After years of earning some nice commission checks from about a dozen companies, I’m ready to move my marketing efforts to a new level, and that involves building mailing lists for each of the products I like and recommend.
Instead of having a one-time opportunity to make a sale, I intend to attract people who are interested in the products I promote and persuade them to trade their valuable contact information in exchange for good information about how to put the product to profitable use.
The goal, of course, is to build relationships with new prospects, provide quality information about the product and how they can use it, and to convert a percentage of those prospects into customers - hopefully happy customers.
This takes a lot of work, but email marketing has been proven time and again to be the best way to educate your readers and help some of them make the decision to purchase.
Now, I want this to be top-quality all the way, so I’m only using Aweber to manage my lists and will only send emails to people who have opted-in to the list and confirmed the decision.
I was looking for a simple way to add a subscribe form to a Squidoo lens, but neither the javascript nor the HTML form method provided by Aweber works in a lens.
After scratching my head, I’m testing a sign-up form on my Private Success Team lens.
This isn’t the optimum way to do this, but I have an image of the subscribe form on the lens. When you click the image, it opens a new window (or tab) with one of my splash pages that has a live subscribe form. Eventually, if this works, I’ll open a link to a page with a subscribe form and more information about the product, but the splash page is convenient, for now.
I was thinking that it would be great if Squidoo and Aweber could work together to build a module that makes it easy for us to add a subscribe form to our lens.
Perhaps there is already a way to do this that I don’t know about. If so, I’d really appreciate a link to it.
So, what do you think? Does what I’m currently doing look like a viable option, for now?
Do you know who to contact at Squidoo to suggest such a module?
I look forward to your feedback and opinions.
Act on your dream!
JD
August 8th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Since you can’t use javascript in a lens, and you can’t have a form either, what I usually do is to have a link in the lens to a signup page on another site.
I think there is plenty of scope for new modules however, never a bad thing…
August 8th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I’d go for linking to a separate form somewhere else. Looks reasonably professional and will work in any browser.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a team up. This sounds like a program that’s a bit over the heads of most lensmasters (including myself).
August 10th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Hi poddys and spirituality,
I appreciate your feedback.
I was hoping someone knew of a double-secret module that already exists, but perhaps that only works in movies.
I think there are a lot of people who would like to add a subscribe form to a lens, and would jump at the chance to include one. Unfortunately, I think that’s one of the reasons that the ability to use the form tag on a lens was turned off.
Act on your dream!
JD
September 4th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hey,
Thanks for the ideas. An image that links over to a sign-up form is most likely the best way…
If you think of any others, will you post them here?
Thanks, Brad
September 7th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Hi Brad,
Thanks for the comment.
Certainly, if I find another way to do this that would be better, I’ll post it here.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 7th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Your dream is answered!
Check out http://www.squidootricks.com
Lewis
November 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Thanks, Lewis!
I bought your report a few minutes ago and already have a live Aweber sign-up form on my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/21st-Century-Affiliate-Marketing
It’s right below the RSS headlines from the blog and I think it’s working okay.
If anyone would like to test the form and sign up for the blog postings via email, please feel free to do so.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
[...] Squidoo module request - Sign-up forms for Aweber mailing lists [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
[...] Squidoo module request - Sign-up forms for Aweber mailing lists [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Apparently, this won’t be the solution we wanted. See the comments on this post:
How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens.
Squidoo is working with Clearspring.com to stop this from working on Squidoo.
Why can’t AWeber and Squidoo work together to come up with a solution that will work?
Sigh.