E-Biz Booster Blog - Email Marketing Tips

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 8 - Announcement

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:21:00 -0700

Welcome to the eighth edition of email marketing tips on September 03, 2008.

The 8^th edition has been put online yesterday. Thanks to John Lenaghan, who hosts it at his Blog.

Check it out

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 8, Sep 03, 2008

Hosted at Internet Marketing Chaos - Internet Business Without Hype

Includes: Tips about list building, choosing subject line, timing of your campaigns, and more…

Contact me to host an edition of this carnival on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Get your Blog more exposure!
It's easier than you might think.

Also submit your articles to this carnival.

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: If you like this edition, check out the previous email marketing tips - edition 7, too.

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

Copyright 2008 by John W. Furst. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.5. - If you find this content on a site that is violating our copyright, please, report its URL to us. Thanks for fighting copy scrapers.

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 7

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:48:38 -0700

Welcome to the seventh edition of email marketing tips on August 26, 2008.

This is certainly a very different edition of the Email Marketing Tips Blog Carnival. Different for 3 reasons:

It is late. Very late indeed. I apologize for this, but it started out with the blogcarnival.com site being down for at least 48 hours. I don't know when they have gone onlione again, but I simply did not have room in my schedule to deal with this earlier. Forgive me.
Finally I created a brief intro video for the carnival. I take you out on the highway and briefly introduce the content in this carnival edition. No more, no less.
I never got so many off-topic submissions like this time.
- Mostly in the personal development category.
- I also got an interesting submission about how great multi-level-marketing really is, and how easy you can get started. I was stunned.
  
  I decided not to feature that post for two simple reasons. This was certainly not a post about an email marketing tip, and secondly MLM is an ineffective, stupid kind of business model. It is off-topic for this carnival and I should ignore it.
  
  However, I know you are receiving many MLM related offers right now, because of this recession talk. There are so many great products waiting for you. All you need to do is sell them — to your family and friends,… — and become richer than you ever have thought were possible. Well, your friends don't have money? Doesn't matter, you can show them how to become rich with MLM, too.
  
  Off-topic, right! Don't go that route! Let me protect you. The great Gary Halbert wrote many rants about MLM. I like one in particular. You should read his letter “Why Multi-Level Marketing Sucks!” before considering any MLM related offer. Please, promise it to me.
To fill up the void I searched the net for email marketing related stuff by myself and I found some really great articles.

Let's begin. In fact I received only one submission that I want to use here. I dumped the rest. People, if it's not about email marketing, not even somewhat related, I don't use it. As stated many time, if you are not sure if it fits, submit it anyway. I won't be mad, as long as you are not getting mad. Period.

Contact me to host an edition of this carnival on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Get your Blog more exposure!
It's easier than you might think.

Also submit your articles to this carnival.

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

We have the following categories today.

Tools And Services
General Tips
Strategy
Code Of Practice

tools and services

Paula Brett presents Could You Save Some Money on Your Aweber Subscription? posted at Paula-Brett.com

John's comment: I personally believe trying harder to make money is better than trying to save 10 or 20 US dollars a month. However, you might want to checkout Paula's detailed post. I also left a comment on her post and she follow up.

general tips

Ryan Deiss presents Increase opt-ins by ditching the name field posted at Driving Traffic.

John's comment: Ryan Deiss is a successful marketer, who is way to busy to submit to blog carnivals. That's one of the posts I have found for you. You don't want to miss it.

strategy

Chris Garrett presents Email Marketing Tips: What is Email Marketing? posted at Chris Garrett on New Media

John's comment: Another successful man. I am reading Chris's Blog on a regular basis and noticed, he started am excellent series about email marketing on his Blog. Here is the first post. (You can go to following issues directly on his blog.) I consider the series a must read. Go ahead.

I will feature each post of his series in the Carnival. Chris doesn't submit to blog carnivals, but we excahnged emails and he is perfectly cool with having me pick his articles for you. Thanks Chris.

John W. Furst presents Bad Future For Email? posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Does your Grandma use Email? Do your teenage kids or nephews use email the same ways as you do? I think those are very interesting questions for a marketer, aren't they.”

John's comment: My humble post of this week's edition.

Code Of Practice

AWeber's Hot Email Marketing Tips!

Do you love AWeber, too?

2008-08-22 List-Unsubscribe Header Makes Unsubscribing Easier and More Trustworthy

2008-08-19 Team-Building Day: Wednesday, 8/20/2008

2008-08-18 Double Your Blog Newsletter Readers: Expand Beyond Your Blog

2008-08-12 Free HTML Email Template: Malibu

2008-08-11 Double Your Blog Newsletter Readers: Encourage Sharing!

