John Bellingham

Don't annoy your subscribers with more sales emails, after they've bought from you! You know what it's like, you get drip-fed a series of emails from someone who's pitching you their 'thing'... It looks decent, you're considering it, and then that one email tips the balance - you decide to buy it! All's well - you get the 'thing', you're now away getting stuck into your latest purchase and then 'bang!' - their next 'buy my thing' email arrives! "Wait! What? Why are you asking me to buy this...

How to use QR codes to collect email subscribers Firstly, what is a QR Code? QR is the short form for 'Quick Reference'. Invented by the Japanese engineer, Masahiro Hara, in 1994, the QR code was the natural successor to the good old regular 'barcode'. It was developed by Hara in response to the increasing limitations being met by the old system which was incapable of storing as much data as the QR code. The layout of the QR code is shown below - you'll have seen them millions of times in...

How to use A/B testing on your subject lines, using ConvertKit A/B testing can be a helpful tool when you're trying to figure out what best lands with your subscribers. It tends to be an ongoing thing rather than a once-and-done type of activity. The basic premise The feature of A/B testing is designed to give you two options (as the name suggests) to use as your email subject line and optimise the outcome by letting your email marketing platform (i.e. ConvertKit) determine which subject line...

You want to send the same email every week, without having to send the same email every week! If you haven't yet come up against this challenge in your email marketing system, chances are, you probably will. I do it myself in my business. The reasons can be wide and varying, however, in my business, I use them to remind my subscribers of a regular and upcoming Zoom call that I run each Thursday. The desired outcome I want every subscriber (in a particular segment of my list) to receive a...

How I maintain a pristinely clean email subscriber list, using ConvertKit As a long-time email marketer, I take my email subscriber list very seriously. In fact, it's the most prized asset in my business, bar none. That's why I treat it as well as I do, my car (and anyone who knows me, knows my love for all things 'cars'). Every time someone puts their trust in me by joining my email list, I thank them, not as hollow lip service, but as genuine gratitude for taking the time to subscribe. I'm...

This article shows you how to create and launch a lead-gen system for your freelancing business that will become the gateway to your email marketing system. It doesn't take that long to do - if your life depended on it, you could have your first leads pinging into your inbox today! If you think it's impossible, buckle up, I'm going to show you how it's very doable! *As an aside, thankfully, I've never known of anyone having a life-dependent reliance on building a lead-gen system inside a day!...

Let's start at the beginning... What exactly is email marketing? You've undoubtedly heard others talk about it, but never took the time to set up your email marketing system - but now it's time for that to change! Email marketing is the act of sending emails, normally in bulk, to a group of people who have subscribed to your 'list', to share personalised helpful content that will lead to sales of your products and services. 'Email' has been around since 1971 when inventor and software...

Online cybercrime isn't going away According to the latest reports (by Norton Antivirus & Digital Security), there are just under a million cyber attacks each year - that's the equivalent of about 1 attack every 40 seconds. I'll preface what I'm about to share by saying that if someone has enough knowledge and the desire to hack an account, they'll probably crack it eventually. To help protect our online accounts, we need to use the tools provided by the platform owners at a minimum,...

What do you talk about in your content? Whatever it is you share with your email subscribers can be categorised into a meaningful 'topic' (or topics, if you talk about more than one thing). Let's say, for example, you offer WordPress website development for freelancers and you provide a range of products and services, all of which are based around your core offering. The content you share on social platforms and in your emails will all be related to your core offering, however, there may be...

Selling your products and services via ConvertKit As a feature of ConvertKit's subscription plans (free and premium), you can sell your products and services via their 'Commerce' platform. It's simple to set up, just clicking along as ConvertKit hooks up your ConvertKit account to your bank account, via the Stripe payment merchant. Once you have your accounts hooked up, you're good to go - start creating your offerings. I created a separate article that takes you through the steps of creating...