E-Biz Booster Blog - Miscellaneous

John Reese Buys The Entire Make Money Online Market

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:07:40 -0700

Traffic Secrets 2.0

If you are following the Internet Marketing community for some time, you certainly will have heard about John Reese and his Million Dollar Payday. I have previously written about massive Internet Marketing launches and John Reese's BlogRush widget.

He was the first one, who brought in 1 Million Dollars from a product launch in a single day. This was with his legendary product Traffic Secrets, which sold like crazy for 997.00 US$.

4 years later it's time for John to release a brand new product called Traffic Secrets 2.0, which will go live on

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
at 12:00 EDT (as in New York, USA)

You might have received a lot of emails from John's marketing friends talking about the product and you might also have seen all 3 videos John has released to promote his sophisticated course.

If not, here is the link to the 3rd video and you also find the links to the 2 previous videos there.

Traffic Secrets Video 3
(not an affiliate link)

In this 21 minute long video John Reese talks about

the power of software to generate traffic to your sites,
he gives tips for hiring programmers,
and he makes the actual offer

Again, John Reese breaks all the rules here. (We know he can afford it financially.) Let's talk about the actual offer, I don't mean about the content of the course (watch John's video to find out), but it's supposed to be a

state-of-the-art E-learning course that comes
physically shipped to you on
12 Cd-ROMs,
with workbooks,
other printed materials,
and a neat case that holds it all together. There's also
an online platform which allows to track your progress in the course,
online resources,
and a members only online forum, in which John's staff and himself will be active

But the killer is that John Reese sells this brand new course for less money than the original one. Here it goes:

Free updates to the course during its life-time (years to come)
No forced continuity
No limited quantity
Not a limited time offer
No up-sell offer, just one price
No first action bonuses
No false scarcity of any kind
One price: 397.00 US$

When you have watched the major launches this year, the price is the most surprising part in John's offer so far, and all the other aspects… I would say, John and his new company income.com don't follow Jeff Walker's famous Product Launch Formula (at least on the surface), don't follow Stompernet's advice on how to make online videos, .... They create their own set of rules.

Here is my comment that I left at John Reese's Blog:

Why retype it here, when I just can do copy & paste. It's my comment anyway.

Surprise, surprise!

When it came to the price, I also was stunned! **This is much more than a fair offer.**

As Peter Parks already pointed out here, you're going against the common marketing wisdom of all your dear guru friends and don't exactly apply Jeff's classic PLF, do you. ...guess you know that better than anybody else.

You set a signal! A really “generous signal” in those economically quite difficult times. You really prove that you're more interested in helping people out rather than optimizing short term profits. Of course another interpretation could be that you are trying to buy the entire “Make Money On The Internet Market” once and for all.

I wish you success with the launch, which it certainly will be cause the offer is sort of a no-brainer. I also wish all your future customers lots of success. You certainly give them a solid foundation with this educational product.

Yours John

Lately you could read about the importance of transparency in your marketing on John's Blog and he seems to walk his talk. He also mentions that Traffic Secrets 2.0 is the very first product of his new company and that more is to come in the future.

From that, I am tempted to reason that John makes a clever move to try buying the entire “Internet Marketing - How To Make Money Online Market” once and for all. Of course we know that this market is huge, and he couldn't buy the entire market, but he might get a major share of it now, making it harder for everybody else to compete in that market.

In marketing competition is not a bad thing at all, competition creates advance in all aspects and drives development.

I am curious to see, how other major guru marketers will react to this mass market approach strategy.

One thing I am missing so far in the offer (at last from the classic copywriting point of view) is the risk reversal part of it - the guarantee. Let's see what the actual sales letter will tell us on Tuesday. The free updates and product life-time access to the online resources will certainly help to keep return rates low.

What do you think?

Yours
John W. Furst

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 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

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

How To Create A Mini Site That Makes You Money While You Sleep

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:45:45 -0700

Profits From Mini Sites

You will have noticed that I shifted focus towards email marketing, hence, the “Email Marketing Tips Blog Carnival”. However, email is a means of communication. Transactions like sales or sign-ups are done on Web pages.