2008-08-07 Email Web Analytics: 2 New Segmenting and Targeting Options

That concludes this edition. Submit your Blog article to the next edition of email marketing tips using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our Blog carnival home page.

Contact me, if you want to host an edition on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Now, it's time to send the carnival on a journey. Therefore, the next edition will be hosted on the Internet Marketing Chaos Blog.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: If you like this edition, check out the previous email marketing tips - edition 6, too.

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

Email Marketing Tips Delayed

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:17:00 -0700

Thanks for the emails folks. I know my bi-weekly blog carnival is running late. Good to know that it is missed. Let me tell you what's happening. Yesterday was a very weird day. That's what I got when I tried to get some work done in the evening.

triiibes.com -- Site is in maintenance mode
dmoz.org -- We are maintaing our database. Please, come back later.
blogcarnival.com -- Blog Carnival Temporarily Unavailable

It never happened to me before that 3 sites I needed, where down at the same time. I simply turned off the computer and did not worry about it. I said to myself tomorrow will be another day.

What do you think did happen today?

Blogcarnival is still unavailable. That's why the edition is late. I cannot run my slick little script that takes the output of InstaCarnival and reformats it for my blog as long as they are temporarily down (they have surpassed the the 12 24 36 48 hour mark already).
[last updated: 2008-08-22 19:05 EDT -0400 as in New York/USA]

Of course I could use the email notifications to assemble the carnival edition. But sorry folks, I won't do that. I already have selected most of the posts I want to feature and added a lot of comments directly in InstaCarnival. I won't do that work again. I am sure you understand.

So, please, be patient.

That's the downside of having your work or documents online. If the third party service is down, you will be down as well.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S. I might not get to it at all today. Since I have other things on my schedule.

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 6

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:32:00 -0700

Welcome to the sixth edition of email marketing tips on August 06, 2008.

Today we have only one post per category (almost). I purposefully assembled this carnival edition in order to eliminate unnecessary choices for you and get you to read the tips. But don't stop there, actually go out there, do it, and make more money from your efforts.

My absolute favorites are Gavin Ingham's and John Carlton's posts. Regarding John Carlton I have to confess I found his post. It's not that he found my email marketing tips blog carnival.

Anyway it does not matter, my goal is to provide value with this carnival. And I don't care how I get the content that I am featuring. I hope you appreciate it and I will continue to throw in content from top guys. John Carlton makes an announcement for email marketers at the end of his post by the way. That was another reason why I included this one here.

Did you feel that some some hands-on tips were missing here?

I felt that way. Therefore, I start featuring selected posts from AWeber's Blog. AWeber is a leading email marketing tools service provider. I use it personally and simply know their tips will work out for you. Could there be a better reason for including them. I don't think so.

Some readers wrote me they liked it whenever I throw in “third party content” that fits. There are many folks and companies who produce valuable content, but simply don't bother with Blog carnivals for whatever reason. Let's continue to take advantage of it.

Contact me to host an edition of this carnival on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Get your Blog more exposure!
It's easier than you might think.

Also submit your articles to this carnival.

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

We have a lot of categories today (as I said above), but only one or two posts in each. It's quite manageable. The categories are

Strategy
Tools And Services
Copywriting
Web And Email Design
Code Of Practice
Call For Participation

Let's rock'n roll…

Strategy

Gavin Ingham presents How to use email when prospecting posted at Gavin Ingham

John's comment: Good points, “Email is a tool and should be used to help you in your sales efforts. But email is also a weapon that can destroy your sales efforts if used not properly.”

Tools And Services

John W. Furst presents Review: Video Series - Email Promos Exposed! posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “My conclusion: Watch master marketer Michael Rasmussen,… Jump on board and learn how to use email marketing to bring in more money. Seriously!”

John's comment: “My humble post” - Learn from the successful.

Copywriting

John Carlton writes Who Gets Read posted at John Carlton's Big Damn Blog, saying, “‘One in four adults read no books last year (USA Today)’… There's a marketing lesson here… We've put together a KILLER Webinar on how to get emails delivered and read, which is going to be available soon in audio/visual format.”

John's comment: Especially watch out for the P.P.P.S. John will be announcing a KILLER Webinar on how to get emails delivered and read. You don't want to miss that!

Web And Email Design

Jordanv presents Pretty E-mails for All! posted at Connection Cafe.

John's comment: I wish Jordan had made a HTML template available that goes along with his tips. I also would note to be careful to add too many links to an email, it shouldn't look like a web site.

