Monday, May 29, 2006

Five Ways to boost Your Ezine Subscribers


  1. Show your potential subscribers a sample issue of your e-zine. You might want to consider showing them portions, blacking out or blocking some of the important info. Tthis will make them curious about what they are missing and more likely to subscribe.
  2. Give away a free follow-up autoresponder course. When my visitors subscribe to my newsletter they are given a 6 part autoresponder course on internet marketing. Publish your e-zine ad in each lesson. The more people see it, the higher the chance they'll subscribe.
  3. Offer your potential customers a discount on a particular product you sell if they subscribe to your free e-zine.
  4. Look for strategic partners and give them permission to give a free subscription to your e-zine as a bonus for a product they sell.
  5. Ask your potential subscribers questions that'll persuade them to subscribe like: "Would you like to be able to retire before you're 40?"

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Email Courses and Autoresponders

Offering free things to your website visitors is one marketing method that often results in a lot of sales. Free courses that are delivered via email are very popular, and people sign up for such courses on a regular basis to learn more about a topic of interest to them. These courses are best maintained and delivered with the use of autoresponders.

An autoresponder can be set up to send out a series of lessons for an email course. The lessons can be set for distribution at specific intervals. You determine how often the lessons for the course are sent to the people who have signed up for it. Email courses are very different from traditional courses, web based courses, or any other type of course.

There is no student and instructor interaction. The instructor writes the information out, puts each lesson in an autoresponder series, sets the timing for the lessons, and the rest is automated. You can opt to have lessons delivered daily, every other day, every three days, or any other time frame that you think works best for your email students.

Email courses are commonly used to sell products and services. For instance, if you sell widgets, you might develop a course that teaches people how to use widgets or how to care for their widget. Experts agree that an email course can be written for almost any product that you can imagine - if you put enough thought into it.

Start by determining what your course will be about, and how long it should be. If the course should be delivered every other day for two weeks, you know that you would need seven lessons. Write the lessons, and load them in the autoresponder. Set the interval for each lesson, which in this case would be 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13.

This means that the first lesson would be delivered one day after the person has requested the course, and the second lesson would be delivered three days after the person has requested the course, and so on. The interval for each lesson is set for the number of days after the person has signed up Make sure that everything is spelled right, and that your sentences are grammatically correct. You want the lessons to look and sound as professional as possible.

Next, simply advertise the email address that will activate the autoresponder. Make sure that you run a test first, sending each lesson to yourself. This will allow you to see what your email students will see when they sign up!

Friday, May 19, 2006

Increase The Efficiency Of Your Email Marketing Campaign By Avoiding These 10 Dreaded Red Flag Words

If you have been running an email marketing campaign for quite some time now, then you already realize the fact that your number one enemy is not reader apathy... it's the spam filters. Indeed, spam filters can prevent your messages from being received by your target recipients. And because of the decrease in your recipients' numbers, your response rate would likewise take a dip, and with it, the profitability of your email marketing strategy.

Time and time again, people have said that gold is in your mailing list, that your subscriber base is a figurative gold main. Too bad the spam filters sometimes close the road towards that gold mine, preventing us from harvesting whatever bounties it could promise.

The Number One Culprit...

The main reason why your messages get flagged down by the spam filters is the presence of what we call as red flag words. These are words which many email programs have pinpointed as likely used by spammers, hence, their spam filters are programmed to check messages for the presence of these words. Once determined, the message goes straight to the bulk folder.

What are these words? Here are the top ten most dangerous red flag words you should start avoiding as soon as possible:


  1. free
  2. amazing
  3. congratulations
  4. great offer
  5. unsubscribe
  6. risk free
  7. winner
  8. guarantee
  9. dear friend
  10. click here

Indeed, writing messages have become quite restrictive with the seeming ban imposed on marketing-centric words like those mentioned above. Logically, the first option would be to stop using the aforementioned words altogether. But then again, such a recourse would render your email messages useless. After all, how else will you describe an "amazing" and "great offer?" How else would you tell your subscribers that your offer is "risk free," or that you promise a "guarantee?"