There is a certain type of Web sites that is a perfect compliment for email marketing: Mini Sites.

I have just gone through Michael Rasmussen's

“Mini Site Profits Exposed” Video Series:
How To Create A Mini Site That Runs On Autopilot And Makes You Money While You Sleep!

Here's what I think

You can learn a lot from Michael's marketing!
- He applies almost any one-time offer, down-sell, and up-sell offer in this one promotion.
- Audio & Video (screen cam) are used very professionally almost on any page.
He doesn't stop there,… He even recruits affiliates at the same call. It's amazing.
…

Just in case you want to learn about the potential of Mini Sites. Michael Rasmussen's offer is the most complete offer to start with right now.

Mini Site Profits Exposed: Video Series
(affiliate link)

Yes, I admit it. That's an affiliate link up there. Why not?

I recognize the value in that offer. At a minimum you learn about effective online marketing. If you are really serious, you will take Michael up on one of his onetime offers, and get a huge value for a small one time payment. That's fair, isn't it.

You learn about online marketing even, if you don't invest money.
You get the chance to receive a serious, outstanding value for a small price.

Check out: Mini Sites Exposed - Video Series

That's my recommendation. I suggest you go there right away, but I also give you more copy to learn more about this offer below.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: I am not just copying and pasting some sales copy and pretend I wrote it. That's not my style here on this Blog. However, you can find an excerpt (which is available for free as an affitiate marketing tool) below. Enjoy.

P.P.S.: More details about Michael Rasmussen's offer.

YOU'RE ABOUT TO LEARN HOW TO DO IT!

Michael Rasmussen has just released a brand new video course that will walk you through the process of creating a killer mini site from the ground up, and then he'll also teach you how to actually start making money with it right away and into the future.

If you've been looking for help with monetizing your mini sites, then this is exactly what you need. The best part? The videos are FREE! I'll tell you more about that later. First, let's talk about the videos themselves.

If you're in a hurry, you can just check the
videos out right now for free. Here's the URL:

Learn How To Do It

OVERALL QUALITY

It's important to note that these are online videos that you access from your web browser. Michael uses Camtasia Studio to create these videos, which is the premier software program for creating screen capture tutorials such as these.

The first thing I noticed when I hit the play button on the first video was the incredible production quality. These are NOT your ordinary screen capture videos. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen someone make videos that are this high quality before.

He uses beautifully created graphics to pass his wisdom along to you, and the sound quality is the highest you will ever hear in an Internet marketing product. They sound like they were recorded in a professional studio.

Michael explained to me that he was sick and tired of seeing all the low quality videos out there, and so he set out to create something different in order to raise the bar in our industry. I think that, when you see Mini Site Profits Exposed for yourself, you'll agree that he has succeeded.

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, you can just check the
videos out right now for free. Here's the URL:

www.MiniSiteProfitsExposed.com

VIDEO 1 - INTRODUCTION

This videos introduces you to the entire course, as well as the teacher himself. You'll learn what you can expect from the course, and why it's structured the way it is.

Michael realizes that you may not have heard of him, and so he spends some time establishing his credibility with you by sharing some of his biggest successes. It doesn't come across as bragging at all. Michael explains that, in order for you to get value from the teachings, you need to have faith that the teacher actually knows what he's talking about. By the end of this video, you will have no doubt.

By the way, this is a good lesson for all of us product developers. If you want people to accept you as an authority on any subject, you first need to establish your credibility with the reader. That way he's willing to relax, and trust that what you're telling him is sound advice.

VIDEO 2 - THE BASICS

This video will introduce you to the basics of mini site marketing. This will set the foundation that all future learning will rest upon, so it's important to pay close attention to this one.

You'll learn:

What mini-sites are, and what makes them different from regular content sites.
Which businesses they work well for… and which ones they don’t.
The right mindset to have when it comes to creating mini sites as part of your online business strategy.
And the different tools you need to get started.