Andre Thomas presents 12 Web Copywriting Tips To Boost Subscriptions posted at Web Copywriting Tips And Secrets By Andre Thomas.

John's comment: Andre's advice goes beyond email opt-in forms. I highlighted: • Require as little info as possible; • Take away the “clear/reset button”; • Call Submit something else; • Don't enforce certain formats (e.g. with phone numbers)

Code Of Practice

AWeber's Hot Email Marketing Tips!

Do you love AWeber, too?

2008-08-04 Want To Double Your Blog Newsletter Readers? Here's The First of 4 Tactics That Helped Us

2008-07-29 The Ugly Truth About Buying Email Lists

2008-07-25 Social Proof Tool Boosts Landing Page Conversion 32.4%

2008-07-23 Hate Broken Links? Automatically Check Your Emails For Them With Link Checker

2008-07-22 Add a Web Form Footer To Share Your Privacy Policy, Announce a Free Bonus and More

2008-07-18 Asking Subscribers To Whitelist You: Is It Ever Too Late?

Call For Participation

John W. Furst presents We Want Your Email Marketing Tips Now posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “A more conservative headline would read something like, ‘Call For Submission!’. But that sounds pretty uninteresting, doesn't it.”

John's comment: Come on, do something!

That concludes this edition. Submit your Blog article to the next edition of email marketing tips using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our Blog carnival index page.

Contact me, if you want to host an edition on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: If you like this edition, check out the previous email marketing tips - edition 5, too.

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

Video Series: How to Write Killer Email Promos That Get Results!

nospam@example.com (Jennifer Meilhart) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:34:18 -0700

Click Here To Get FREE
Private Access
to this $197 Value, Life Changing Product!

Have you ever been faced with the task of having to write an email promotion to your list, and then realized that you didn't know what to say or how to say it?

Michael Rasmussen's new video course “Email Promos Exposed” promises to solve that problem for you by walking you through the actual process of creating killer email promos step-by-step.

If you're in a hurry, just go ahead visit this URL to get instant free access to these videos:

Free Video Series: Email Promos Exposed!

I decided to see if Michael's videos live up to their promise by trying them out myself. Here's what I found:

Overall Quality

The first thing I noticed when I opened up the first video was the stunning production quality. He used Camtasia Studio for the production, which is now the industry standard for creating high-quality screen capture video products. The audio is near studio quality, and the graphics are very professional. These videos were made by someone who KNOWS what he's doing. Well done!

I also liked how Michael divided the videos up by section, and then again by sub-section. For example, one video is all about the subject line, and then there are different parts of that video that each cover a certain area of crafting a killer subject line.

Now let's move onto…

THE ACTUAL VIDEOS

Here's a brief summary of each video. Obviously it's impossible to list every single thing here, but I want you to get a feel for what each one covered, and how well it covered it.

If you're in a hurry, just go ahead visit this URL to get instant free access to these videos:

Free Video Series: Email Promos Exposed!

VIDEO 1 - INTRODUCTION

This video served as an introduction to the whole course. You get to see a picture of Michael in his every day life, and he establishes his credibility right up front by talking about some of his massive successes online. He even provides proof of credibility by displaying two checks in the amount of $50,000 and $25,000 which prove that, when it comes to the subject of making money with email promos, he knows his stuff.

This is a good lesson for anyone to get. Whenever you're teaching people how to do something, it's good to establish your credibility up front, so that there's no doubt about whether or not you're qualified to talk about the subject. Most product developers either skip or minimize this step.

VIDEO 2 - BEFORE YOU WRITE THE PROMO

This video talks about some things that no other marketer has bothered to mention. You'll learn things like:

The mindset you need in order to write a killer promo
The different tools you need before you get started
How to keep your emails laser-focused
How to create an outline that practically writes the email for you.

This was a fantastic video, and did a good job of kicking things off.

VIDEO 3 - THE SUBJECT LINE

I liked this video, because it talked about one of MY biggest weaknesses when it comes to writing email promos… the subject line. The subject line is a confusing topic, because nobody's 100% sure what the best tactics are.

Michael breaks it down, and reveals:

The biggest secret for writing a subject line that makes people insanely curious.
Techniques for personalizing the subject line.
Mistakes to avoid when using personalization.

I was surprised to find that I was making some of the mistakes that Michael mentioned in this video, but now I know better.

VIDEO 4 - THE OPENING

This is where a lot of people slack off when writing their emails. Michael talks about how important it is to create an opening that is conversational, and then reveals techniques and examples on how to do that.

