Inspiration Business

Archive for January, 2009

There are many different methods of making an online income. In reality, they are all very similar to the business models you see in the offline world. You can sell goods and services, you can produce products for wholesale distribution, you can sell information, you can sell tools to help people in their own business model, you can sell advertising, or you can provide consulting services.

Do you see a common theme in all of these models? That’s right—to have a viable business, you have to literally provide some kind of a good or service that adds value to someone or something, either online or offline.

I think that when people think about going into business offline, they look for a need in their community and try to fill it. Online, they tend to think, OK, what can I do to make a lot of money? There is a huge difference between the two. Online, I think people really believe that if they put up a web site and sell something, the money will just come in. It is simply not an accurate thought, but I think that just about everybody has thought it at one time or another.

So to create an income online, you must meet a need, just like you would in the offline world. You meet that need by producing, developing, distributing, or brokering a product or service. That is just about it. You will never earn long-term viable income from schemes and scams, no more than a bank robber will earn a long-term viable income robbing banks.

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Are you using email marketing to stay in touch with your prospects and provide them with useful information? If you are not doing so, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Email marketing is one of the most effective methods to build relationship and drive sales. It is easier to sell to someone that you know rather to a stranger. If you provide value to your list subscribers, they will be more receptive to take action on any offer that you present to them in the future.

A list is your asset because it allows you to drive traffic and sales on demand. With a click of a button, you can access to a group of targeted audience instantly. Although email marketing sounds simple, it is not. Many email marketers make mistakes that spoil relationship with their subscribers and destroy any chance of getting sales.

Now, let me share with you 4 deadly email marketing mistakes that you must avoid:

1. Sending emails too frequently to your subscribers. If you send emails too frequently to your subscribers, they will see you as a spammer. The frequency is really dependant on the type of list that you are collecting. For example, if your list delivers a daily forex course, it is perfectly fine to send an email daily. If people join your list for updates, then a weekly or bi-weekly email will be good.

2. Poor content. If every email is a sales pitch or promotion, you will not get results from email marketing. You must deliver some real value to your subscribers. Send them free gifts, industry information and updates. When you are writing the content of your email, remember that your readers do not care so much about you. What they want to know is what’s in it for them. Your email should have more “you” than “I”.

And When you are writing the content for your email, avoid words like Free, Make Money, Million Dollars, etc. These words will trip the spam filters and prevent your emails will not get delivered. Therefore, it will be wise for you to use a spam checkers to go through your email message. Look at the spam score that it gives you. If the spam score is over 5, you should go back and edit the content again.

3. Poor subject line. Your email open rate is directly influenced by its subject line. If your subject line cannot capture your visitors’ attention, they will not open it. When you are preparing an email campaign, always come up with at least 10 subject lines so that you can choose the best one for the campaign.

4. No call to action statements in emails. This is the most common mistakes made my many email marketers. If you want your readers to click on your link and visit your website, you must include call to action statements in your emails. Just putting a link in your email is not enough. You must tell your readers what to do next

Email Marketing is a powerful and affordable internet marketing method. It is most commonly used and best-acclaimed means of bringing traffic to websites. It can be used for sending “special offers”, invitations or merely to keep-in-touch with existing or prospective customers, and can be sent to as many people as desired. It is simple – just like drafting an email but in a different form, either as an announcement or newsletter. But, there is a best way of doing it.

1. Make the recipients open your mails

Many recipients will find their Inbox loaded with tons of emails daily. Make your subject lines attractive, to-the-point and yet sufficiently informative so that recipients will open your emails. Use text symbols, space your text creatively and ask questions that will arouse strong interest.

2. Speak the Truth

Not only must you ensure truthful statements in your subject lines, your email content must only carry claims that you can subsequently honour. Never attempt to make promises you cannot keep. Make genuine and valuable offers to your recipients.

3. Not too high; not too low Discounts

Do not attempt to offer too substantial a discount such that it will eat into your profits drastically. Otherwise, your email marketing effort will be futile. Yet, you need to balance the expectation of your customers. Anything that is perceived as too little (discounts) will not attract them.