This was a great video, and did an excellent job of
kicking things off, and building the foundation for
the rest of the course.

VIDEO 3 - SQUEEZE PAGES

This is probably one of the most useful videos of the entire course. Every Internet marketer needs to build an email list, but how do you do it? What is the best way to capture the most opt-ins?

The answer is 'squeeze pages'. This video will teach you:

Why using a squeeze page is far superior to other opt-in methods.
The single most important thing you must include at the top of your squeeze page to skyrocket your opt-in rate.
The secret structure of a squeeze page, and why most marketers get it wrong (which costs them a LOT of money).
The most important to include in your opt-in process that will make sure that people actually receive your email.

After watching this video, you'll know everything you need to know to start building a massive opt-in list right away. This will probably be the first video that you 'take action' on. You'll be so excited about the possibilities, that I guarantee you'll go and create your own squeeze page right away.

VIDEO 4 - MINI SITE COPYWRITING - PART ONE

Nothing happens until the sales copy is written. Graphics alone will never sell a product, but sales copy alone WILL. This video begins to demystify the mysterious process of writing words that make people whip out their credit cards and buy.

Specifically, you'll learn:

Why you need to learn copywriting, even if you “hate to write”
What a compelling offer looks like, and how to tell the difference.
How to write an eyeball-grabbing headline that practically forces your readers to go through your entire page.
A simple trick you can use in your opening to make your reader want to learn more.

There is no skill that is more important to your success than the ability to write killer sales copy. Make sure you pay extra attention to this video, as well as...

VIDEO 5 - MINI SITE COPYWRITING - PART TWO

This video dives right into the individual components of a killer sales letter…

You want to learn more? There are actually 12 videos, which you can access for free. All you need to do is to register. So go ahead and check out Mini Site Profits Exposed right now, and see what all the fuss is about. I highly recommend that you upgrade to the deluxe
course as well. Here's the URL:

MiniSiteProfitsExposed.com

Take Action: Save The Internet - We Cannot Afford To Lose It

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:27:42 -0700

My blogging friend Matt Harzewski literally woke me up with his post about Net Neutrality. I actually picked the video I show you here from his selection. “Thanks Matt for being on alert with those things!”

Where is the threat?

Would you like your ISP to do the following things to you.

Throttle the speed for Web sites they don't like.
Blocking certain protocols, like streaming video, and only offer their own paid content.
Charging Web site owners extra to get access to you at a decent speed.
etc., …

Watch this video

Please, enable JavaScript in your browser settings and reload the page to watch the video here or just go directly to YouTube:

Net neutrality: Why You Need To Act

Network Neutrality or “Net Neutrality” means all Internet traffic is equal. There is absolutely no discrimination. There is no speeding up or speeding down of data packets based on their origin or destination.

The technical network part of the Internet is democratic and that's why you can find a wealth of information from so many little guys next door.

The largest telephone and cable companies in the USA — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want the ultimate control over the Internet. They want to charge extra for access to their clients.

Imagine that, you run a successful Videoblog and all of a sudden you have to pay a fee to get your content delivered to AT&T, Verizon, … customers?

Those large players want to tax all content providers to guarantee delivery of their data at decent speed.

“No money → no guarantee → bad delivery”

But that's not all. Maybe they decide, you shouldn't use Google anymore. Maybe you have to use their own search engine, that will find only commercial offers. Who do you think would receive the affiliate commissions?

Have you heard enough?

Then act now and support the “Save the Internet Movement on its way to Washington”, the participating Congress Men, and the Bill that could save your future.

It is important for your future, the future of your kids, the future of your country.

Act now!

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: Don't go to bed tonight before you have acted. Act now to protect net neutrality.

Rising Above The Internet Marketing Noise - A Strange Thing Happened

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:15:44 -0700

Terry Dean's Slogan: “Earn More. Work Less. Enjoy Life!”

I should call this post “Email Marketing Tips - Edition 2 continued”, but that title wouldn't tell much. Indeed a strange thing happened.

When going through the submissions for the latest edition of my Email Marketing Tips Blog Carnival, I though Terry Dean's article about “Cutting Through The Internet Marketing Noise” is fabulous. I emailed Terry right away, thanked him and let him know that it will be in the Carnival.

Then I prepared the Carnival and posted it.

Later in the evening I met with a business friend for a drink and we talked about many different things. At some point I mentioned the Carnival and recommended that he should read Terry's post.

Anyway, he emailed me this morning and asked, “Where's the post you were talking about yesterday?”

Ups!

I simply overlooked it. Shame on me. I'll correct the mistake in the next couple of minutes, but if you don't want to wait. Here is Terry Dean's excellent Blog article.

Cutting Through the Internet Marketing Noise
by Terry Dean

Enjoy.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: Sorry, Terry.

Email Marketing Tips - Edition 2

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:33:34 -0700

Welcome to the second edition of email marketing tips on June 11, 2008.

I guess it is a good sign that I have received about twice the number of submission for this edition. Nevertheless I will stick with my personal

“call for quality!”

Here are the 8 Blog articles for this edition

(I picked 6 out of 34, wrote 1 by myself, and smuggled another 1 in, which I found myself on the Web. It don't receive spammy submissions, only many off-topic ones, but I don't mind so much. My motto is: If you are not sure whether it fits submit it anyway.)

Thanks to the authors.

Strategy

→ Terry Dean presents Cutting Through the Internet Marketing Noise posted at Internet Business Coaching by Terry Dean.

John's comment: You can learn from Terry's thoughts about massive email campaigns, his personal reactions, and his advice to coaching clients. Keep that in mind and don't forget you have to follow some sort of strategy in order to succeed with your business. A proven strategy works best. If you don't believe me, believe Terry.

Copywriting

→ Carol Bentley presents Copywriting: a celebration gift posted at Carol Bentley.

John's comment: Copywriting is a skill you'll need for your email campaigns. Check out Carols offer! She gives away a PDF of her complete book ‘I Want To Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me A Letter Yet?’ Check it out!

General Tips

→ Manuel Viloria presents Is Listbuilding Just A Dream? posted at Get More Traffic at Manuel Viloria.com, saying, “There are so many groups offering email listbuilding solutions. Here's how to evaluate such services.”

John's comment: 'The money is in the list. Yes, but not every paid list building system works.

→ John W. Furst presents List Building - Tons Of Cash From Email Marketing… posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Are you making tons of money from your email list? No, then check against those bullets. You might be on the wrong track.”

John's comment: Tell me what you think. Go there and leave a comment.

→ Jose DeJesus MD presents How to Send Emails that get Delivered and Read posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

John's comment: 7 solid tips

→ Raymond presents Nigerian 419 Scams and Spam Emails Are Funny But They Make Me Paranoid posted at Money Blue Book.

John's comment: Everything you ever need to know about email scams from overseas.

Tools and Services

→ Michel Fortin presents This Plugin Increases Membership Conversions posted at The Michel Fortin Blog.

John's comment: Excellent review and recommendation for a membership software. For instance, it protects download pages and files, offers backend sales and automation, and it even comes with a built-in autoresponder.

Legal

→ Howard J. Sewell authored Changes to CAN-SPAM Law and Your E-Mail Reputation posted at Direct Connections.

John's comment: I found this post on the Web and just thought, I'll take it in for this edition. (I hope the author may forgive me.)

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

Update: Sorry Terry (Dean) for the mess up with Cutting Through The Internet Marketing Noise

Technorati tags: email marketing tips, blog carnival

List Building - Tons Of Cash From Email Marketing...

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:33:09 -0700

You have heard it before, “The money is in the list”. But not all lists are made equally. Some email lists make their owners millionaires, others don’t do anything. Why is that?

I keep the answers short, through some bullets at you, don’t spell out every little detail, but give you…

…Something To Think About

You need to sell something!

You get paid, when someone from your list buys something. Hopefully your own products and services or at least something you get a high commission for.
People buy when they want or need something.

You better sell respectively recommend something that is already high in demand. Do your market research first!
Is your subscriber list targeted for the kind of offers you make?

Sometimes you can get surprisingly high response rates, when you make off-topic offers, but you still need to serve the desire of those people and give them what they want. But in general it works better, when you mainly serve a narrowly targeted market.
Is your list responsive? You need to keep your list responsive!

New subscribers are usually more responsive than older ones, but you hold the key for keeping them responsive. Build a relationship with them and don’t promote every crap that’s out there. Offer them help and advice for free, and products they really can benefit from.

People, who discuss, “Why you should not buy anything over the Internet”, might never purchase in your online store, but they might come into your brick and mortar outlet to get the latest offer you promoted to your local email list of customers. See, email can work for off line businesses as well.
You need to renew and grow your list on a daily basis!

The more people you have on your list, the more will buy from you, therefore add new members to your list every day. It’s natural that some people will become less responsive and some will dare to unsubscribe. You need to compensate for those, too.

The key factor is not size, but quality! A list that better matches your offer (preferably high value offers), will make you more money than a very big list that you have abused a lot in the past.
Great copywriting works!

Kind of a no brainer! The better the copy of your campaigns, the better the results.
… Add your bullet for us! Leave a comment below.

This was short and sweet as I have promised.

Yours
John W. Furst

Colour tools, palettes, schemes and theory - Thanks David Airey!

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:40:34 -0700

Just a quick post, but I thought I should share those wonderful resources with you. So far I did not get any complaints that I wrote some Web site development related posts lately. Okay, here is another one.

Graphic Designer David Airey wrote a post about resources for anything that has to do with colors.

Colour palettes and combinations
Colour theory
Colour tools

→ Colour tools, palettes, schemes and theory

I did not count them, but for sure there are more than 50 different links, each with a short description.

Wow, thanks David!

Now, there is quick release, if you have the “color block”... Check it out and bookmark it with your favorite social bookmarking tools.

Yours
John W. Furst

Templates and Themes For Serendipity - S9y

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:10:43 -0700

The number of freely available templates or themes is a critical ingredient for the success of any Blog software.

I have advertised Serendipity Blog software (s9y) and Garvin Hicking’s new book on Serendipity in my previous post. Today, when I answered a comment on my Blog, I actually got into thinking about the importance of templates, and decided to write this post about themes and templates.

S9y offers a great deal of flexibility and customization without the need to tweak the template code directly. The configuration and Plugin management via the Admin interface is straight forward and very flexible.
The use of the Smarty Templating Engine separates design and application code.

However, one main advantage of Wordpress... over s9y is the huge base of cool looking themes for almost any purpose. Most or at least many of them are readily available for free. A new blogger just picks any of the themes and is done! There are SEO optimized themes, AdSense optimized themes, etc.

I mean look at the following search terms. I added up the number of search results on the big three (Google, Yahoo, live).

free wordpress themes 34,700,000
free serendipity themes 2,470,000

We know, the bigger a community the faster it grows. Wordpress is ahead of s9y in terms of popularity more than just a short head. Anyway, I am a s9y fan and I'll tell you how to deal about s9y templates (it's not as scary as you might think of).

Let’s talk s9y themes straight

All official templates are available at the official Serendipity Web site. I have counted about 103 official templates or so.

You can either

reconfigure those,
modify them with Plugins,
edit the template files (PHP skills not required),
or start from scratch and design your very own template.

A good starting point are the “bulletproof” templates, which were created as template framework for designers. Start with your unique template from here:

S9y-Bulletproof.com

The Bulletproof developers' primary design goal was to create a template which can be base of any of the “classic” Blog layouts, in any popular browser, on any popular platform, without falling apart. Bulletproof makes great use of s9y's “theme options”, so users can now configure almost any desirable option using just the administration panel. There is almost no need to edit any of the template's core files for the most desirable features.