He also reveals:

How to get people to keep reading your email once they've opened it.
How to make your opening interesting.
Mistakes to avoid when creating your first few paragraphs.

VIDEO 5 - THE BODY COPY

This is one of the “meatiest” portions of the course, because it reveals techniques that are not widely discussed on the forums, blogs, and in most eBooks. He talks about the importance of keeping your body copy tight and relevant, and then reveals how you can do that. You'll also learn:

How to write powerful bullets that make people curious and want to find out more.
Simple formatting tricks for making your body copy easy to read.
The secret of “bucket brigade copy” and how to use it in your email promos to force people to keep reading.

VIDEO 6 - THE CALL TO ACTION

This is where a lot of people wimp out in their email promos. They start out strong, but when it comes time to ask the reader to click the link and take action, they don't know what to say. Michael talks about some of his favorite techniques for making that happen, and also reveals:

The “magic question” to ask yourself that will make your close much more powerful.
The secret of the “unanswered question” and why handling this is a surefire way to get people to act right away.
The structure of a powerful close.
Mistakes people make when creating their close.

VIDEO 7 - CREATING AN EFFECTIVE P.S.

Some people say that the P.S. is one of the most important parts of the email, because it is often the one thing that gets people to click the link at the end. In this video, Michael talks about:

Why you should including a P.S. at the end of your email.
The 4 different kinds of P.S.'s you can use (this section was a real eye-opener for me).

VIDEO 8 - COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE

I loved this video, because it showed me some mistakes that I was making that I wasn't even aware of. Unless you're a seasoned pro, you're probably guilty of some of the things that Michael talks about in this video as well, and that's why it's so valuable. I've shaved years off my learning curve, because now I can avoid some of the costly mistakes that I was bound to make in the learning process.

VIDEO 9 - HOW TO CREATE FOLLOW-UP EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This video alone is going to make me a lot of money. Why? Because I used to only send out one email promo for each affiliate promotion I was doing. Michael showed me in this video how important it is to send a follow-up promotion, and he showed me exactly how to do it. He covered things like:

The psychology of follow-up email promo's.
The 2 main types of follow-up promos that make the most money.
How to overcome readers' objections in your follow up emails.
The 2 most common mistakes people make when writing follow-ups and how to avoid them.

VIDEO 10 - HOW TO WRITE BACK END EMAIL PROMOTIONS

Every marketing guru out there says that the REAL money is on the back end. I'd have to agree with them, but the problem is… most people have no idea how to set up a back end system that makes money. This video will teach you how to set up an automated back end that's loaded with killer promos that make you lots of cash on autopilot. He reveals things like:

The big difference between regular and back end email promos.
How to prepare a back end promotion sequence.
Common mistakes people make when creating back end email promos.

VIDEO 11 - CREATING AFFILIATE EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This could be the most important video of the entire package for a lot of people, because most people email their list to promote other people's products as an affiliate. Let's face it, if you only have 3 products, can you really afford to only email your list 3 times a year? They'll get bored hearing about the same old products over and over again. This video sheds some light on how to create killer affiliate promos. Michael reveals things like:

The two main types of affiliate promos.
What makes affiliate promos different than regular promos (and why ignoring this huge secret could cost you big money).
Michael's favorite tactics for creating affiliate promos that no one else is doing.
3 different ways to add scarcity to your affiliate promos (this is the most important section of the video, so make sure you watch it over and over again).

CONCLUSION

As you can see, Email Promos Exposed really packs a lot of punch! Most of the courses out there offer only watered down, weak content. Not this one! These videos are going on my “A-list” for a long time.

I've already watched them twice, and plan on reviewing them every couple months to make sure that I have the principals, techniques and tactics burned into my mind.

If email marketing is an important part of your business (and in my opinion, it's the most important part of ANY online business), then you owe it to yourself to check out Michael's exciting new videos, Email Promos Exposed.

Here's the URL where you can get instant free access to the videos right now.

Free Video Series: Email Promos Exposed!

Yours
Jennifer Meilhart
(sitting in for John, who is
at the beach,… again!)

P.S.: Enjoy the weekend

P.P.S.: Yes, this course is from the same guy, who authored the excellent mini sites course.

We Want Your Email Marketing Tips Now

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:04:06 -0700

A more conservative headline would read something like, “Call For Submission!”. But that sounds pretty uninteresting, doesn't it.

As you might or might not know I am organizing the Email Marketing Tips Blog Carnival. You probably have read an edition, which comes out on a biweekly basis on Wednesdays. The next, 6th edition will appear in a week. I already got great, on-topic submissions from various sources.

