Review of Interesting List Building Tool
There is a lot to building a business online. This is evident by the categories of content here on this site. An online business needs two key ingredients to succeed, traffic (those visiting the website) and conversion (sales). One of the ways you can get traffic is by building a list. In this post I talk about the benefits of building a list, as well as product I’m testing which can help you do just that.
Review of Interesting List Building Tool
One key online marketing strategy I recommend is building an email marketing list. With the proper email marketing strategy, marketers benefit in many ways, here are a few:
- Build relationship with your subscribers
- Relationship builds a following
- A following get’s you more (repeat) traffic
- This traffic leads to sales
- Repeat sales. Customers who have purchased in the past, are more likely to purchase again.
- Market intelligence (surveys)
You’ll notice on the site I have several places for people to join the site by subscribing to the newsletter. I have recently introduced a new tool, which is running at the time of this writing, and I’d like your feedback on it. The Ultimate Footer Ad slides up from the bottom and is less intrusive than the popup which was running previously on the site. Here is a screenshot:
You can checkout their sales page here.
Installation was fairly straightforward. Because it does split-testing of the ads (so you can measure which footer ad pulls the best results), it requires a database on the backend which you login to configure. Not a big deal, and the creator of the product provides decent documentation and videos on how to do it, but something you should be aware of.
Feedback: Here’s where I need your help to gain some market intelligence. While the results are not yet conclusive if it increases optins or not (I will update this post in the future), I would like your take. If you saw the ad appear, you like? Not Like? Why? Better than a popup? I’m interested from both a marketing perspective as well as a consumer (visitor) perspective. Share your thoughts in the comment boxes below. I will report back when I have more data.
Layla on 
DrBermant on 
Sirhcnus on 
Jeff on 
Facebook
Plaxo
LinkedIn
YouTube
Twitter
Skype
Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. I'm here to share what I can from my lessons marketing online. With sizeable investments in continuing education, various software products and services, I have had some winners, and some losers. One way I can extend what I've learned is by writing about it, here... and helping you along the way.
great review. I tried ultimate footer ad for 30 days but still get better results with a static form onsite and my trusty aweber lightbox optin, so I switched back. Thanks for sharing!
Nicholas
Nicholas-
Excellent input, thanks for sharing your results. I look forward to the social feedback like yours as well as the optin stats.
I’m stuck between a rocj and a hard place on this one Travis.
I’m SO ALL ABOUT building a list. In fact, my goal is to get to 10K! But I just don’t like pop ups when I’m reading something. I totally get and understand that it tests well, but personally, I just don’t like it.
For whatever reason, this type of pop-up reminds me of “opportunity seeker” info. Maybe I just read too much of that kind of copy.
So my answer is – it depends on your audience and what you’re offering. I seem to be in the camp that this isn’t right for every kind of information or site or brand.
If you’ve got a “brand” or site that is targeted at “More Professional” – say like Small Business Trends – then I would not choose this. But if you’ve got a brand that’s for information marketing – then it’s fine.
I can’t wait to hear what others have to say about this!
Ivana Taylor’s last blog post..Creating and Communicating Your Personal Brand
Ivana-
Thanks for stopping by. GREAT points. Indeed tools like this need to be tested with the offer and market in mind.
One thing I should mention, is the admin panel allows you to allow the visitor to see the ad on every visit or up to the 10th revisit. It also provides controls on which ad they see if you are doing a split test.
I look forward to sharing my findings as well.
Nice! MaxBlogPress on the other hand, gets one of my highest recommendations for a superb affiliate marketing and promo tracking plugin.
Nicholas
Nicholas’s last blog post..#TwitterTips Video2: How Quickly Can YOU Leverage Twitter.com For Fame And Fortune? Part 2 (Watch, Comment, and Rate? Thanks)
Nicholas-
Agreed. The April 8th review of their flagship product is one I’ve been using for several months. I hope to review other MaxBlogPress products as well.
Travis,
I love it!
Question;
Will it work on a Typepad blog?
The Franchise King
Joel Libava
Joel Libava’s last blog post..Testimonial- John b
Good question Joel. I think the answer is ‘yes’, but will ask Tom, my blog expert, and see what he says (he actually installed it for me).
Hi Joel,
As the person who performed this particular installation I can tell you that the footer ad product is completely portable. After you determine the design and setup you’d like to use, it hooks into your site through some javascript. This makes it platform independent so an installation on TypePad wouldn’t be a problem.
Thanx, Tom.
Installed by me, or someone that knows scripting and other scary html word usuages?
Joel
Joel Libava’s last blog post..Testimonial- John b
I believe that if you have the time to read through the instructions and you have a basic knowledge of html you should be fine. As with any changes I recommend testing in an offline environment if at all possible to avoid any missteps along the way.
Tom
*Important Note* You need to install the software on your own domain, then you can publish the script on any domain that allows you to embed the HTML code. For Joel, if you are using typepad hosted blog (typepad.com), you’ll first need to install the script on your own domain, then drop the code in your typepad blog.
Hope that makes sense.
Hi Travis,
As usual, great information! I’m typically not a fan of popups, but this one doesn’t feel as intrusive as others. Maybe because I’m getting use to the Google Friend Connect bottom popup. Also because it looks professional.
My one concern would be how will I feel if (when) more and more sites start using this approach. I may end up tuning this out if I see this more frequently. But I think it works for right now for me.
Thanks!
Brent Leary’s last blog post..Twitalyzer.com’s Eric T. Peterson on Web Analytics
Brent-
I share in your concerns here, and appreciate your feedback. The ultimate answer lies in how the market responds to these things. The early numbers are interesting, and may surprise people.
Stay tuned.
Travis et al,
I found out that you have to host your own domain to use this cool tool. I am using Typepad for my Internet Real Estate, and this tool won’t work with it.
I am going to keep promoting it though,as I feel it is the best list building tool around.
Thank you for my prompt refund, Travis..
Also, Graham in Tech support was totally professional and helpful during this frustrating time.
The Franchise King
Joel Libava
Joel Libava’s last blog post..Testimonial- John b
Joel-
Thanks for the feedback…wish it would have worked out different for you Joel.
As per my *Important Note* a few comments up. It will work on any site that let’s you embed HTML code (like Typepad), however, you first have to install the software on a domain you own and host (mine is currently hosted with Liquidweb).
My hope is this helps others considering this cool tool.
Footer ads are not advisable by search engines right?
I've no evidence that footerads make a difference. I could be wrong.
-Travis
I've no evidence that footerads make a difference. I could be wrong.
-Travis