Image courtesy of Jolante.

Newsletters are an excellent communication and marketing tool for your direct sales business. They help you connect with customers and prospects, provide value to readers, and keep customers up-to-date on promotions and product offerings. Some direct sales companies provide newsletters either by sending them directly to customers or making them available for consultants to send. If you are using a company provided newsletter, I recommend personalizing it as much as possible to make it more of a reflection of you.
 

If your company doesn’t provide a newsletter, create your own. Here are the steps to take to create one.

Step 1. Frequency: How often do you want to publish your newsletter? Remember each issue involves a few hours of preparation including creating the content. Establish a schedule you know you can keep up with. It is always easier to add supplemental issues or increase the frequency however decreasing the frequency can give a poor impression. Monthly or quarterly is probably a good place to start.

Step 2. Content: What is your newsletter going to be about? What are you going to include in your newsletter? Some newsletters have a single article and a promotion. Others have 3-5 articles and an equal amount of promotional content. What are your articles going to be about? Will you write them or will you hire a writer? Take a look at newsletters you like and consider why you like them. Consider what types of content will add value to your readers. What questions or problems do they have?

Step 3. Email or print: How are you going to distribute your newsletter? There are benefits to both. Email is very cost effective and instantaneous. Print is nice because it gives something tangible for customers to hold onto.

Step 4. Email Service: If you’re going to email your newsletter, consider paying for an email distribution and list management service. There are many available online. They offer newsletter templates, automatically manage the list subscriptions and unsubscribes, and enable you to create newsletters in advance and schedule them for future delivery. The price for services vary however many base their prices on the number of subscribers.

Recommended Resource
AWeber Autoresponder and Newsletter Service

Affiliate link (Why tell?)

Step 5. Subscribe Form: If offering an email newsletter, add a signup form on your website. This not only increases traffic and visitor value, it helps build a list of contacts and customers.

Step 6. Marketing: Let people know about your newsletter. Include a link to your subscription form in all email communications, signatures, and even consider adding it to your business card, brochure, and other marketing materials.

Step 7. Graphics: Graphics are a great way to make a newsletter visually interesting. Options include adding a logo or a header to each newsletter as well as including graphics, photos, and even charts within the newsletter. Stock photo sites are a good place to get started, however it is a good idea to make sure the reprint rights are available.

Newsletters are an excellent tool for connecting with and marketing to your customers and prospects on a regular basis. To make sure your newsletter is well-received, focus on providing quality content that will keep your readers interested and subscribed.

We interrupt the scheduled tips on communicating with customers and prospects to give your this free report on using private label rights content (PLR) to build a mailing list from Wendy Wood of Mom PLR eBooks.

Read the report below or download it from Scribd.

Resources

• AWeber autoresponder service
  Wendy’s affiliate link from the document
  iRepNetwork’s affiliate link
• Mom PLR eBooks.
• Special Report Club
• All Private Label Content

Enjoy!

Tips in the series so far:
Tip One – Listen
Tips Two – Email Etiquette

Affiliate link or our product link (Why tell?)

Image courtesy of petesimon.

All kinds of products and services come with a guarantee, but some guarantees aren’t really what they seem. Adrian Jock exposes “the truth about guaranteed hits” in his article below. It’s the kind of examination we should all do before making a buying decision based on a guarantee. And it got me thinking about other guarantees.

I won’t even go into the madness of guaranteed income for online business opportunities. That’s a whole article in and of itself and hopefully by now we all understand the impossibility of that guarantee.

Another common guarantee that many online business owners come across is guaranteed uptime for website hosting. The guarantee makes it sound like a promise that your website will be available 99.5% or even 99.9% of the time. But the hosting company is really guaranteeing is that they’ll credit or refund part of your hosting fees if they don’t maintain that level of service. Personally, I stand to lose more than a few dollars if my site is down for any length of time, so I look for actual uptime statistics rather than guarantees.

When making purchase decisions of any kind, a guarantee may be an important feature. Just be sure you understand what it means. Read Adrian’s article to understand guaranteed hits and please leave your comments and questions.

Email Marketing – The Truth About Guaranteed Hits
By Adrian Jock

Since no traffic equals no sales, hits to his website is the goal of any email marketer. However, many email marketing campaigns fail by delivering few clicks. The reason is simple: this type of marketing is not that easy. You need an attention grabbing subject line, a good ad copy and more. What if someone guarantees you hits?

All hard work is simply skipped. The prospects land on your salesletter without you wasting your time on copywriting and testing. Doesn’t sound great? Yes, it would be nice, but… how true (and effective) are those guaranteed clicks on your link?

Let’s see. So what actually means to get guaranteed hits? Well… No matter how bad my subject line is, no matter what I write in the ad copy, no matter anything, someone (let’s call it from now on the seller) will make his opt-in subscribers click on my link. Wonderful! But how can the seller “force” his subscribers click on my link?

Maybe his subscribers are all dumb. Maybe they don’t do anything all day long but wait for the seller to send emails so that to click on the links from the emails and make happy the seller and the advertisers. How does this sound? Quite unreal, right?

Then… if the subscribers are not dumb but they still click on links no matter how bad and not attractive is an ad copy, then it means that there is something the advertiser doesn’t know… What can it be? An incentive for subscribers! Something to make them click on links, no matter the content of the email. In comparison with the first assumption, this one looks very possible, right?

What if behind the seller’s mailing list there is actually a get paid to read emails program? What if there is a credit based safelist, or a similar program, or a combination of such programs? Wow! That’s it, right? This sounds very real and it seems that we found out how can someone guarantee hits. OK, but this is not what it was advertised when I placed my order, right? Not so nice practice, but… at least is it effective?

Let’s see… Who are those people clicking on my link? Hungry buyers? Hmm… I doubt… a) they waste their time clicking on links because they cannot afford a serious and professional promotion way (or they are freebies hunters) and b) they are looking for credits in order to blast their own ads – they are sellers, not hungry buyers.

Will they at least take a look at my salesletter? No one can tell exactly what other people will do, but… we can estimate their actions by asking ourselves “Why did they land on my page?”. Because they were interested in my very bad subject line? Because they were interested in my ad copy that they did NOT read? Nope! They landed on my page in order to get credits (Most of them are wasting their time, but that’s another story) and right after that will close my page and go to the next email to continue their job. To be honest, if I’m lucky, maybe some of them will take a look at my page, but… hey, did I say lucky? Is this email marketing or gambling?

What is the conclusion? Hmm… No further comments from my part. You know my opinion and actually you know my conclusion. It’s your turn… Be wise!

To Your Online Success!
Adrian Jock

P.S. If you want to read more internet marketing tips, you’re invited to subscribe free to the Worst Newsletter in the World. Why would someone call his own newsletter “the worst”? The mystery is revealed here: http://www.adsmarket.biz/internet-marketing-tips-news.html.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adrian_Jock
http://EzineArticles.com/?Email-Marketing—The-Truth-About-Guaranteed-Hits&id=3763160

I’m sure you’ve heard it time and time again… to maintain a successful online business you must build and market to a mailing list. But for many of us, selling to our list is a daunting and intimidating task.

If you have not yet made the attempt to promote your business to your subscribers, or you feel in the wrong when you do, it’s time to overcome your fear of selling to your list so you can make more money. And here’s just the help you need to learn how to grow your list, reduce your workload, and boost your income.

Grab the brand new Email Marketing Sweetie guide

You’ll get access to:

• 4 Succinct and Easy-to-Follow Training Guides with Complimentary Audios that will help you start making big changes in your email marketing.
• 4 Practical Assignments: To help you immediately apply what you learn to your business.
• Bonus Checklists, Idea Sheets, and Yearly Email Planner: These easy-to-reference printables will keep you on task when it comes to building your list, and help you take that all important action step.
• Bonus Audio & Transcript on Confidently Selling to Your List: A 60-minute interview with Alice Seba where she gives you the scoop on the most frequently asked questions about starting and growing a profitable email list.
• Bonus Opt-in Template & Complete Instructions: A fully customizable opt-in page template to help you start building targeted lists.

A few email marketing tips:

If you have not yet made the attempt to promote your business to your subscribers, don’t act hastily by inundating them with an onslaught of email promotions. Start out slow and test the waters first. An initial email letting them know you will be sending them valuable offers will open the lines of communication and lessen the shock value of advertisements appearing in their inboxes. This is an opportunity to sell yourself and your business while gaining their trust before the “sales” even begin. Most of your list will respond favorably, but you will likely lose some subscribers. But that’s okay because those that opt-out weren’t likely to become customers anyway.

Once your list knows what to expect, you can begin the actual task of promoting. That does not mean to send them multiple offers on a daily basis until they exile your address to the world of SPAM. However, it does mean that you will have to stay on top of contacting your list and make a point of doing so frequently enough to stay current and fresh in their minds without filling their inboxes with clutter.

It is also important to maintain a balance between content-driven emails and those containing promotions. Selling to your list requires a delicate balance. Alternate between information and advertising. You want to remain to be a voice your subscribers can trust without becoming too sales-driven and you also want to make sure your advertisements are clear without getting lost in your content.

Again, here’s the link to “Email Marketing Sweetie”
http://www.irepnetwork.com/go/emailmarketing.html

Here’s to great email!

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A blog reader recently commented “I have been thinking about starting an email list but really need to do some more research to find the best way to do it.”

A mailing list is a very good idea. Many marketers will even tell you it’s essential to online success. In addition to keeping your name in front of potential customers and prospects, it helps you build trusting relationships with them.

While it’s perfectly acceptable to market to your list, quality content is crucial to its success. A good mix of free useful information along with valuable offers and specials will keep your readers interested, responsive, and subscribed.

Here are some articles and resources to help you develop and deliver quality:

• Why You Need A Mailing List
• 5 Quick Newsletter Tips
• Use A Lead Capture Page to Generate Leads for Your Direct Sales Business

An alternative to a mailing list is a blog that readers can subscribe to with RSS or by email. One advantage a blog has over a mailing list is that a blog can be more interactive with readers commenting, sharing information, and discussing information and issues. Again, the key is of course good mix of quality information and valuable offers.

Check back tomorrow; I have a special report about blogging that I’ll make available to my blog readers.

Do you offer a mailing list and is it producing a good return on your investment of time and money?