A recent podcast on MarketingProfs “ Marketing Smarts” featured Copyblogger Media co-founder Sonia Simone and got us thinking a lot about content marketing. Content vs SEO, who wins what is the new strategy?

Simone says SEO should be a secondary consideration when creating content. The first consideration? Serving your audience. We liked what she said and it is like one of those moments when someone finally puts words to something you knew all along.

We also wonder where SEO fits into the conversation because, as Simone deftly recognizes, SEO is not dead. It still serves a vital function.

So in the Content vs. SEO match up, who wins?

Content vs SEO: The Match Up

In one way, it’s useful not to see SEO and content marketing in competition. It’s more like a relationship on the skids. At first, SEO and content marketing worked together in a partnership.

Companies developed engaging content, optimized some keywords and the search engines, and by proxy, the audience, could find the business.

Then the Internet grew and grew and businesses figured out they could drive more traffic to their website with better, and sometimes sneaky, SEO. Algorithms figured this out too and soon, content and SEO were in competition, rather than working together.

SEO Gone Wrong

What we see as a result of businesses placing too much emphasis on SEO is really bad SEO-driven blogs and websites. You’ve probably seen your fair share of these sites too.

It’s the businesses that churn out mountains of content, regurgitating the same ideas over and over. The business blog has hundreds of post that link back to each other in a never-ending feedback loop of reworked keywords.

These businesses put SEO and snagging top search engine rankings first. Their content may or may not serve their customers, but that doesn’t seem to slow the content mill down. In fact, if businesses find their current content does not result in customers, they’ll just turn out more SEO-centered content.

But with SEO as the only goal, customers will likely find little useful in the content and will leave a site as quickly as they found it. The content serves no purpose. Content vs SEO who wins in the SEO debate? Content.

Content to Build Audience

Simone rightly says all content should first work to build and then serve an audience. And in fact, search engines want you to do this, too.

When content engages an audience, it begins to spread through viral behaviors such as garnering likes on Facebook, retweets, comments on the blog, and even emails.

The current generation of search engine algorithms look for this kind of viral behavior because it indicates the content is doing what it should be doing — engaging an audience in a meaningful way.

So in essence, by ignoring what Google thinks of your content, Google will like your content more. Content vs SEO… Content is key.

So Who Wins? Content vs SEO

Rather than declaring a winner, we’d like to see SEO and content marketing get back to where they used to be, working together in the service of the audience so that the audience wins. And that is the heart of content marketing.

When you build your business, you build a community. You listen to your community to find out what they need and then work to meet their needs. By providing what your audience needs, they will listen to you when you have something to offer them like a new product or service.

Make sure your audience gets declared the winner, the surprise underdog we tend to forget about when creating content marketing. Because when the audience wins, so does your business.

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Audience Engagement - Measuring Success

Like most professions, inbound marketing comes with an alphabet soup of acronyms that marketers love to toss around. ROI! CRM! SEO! CPC! CTA! It’s amazing to look at how many of these acronyms refer to tangibles we use to measure the success of our marketing efforts.

The data tied to these acronyms excites us because it tells us how successful our efforts were in achieving our marketing goal. Did the customer click through, open a link, respond to a call to action?

The focus of all these efforts measures audience engagement with our content and marketing materials. And measuring these things helps us do our jobs better. But, if you only look at the data generated from these measurables  then you really have only done half your job.

Today, marketing has to go far beyond simply measuring your audience engagement with your materials. Today’s marketing requires you to react as well, engaging with the audience in a two-way dialogue. You have to listen, learn and leverage the ongoing conversation today’s marketing opportunities provide you.

The Two-Way Street

Marketing starts when you seek to create audience engagement through your materials. This includes social media posts, blogs, articles, white papers and videos. When the client responds to that material by commenting, downloading or sharing the content, they have initiated a dialogue with you.

It’s like being on a date. You ask your date a question. “Tell me about yourself.” Your date answers and then poses the question back to you. “How about you?” This is a pretty good first date.

The bad dates are the ones who talk only about themselves, ignoring your hints to get your date to reciprocate or even your blatant attempts to get a word in edge wise. “Wow. That’s so interesting that you collect dryer lint. I collect vintage owl figurines.” And the date continues talking about dryer lint. This is clearly a bad date.