I hope that helps
Yours
John W. Furst

Serendipity Weblog Software - Finally it's in a Book

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:23:30 -0700

Did you notice that I did not write about Web site development related — more technical issues — lately? For a simple reason:

“The technical stuff on this Blog simply works!”
Long live Serendipity “s9y” Weblog software

That’s exactly how it should be, unless you are a developer, who deals with LAMP (*) issues on a daily basis. Since I am not a developer (anymore) my focus has shifted towards marketing and business related topics with occasional sidekicks to personal development.

Why do I want to tell you about Blog software today?

The reason is simple, the core developer Garvin Hicking released his new book on Serendipity only a couple of days ago.

“Congratulations,
Garvin!”

Why should you buy this book?

Let me give you a couple of reasons (in arbitrary order).

Because it’s the ultimate

“How to successfully cheat on Wordpress and get away with it guide”.
It feels good to have a hard copy in hand.
Only 5 hard copies are available for free. Sorry, purchasing is the only way to ensure you get a hard copy.
To improve your German skills.
To show appreciation for Garvin’s and the teams’ efforts. Yeah, they are real people.
Besides all the s9y issues on the surface, you might also get lessons of a great programming style and software design (if you are interested in that).

What’s in the book?

Lots of stuff — 750 pages — covering all technical aspects of working with Serendipity. No matter, if you are a s9y beginner or already an advanced professional user or developer. This book nails the facts. Actually you can check it out in more detail yourself, one chapter and the complete table of content (toc) is available online in German language. The toc itself has 18 pages! Okay, what's in the book in a nutshell.

Installation manual
User manual
Intro and guide on how to use
- Plugins
- Templates
Extensive documentation of the API (application programming interface)
Extensive Glossary

From reading through the free chapter, which deals with installation I can see, that Garvin is an accomplished technical writer. He certainly managed to put his experience from the support forum into the book and he knows who he is writing for. Great job, Garvin!

This book is available at amazon.de and Open Source Press. Find out all details at Garvin’s original blog post Serendipity-Handbuch

Only one disclaimer: The book is released in German language, Let’s hope that an English one will follow.

Why do I use Serendipity for my Blogs?

I am kind of an off-main-stream type of guy, and I always have been, but I based my decisions on facts not just believe. I mainly use Linux not Windows or Mac for example. When I was about to install my first Blog I said to myself, “What kind of software is out there”. I noticed a huge crowd following Wordpress, and I saw some excellent comments and ratings at my Web host panel for another piece of software: “Serendipity”.

So I checked them out both, and… Serendipity won my personal contest. I just checked out the latest developments and compared Wordpress 2.5.1. and Serendipity 1.3.1. Again, I will stick with Serendipity. Some reasons in arbitrary (again) order:

Easy installation even without Fantastico^®.
Most default settings are just fine, however, together with the variety of available plugins you can customize your Blog much more as opposed to a Wordpress Blog without diving through code.
Integrated media manager. No need to FTP an images, etc.
Plugins are centralized available. You install them via the Web browser. Upgrading them is damn easy. Click!
Bugs are fixed rather quickly.
Bob Parsons (President of Godaddy.com, Inc.) is using it.
Great community in which the developers are very active.
You can run several, distinct Blogs from the same installation and database.
Sophisticated multi-language capabilities.
Of course great multi-user environment.
Separation between PHP Code and Template files. No messing around with the PHP files. It uses the powerful Smarty Templating Engine. Many layout aspects can be controlled via plugins through the Admin interface anyway.
Rock solid programming, and database design, makes it easy for developers to extend the functionality.
The functionality is less dependent on the chosen templates as it is with Wordpress.
Never had troubles with it.

As with Windows versus Linux or Mac there are logical and emotional reasons that drive someones preferences.

I happen to prefer Serendipity, but also use Wordpress on other Blogs. That way I can benefit from both “Worlds”.

Yours
John W. Furst

(*) LAMP stands for the commonly used open source Web development platform based on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, Perl or Python.