem to find one on yours. Maybe it is there, and so obvious that I'm not seeing it - it wouldn't be the first time, lol.
Still, if enabling Steem comments in Steempress allows only people with a SteemIt account to comment, you'll be limiting yourself, IMO.
I had seen some Excel posts on the Udemy website when I was checking back on your Steem course. I find such things very interesting, and I see how it works, but at some point my brain simply refuses to process the information. It's a shame, because I'd love to be able to work with it. But apparently, my brain sees and treats JSON as well as Javascript as well as PHP like math. After 5 lines, it simply shuts down and I can't process the info. Maybe I should get myself a real life, preferably handsome (that always helps) teacher one day who can teach my brain to tell the difference... ;0)
you are right, people dont have the option without a steem account to leave a comment and I have removed the old comments section completely. Actually I removed it well before I introduced steem comments because I was getting to much spam. lol having to sign up for steem seems to be a deterant for spammers on my blog anyways. However I also changed the format of my blog. before it was just an educational post with no real reason to interact. Now on each post I add an activity with data for people to copy and I put in some questions for people to answer and then the following week I update the blog post with a video tutorial working though the practice activity. Its all still really new and I see people are click to sign up with steem. When I do the harder launch, fingers crossed it will work out.
Lol I get you about the topic, javascript and PHP mess with my head too. its not for everyone and I guess thats why my email list is successful, people don't sign up to it unless they really want the content.
You are right, not only steemians may read you. Sometimes I look for something in google and I find articles from steemit. We may reach some traffic from outside if we leave our contacts in our blogs.
If steemit inc are able to monitize steemit with ad revenue, then there are plenty of eyes getting to our content. The problem is they dont want to sign up for a steem account. we could see this as a barrier for steem content creators. collecting email addresses is standard for blogging elsewhere, and I think its a good idea to do it on steem too. thanks for your comment @clixmoney
Are they really monerizing the platform with those ads.
Of course, everyone can monetize his site with Adsense, but as I'm on my phone and can't seem to be able to find any mobile ads, I don't even know if they are using Adsense.
I mean, it's not because they are displaying ads, that this means the content here is seen more.
To really monetize SteemIt, you need to make it attractive for advertisers, and that is not the case. The number of SteemIt articles that reach a broader audience is very limited. Too limited to be interesting for advertisers.
steemit gets a lot of traffic. Similar web shows almost 12m visitors in December. Pity most of them do not sign up for a wallet. The ads are only seen when you are logged out. For a while I was seeing ads for content marketing lol. now they seem to have changed and steemit seems to be looking for direct advertisements. I just took a quick screen grab to show you
There is also now the change of mind from steemit inc in the importance of steemit.com. Not so long ago it was on maintenance, now they have added ads and steemit.com is back to being a core part of the business. Ned himself said that he was surprised with the first lot of revenue.
This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
Editor of the The State of Steem SoS Daily News.
Promoter of The State of Steem SoS Weekly Forums.
Editor of the weekly listing of steem radio shows, podcasts & social broadcasts.
Founder of the A Dollar A Day charitable giving project.
I know many people turn the other way when they hear the words 'online marketing', but email marketing is still very powerful and a great email series can make the difference between a one-time visitor and a long-term client/user/member.
an email list can make a massive difference, from my experience anyway. Unfortunately the old saying 'build it and they will come' is not fully the case for online content creators.
Hi @paulag!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 7.042 which ranks you at #89 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 380 contributions, your post is ranked at #19.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server