You want to be a good date. When your clients respond to your marketing materials, you now bear responsibility to pick up the conversation. The ball is in your court, so to speak. If you fail to respond at this stage, then you haven’t yet made the jump to authentic inbound marketing. You’re just using old outbound techniques in a new format.

How to Engage

Some marketers think providing even more materials equals audience engagement. Talking more about yourself is not audience engagement. It’s just more noise and eventually your client will tune out.

Audience Engagement can take many forms.

• Responses to questions;
• Commenting on a follower’s post;
• Asking questions of your audience and doing something meaningful with the answers;
• Using client feedback to create new materials and crediting the client for the idea;
• And bringing client ideas and comments into new materials.

You probably have several ways you can leverage client feedback now without having to reinvent the wheel. Comb through those lovely acronyms and find out where clients have engaged the most. Then, look deeper to see if you can respond or start a conversation around some of those efforts.

Develop a Pattern

Once you have started the conversation with clients, it’s important to keep it going or your efforts to engage will look superficial.

Engagement has to become a pattern and a custom that clients begin to expect and seek out. It becomes a habit that you build into all your marketing efforts and becomes a primary focus of your inbound marketing plan, rather than an after thought.

Clients want to engage with you. They don’t want to be just another acronym in the alphabet soup. When you make the culture shift in your own marketing to not just measure engagement but to engage back, then you have truly embraced the heart of inbound marketing.

Picture by a2z Innovation

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Testing Emails Is The Email Marketing Step You Don’t Skip

It’s happened to all of us. You craft an email newsletter or lead nurturing campaign and you get a little lazy. Your last several emails knocked it out of the park and you figured this next one would do the same. Testing emails is the one step you can not skip in your email marketing efforts.

But, you forgot to thoroughly test and check it. And, as luck would have it, you forgot to test the key link. Shortly after you hit send, your partner notices the error but by then, it’s too late. The email has entered cyberspace and inboxes across the nation, this is the case that testing emails is vital.

No doubt you will now spend inordinate time cursing your fate, pulling your hair out and wondering how you fell victim to such a rookie mistake. Well, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt.

When we become too familiar and comfortable with our processes or rely too heavily on past successes, we tend to forget all the hard work that got us there in the first place.

All your past emails were successful because you followed a formula: you checked — and rechecked — everything in that email. Yes, it took extra time but the email actually achieved the results you wanted.

So, let’s review the standard email checklist for testing emails to improve your email marketing success. Use the list for lead nurturing campaigns, newsletters and other regular emails you send out to a list of subscribers for your inbound marketing strategy.

Test for Rendering: All email servers operate just a little differently when it comes to HTML emails. Use an application that will preview your email on different email platforms including Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook and others.

 Collect Internal Feedback: Your email should pass by several sets of eyes before you hit send. Different members of your team will notice different aspects of the email and what one person doesn’t catch, like a clunky subject line, someone else will.

 Verify Personalized Fields: Personalized fields add a touch of the, well, personal to an email but come with some risk, especially with copied text. Testing emails with personal fields, verify the personalized fields fill correctly and that you don’t have any fields without a value.

 Clean Subject Line: What does your subject line look like in the receiver’s inbox? Is it short enough and clear enough to compel someone to open it or does it cut off in a weird place, leaving the meaning unclear? It may seem minor but subject lines can make the difference between someone opening the email or just hitting delete.

 Get “From” Right: You want the recipient to know who sent the email so double-check the name and email address in the from field so the sender information is clear.

 Check the Text: Don’t just check the HTML version. Some email recipients want the text version or have email that won’t support the HTML. But, you want the text reader to get the same information as those reading the HTML email. Make sure they match.

 Live Links: Make sure all the links in the email work and are live when you send the email. It’s frustrating for recipients to click on a link only to get an error message when they put forth the effort.

 Proofread: And don’t just proofread once. Proofread two to three times. Also, don’t rely solely on spell check. It can’t see the same mistakes as we do.

 Check the Schedule: For scheduled emails, double-check your scheduled time zone.

