Episode 67: Mailing List and Email Marketing Best Practices with Heather Solos from Feedblitz
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Heather Solos is a director at Feedblitz. I met Heather at the 2016 Snap! conference and we later had a Skype chat about best practices for growing, maintaining, and monetizing your email list.  About Heather Solos and Feedblitz Heather Solos started blogging in 2004 and became a professional blogger in 2006. She joined FeedBlitz, an RSS and email marketing company, in 2012 where she built the customer service team. She’s now a director at Feedblitz and swims in a sea of email, marketing, and best practices. When she comes up for air, she works for Home-Ec101.com, a site that earned her the blogger dream, a book deal in 2011. Heather is raising four kids, a dog, and a hedgehog with her fiancé in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. She runs on spite, caffeine, and wine and recently picked up a crochet hook in an attempt to resist checking her phone in the evenings. She now has more washcloths than dishes. About the interview In this episode, I talk to Heather about her own experiences with email lists as a blogger and what she has seen through her work at Feedblitz. (If you're new to the topic of email marketing, you may want to list to Episode 55: Email Marketing 101: Or, Why and How to Set Up an Email List for Your Creative Business.) Some of the topics we discussed included: Ways to monetize your email list through advertising, sponsorships, digital or physical product sales, and bundles/special offers for subscribers. The email open rate companies will be looking for before sponsoring a list. When to consider opt-in freebies to grow your list. When it's ok to use a more "salesy" approach to your list. Content ideas for autoresponders. How to approach an email list if you don't have your own website but operate out of a marketplace like Craftsy, Etsy, or Ravelry. How to find out the deliverability rate of your email list. What to avoid in your subject line, format, and email text to stay out of spam filters and when to use different email formats. List hygiene and maintenance. Tips for sending emails more regularly. Listen to the podcast for more from Heather about best practices in email marketing for creative businesses. I also share my experience using with the Feedblitz "test drive" and the service. Some announcements Feedblitz is offering a "blogger bundle" to listeners! Email [email protected] and mention that you heard Heather on the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show. You'll get 4 ebooks on making the most out of your email list (no matter what email service you use) and a "test drive" of Feedblitz for free. I'll be speaking at BlogHer'16 (August 4-6, 2016 in Los Angeles, CA). If you're in the area, I'd love to meet up! You can register for BlogHer'16 with a 30% discount using this friends and family code. Show your support for the Show! Buy my book, Make Money Teaching Crochet, or shop through the Show's trusted partners. You can find more information on the Support the Show page. Share your feedback on this episode! Did Heather motivate you to improve your email list? Share your comments in the show notes for this episode at http://creativeyarnentrepreneur.com/episode67. You can also comment in the Creative Yarn Entrepreneurs Facebook group, comment on the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Facebook page, Tweet me at @cyeshow, add me to your G+ circle and send me a note, or leave a message at 646-713-8973. Feel free to ask questions, too, which may be used in an upcoming episode. You can subscribe to the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show on on Google Play Music, iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn.  Please leave an honest review on iTunes or Stitcher and join the mailing list. I’ll let people on the list know in advance about special guests and topics so you can share your questions.
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