However, I want more!

I want you to get engaged and to submit your email marketing related Blog article to my carnival.

Why would you want to do this?

Well, probably because you are blogging. You know that there are several ways to embed your Blog deeper into the Blog-o-Sphere:

Leave comments on related Blogs
Having guest posts on your Blog
Writing guest article on other Blogs
Article marketing
Etc.
And, … Yes, Blog Carnivals

There might be other methods as well. Leave a comment here on this Blog and add your favorite method of cross-linking your Blog.

Blog Carnivals give you 3 different levels of involvement.

Submit your Articles
Host an edition on your Blog
Organize a carnival yourself

I don't want to go into detail for each of those opportunities, now, but have already invited you to submit your article.

The second option hosting a carnival edition

seems to be more work, but it's actually not.

(At least not for my email marketing carnival, which runs almost Blog spam free). I mean, you get good content for your Blog and write half a Blog post. The selection of the posts you want to feature is pretty easy and straight forward with the tools of blogcarnival.com
Hosting an edition makes you standout more and gives your readers valuable resources. You are in control, which articles get featured

Your Blog - your rules!

I know it's kind of a weak pitch I am writing here, but this is already getting long (though - not long enough probably).

Jump On the Carnival Train

And host one of those next editions on your Blog:

Aug 06, 2008 E-Biz Booster Blog
Aug 20, 2008 unknown
Sep 03, 2008 Internet Marketing Chaos
Sep 17, 2008 unknown
Oct 01, 2008 unknown
Oct 15, 2008 unknown
Oct 29, 2008 unknown

Contact me and sign up for a future edition! The process is really easy. I'll give you a detailed instruction via email.

Sidenote:

I am not a buyer of John Reese's Traffic Secrets and don't know, if Mr. Reese has included Blog Carnivals as a viable strategy for creating back links and traffic to your Blog or not. Actually I am not even sure, if the product has shipped at all so far. I only picked up from the Blog-o-Sphere, “…there might be packaging related delays…”.)

Anybody knows what role Blog carnivals have in Mr. Reese's Traffic Secrets.
Leave a comment and let us know, please.

Yours
John W. Furst

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 5

nospam@example.com (Jennifer Meilhart) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:43:04 -0700

Welcome to the fifth edition of email marketing tips on July 23, 2008.

Seems like we have to pay our dues to the summer vacation time. The number of submissions has dropped accordingly, but we still have 7 posts arriving in this edition. I want to start with my usual

“Call For Participation”

Contact me to host an edition of this carnival on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Get your Blog more exposure!
It's easier than you might think.

Also submit your articles to this carnival.

Thanks in advance for your contribution.

The categories I am presenting today are

copywriting
general tips
tools and services

My favorite story of this edition is Ed Rivis' success story (and my own submission of course.) Here we go.

copywriting

John W. Furst presents 4 Free Awesome Copywriting Resources posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Most all of the experienced direct response marketers, Internet marketers, and email marketers will agree that ‘copywriting’ is one of the most important skills that leads to more sales.”

John's comment: I could have added even more great folks like Dan Kennedy, but that would be too much for one Blog post.

general tips

John W. Furst presents this success story reported by fellow marketer Ed Rivis 1,035 email subscribers in 35 days posted at Ed Rivis, saying, “Watch the video to see how in just 35 days I welcomed 1,035 highly-targeted and fully-opted-in subscribers on to my email marketing list… all from one print advert and a dead simple Web page!”

John's comment: That's the kind of detailed success stories we all love to hear.

John Szram presents How I Made Money By Accident! posted at Internet Business Blog By John Szram.

John's comment: Watch out, when editing messages in your email responder. You might as well end up making some sales.

Tash Hughes presents Repeat email ads not so good ? posted at Word Constructions.

John's comment: Right, don't make yourself come across as a lazy, sneaky salesrep in your email campaigns.

Tammy Powell presents An Email Marketing System for Driving Affiliate Product Sales posted at Enlightened Wealth Institute student Tammy Powell.

John's comment: Affiliate Marketing 101 - Version 784. Common wisdom refreshed. Thanks for the reminder.

John Szram presents Start Building Your Mailing List Today posted at Internet Business Blog By John Szram.

John's comment: What are you waiting for? Go. In case you don't have an email marketing service provider, yet. Go with AWeber (that's what I use, and recommend)

tools and services

Patrick Schwerdtfeger presents Social Media Integration posted at Tactical Execution, saying, “Grow your email list and cross-pollinate your affiliations by integrating your activity on various social media platforms like facebook, youtube, twitter and utterz.”

John's comment: And if you think about it Facebook for example gives you something like a “list” when creating a Facebook page or a Group. But be careful with your time and never forget that facebook owns and controls all those features. You might as well get stuck with it.

That concludes this edition. Submit your Blog article to the next edition of email marketing tips using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our Blog carnival index page.

Contact me, if you want to host an edition on your Internet marketing related Blog.

Yours
Jennifer M.

P.S.: If you like this edition, check out the previous email marketing tips - edition 4, too.

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

4 Free Awesome Copywriting Resources

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:57:59 -0700

4 world-class copywriters

When we are talking about email marketing, we need to realize, it's not only about finding a reliable email marketing service provider like Aweber. It's not only about squeeze page or not squeeze page, fancy or not so fancy design of your newsletter, your back-end products and so forth.

“Great, awesome copywriting is the golden key!”

It's the words that sell,… and everything around them. Pictures, the layout, and nowadays multimedia with video and audio increase the effectiveness of your words tremendously. Those elements increase the persuasive power of your words and get the reader, listener, or viewer to take the desired action.

Now after you have learned how important the quality of the copy in your message is, you might ask yourself

What is good copywriting?
How to become better at copywriting?
How to find and hire a first class copywriter?

Well, the simple formula to the second question is:

See what's working for others in your particular market to get a good starting point.
Learn from already great copywriters, they have been being around much longer than the Internet itself.
Always do, and never stop testing your copy. The continuous improvements add up exponentially and make the big difference between struggling and succeeding.

You certainly ought to learn more than this. Here are some recommendations for more in-depth coverage of that very important element: Copywriting.

You might not believe how much valuable information is out there for free. However, the Internet is also populated with tons of misleading and wrong information. My tip

“Always learn from the best!”

The resources below will give you a head start. Stick to them and expand your list of resources from what those guys recommend. From a business standpoint of view it pays off in almost any cases to hire experts or to buy a course that offers specific results.

Here's my trusted list:

Clayton Makepeace's - The Total Package
I have to thank Bob Serling, a World class copywriter himself, for introducing me to Clayton Makepeace, whose email newsletter I am sucking in like a hungry vacuum cleaner since then.

John Carlton’s Big Damn Blog
I started to follow John's Blog quite recently, but fell in love with his natural, like-speaking- style of writing, right away. Hie Blog tag line reads like this: “Insight, tactics, advice and mutterings on copywriting, marketing and living life deep… from the most ripped-off world-class ad writer alive!”

Michel Fortin's Blog
Actually Michel has many other Web site, where he teaches about copywriting issues. You'll find them via this Blog, which has a personal touch, and is a very good starting point.

The Gary Halbert Letter
An unusual style of Web site, with unusually good content. Print out the letters and take it to the porch for studying. You definitely should

Of course there are much more valuable resources out there, but you need to start somewhere. Right? What I don't like about those typical 7, 15, 30, 100 best resource lists! The editors very rarely take the time to filter out the crap. I don't like this and won't give you such either. Why should you do the pick yourself? Your time is very valuable? Follow the best and forget about the rest.

At the top you have 4 quality resources. Start with 1 or 2 and move on from there.

Yours
John W. Furst

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 4

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:16:21 -0700

Welcome to the fourth edition of email marketing tips on July 09, 2008.

Actually I know we are one day late, but lets pretend we were on time.

I want to start and say a big

“Thank You”

to John Lenaghan, who volunteers to host one of the upcoming editions of this Blog Carnival on one of his Blogs. Great! I guess it will be the second edition in August.

Now, it's your turn!

Contact me and host an edition of this carnival on your internet marketing related blog.

Get your Blog more exposure!
It's easier than you might think.

Let's jump into the subject right away. Today we have 10 great Blog posts in the following categories strategy, copywriting, general tips, resources.

I especially like Marcus Hochstadt's article, he addresses a disease that's common nowadays.

strategy

Marcus Hochstadt presents Freebie Seekers posted at Marcus Hochstadt, saying, “Freebie seekers are everywhere. But did you know that they can literally destroy your Internet business success?”

John's comment: Fun to read and true in its core. Do you recognize those folks or even yourself (I hope not!) Time to change.

John W. Furst presents Squeeze Page: Straight or Reversed? posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Is a reversed squeeze page better? Well, there is a way to find out and what is a reversed squeeze page anyway? (It's about getting more subscribers to your email list)”

Hey, that's my own post! Leave a comment below on this page or on the article's page. Be so kind.