Now… Check Again: Once you’ve run through the list, do it one more time, testing emails takes a little patience  The first check fixes any problems. The second check finds that one last issue that would have sunk your hours of work. Inbound Marketing success relies on all the wheels turning together.

It will happen. You will send an email that has an issue — a dead link, an egregious spelling error, a blank personalized field. But, you can make those mistakes few and far between by testing emails and sticking to a method for checking and rechecking your emails before hitting send.

Photo from Kampyle

Inbound Marketing

Attracting Qualified Leads for your Sales Funnel

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I like to think of landing pages like an RSVP to a party. With proper landing pages best practices I can gather information from a landing page, I know who wants to come to my different “parties.” There’s the email newsletter party or the ebook party. Clients could choose the free estimate party or the demonstration party.

When you plan a party and send out an invitation, you have two purposes. First, you want to create excitement for your event so guests will want to attend. Secondly, you want guests to respond to the invitation so you can plan appropriately.

A landing page works in much the same way. First, you want to draw potential clients to the page because it offers something they want or need and gets them excited about your services. Secondly, you want the client to then take action when they land on the page.

Any host could tell you, though, that while anyone can make an invitation, not all invitations are created equal. Anyone can make a landing page, too, but making a landing page that turns your party into the party everyone wants to go to takes skill. That is why you must follow some landing pages best practices.

Landing Pages Best Practices: Making it Great

Your landing page should result in client engagement and action. Here are a few landing pages best practices to turn your lackluster landing pages into one that gets people to the party.

Emphasize the call to action. On an invitation, you call attention to the important information like where and when. Do the same for your calls to action. Set them apart from the rest of the text using boxes, white space and other graphic elements. Allow your prospect to find the call to action simply by looking at the page.

Make the result clear. No one likes going to a party full of surprises. Potential clients don’t want surprises, either. Explicitly let your prospects know what they will get if they fill out a form, click a link or provide information and then deliver on that promise.

Eliminate distractions. An invitation to a birthday party shouldn’t also highlight upcoming events like weddings and anniversaries. It’s too distracting. Keep your landing page free of information that doesn’t pertain to the call to action, such as extra links or added content.

Keep it simple. This means simple text, simple graphics and a short, concise message. Prospects won’t spend a lot of time reading copious content on a landing page just like they won’t read your life story in an invitation. They want to skim and scan, make a decision and move to the next thing.

Invite more guests. Incorporate social media sharing into your landing pages so prospects that find your page and content useful can spread the word and let others know how to join the party on your landing page. Word of mouth and social buzz can enliven a party; it can enliven your landing page, too.

Get the “yes.” Use standard marketing strategies to get your prospects to engage in the call to action. Make it easy to say yes by reducing the barriers like too many fields in the form. Create a sense of urgency for the call to action. And use a flashy “yes” button. It’s hard to say no to the prettiest invitation you’ve ever received. Plus, market tests confirm that prospects react to a high contrast button.

Keep your promises. Your prospects came to your landing from somewhere. You need to know their motivation for coming to your landing page and fulfill their expectations once they arrive. When you deliver on your promise, the prospect is more likely to trust you and provide the yes you’re looking for.

For landing pages best practices, make your landing page the party everyone wants to go to. Create excitement, propel your prospects to action and help everyone have a great time with dynamic landing pages. Landing pages best practices is another key ingredient to your overall inbound marketing plan.

Image from Optify

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Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing – Which is Best For Business?

Our headline today, Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing, is a bit like asking, “Which came first. The chicken or the egg.” The question may not have an easy answer but that doesn’t mean it’s not a valid question to ask. In fact, the debate often reveals more than the question itself.

The question pitting inbound marketing vs outbound marketing  has just as valid a debate attached to it and it’s a debate we’re ready to tackle today. So, get ready to take sides and come out of the discussion not with the answer, per se, but a greater understanding of the question at hand.

Defining the Issue

Before we can get down to the debate at hand, let’s first set some discussion parameters and lay down a common understanding of the differences between inbound marketing vs outbound marketing.

Inbound marketing, sometimes called permission marketing, is about allowing customers to find you by providing engaging, educational, and entertaining content a client can use today to solve their problems.

Inbound marketing comes in the forms of:

• Social media;
• Blogs;
• Videos;
• Infographics;
• And e-books.

