Why Do Marketers Lie in their Emails?
June 22, 2008
Coming as I do from a direct response and direct mail background, I’m familiar with the various copy lines used to encourage people to open envelopes.
A teaser line. An offer. A time limited deal. There are numerous ways to increase the open rate of an offline direct mail piece. Some are straightforward, some are compelling, others are plain feeble.
But I don’t recall ever having received a piece of direct mail that had an outright lie printed on the envelope.
And I don’t expect to. Why would a company do that? If the lie is revealed the moment I open the envelope, then the cat is out of the bag. The company can’t be trusted. I would never buy from them.
In my experience, companies in the offline world are smart enough not to put their brand and reputation at risk by over-stepping the mark with their ‘come hither’ copy lines.
But this doesn’t seem to be the case in the online world.
A colleague of mine recently received a B2B email with the subject line:
Fw: Please help - unable to reach your IT person
A Guide To Automated Email Marketing
June 10, 2008
You’ve probably heard the expression, ‘the money isin the list’. It’s become a bit of a cliché - but it’sthe key to successful web marketing.
About 95% of visitors will not buy on their firstvisit to your website - in fact, most of yourcustomers will have to see your message 7 times beforethey buy.
Many people starting out on the Internet believe thattheir main marketing tool is their website.
In fact, your main marketing tool is your mailinglist. A website is just a way of building your mailinglist - by collecting the email addresses of yourvisitors.
Here are some examples of how to use mailing lists aspart of your marketing strategy. You could send:
=> a customized newsletter to your subscribers
=> sequential autoresponders to prospects
=> your Articles to Ezine publishers
=> offers for other products to your customers
However, managing your mailing lists can quicklybecome an organizational nightmare if you don’t havean Automated Email Marketing Tool.
An AEMT is a program that merges personal data into aform letter, schedules follow-up emails, and handlessubscribes and unsubscribes automatically.
————————————— Server Side or Client Side? —————————————
The Ultimate Self-Promotion Tool Is Right at Your Fingertips: An E-mail Newsletter
May 24, 2008
If you’re looking for low-cost ways to promote your business (and aren’t we all?), I hope you’ve considered publishing an e-mail newsletter, or “e-zine.” Here are six darn good reasons why you shouldn’t wait any longer:
Should You Publish a PAID E-zine?
May 10, 2008
Many of my clients ask me whether they should publish a paid e-zine instead of a free one. My answer is the classic consultant’s answer: “It depends.”
First of all, what do you want your e-zine to DO for you? Once you know the goal of your e-zine, the answer will be clear.
If you want to promote your current business and sell more of your products and services, a free e-zine is your ticket to success. If you plan to build a new business around making money from subscription fees, of course you’ll want to charge. However, publishing a paid e-zine is no small task! Here are some important points to consider…
15 Ways to Manage Your E-Mail More Effectively
April 26, 2008
? Are you tired of searching for e-mail messages you know are somewhere? ? Is your electronic "In Box" full of outdated messages? ? Do you frequently get ultimatums from your IS department to "clean up your act?"
Love it or hate it ? or both! ? e-mail is increasingly the primary method for communicating in today’s digital world ? at work and at home. Research shows that introducing e-mail into a company increases printing by 40%.
In seminars, I often ask attendees, "How many of you print out your e-mail?" The vast majority raise their hand ? timidly! But let’s face it, sometimes paper is highly practical. Complex proposals, for example, often require discussions where you need a printed copy that result in physical notes, making the electronic e-mail less valuable than the printed out version.
On the other hand, printing out everything is not likely a good solution. The key to managing e-mail is determining when to keep hard copy and when to keep electronic copy, keeping in mind that sometimes both may be practical. In the case described above, for example, the printed version has value for discussion, and the electronic version has value for creating new versions after the discussion. In either event, the principles of The Paper Tiger methodology will improve communication and increase productivity.
How To Set Up an Ezine Encyclopedia
April 12, 2008
Do you read all your Ezines? Or do you file them away in special folders and then forget about them?
I used to be like that.
When I first started subscribing to ezines I was amazed at the quantity of valuable information that was available for free.
But I soon became complacent about it. If anything, the 60-odd newsletters I was receiving each month became a burden. I was suffering from ‘information overload’.
Ezines contain a wealth of information. Every week, in hundreds of newsletters across the Web, experts share with their readers the latest tips, techniques and resources they’re using to succeed in the world of online business.
But if you don’t have a system for processing and organizing that information, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed by it.
I use a system that I call the ‘Ezine Encyclopedia’. This is how it works:
1. Open a document in Microsoft Word. At the top of this Word document, type in 15 to 20 ‘Category Headings’, one per line. These are the categories I use:
How to Do an E-mail Interview in 9 Easy Steps
March 29, 2008
Need a fresh idea for your e-zine content? Do an interview!
One of the many benefits of being an e-zine publisher is that you’ll have no trouble finding experts who will take a few minutes to talk with you. People love free publicity and are generally delighted to get in front of your readers.
But don’t assume doing an interview requires an in-person meeting or even a phone date. While those are great, you can also just do an e-mail interview. Once you learn how to do these and realize how easy they are, you’ll do them all the time.
Here’s what to do:
Save Time By Creating Email Signature Templates
March 13, 2008
If you’re like me, there are certain types of email that you send out regularly that follow a set form (client follow up notes, meeting notes, email article submission, etc). These can be irritating to have to recreate from scratch every time, but the tried and true method of creating a seperate document-file template, then sending that out as an attachment, may not always be appropriate. For example, email-based article submissions generally accept only plain text in-message formatting and require rigorous adherence to detailed submission guidelines involving the placement of bylines, the structure and length of the article body and the arrangement and length of bio-boxes and other inclusions - any deviation from which will result in a refusal of submission. Aggravatingly enough, these submission requirements are often so completely different from one submission site to another that it is difficult if not impossible to keep them straight without an entire set of templates.
To get around these and other problems, consider using the signature option in your emailer program to create individual email “signatures templates” for these commonly sent and repetitive emails. Using the above example of an email article submission email, I might create a “signature template” that looks something like this:
5 Things You NEED to Know About Your AOL 9.0 Subscribers
February 29, 2008
In Fall 2003, America Online (AOL) released its brand new AOL Version 9. (Have you noticed all the TV ads?) AOL estimates that up to 50% of their users were using the new version by the end of December 2003.
The biggest new feature with AOL 9 is its aggressive method of reducing unsolicited e-mail (sp^m) for its users. Basically, AOL wants users to customize their own inboxes and view or receive only the messages that they choose.
While the crackdown is a noble endeavor, it puts legitimate e-mail publishers in the crossfire — people like us who have worked hard to ensure that everyone on our list has opted-in and given us permission to contact them repeatedly.
To make sure that your AOL subscribers are receiving YOUR e-mails, here are a few things you should know.
Whats on YOUR Subscriber Thank-You Page?
February 14, 2008
When I coach my clients on how to get more business from their e-zines, I’m delighted to see that they spend time on creating content that builds a relationship with their readers. But I see many of these publishers overlooking the very beginning of their valuable relationship with their subscribers. For example, the “thank-you” page. If I sign up for your e-zine at your site, where am I taken afterwards? I hope it’s not a page that only says something vague like “form received” or even worse, nothing, leaving me wondering whether my signup was successful. Create a thank-you page where new signups go to right after they complete the form. On this page, be sure to:
Remember, You’re Laying the Foundation
