Nicole Bianchi

A GDPR Compliance Checklist For Your Email Marketing

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A Super Simple GDPR Compliance Checklist For Your Email Marketing

Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Over the past several weeks, the blogosphere has been buzzing with talk of a new EU privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that will go into effect on May 25.

When I first heard about the law, I thought, “Well, I’m not in the EU so I guess this doesn’t apply to me.”

Wrong. I soon found out that if I had any email subscribers who were EU citizens, the law applied to me as well. That means it probably applies to you too if you have EU subscribers on your email list.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there about GDPR and what actions to take to make sure your email marketing is GDPR compliant. [Read more…]

Use this Strategy to Craft Captivating Blog Post Introductions

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Use this Strategy to Craft Captivating Introductions For Your Blog Posts
Photo by Christin Hume
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When I was a little kid, I fell in love with a book and read it so many times that I nearly memorized the first page. Here’s the book’s opening line:

Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Do you know what book it’s from? It’s the first sentence of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

Now go back and read that opening line again. It really grabs your attention, doesn’t it?

It certainly grabbed mine when I was a kid. Just like Fern, I wondered why in the world her dad was heading out with an ax. Was he going to chop down a tree or, heaven forbid, kill someone? [Read more…]

How to Write in a Conversational Style That Will Connect with Your Readers

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Photo by Pablo Heimplatz
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The other day, I was checking my email when I came across a suspicious looking message. It began with the line, “Dear Sir/Madam”.

The first paragraph read,

Please pardon me if I intrude into your privacy, and may I humbly solicit your confidence in this transaction. I came to know about you in my private search for a reliable and reputable foreigner to handle this confidential transaction.

Wow, that writing sounds like something straight out of a Dickens novel. I quickly clicked delete, suspecting that this was a phishing scam.

You’ve probably received emails like this too. And maybe you’ve also chuckled at their standoffish, overly formal tone. It seems to be a trademark of these types of spam emails.

However, not too long ago, no one would have laughed at that style of writing. It’s the style most people would have used if they wanted to come across as polite and professional.

In fact, your English teacher probably taught you a similar academic style when you were in school. Flowery language. Long paragraphs. Precise grammar. No contractions.

And then came the Internet. Over time, everyone from bloggers to big corporations realized that a conversational style of writing is a much more powerful way to engage and connect with your audience. [Read more…]

The One Powerful Strategy That Will Help You Stand out Online in 2018

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Photo by Paul Dufour
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

It’s a brand new year filled with opportunity. You’ve resolved to focus your energy on writing more blog posts or maybe even publishing a book. There’s only one problem. There are thousands of people out there who’ve made the exact same New Year’s resolution as you.

The Internet is a crowded place. Every day someone writes a new blog post in your niche or publishes a new book on Amazon in your genre. In a sea of content, how can you get people to pay attention to your work?

I remember a shoe store my mom used to take me to when I was a little kid. It was called Merry-Go-Round Shoes and was quite unlike any store I’d ever been to. There was a merry-go-round in the center of the store that children could ride on.
[Read more…]

How to Grow Your Email List With Giveaways

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How to Grow Your Email List With Giveaways
Photo by Ben White
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

This November, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my soon-to-be-released eBook How to Grow Your Email List: A Step by Step Guide for Writers.

In this in-depth book, I’m compiling all of the strategies I’ve used to grow my email list from 200 to over 2,000 subscribers in just one year. And I show you step-by-step how you can use them to grow your online audience too.

I’m planning to release the book this December. But in today’s blog post, I’m sharing a sneak peek of one of the chapters. It’s about a very cool email list building strategy: giveaways! 🙂

Running a giveaway is one of my favorite email list building strategies. It’s a fun way for you to show your current subscribers how much you appreciate their support. And, at the same time, it’s an effective way to attract new subscribers to your list. (Don’t have an email list yet? Check out my blog post here for how you can get started.) [Read more…]

How to Start Building Your Email List: 3 of the Best Email Marketing Services for Writers

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How to Start Building Your Email List: The Top 3 Email Marketing Services for Writers

Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Back in May, I wrote a post about how I grew this blog’s email list from 100 to 1,000 subscribers in less than a year. The email list is now nearing 2,000 subscribers (!!). To celebrate, I’m expanding on that blog post and writing an in-depth step by step guide. It’s going to share all of my tips and strategies that will help you grow your online audience too. (Update: Get the book here!)

Since I’m terrible at keeping things under wraps, I couldn’t wait to share a sneak peek of the book with you. Today’s post is from an early draft of the book’s “getting started” section where I explain why an email list is important, and I narrow down the top three email marketing services for writers who are just starting out.

If you’re overwhelmed by all of the different email marketing options out there and aren’t sure which one to choose to get started, this is the post for you.  [Read more…]

How to Edit Your Writing: An Effective 7-Step Process

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How to Edit Your Writing: An Effective 7-Step Process
Photo by Jeffrey Betts
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A reader recently asked, “What is your best advice for editing?”

I was about to type up an email in reply, but then I realized that I’ve never shared my editing process here on the blog. Since this might be of interest to all of you, today I’m sharing the seven steps I follow to edit my work along with the editing advice I’ve gleaned from various famous authors over the years.

This post focuses on editing nonfiction, but I follow a similar process for editing both my fiction and nonfiction writing. You can adapt this advice according to your own writing projects. Read on for my editing tips.

[Read more…]

20 of the Best Free Web Applications for Writers

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Photo by Ryan Riggins
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Last year, I put together a list of 15 of the best free web applications for writers. It’s currently the most shared article here on the blog. But when I read through it the other day, I realized that many of the links are no longer active. So, it’s time for an updated and expanded post!

I’ve kept the links to all of the applications that are still active, and I’ve added several new ones. Read on to discover this year’s list of 20 of the best free web applications for writers.

[Read more…]

How a Mastermind Group Can Help You Reach Your Writing Goals

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How a Mastermind Group Can Help You Reach Your Writing Goals
Photo by Startup Stock Photos
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Has this ever happened to you?

You’re out to dinner with friends (none of whom are writers), and everyone’s answering the question, “What have you been up to lately?” Your friends talk about their jobs or upcoming trips, and then it’s your turn to answer.

Excitedly, you begin to explain how your blog is growing and that you’ve been asked to guest post. Or you tell them that you’re in the midst of plotting your new novel.

Then you get that look. You know the look. The bored look that’s usually followed by, “That’s cool.” And then they quickly change the subject.

You feel slightly disheartened. But you’re used to it by now.

You’re a writer, and you’ve come to learn that seldom do non-writers share your passion. Your friends might be supportive of your writing endeavors, but they don’t really understand what you’re doing.

What’s a writer to do? Though you love writing, it can sometimes feel a little lonely.

You’d love to have some friends to bounce ideas off of, who could help you brainstorm new strategies for getting your first 1,000 email subscribers, who could read your latest story and suggest how you can fix that glaring plot hole.

Many writers have been in the exact same situation as you. Their solution?

They do what C.S. Lewis did when he created The Inklings. They form a mastermind group with fellow writers. [Read more…]