Outbound marketing represents the more traditional marketing channels like radio or television commercials, print advertisements (including online print), direct mail and cold calls. Those who view outbound negatively call this interruption marketing because it intrudes upon a client without asking first. Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing, Inbound = Permission based marketing, Outbound Marketing = Interruption marketing our push marketing.

The Resolution: Which form of marketing is best?

Now that we’ve defined the issue, let’s get down to the debate of inbound marketing vs outbound marketing. Great debates explore both sides of an issue in-depth with a judge declaring a winner. Today, you get to bet the judge and we’ll take up both sides.

Inbound Marketing is Better

Many of today’s leading marketing professionals land on this side of the debate. Inbound marketing is the new, shiny object we have all become fascinated with thanks to exciting and engaging marketing channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Inbound marketing has some distinct advantages over outbound marketing. First and foremost, the leads you attract with inbound marketing are better, higher quality leads because the lead went looking for you to solve a problem.

These marketing channels also:

• Have a lower long-term cost per lead;
• Yield more leads over time as you increase your online profile;
• And benefit from the community sharing of content inherent in inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing does what outbound marketing can’t do. It meets clients where they are, engages them in a conversation and invites them into your community where you can establish a long-term, vibrant relationship.

Unlike outbound marketing, it doesn’t require costly data or ongoing costs and jumps over the hurdle of the inability to share outbound marketing materials.

Outbound Marketing is Better

Just as inbound marketing has its champions, so does outbound marketing. The marketing professionals who value outbound marketing often cite the disadvantages of inbound marketing.

First and foremost, inbound marketing requires a significant investment in creating content. This costs time and money to do well. It can also take a much longer time to see a return on investment with inbound marketing as you give your content time to work and attract an audience.

Outbound marketing gives you:

• More control over what your leads see and when they see it;
• A faster ROI and a faster test of a lead nurture sequence;
• And lower overall costs for content creation.

And the Winner Is …

Well, like the chicken and the egg debate, there really is no clear winner. And really, deciding between inbound marketing vs outbound marketing shouldn’t be an all or nothing prospect anyway.

Inbound marketing must become a part of a dynamic marketing plan for any business. Clients expect it, want it and will seek out businesses that have it. But outbound marketing will continue to have a place at the table as well.

So, in the end, the debate continues. Inbound marketing vs outbound marketing which is best? What do you think?

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Lead Nurturing Simple Explanation of the Start of the Sales Funnel

To continue from our post on Lead Generation here is an explanation of lead nurturing and how it fits into the sales process.

Perhaps some of the best experts on defining lead nurturing are parents of toddlers. As any parent of a toddler can tell you, getting a toddler to do what it is you want them to do is a task of Herculean proportions.

The toddler has her own visions of what works best for her and rarely does it align with what the parents want.

Bath time? No thanks. I’d rather rub yogurt in my hair.  Rice for dinner you say? No, I think I would prefer hot dogs, juice and cookies. Don’t even start with bedtime. Exploring cracks in the floor, trying on every pair of PJs and reading 20 bedtime books sounds much more appealing.

To combat (some might say trick) the toddler, a parent’s job is to work that child through a long series of decisions where the toddler says yes eventually showing the toddler that in fact, bath time is more fun than its competition, the yogurt bowl.

Lead nurturing is a process of working a potential client through a similar series of decisions where they provide “Micro Yes-es,” a term given to us by the folks at MECLABS.

At the end of all these small decisions is the big decision, choosing your service over your competitors.

The Start of the Funnel

Many people think of lead nurturing in terms of their marketing funnel. The lead nurturing is the process of moving a prospect through the funnel, nurturing them along the way with information, face to face conversations and other enticements to make your company stand out from the rest.

The lead nurturing process begins when you answer a prospect’s initial question: Why should I choose your service to solve my problem instead of your competitor’s service? This is the question that all the prospects who enter your funnel begin with.

At this point in the process, a prospect might enter several funnels at once, looking to see who provides the best answer and the most attractive enticement to move forward to the next decision.

A fully formed lead nurturing plan will help you work with a prospect to make this first Micro Yes. A key reason in getting this answer right is having a strong ideal client profile prepared where you have anticipated the answer that will best serve your most valuable clients.

Moving Forward

Once a prospective client has a foot in the door, it’s time to progressively move the prospect through the funnel. Some people see the funnel as moving down to the final decision. Other see it as moving up, swimming against the current and avoiding snags.

No matter how you see the funnel, the important thing to remember is that you have to move through it one step at a time. Here we’ll look again at our surly toddler. Skip one enticement on the way to the bath and you’re back in the yogurt bowl again.

Only this time, you can’t start over with the same process. You have to come up with something new and creative and any busy parent will tell you this is tough at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday.

Provide useful information without overwhelming a prospect. Show the prospect the benefit of your services without becoming demanding. Answer the questions a prospect asks, but don’t bring up potential pitfalls or problems.

Closing the Deal

Lead nurturing would seem to end with the final Macro Yes, the commitment the prospect makes to your service. But in truth, the lead nurturing process never ends. The hyper-competitive business world means other enticements will come to your client’s attention all the time.

So, you have to continue working through the lead nurturing process, constantly attending to your client’s needs, providing value and anticipating their needs.

Because like any parent will tell you, getting the baby in the bath is just half the battle. Now you have to get the baby out of the bath, too.

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Lead generation is simultaneously the most important duty of a professional services firm and the least desirable action. Working with existing clients is often easier and preferable than finding new clients.

Many websites will offer you the top five tips or the four fastest ways to promote lead generation but today, we plan to focus on just one tip: develop a lead generation plan.

Having a strong lead generation plan is like owning best GPS on the market. Buy a cut-rate GPS and you may end up turning in circles, running into a dead end or getting lost in the woods. Investing in the high end GPS will not only get you from point A to point B, but will probably also do so with new shortcuts and in with less hassle.

Your strong lead generation plan should focus on one goal, achieved through five specific steps.

The Goal

Your ultimate goal for your lead generation plan is not new leads. Your goal is new clients. This is not a new concept. And yet, too many lead generation efforts focus on acquiring as many new leads as possible rather than the leads most likely to become new clients.

Keeping this ultimate goal — new clients — at the center of your plan will help you maintain focus as you develop the five aspects of your plan.

Step 1: Refine your target client profile

This step ties directly back to your goal. To find the leads who will likely turn into clients, you must start by knowing who you want to target. Look back through past clients and determine who was most profitable and easy to work with. What did they have in common?

Also consider what type of client will most benefit from your strengths or clients and sectors where you can add significant value. These characteristics will help you build a target client profile.

Step 2: Research your target client group

Once you have developed a profile, take the time, energy and expend the cost to conduct research. It may seem time-consuming or costly, but going into lead generation without conducting research is like buying that cheap GPS. You have no idea where you might be headed.

Research should include:

• Associations your target client belongs to;
• Who your target clients consider as your competitors;
• Challenges your target client faces;
• Solutions and services your target clients seek out;
• And emerging trends within your field.

Step 3: Identify communication channels

The next step in your lead generation plan is to determine how to deliver your message. Identify a mix of both online and offline communication channels based on your target client profile and your research on your target clients. This could include targeting certain blogs, trade press or the other identified places where your target clients seek out information.

Step 4: Work with strategic lead generation partners

Most professional service firms underutilize potential lead generation partners. Partnering is not synonymous with competition, especially if you target partners offering different and complimentary services. Team up to conduct mutually beneficial research, offer training programs or to publish articles.

Step 5: Offer information in multiple formats

A target client profile helps you form a general plan. Delivery of your message will need to vary according to the actual target clients. Offer your information in multiple formats including:

• White papers;
• Webinars;
• EBooks;
• Videos;
• Research reports;
• Infographics;
• And other formats like articles or traditional ads.

Having your message in various formats allows flexibility in meeting a particular lead’s needs and offering information where that particular lead seeks it out.

The destination, working directly with clients, is always your ultimate goal. But if you focus only on your destination and not the path to get there, you may never arrive. A strategic lead generation plan will keep you on the right path. Set your goal, develop a plan and enjoy the ride.

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Blogging Basics – How to Get Started Blogging for your Inbound Marketing

Nearly everything you read these days about inbound marketing for business includes an exhortation to maintain a blog. You know all the reasons why.

If you check out blogs regularly, you also know not all blogs are created equal. Too many blog writers forget their blogging basics, which means their readers are moving on to the next blog.

Blogging basics comes down to a few key fundamentals, few of which you learned in your high school English class. Let’s review what makes the difference between a blog someone looks at once to a blog someone follows regularly.

Update!

We get it. Finding time, energy and ideas to regularly update your blog is hard. But, it’s also the first blogging basics and a key to success. Too many blogs update posts sporadically, going on a writing tear one month and then letting the blog languish for the next quarter. (We have all done this at some point)

The goal of any blog is to gain regular readers. You will begin losing those readers if you fail to provide new content.

Figure out a blogging schedule and stick to it. You could even post your calendar somewhere on your blog so readers know when to check back and you have just set up a very public system to hold yourself accountable.

Audience First

That’s right, your audience comes first. Not SEO. Not your latest marketing pitch. Not your call to action.

This means you need to write your blogs with your audience in mind. What would they like to read or know about? Why do they follow your particular blog? Figure out the answers to these questions and then provide the content your audience will find useful, educational and engaging.

Develop a Voice

This is a blogging basics you probably did learn in high school, if you paid attention that day. All writers should have a distinct voice. Or in other words, your blogs should sound like you (or the corporate image you have created for yourself).

You’re not writing a formal proposal, a report for the boss or a white paper. You’re writing a blog post. Blogs allow for imperfection because they are meant to serve as an online log of your thinking. If they truly live up to that goal then they should reflect your personality.

Readers respond to strong writer voices as well. They want to know there is a real person behind that bio picture and those words on the screen. A strong voice in your blog connects to a reader and brings you to life on their screen.

Tip: If you’re not sure what your voice is, ask someone to read a few of your posts and provide honest feedback about what voice they “hear.”

It’s a Conversation

Blogs are not edicts issued down from on high. Blogs should invite ongoing conversations with the reader. Ask questions, encourage comments and reply to relevant comments promptly.

Encouraging a give and take in a blog will keep your loyal readers around, because they feel a part of the final product, and will attract new readers who catch wind of the dynamic conversations taking place.

Be the blog everyone talks about rather than the blog no one notices.

Returning to your blogging basics can remind you of the joy and excitement blogging first held for you before you got caught up in the ROI, SEO and CTR of your blog. Happy writing!

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Email Opt in - The Why and Where of  Forms

So you have a great email newsletter. It’s award winning, chock full of relevant and useful information, and a tool that will give readers a competitive edge in your field. Do you have an email opt in form?

But is anyone reading it?

Having an amazing email marketing campaign only works as a marketing tool if people actually read your emails. They’re more likely to read your emails if they have subscribed to your emails. People only subscribe to your emails if you offer opportunities for them to do so. Thus, we hit upon the necessity of having an email opt in form.

It’s like building a world-class restaurant but forgetting to buy knives and forks. How will people eat the food? An email opt in form is your fork. Through it, people can use your content and engage with that award-winning, relevant and useful content you have crafted.

Gaining Permission, Gaining Access

Businesses can certainly choose to buy third-party email lists and send out messages to potential readers this way. However, the likelihood of someone reading an unsolicited email — no matter the content — is low.

Savvy email readers (which is who you’re targeting, after all) do not open emails from unknown sources because of the danger of accidentally downloading a virus. Spam filters weed out these unsolicited emails directly to a junk mail folder.

Building your own email subscription list through an email opt in form means you’re targeting readers who actually want to open your emails and follow through on the message or call to action.

Keep it Simple

The best email opt in forms stick to the basics. They do not ask subscribers to give a complete family tree, offer a chronology of all their childhood pets or ask for an alphabetized listing of their favorite foods. (You laugh, but some of those forms are long.)

Ask for the information you need and no more. Potential subscribers are more likely to fill out a short, easy form than invest in a long, arduous form no matter the potential content.

Location, Location, Location

Once you’ve nailed the wording for your opt-in form, the next step is where to place it on your website and in your social media channels. Easy. Okay, so that’s not always as easy as it seems.