Kathleen Gage presents Social Networking; A great resource or simply a waste of time? posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “It seems at every turn we are hearing about the ‘latest and greatest’ place to network and build market reach on the Internet. Regardless of the size of your business, there are likely things you could be doing to increase your market reach, but knowing which is the best for your particular needs can be a daunting task. Learn how to choose the best avenue for your social networking”

John's comment: Are you able to create additional email subscribers from Web 2.0 platforms? It depends. Read this post.

copywriting

Miss Copy - Rebecca Dean presents If you ever need a HILARIOUS REVENGE idea? posted at Rebecca Dean

John's comment: A nicely to read reminder: Your copy needs: market research, empathy, proof,… Even for your email campaigns and landing pages.

general tips

Terry Dean presents Internet Scams posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

John's comment: Listen up, avoid what Terry is writing about in your own campaigns and Web presence.

Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips - E-Mail Etiquette posted at Tip Diva, saying, “If Tip Diva receives one more forward noting that Bill Gates will pay her $1 for each person she sends the e-mail to, she's going to scream. If you are an ignorant inbox clogger, it's time to brush up on your e-mail etiquette for everyone else's sanity”

John's comment: Thanks Diva for writing this description above. unfortunately those tips are not a no-brainer for everyone.

John Lenaghan presents A Warning About Viral Optin Scripts posted at Internet Marketing Chaos

John's comment: Thanks for the warning. By the way, I personally don't like it at all, when my friends give away my email address.

Jordanv presents eNewsletters - Be Smart and Contribute to Your Constituents' IQs posted at Connection Cafe

John's comment: Some useful no brainer guidelines for your newsletter design.

resources

Terry dean presents Blogs You Can Use : Internet Business Coaching by Terry Dean posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean

John's comment: Some good resources. Terry checked them out personally. They are up-to-date and valuable.

Tammi Metzler presents Get your free grammar and punctuation e-course! posted at Writeassociate's Weblog, saying, “I am a copywriter and freelance editor, and my newly created blog will offer tips about copywriting and correct grammar and punctuation usage.”

John's comment: I guess I should take that course, too… I just signed up, will see…

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of email marketing tips using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Contact me, if you want to host an edition on your internet marketing related blog.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: If you like this edition, check out the previous email marketing tips edition, too.

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

Squeeze Page: Straight or Reversed?

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:11:55 -0700

Did you ever hear the term “Reversed Squeeze Page”? Not too long ago, I was asked, whether a squeeze page or a reverse squeeze page performs better for generating opt-ins for a promotional type of email newsletter.

Of course my answer was,

“It depends!”

But let me start slowly here, tell you a bit about the history of squeeze pages and why using them at all is a good idea.

Squeeze Page History

The traditional squeeze page is said to be invented by Eben Pagan, who has become a perfect role model for the typical Internet marketing success story. Eben's original idea was to tease Web visitors with valuable information, but not giving it to them directly. Eben was the first one who asked for an email address in exchange (or the first one, who became famous for it).

Purpose Of A Squeeze Page

The point is, online marketers have learned — as direct response marketers have learned before them — not everyone who reads a sales message or advertising for the first time will buy the promoted product right away. You cannot just let them leave. The modern squeeze page on the Web resembles the post card attached in magazine ads. It's the same mechanism. The advertiser or Web site owner promises something that is useful for the readers. They will get it in exchange for their contact information.

Back then, when Eben had introduced this direct response concept on the Web, it seemed quite revolutionary and bold, because everybody thought all the information on the Web were free to access. Breaking that believe, made Eben succeed with his product in the dating niche.

It is reported that it takes 7 visits to a vendor's Web site on average before a prospect buys the featured product. An email list generated from a squeeze page shall make sure that the prospects indeed are there, back on the site, again, and again,… till they buy or opt-out. An email list makes its owner more independent from paid sources of traffic to their Web site. (Let's be honest here, even so-called “free traffic” costs money, unless one values time with 0.00$ an hour.)

Especially new online marketers forget the real purpose of their email list very quickly after they have started it. They very often fall back into the believe that those people want to hear from them. The truth is, when they signed up, they wanted the cure for their problem, otherwise they wouldn't have signed up to the list. They only care about what you have to say, what you have to write as much as it helps them to solve their problems. That's copywriting 101, isn't it.

That said, it makes sense to trade valuable information that helps your visitors with their email address. This allows you to stay in touch. That's exactly what the original squeeze page does.

