Many businesses use the word free as a lure. They will offer their solution to us without initial cost, then convince us to pay after seeing the value of their solution. But is that truly free? We would argue these are trials, not free solutions.

“Free” Marketing Automation

Lately, we’ve seen many businesses offer “free marketing automation software”. But are they? Mautic is free and will be forever. But this is not a marketing concept. This is a philosophy.

When we set out to produce marketing software, we were compelled by our mission. To empower organizations by providing powerful communication tools to anyone who needed them. Free speech is a freedom we often take for granted. To provide a solution that empowers free speech is an incredibly powerful concept.

GNU Free Software Definition says:

We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don’t control the program, we call it a “nonfree” or “proprietary” program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.

So while others offer “free” marketing automation tools, read the fine print. Because free for a month isn’t free. It’s bad marketing.

Authentic Marketing

We believe in the concept of authentic marketing. Authentic marketing is about value and values, it’s not about trickery. When we have something of value, we don’t need shady marketing to communicate it. Marketing should be the artful way we convey and connect individuals to that value. So for our marketing efforts to be effective, we must consider trust as a key element for connection. If we continue to use trickery, we diminish not only our brand, but our value proposition.

As marketers, let’s strive to be authentic in the way we communicate with buyers. We can’t be lured into traditional marketing schemas. Our values AND value must shine at every step of the customer journey. The Young Entrepreneur Council encourages us:

Don’t get trapped by marketing dogma. Think outside the box and be willing to take risks, so long as it’s in line with your philosophy. For instance, blog openly about the problems your company seeks to solve in the world and how you’re working to overcome them by fulfilling your mission.

Honesty, truth and conviction. When we communicate our values using these principles, it is authentic marketing. And the data shows it’s what customers are seeking. Let’s not disappoint them. It’s time we start using our creative voice to engage buyers in authentic conversations and communicate with our vision, not archaic marketing tricks that convey false promises.

“… human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes.’ This is not only true of human connections; it’s true of our relationships with brands.

We encourage you to join our community. Because free is free. Forever.

Want to read more on this hot topic? Take a look at this longer article about marketing automation software.

Lesson 2: Base Theme Design & Landing Page Design

This second tutorial will cover the creation of a base theme design, basically a common layout that we will use in other design layouts. This common file holds the header information, css, and scripts that we’ll use across all layouts. Here’s the code for the base file.

The next file we create in this tutorial is the landing page template. This is where you can see firsthand how easy it is to create a layout for your beautiful custom landing pages. In this tutorial we’ll be creating a very basic looking design and honestly, at this point, it’s pretty ugly. But we’re not trying to win any design awards in this tutorial! That’s up to you! Here’s what our landing page design looks like.

Now you are starting to see how powerful Mautic is. Your organization can have landing pages, email templates and more that look exactly like your site design, and with the ability to host your free marketing automation software on your own website you will be perfectly consistent across every page. Custom landing page designs, finally designers everywhere can rejoice! I look forward to seeing what you create.

The answer is to create a double opt-in email list. In simplest terms a double opt-in email list means that those users who subscribe to your emails must first click a link you send them confirming their desire to receive emails from you. Creating a double opt-in email campaign is a common task for a marketing integrator. Below you’ll find the five pieces of a double opt-in email campaign.

1. Create a pending lead list and a confirmed lead list. These are the lists where you will organize your leads. Before they have completed the opt-in process they will be stored on the pending lead list. Eventually these leads will be moved to the confirmed lead list.

2. Create a landing page to serve as the opt-in confirmation page. This is the page the user will land on if they click the confirmation link in the initial email you send.

3. Create a new template email to serve as the opt-in message and include a link to the above landing page. You can either note the ID of the landing page and use in the token {pagelink=ID} as the URL or start typing “{page” in the editor, and a list of landing pages will appear. Click on it and it’ll insert a link for you. This is where you prepare the email you’re going to send to your potential leads. This email will direct them to click a link to confirm their subscription.

4. Now create a Campaign form to be used to sign your users up. This is the very first step in the process. Creating this form as a campaign form means you’ll be able to select it as a source when you build your campaign (next step). You can collect whatever details you wish (remember to keep it simple) and be sure you include their email address as one of your fields.

5. Finally build your campaign to tie it all together. You’ll add your form as the source where you are collecting leads, then you’ll build out the email to send to them, and the landing page you want them to land on when they opt-in. Your campaign flow might look something like below:

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of a double opt-in email campaign:

The Sign Up (yellow) lead source is simply our form created in step 4. Any lead who submits the form will be automatically added to the campaign.

Add to pending is a “Modify lead’s lists” action that will immediately add the lead to the Pending lead list created in step 1.

Send in Opt-in Email is a “Send Email” action selecting the email created in step 3.

Add a “Visits a page” decision and choose the landing page created in step 2 then connect the bottom of the “Send email” action into the top of the “Visits a page” decision.

And finally, add another “Modify lead’s lists” and choose to remove the lead from the Pending and add to the Confirmed list. Connect the bottom green anchor, or the direct action decision path, of the “Visits a page” decision to the top of the newly created “Modify lead’s list” action.

Now you have a double opt in campaign. You can base all of the mailings, or other campaigns, on lead’s that belong to the Confirmed list. When a lead signs up, they’ll be added to the Pending list and sent the opt-in email. When they click the link to confirm, they will be removed from the Pending list and added to the Confirmed.