What It Takes To Build An Email List From Scratch?

Hello, Friends!

Cheers from Vishnu! I welcome you to the MarketingSip Sunday Newsletter—December 6, 2020 issue. Enjoy featured snippets and my notes on this week’s stories that I found most informing, educating, persuading, inspiring, entertaining, and unique for content creators and marketing professionals:

#1 Focus Keywords In Content Strategy: Traffic Versus Conversion.

Asking questions and asking “right” questions are two different things. While crafting a content strategy, it might be tempting to focus on keywords that are of high traffic value. After all, who doesn’t want to get more hits?

Well, before going ahead with picking up your keywords, ask a question: Are those keywords relevant to your target audience and in the context of the product and services that you are offering?

To me, the best way to prioritize keywords is to focus more on conversion than on traffic volume because the very main purpose of content marketing is generating leads that ensure not only business survival but also fuel growth. Otherwise, you will soon be facing the issue of heavy website traffic but no quality leads or conversion.

Thankfully, to help you understand the issue in detail, Benji Hyam has an insightful post: Content Ideation: Ways to Come up with Content Ideas That Convert.

#2 Align Startup Buzz And Content Buzz.

Have you ever been in a startup?

If you have, great!

If you haven’t, no worries.

It’s just that most of the startups are not lucky enough (or, should I say, “not unfortunate enough?”) to get millions or billions from the capitalists and have to grow with “very” limited means. That’s why every person working in a startup typically looks after so many things.

While working with startup madness, content marketing might seem to be the least important task, but let me tell you that it is not, given the importance of content marketing in today’s digital world.

For your startup to succeed, the world needs to know that it exists and how it can help. That’s why you need a well-crafted content strategy and workflow.

On the topic, Panagiotis Sarantopoulos has got more to say in his Starttech Ventures article The importance of content workflow in startups.

#3 Week’s Highlight: What It Takes To Build An Email List From Scratch?

“I think growing an email list from scratch really comes down to a great opt-in page, a hustle to 100 subscribers, evergreen content and a damn good newsletter.” — Cole Schafer in his Medium article How to build an email list from scratch.

#4 Is Social Media All About Images & Videos?

Nah! You know, that question kinda hurts me! After all, among many other things, I am a writer too. And yes, a social media copywriter as well.

I have seen articles proclaiming that social media is “all about” images and videos. At the same time, advisors of such advice are caught using captions in their posts, you know.

In short, captions are, more or less, vital along with images and videos. Even most of the images used on social media and other marketing places need a well-written copy as well. No good copy—No good image either.

Yes, while writing for social media, it might be hard to come up with “catchy” headlines as your client might be demanding from you. There comes to the rescue: Christian Lowery’s article How to Write Social Media Captions That Convert!

#5 Brand Campaign Spotlight: Samsung’s Do What You Can’t.

In the world of marketing, one demand from all corporations that often stays unfulfilled is the desire to have campaigns that are “different, unique, and out of the box, and that can connect with the target audience.”  Well, Samsung got one such breakthrough campaign — Do What You Can’t.

Under the “Do What You Can’t” campaign, Samsung is promoting its products as enablers of things that one—without Samsung— sees as impossible. You, like me, must have got the Do What You Can advice countless times from people who are—or who think that they are— more intelligent and experienced than you.

With its “Do What You Can’t” campaign, Samsung challenges conventional wisdom, and that’s why it makes a perfect fit for millennials and Gen Z who are eager to challenge wicked traditions, carve their own paths, and do more.

#6 Add to Your Toolkit: Station.

If you are like most other creators and me, you must be using a bunch of applications and tools to bring your creativity to life. Your stack, you know.

While most of the apps offer native applications, it’s not always feasible as well as manageable to install all such apps on your PC. At the same time, it is not very productive to run these applications in modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox. That’s where comes into play: Station.

The Station is a desktop application in which you can run multiple apps, including Evernote, Slack, Dropbox, Canva, Trello, WordPress, and more than 100 other apps. So, whatever applications help you in your creative process, chances are Station supports those applications. As Team Station calls it, Station is one app to rule them all!

By helping you run multiple applications in a manageable way and built-in focus mode, Station can speed up your workflow and give a real boost to your productivity.  I am using the Station for more than a year now and very happy with it. I recommend you get the Station today, for yourself. It’s free, and it can make you a more productive creator.

#7 Linkedin Spotlight: Web Is Running Out Of Cookies!

Shortly, digital advertisements are not gonna have their “cookies!”

All digital marketing folks — get ready to find different kinds of food to feed your advertisements!

[P.S.: I think the absence of cookies will shift the focus more on content marketing than PPC advertisements. What do you think? Let me know on LinkedIn.]

🌱 Keep Doing Good Stuff

A timeless idea to inspire, empower, & ignite you to keep doing good stuff & make your life a bit better:

How you start your day has a significant impact on how the rest of the day goes. That’s why you must kickstart your mornings with positivity and activeness. Explore more on Why You Must Have A Morning Routine, plan your next morning today, never tap that snooze button again, and wake up each morning with confidence, your own space, and peace of mind.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for less, but worthy!

For the love of marketing

—Vishnu Goyal

Creator, MarketingSip