After talking about the background of squeeze pages a bit, let's look what a squeeze page is

The Traditional Squeeze Page

A single Web page that offers specific, valuable information to a certain group of people, like an ebook “How To Get Rid Of Back Pain Forever”. It is important to drive targeted traffic to that landing page. In many cases this page will be the home page of a domain, like www.cureyourbackpainforever.com (That domain is actually a real one, parked at GoDaddy, not being used.)
The only 2 actions a visitor can follow are join the newsletter or leave.
The copy on a squeeze page shall be persuasive, create trust and highlight the benefits of opting in. Most marketers have started to incorporate audio and video messages to make the sale on their opt-in form. There is a strong call to action.
Some marketers even put opt-in forms in front of their sales letters. That means you cannot even buy the product before making the first step of giving away your email address.

Many people — consumers and business owners — feel that's going too far, they refrain from filling out such a from respectively refrain from using a traditional squeeze page on their sites. That brings us to the next step.

The Reverse Squeeze Page

It follows the same principle, but will allow the visitor to consume a chunk of free information, before they need to provide their email address. At the end of those messages, they will generally be told that there is much more free, valuable info in store for them, if they sign up.

Typically you would see it implemented like presenting a free report for download right away, or more recently a free video. At the end will be the call for action, “You like my info? Now, sign up to get more of it …”.

The difference between the reversed squeeze page and to a normal sign-up form on a Web page or a Blog is that the possible actions for the visitor are still very limited in case of a reversed squeeze page. It's about signing up or not signing up.

What works better

As I said in the opening, “It depends!”. You need to test it for your market, for your audience, for your traffic sources. That's the only way, you'll know.

You can always check what type of squeeze pages are common in your market and start out with that model, but you might find that squeeze pages are not so common outside the “Money Making Niche” at all. In that case just introduce them.

Yours
John W. Furst

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 3

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:39:42 -0700

Welcome to the third edition of email marketing tips on June 25, 2008.

Today I present a total of 11 blog articles. Let's jump right away to the submitted posts. The categories include: legal, tools and services, general tips, and strategy.

legal

I found Fred's Blog article myself on the Web (in my Google reader) for you.

→ Fred Black presents Behind Bars: Could the New FTC CAN-SPAM Rules Land You In JAIL? posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog.

John's comment: Great: ‘CAN-SPAM for dummies’

tools and services

→ Ed Rivis presents How to increase sales by 300%. posted at Ed Rivis

John's comment: The easier, the better.

general tips

→ terry dean presents What If Its Not Working? posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

John's comment: Giving up is not an option! You always can improve results.

→ Kathleen Gage presents Internet Marketing - What's stopping your success? posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “Success for an online business requires a solid foundation. Your foundation needs to include specific systems. One system is that which will build a responsive opt-in subscriber list. Without a solid list you will face insurmountable obstacles to your success. Learn reasons why many people don’t build a list and what can be done about it.”

John's comment: Advice from experience… You need a list.

→ Robert Phillips presents Broken Windows, Broken Business posted at CYBERCA$HOLOGY.

John's comment: Don't let your Email Marketing Campaign's effectiveness escape through ‘Open Windows’. The recommended book is not about Email Marketing, but still shoes relevant business aspects.

→ Jordan V. presents Ideas from Campaign 08: Get the email address written by Tompkins Spann, posted at Connection Cafe.

John's comment: As straight forward as it can be.

→ Patrick Schwerdtfeger presents The Power of Email Marketing posted at Tactical Execution, saying, “A review of autoresponders and how people are using them to build their business and other passive income streams.”

John's comment: I always told you… get their email address. It's an asset.

→ John Lenaghan presents John Reese, Twitter And The Problem With Marketing To Marketers posted at Internet Marketing Chaos.

John's comment: Owning a big email lists creates responsibility. Watch out what messages you are sending out.

strategy

→ Ian Lurie presents Double E-mail Open Rates With This Simple Test posted at Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemon, saying, “Test your subject lines, double our open rate. It's that simple.”

John's comment: Hands on tips. It's about testing.

→ Erek Ostrowski presents Becoming a Smooth Operator (Documenting Operational Protocols for Your Small Business) posted at Verve Coaching, saying, “While the ability to think on your feet is incredibly important for putting out fires and making good short-term decisions, the long-term sustainability of your business depends on consistently and correctly doing the work that needs to be done, and doing it how and when it needs to be done.”

John's comment: Good idea to create procedures for your Email Marketing efforts as it is for other parts of your business.

My humble post at last, but not least.

→ John W. Furst presents Email Feedback Loops And Some Internet History posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Create a feedback loop and make sure you can rely on Email for even very important things.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of email marketing tips using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Contact me, if you want to host an edition on your internet marketing related blog.

Yours
John W. Furst

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival