All posts by Kay Svela

Kay is the VP Business Development at Cyberwalker Digital and author of three books: Read This Before You Kill Yourself, Super You, and Digital Marketing Secrets Revealed. She is based in Tampa, Florida. Email her at kay@cyberwalker.com

How to grow your web business with digital marketing

September 24, 2014 Kay Svela

Do you want to learn digital marketing tactics that will allow you to grow your business online and increase your earning potential? Become an Ultimate Digital Marketer.

Join our Ultimate Digital Marketers group and learn how to grow your web business with digital marketing. You’ll get access to all our digital marketing secrets for FREE. You also get exclusive promos and discounts of up to 50% on all our online courses available in our Ultimate Digital Marketers web store.

An affordable digital marketing solution:

Cyberwalker Digital created the group to provide an affordable solution to business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are interested in learning digital marketing strategies including:

Building content rich WordPress web sites,
Search engine optimization tactics to increase web traffic,
Writing engaging web content,
Use the new rules of email marketing to market products and services,
And building high-converting online stores.

When you use our digital marketing tactics, you can make more money for your business by growing it online and ensuring anything you offer converts to sales or engagement.

The content we provide is FREE and the courses we’ve created are a low-cost solution that will teach you everything you know. You will learn more taking our courses than you will hiring an agency you pay $5,000-$10,000 per month to run everything for you.

How to grow your web business:

Bring more traffic to your web site and turn that traffic into potential buyers for your products and services. The strategies we teach, we’ve used to make thousands of dollars for our clients.

To help you understand the POWER of these techniques, here are some results we’ve produced:

One client quadrupled their (already decent) traffic in 120 days and went from zero presence on Google and Bing to 73 keywords in the top three results.
Another regional business client is beating all their multi-million dollar competition in a major market growing their local business by 66% in under a year.
We worked for a famous author to implement a marketing automation tool and e-commerce solution that his team used to build a $2 million+ business.

If you want to generate leads for your business and turn those leads into sales there is only one thing you need to do. Fill out the form on this page to join Ultimate Digital Marketers.

How to use email marketing to grow sales

September 16, 2014 Kay Svela

Effective email marketers use email as the medium to: 1) Generate new leads and turn potential buyers into buyers, and to 2) Keep existing buyers engaged so they are more likely to buy in future.

If you are having trouble doing either of these things you could be using tactics to market your products or services using email that are ineffective and in some cases damaging to your brand.

To find out if what you are doing is an effective use of email marketing to grow sales, it’s important to decipher if you fall into one of two categories. Are you an email blaster? Or an email marketer? Another thing to consider is, how good is your payment method? If its not good then customers do not buy, you can also use Advanced Alternative Payment Models aswell.

It’s crucial you know the difference. Bottom line is: Email marketers use email to develop connections and brand affinity and email blasters turn people off in the hopes of landing a few sales. They use brute force to blast their message. Read these definitions to identify where you stand:

Definition of an email blaster: An email blaster uses email to try to get people to buy their stuff. They don’t consider that there are different groups of people with different needs on their list of contacts. The goal of an email blaster is to sell their stuff to whoever will buy it. They send emails with no strategy and no direction. Their email content is all about them. And they send email to anyone that they have an address for.

Definition of an email marketer: An email marketer creates a long-term sales strategy that has a specific end goal. They send emails to various groups of people. The emails deliver valuable content that speaks to what the people want. They build desire, trust, and loyalty. They ask people to buy when appropriate. Their email content is all about their people and shares expertise that is of interest to them.

If you find yourself in the email blaster camp, don’t feel bad, that is where most people find themselves. Why? Email marketing is still a relatively new form of marketing. At least it is evolving. There are only a handful of highly effective email marketers. But the club is growing, thankfully. Here are five things they do to use email marketing to increase sales.

How to use email marketing to grow sales

1: Segment your list of contacts. Categorize your contacts based on what you want to send them. You want to think about speaking to the group versus sending them stuff they don’t care about. Then need to create different email funnels for each group because the content you are sending them will (and should) be different.

