The Best Email Marketing Tools For Authors
In our last article, we talked about how email is the #1 thing authors should be using to sell books. After seeing those statistics, you're probably thinking, “OK. I need to set up an email list. So, how do I do that?” In this post, I'll introduce you to an email marketing platform designed for people who want email marketing to be simple.
Email Marketing Services
If you've ever read any blog posts or listened to any podcasts about email marketing you have most likely heard about MailChimp. MailChimp is one of the biggest and most well know email marketing services out there. It is a great service and tons of people use it. MailChimp isn't the only game in town. There are tons of different services for email marketing such as Aweber, Constant Contact, Drip… and the list could go on. Those are all great services; no question about it. But, for authors like us, we want email marketing to be simple and easy to use. If dealing with the email marketing tool is too hard, confusing, or takes too long then it gets frustrating fast and you end up not using it. That's why I use – and recommend that you use – MadMimi. (this is NOT an affiliate link)
What's So Great About MadMimi?
When people ask me what email marketing system I use, I see a lot of raised eyebrows when I say, “MadMimi!” People have either never heard of it or, think it's not powerful enough. We have thousands of people on our email list, I know people who have tens of thousands of people on their mailing lists using MadMimi with tons of success. I have also had people come up to me with drops of frustration across their foreheads saying that dealing with MailChimp is crazy complicated. I show them how MadMimi works and people instantly fall in love. You can learn to use MadMimi in about 5 minutes. Not only that, but you're not going to be missing any features that you're actually going to use.
So, what do I love about MadMimi? Three things:
- It's simple to use
- It's got all the features you need
- It's super affordable
What Features Do You Need?
Here's a quick list of 10 the things you want to be able to do with whatever email marketing service you choose. Don't worry if you don't know what this stuff is. I'll explain each thing in just a minute. Spoiler alert… MadMimi has all of this stuff.
- Put email opt-in forms on your website
- Create multiple different email lists
- Easily add people to new email lists
- Track who is opening and engaging with your emails
- See exactly which links in your email are getting clicks
- Create auto-responders
- Send newsletters
- Send drip campaigns
- Create lead magnets to deliver something free to people with they sign up
- Create sales funnels
Email Opt-In Forms
Perhaps the most important of all of the features and email marketing services needs as an easy way to put email opt-in forms on your website. MadMimi rocks at this. There are three great ways to set this up.
First MadMimi gives you a snippet of code to copy/paste on your website and it looks great. Check out the Free Lessons form over in the right sidebar of this page to see an example.
Second, you can get a link like this one that you can post on your Facebook page or tweet, or share anywhere you can put a link. It will open up a window with just the web form to sign up for your email list. Click here and see how ours works. That's a real form, so please feel free to sign up for our list and get awesome emails with info like this. =)
Third, there's a fantastic free WordPress plugin called Genesis eNews Extended that you can use to create your own custom email opt-in forms like the one you see at the bottom of this page.
All three of these options for collecting email addresses ultimately work in the exact same way, the only difference is how they look. They all collect email addresses and add them to the email list you specify when setting up the form.
Email Lists
In MadMimi everything works off lists and you can have as many lists as you want. For example, you might set up a list for your newsletter. Then you'd set up another list for each lead magnet you set up. A lead magnet is an email opt-in form where you offer something cool for free in exchange for the person's email address. For example, you might offer a free short story, a study guide, or some educational material that you will deliver via email as soon as someone signs up for your list. You'd put all these people on a separate email list named in a way that lets you know what offer they signed up for. By creating multiple lists like this you are doing what the marketing experts all “segmenting” your list. In other words, you know what people are interested in based on what list they are on. That enables you to send specific information to people because you know something about them.
The Link To List Feature Is Awesome
One of my favorite features in MadMimi is how simple it is to add people to new lists. This makes it really easy to set up sales funnels. Here's the idea. Suppose you have a very general, broad list like your Newsletter list where you send out very generalized news about what you're doing, where you're going to be speaking, etc. Then you start working on a new book about something specific like a new romance novel, or maybe you're starting a vlog about fitness and exercise. The next time you send out a newsletter to everybody, include a link to a page on your website where you're talking about your new project. If people click that link, you can add them to an email list for people who are interested in your project. Now you have the ability to email JUST THOSE PEOPLE with info about your project without bothering people who aren't interested in that. Assigning people to different email lists like this is the foundation for sales funnels, drip campaigns, and other cool email automation techniques. We'll talk all about that later. The point for right now is that you can do all this stuff with MadMimi and it's really simple to set up and use.
See What's Going On
One last thing about MadMimi is the reporting is really simple and easy to understand. You can see stuff like:
- How many people received your email
- How many emails bounced
- How many people opened your email
- How many people engaged by clicking a link
- Click performance charts show exactly which links were clicked
- How many people unsubscribed
- How many people forwarded the email to someone
- and more…
You don't have to hunt around and dig through gobs of data either. All this information is sitting in MadMimi and is very easy to see and understand. In other words, everything is described in real-people terms so you don't have to be a techy person to see what's going on with your emails.
Wrapping Things Up
As you can tell, I really like using MadMimi. We use MadMimi ourselves here on this website. I set up my church to use it for sending out newsletters. I recommend it to our clients and my friends and everybody really seems to like it. Sure, MailChimp has more features, no argument there. But MadMimi has all the features you're actually going to use. And hey, if you ever decide you want to switch to MailChimp or some other service later you can export your lists and import them into whatever service you choose.
Mad Mimi is free to get started with too. Just head over to the pricing page and scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the link that says grab the free plan.
Want To Get Started?
If you want to start building your email list right now, we'll set everything up for you then show you how to use it in a live training session. The live training is a one-on-one video screen share call where you watch my screen and I show you how to work with your email system.