Is there something you could do to avoid the spam filters without losing the potency of your messages?

Some Practical Solutions

For starters, you could begin using other words in your vocabulary. A thesaurus would come in handy. You'd be able to convey whatever it is you want to convey without sacrificing the power of your message altogether.

This is not always effective, however.

For example, nothing can beat the sheer power of the word "free." Yes, you may use similar terms like "gratuitous promise," or "available at no charge," but they are not as attention-grabbing as the original. The word "free," after all, has always been hailed as the most powerful term in marketing.

So what should you do?

Some marketers go around the problem by ingeniously spelling the red flag words quite differently. "Free" becomes "fr.ee" or "fr/ee" for example. "Click here" becomes "cli.ck.here" or "cl-ick here." This strategy has been proven to evade the watchful eyes of the spam filters and have contributed in increasing deliverability rate of many marketing emails.

The Value Of Testing

The most prudent approach, however, is to always test your messages before you send them. Once you have composed an autoresponder sequence, try to send each of the messages therein to your own email address. Check if they will all make it through.

If an email or two gets flagged by the spam filer, study them and determine where you went wrong. Correct the error, and send them again to your email address.

Continue repeating this process until such time when all your messages actually arrive in your inbox.

Sounds taxing? It's very much worth it, however, considering the fact that your emails contain your business message, and this is essential for your overall marketing campaign.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Adding Real Value To Your Article Marketing

The secret is out. Article marketing is both an inexpensive and lucrative way of attracting visitors to your website. Nonetheless, just because you can direct lots of traffic to your website because of your article marketing campaign, doesn't mean that you can see a direct correlation between the additional traffic and increased profits. To do that, you need to add real value to your article marketing.

Staying focused

Regardless of what it is you are selling on your website, or why you want to increase traffic to your website, if you do not stay focused with your article marketing, it is possible that you will not see any benefit in increased revenues. To ensure your article marketing remains focused, you need to think of a long-term strategy of how you want your website to look in 6-months to 1 year from now and establish an article policy that fits with this plan. Creating ad hoc articles for website is unlikely to be successful.

Avoid repetition

It is a frequent mistake by many web owners to add volumes of articles to their website, which all say the same thing, just in slightly different ways. What you find with such websites is that readers become bored with the site, and look to move on. You need to make sure that you grab the attention of readers and keep their attention by offering a different selection of articles in the same area. If you want to be extremely innovative with your article marketing campaign, you can include an email marketing aspect by asking your readers if they want to sign-up for updates on any articles that can then be email directly to them.

Remain the expert in your field

Although this may have a hollow sound to it, becoming an expert in a particular area is not as difficult as it remaining the expert in that field is. You need to be constantly aware of any changes or updates and soon as anything does change, you need to be the first person writing about this. Writing articles for your website that are 6 months behind the direction the market is moving in will not prove a successful article marketing strategy. Being 3 to 6 months ahead of the market will.

Be selective

Without doubt one of the most important aspects of your article marketing will be submitting articles to other websites. This has the value of directing traffic to your site. The downside is that the article will become associated with the hosting website. As such, if the hosting website has a loss of reputation, so will you. Consequently, it is an important part of any web owner's article marketing strategy that they are associated with reputable websites that enhance your website's reputation. After all, you're not undertaking the program just to help others!

Be professional

Finally, even if the website is only your part-time hobby or income generator, visitors to your website are not going to know this. Because of this, you need to maintain professionalism at all times. This means making sure that the articles are well written, with perfect spelling and grammar. Moreover, if you include facts in your articles, make sure they turn out to be true!

Following the above simple procedures should result in your website not only generating greater numbers of visitors, but these visitors should becoming trusting loyal repeat customers because of your successfully implemented article marketing strategy.