2: Establish a long-term email marketing strategy. To do this you need to decide what the the end goal, is. This is the action you are driving your contacts towards. It could be different for each email funnel you create. However, usually the end goal is to have the contact make a purchase. Or take a specific action that forwards your business.

3: Develop various email funnels and map them out. Once you decide what the end goal for each funnel is you can work backwards to design a system that drives people to that end goal. For example, if the end goal is getting a potential buyer to buy, your entire email strategy should be focused on sending them emails that primes them for that action. You want to build trust and delivery value during this process.

4: Create valuable emails. Emails should be used to deliver valuable content to your contacts on a regular basis. Get them used to receiving emails from you. Make the emails good so they want to open them. A good way to do this is to give stuff away.

5: Track your performance. Effective email marketers are constantly tracking their open rates and the actions of their subscribers and tweaking their strategy. If emails aren’t getting opened you need to make changes.

How to write email subject lines that are irresistible

September 15, 2014 Kay Svela

Did you know that the subject line is the most important part of your email? It’s more important than the body text, more important than what you are giving away, more important than what you are trying to sell.

Why? If your headline isn’t great, your emails won’t get opened.

Here are five expert email marketing strategies on how to write email subject lines that are irresistible…

Email marketing strategies for great subject lines:

1) Blend in to the inbox: When your email looks like all the other emails in a person’s inbox the recipient will see it as an email they need to open. They may even open it accidentally, but that’s okay, you got their attention. Examples:

“Quick question”
“Thanks for your help”
“Thought you’d like this.”

2) Make your email sound important: When your email is important it gets opened. There are certain things that make an email important. If it comes from the president of a company, it’s important. If it’s about crucial businesses matters, like safety or legal requirements for businesses, it’s important. If it’s an exclusive offer for a select group, it’s important. Examples:

“A Message from __________________ (President’s name)”
“Gift from ____________________ (President’s name)”
Safety regulations for Warehouse Managers
Exclusive industry insider offer

3) Play on human curiosity: Did you know that the National Enquirer is the fifth most read publication in the world? People buy the National Enquirer because the headlines are crazy and they sound close enough to reality to be true. People like weird. They feel compelled to open things that they are curious about. Or, things they can’t believe till they see them. NOTE: If you go weird, the content of your email needs to be the truth. Example:

“Adopt Pinky, the cat that uses the toilet”
“The health secret I learned from a Balinese Medicine Man”
“Drink beer. Lose weight.”
“The Mad Hatter reminds me of you”

4) State the value of the email’s content: If you are giving away tangible advice in your email. Or a giving away an attachment that is very valuable, you can simply say what it is. Example:

5 Email marketing secrets the experts use
3 Super weight lose foods
10 Fitness mistakes you might be making

Use these four email marketing strategies to create effective subject lines and track your open rates to see if they increase.

5) Be familiar: If I send you an email and we know each other, chances are you will open the email because you know me. Write headlines that assume you are connected. In the right circumstances these can be highly effective.

Tips because you are amazing
I wanted you to see this
Do you have a few minutes?
You will love this info

Email marketing strategies: 7 tactics you should know

September 10, 2014 Kay Svela

Effective email marketing strategies can be hard to execute. And being a great email marketer – that is, someone who writes emails that actually get opened and read – requires a precise combination of skills.

To be effective as an email marketing strategist, you need to be a big picture thinker. You need to be able to develop a long-term strategy with an end goal in mind. To create this strategy, and have people do what you want them to do (click where you want them to click), you have to know some human psychology basics. You also need to be an expert in the techniques of master salesmanship. This requires knowing what your audience wants. You also need to know how to deliver your sales message clearly and effectively.

When all these skills come together, your emails will get opened. That equates to money for your business.