4. Bundle with some Events or Conferences

Though we encourage emails to be short and sweet, take the opportunity to throw in some Events, Conferences or Seminars that will require RSVP. With ample intervals, reminder emails may be send thereby keeping your customers in constant contact yet you will not be seen to be overly pushy.

5. Forum marketing.

Participate in forum discussions actively. Most forums allow you to place a link to your website in your signature. Contribute something useful to the community and build your reputation. When people find that you have something useful to share, they will check out the link in your signature.

6. Create a squeeze page to capture visitors’ email addresses and names.

Your squeeze page should be straight to the point by offering visitors a free gift in exchange for their emails and names. The headline of your squeeze page is very important as it is the first thing that captures the attention of your visitors. Do not put other things on your squeeze page that distract visitors from opting in to your list.

7. Offer a free gift in exchange for emails and names.

There are many things that you can offer as a free gift to entice opt-ins, some examples are: e-book, whitepaper, voucher, video, audio and email tutorial course. People always like to receive free stuff. Therefore, offering a freebie on your squeeze page is a good way to entice them to opt in.

8. Promote your squeeze page aggressively.

List building is a number game. The more traffic you drive to your squeeze page, the more opt-ins you will get. There are many ways to drive targeted traffic to your page, some methods are: blogging, pay per click advertising, forum marketing, social networking, social bookmarking, search engine optimization, blog commenting and article marketing.

List building is all about relevancy and relationship. If you can offer something that people want, they will opt in. Once they opt in, the next step is to build a strong relationship with them and profit for years to come.

Email marketing works for any business, even an offline business like a hairdressing salon – as long as it’s done correctly! In a nutshell, email marketing is a time based, proven ‘tool’ for ultimately generating profits. This is achieved through building a positive relationship with your customers over time.

In email marketing, content is key. A professional looking email with banners and dynamic content is more likely to get read than something that was generated with a simple web mail program. Many email marketing programs include mechanisms which allow you to include autoresponders so you can include surveys and other tools which will guarantee a high response rate. Surveys are a good marketing tool and can help you learn about your customer’s needs and opinions on your products, your marketing message and even what your competitor has to offer. Integrating surveys into your email is a smart way for you to gauge the response rate and collect valuable demographic information on the customers to whom you have sent out the email. Survey responses can help you craft follow-up emails and help you plan future email marketing efforts. They can also help close the deal by asking questions that are designed to make the customer want to buy the product or service that you are offering.

Trust is critical in email marketing. If your prospect Customer, who opt-in and become your ‘subscribers’, believe in you, they will respond positively to your product offers, provided you are selling something of value and not trash! Most marketers agree that a prospect must receive a pitch on average 7 times before they actually respond.

Did you know that whether your business is offline or online, 60% of your sales will come from your existing customer base – this is a fact! So the greatest value in marketing is that of repeat customers. You can market different products to your email ‘subscribers’ over a period of time. However, this will only work if you’re able to identify your ‘target market’s’ problems and create products or services with their answers and solutions. Failing to do this, will result in unhappy subscribers and a cold list of unresponsive subscribers.

Building a relationship with your list takes time, effort and maintenance involving regularly providing information that your subscribers are likely to want. This is the cardinal rule of marketing – the ‘I want’ factor, not what I need!

Tip: Even though it’s not a good idea to ‘sell’ too soon in your campaign, there’s no harm in subliminally promoting your product in your signature at the end of each email by inserting a link back to your pitch page that answers or solves the problem!

Here are 14 ideas for email promotions:

1. Announce weekly “specials”
2. Host “Customer Only” events
3. Send appointment reminders
4. Follow-up with your hottest leads eg word-of-mouth referrals
5. Offer electronic “loyalty coupons”
6. Send follow-up offers
7. Develop relationships by offering free information eg newsletters, reports, downloads, trial versions of software
8. Encourage referrals eg send to a friend
9. Deliver your product electronically
10. Sell your knowledge
11. Promote an ‘educational’ course
12. Survey your subscribers or customers
13. Offer a bonus
14. Give away free tips, reviews, reports or audio recording