First, consider the channels your target audience visits most. This could be your home web page, a specific landing page or a social media channel. Google Analytics can help you decide what web pages generate the most traffic.

You should also consider the placement of the opt in form on the web page itself. Ideally, you want the form in a placement that does not need the potential client to scroll down to see the form. They might never scroll down far enough.

Frame Up Job

Placement is half the battle. Also pay attention to the information you include to entice a potential client to subscribe. List the benefits of subscribing or the top reasons to subscribe.

Also include information to reassure the subscriber that you won’t bombard them with useless emails. Provide a schedule of what subscribers can expect and when. This information makes it clear that your emails will offer a value to the subscriber rather than clog up their inbox.

Test It Out

Finally, test your email opt in form against your current method. Running an A/B test with the process you now use to gain email subscribers and a new opt-in form will yield valuable information. Use the data you gain from the test to change, edit or tweak your email opt in form for the greatest results.

The ultimate goal with any email newsletter or campaign is for potential clients to read the email and take action. This won’t happen without a dynamic opt in form that captures subscribers.

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Google Apps for Education - Bringing It Into the Classroom

I must admit a teacher failing on my part. I have terrible handwriting. That clean, clear, neat handwriting so often seen in elementary classrooms does not come naturally to me. Now how does Google Apps for Education apply to handwriting?

My poor handwriting may stem from my time as a journalist, when speedwriting held certain advantages. It may stem from my paltry grades in 3^rd grade cursive practice.

Whatever the cause, my handwriting has not improved much in the five years I’ve been teaching. Students regularly ask me to read aloud what I’ve written on the whiteboard or document camera. When I write notes in their student work, I’m often called upon to interpret my notes.

And since I already don’t relish grading as one of the most fun tasks of teaching, the constant need to translate my comments for students began to take a toll on the quality of written feedback I provided.

Typing up responses stapled to the front of essays replaced handwritten editing notes. These helped guide the overall direction of student essays but didn’t provide the line-by-line copyediting students often need.

I also relied more on verbal feedback, sitting down with students in one-on-one coaching sessions. The downside was, of course, that students often didn’t remember what I told them and I often simply ran out of time to meet with all my students. It wasn’t working.

An Unlikely Solution – Google Apps for Education

An unexpected solution landed in my lap recently, a solution that gave me the opportunity to provide overall feedback, line-by-line copyediting and the ability to conference with each student individually, all without having to put students through the unenviable task of interpreting my handwriting.

Last fall, the school district I work for invested in Google Apps for Education, assigning a Google Apps for Education account in our secure cloud network to each student. They can create documents, presentations and send emails within the school district community — teachers and other students.

At the same time, they began to phase out word processing programs in our computer labs so that now, students can only word process through Google Docs within Google Apps for Education.

Now, instead of providing extensive verbal or handwritten feedback on student assignments that no one can read or that students don’t remember, I engage with students right in Google Docs using the comments feature, text highlighting and live chat.

Classroom Implications

As students have become more comfortable with this dynamic, interactive approach to writing instruction, the classroom culture has shifted. Students now see writing and the sharing of their writing as a collaborative process, rather than a process done in isolation. Google Apps for Education not only makes collaboration easy it also encourages it through a seamless process.

And they don’t just share their writing with me. They also share their product and their process with their peers, gathering feedback from multiple sources.

I find my role is more of mediator, using my “master” computer to work with several students simultaneously or pulling up a student’s work on the digital projector to use as an example with the whole class.

The Common Core

Working with students collaboratively and cooperatively through Google Docs within Google Apps for Education, it helps to meet the new Common Core State Standards, which 45 states have now adopted.

The new standards place an emphasis on utilizing technology in meaningful ways, in full understanding of the demands the 21^st century workplace will place on our future graduates.

The writing standards in particular address the need to build our students’ capacity for using technology. Writing Anchor Standard 6 for 9^th and 10^th grades specifically calls for students to:

“Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.”

The 11^th and 12^th grade standard adds that students should also be able to “update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.”

So not only did using Google Apps for Education improve my writing instruction, it also better prepares me to address the rigorous and exciting challenges of instructing students in the Common Core State Standards.

And, much to my relief, no one has to suffer any longer through my sloppy handwriting.

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