Here are 7 fundamental email marketing strategies that the email marketing gurus use:

1) Segment your list of contacts. Categorize your subscribers based on the information you’ll be sending them.It should speak to what the group wants or cares about.

Let’s say you sell pet products for small and large dogs, offering giant dog bones to the owner of Fluffy the teacup poodle is a waste of time. Fluffy’s owner is never going to buy a large dog bone (unless they have a second bigger dog).

You also want to segment the people who have purchased from you from the people who haven’t. You should be sending them different messages. If someone buys from you, they are much more likely to buy again, so you can be a little more aggressive, but not at the expense of offering valuable content. The underlying message for existing customers is “keep buying” and for potential buyers it’s “trust me”. That has to be done subtly and as a subtext in all your emails.

2) Build a quality list, not a quantity list. You want people to want to be on your list. Think of it this way: If you are on Facebook and have 400 friends, how many of them do you actually consider close enough to invite to your wedding? Probably only a few dozen and really only a handful really matter to you and have a vested interested in you. When it comes to email marketing you want the “wedding guest” type of contact. The reliable people who care about you or your brand. Who cares if you have 50, 000 contacts if only 50 will actually buy from you. It’s not worth your time sending to the rest of them. They won’t be engaged by your content. They may not even open your emails and then your emails may get labelled as spam (which you don’t want, of course).

3) Find out what your subscribers want. Use surveys and feedback forms to engage with your audience periodically and find out what they want. Use the information you get to respond directly to their issues or to send them information and offers that fall in line with what they want. The more you know, the less you have to guess.

Back to the dog product analogy, if you know that Fluffy’s owner has an obsession dressing Fluffy up in cute dog sweaters, you can send her dog sweater dressing tips and over time promos for a dog wardrobe.

4) Be a source of valuable information. Give away great stuff often. Do it for free. Teach people what they want to learn. Share secrets. This makes you a valuable resource and one that can be trusted. People start to see your emails as must open emails.

Ever wonder why people love Oprah? She’s a source of valuable content that helps her fans live better lives. People want to be on her email list. Aspire to become the Oprah of the email world.

5) Don’t hard sell. People don’t like being sold to unless they think it’s their idea to buy. Don’t be pushy. Get them to arrive at the choice to buy on their own. Build trust by following Tactic #4 on this list. When people trust you, like you and like the stuff you give them they find you valuable and they will want to buy what you offer.

And, this doesn’t mean you never ask them to buy. Go ahead, ask them. Create the opportunity. But make sure they trust you first and they find value in what you give them.

6)Be strategic with your headlines.The subject line is the first thing that gets read in and email. Write a good headline for it. It has people open your email and read it. Here are some headline strategies:

Be weird – People are curious and can’t help themselves to find out what the heck you are talking about “Can you believe a one-legged dancer taught me this?”
Blend in – Make your emails seem like run of the mill emails so they get opened. You message shouldn’t appear like a marketing email: Use subject lines like: “Quick question”, “Need your help”, etc.
Challenge them – Make them thing and trigger their curiosity. “5 Fitness serious mistakes you are probably making”; “5 little know dog training secrets”.

7) Use a smart CRM. Smart CRM systems, like Infusionsoft, allow you to track the actions of your contacts so you know what they are doing at all times. That information is GOLD! It costs a bit of money but it’s worth it. Don’t cheap out with low cost tools.

Kay Svela is a digital strategist and email marketing expert at Cyberwalker Digital. Contact her at kay@cyberwalkerdigital.com.

The magic strategy most rookie email marketers don’t know

July 31, 2014 Kay Svela

There is one strategy that you can use in your email marketing practices that will super charge your results.

Just one simple thing.

Most people believe it can’t be so simple. And when you read the answer below it may seem counter intuitive. And you might even resist putting it into practice because you might believe it can’t possibly be true.

So what could possibly be so effective and so simple?

Here it is…

Give your best stuff away.

Really Kay? Are you nuts???

Yes, give your best stuff away. It’s what we at Cyberwalker Digital refer to it as “ice cream”. People like ice cream.

Whatever you offer that has value to your subscribers. The core of your expertise. Give. It. Away. FOR FREE.

So why on earth would you do that?

There are a few critical reasons.

1) People get A LOT of emails, so you have to give them a reason to open your emails

Think about your inbox. Which emails do you open? The ones that give you value. That fulfil a need. Make you laugh. Give you a deal. Provide you with info you need. You don’t open the hard sell emails. You don’t open ads. You don’t open dry boring material.

2) I said your best stuff, not all your stuff.

Anything you are selling or providing to a subscriber is a package deal usually. A series of information. So when i say give away your best stuff. Give access to the most exciting 3-4 minuet video you have made. Demonstrate how amazing your stuff is. Talk about what’s in it then give it away, then debrief it. Then tell them about the more stuff. Give away the icing and get them to dream about the cake.

3) After your freebie, not everyone will buy, but many will and they will be hungry

The best stuff positions you as an expert. It makes people think you and your expertise are awesome. It should make them feel like they have been give gold. And some of them will be willing to pay for more. (The one that don’t are not ready or willing, but they may be in future) And let’s face it the freebie really is part of a bigger bundle. And your ability to demystify that big ball of expertise is what you are selling in the end. You are building credibility

4) Giving away excellence builds your brand

Even if someone consumes your best stuff and does not buy what you later offer, its ok because they consume and get value from the freebie and are left wanting something more but may not engage in the offer that comes later for a variety of reasons. They don’t need it now. They can’t afford it now. They don’t see the whole grand offering as necessary but they are curious. Giving away great stuff builds a perception you are good and leaves them wanting more of that. They might even refer you to someone that will also consume the best giveaway who will buy.

So how do I know what “my best stuff” is?

The stuff you have that you think people should pay a lot of money for. But note I didn’t say give it all away. Give some of it away.

When people find gold, they go looking for more. That’s when you sell them a pick axe.

10 easy ways to grow your email list

May 2, 2013 Kay Svela

If you are going to engage in email marketing you need to drive people to signup for your email lists. But how do you do that? Here’s 10 ways to build you email list

1) Offer something of value to subscribers: A downloadable, a video, an ebook, rare and special content no available anywhere else, an unreleased chapter, song or bonus

2) Create scarcity: Whatever you give away on your list, ensure it is not available anywhere else. Be sure that the ticket to the gold is available only by signing up for the list

3) Put a registration form on your home page – you did do that right? Right?

4) Place a registration form in the sidebar on every page on your site

5) Offer your freebie from Item #1 (above) on your Twitter account and Facebook page.

6) Look at your Google Analytics and determine what are you most popular pages then install a squeeze page that asks people who visit the well trafficked page to sign up for your email list before they get to the hot content

7) Offer your freebie to conference attendees or at events where you speak. tell them to go to your web site to get it and then advertise it as part of your email sign up process.

8) Connect to your giveaway on Pinterest.com. It’s the hot new social media platform.

9) If you use Vimeo Pro -link to the offer at the end of the video (Vimeo has a tool for this)

10) Offer massive value in the content in your list and ask happy subscribers to refer friends.

Get a free personal Infusionsoft demo

April 10, 2013 Kay Svela

Would you like one of our staff to give you a personal Infusionsoft demo?

We will walk you through all the key features and show you how you can leverage it to generate leads and revenue for your company.

It’s ideal for:

Web marketers
Coaches
Authors
Celebrities
Small businesses
Materials Handling Businesses
Cosmetic Surgeons
Digital product or service creator
Anyone who wants better email marketing

Get a free personal Infusionsoft demo:

We can do it by phone or Skype or you can arrange to meet us in person.

Please email us at kay@cyberwalkerdigital.com or call 813-525-3185 to book your demo.

Join Ultimate Digital Marketers. It’s free!

How to use email marketing to grow sales

Email marketing strategies for great subject lines: