Tue - June 12, 2007

How To Create Great Looking PDF Files - IMS #125


I am planning some reports for my website. I just downloaded your newsletter in PDF format and like the way it looks. I take it that a 30 page report could be done in this format as well.

Since I am new to all this, I was wondering if you could give me a little help. How were you able to write the report and put it into a PDF file.

Answer: Yes, I'm a big fan of PDFs. Have been for over ten years. They are a universally accepted format, and compatible with any operating system. They work equally well for reports, ebooks and newsletters.

Most of what you need to know is on my downloads page. Look for the Quick and Easy eBooks report, in the Clickin' it Rich section. It goes into the details and nitty gritty about eBook publishing.

Free Downloadable Marketing eBooks ==> http://www.cdzn.com/fun

I used to use Adobe Pagemaker for my layout. Then Quark and InDesign. But these days I use Pages by Apple. If I was preparing documents for the press, I'd still use InDesign, but if you're aiming to create PDF files, Pages is the cat's meow.

If you have Acrobat Pro, you can make a PDF from just about any application, including word processors. But these text apps are designed to handle words. It's ok to do your writing in them, but get yourself a page layout app to assemble everything.

After the newsletter is written, I go looking for artwork that matches the articles and helps tell the stories. I do all my shopping for photos at iStock Photo. It's only a dollar for the nonexclusive right to use their photos in reports, newsletters, ebooks and web sites.

Get Great Stock Photos ==> http://www.cdzn.com/isp

Once I have all the pieces assembled, I do the page layout. Pages makes it very easy to make beautiful PDF files. You just drag and drop graphics and screenshots. Size them and color correct them right in the app.

Hypertext links are a snap. The text formatting is done with style sheets, so it's really fast when you work from a template.

You can add drop shadows. Funky type effects. Rotate things. Text flows around graphics automatically. Then... when you're happy with the layout, click export to PDF and you're done.

I do take it one step further though. I load the PDF into Acrobat Pro and compress the file size and add meta data for the search engines. It's also a good idea to proof your work in the Acrobat Reader app as well.

Go download my Quick and Easy eBooks. Then start practicing making PDF files. It's not hard to do.

Before you know it, you'll be offering more value to your customers with those special reports. And the more value you provide, the more abundance you'll get in return.

Posted at 05:45 PM    

Sun - April 29, 2007

Giving Readers What They Want


Question: IMS #122 was an absolute CRACKER! I particularly liked the Steve jobs interview and forwarded it to several friends. And because my geek-status is increasing by the minute, I thought the interview with the Google CEO was cool too.

I notice that with your latest newsletter reminder, that you've included a PDF version and a link to a text version. Wondering why. What's the strategy here?

Answer: The strategy is to give my readership what they want. When I did my annual survey, 38% of the readers wanted to receive a text newsletter via email, 31% wanted a link to a text only file, 18% liked reading it online in HTML, and 10% wanted a PDF version they could print. (A mere 3% percent preferred a podcast or audio version.)

It was surprising to say the least. Email is still the favorite, but I imagine the popularity of text is due to the amount of handheld devices out there, and the ability to format and read the newsletter "their" way. It's also the most portable and reusable format.

I stopped doing an HTML version, as the stories from the newsletter are posted on the blog... which IS HTML anyways. As for the PDF, 10% may not sound like a lot, but it does represent over 3,500 subscribers, and more requests for a PDF version arrive all the time.

The reason why PDF is becoming more popular, is that the newsletter is long, and some people prefer to read it on good old fashioned paper. That way, they can print it on three holed paper, put it in a binder, and carry it around with them. It's quite portable and they can also highlight the important bits for later.

The reason I stopped providing all three formats a year ago, is because I was literally homeless. I spent months on a road trip, driving around Canada and the US, working from my laptop. Then several more months in a long term stay while shopping for a home.

I'm happy to say that I've finally settled in my new home. It's nice to have a proper desk, chair, monitor, mouse, scanner and printer to use once again. Now I can finally get back to providing content in a way that makes everyone happy.

Posted at 02:17 PM    

Tue - February 6, 2007

PDF to Become Open Standard - IMS #118


Adobe announced that the full PDF (Portable Document Format) 1.7 specification would become an open standard.

Rumor has it, that it was in response to pressure from the Open Document Format (ODF), and Microsoft's new XML Paper Specification, (XPS) which is included with Windows Vista. Personally, I think it's a really good thing, as it will standardize all the PDF Creator and Reader apps on the market.

If you were considering getting the full version of Acrobat to create and edit PDF files, you may want to wait. Now that PDF is becoming open standard, there could be dozens, if not hundreds of PDF apps popping up in the next few months.

Posted at 05:08 PM    

Sat - December 2, 2006

Building a List


Have you written any articles on building a list. Things like what software is best for creating forms, managing the list, etc. ~ Kieran

Yes, I've written extensively on list building, creating the forms, and managing your readership. There is an entire category devoted to it, here in the IMS Blog.

Newsletter Publishing ==> http://homepage.mac.com/dmcorp/C1919836102/

There's also a report in the Clickin' it Rich download area called, "Top 10 Tips for a Profitable Newsletter. You can grab it any time you want.

Download the Top 10 Newsletter Tips ==> http://www.clickinitrich.com/cir/newslettertips.pdf

Go ahead and read both the blog's newsletter category and the PDF report, then if you have questions about specific processes or concepts, go ahead and ask. I'll do my best to answer them for you.

Posted at 12:27 PM    

Fri - November 3, 2006

Use a "Whitelisted" Service to Deliver Newsletters


Can you recommend an email program that I can use to send out my newsletter in html code (web page format), without causing any problems with my ISP provider. My list is only about 1300 subscribers and I prefer not to use an opt-in newsletter provider. I just don't feel comfortable giving my subscribers to an outside source. Any advise is appreciated. ~ Frederick

Hello Frederick. I use AWeber to send my newsletter. You can send in HTML and they supply the templates. But that said, I prefer to send a text only email.

I get so many bad looking HTML emails that I wouldn't want to risk my email looking like a train wreck. One quotation mark or pixel in the wrong place, and your email will be impossible to read.

Sorry, but it's best to forget about using PC based software to send your mail. These days it's essential to use a service that confirms subscribers. (It used to be referred to as double opt-in, but they don't like using that term anymore.)

Double confirmation through a reputable server like AWeber will put your mail on a whitelist. This will ensure it gets delivered to AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo and other web-based mail services.

Without being on the whitelist, and sending through some unknown ISP, means a lot of your mail won't get through. It could get blocked by any ISP along the way. Double confirmed email from AWeber gets a "get out of jail free" card.

You wouldn't be "giving" your subscribers to an outside source. You data remains confidential. You have a username and password to access your account. So long as you don't give it out, no one will know who your subscribers are.

In a nutshell AWeber provides an autoresponder, sign-up form generator, tracking, split testing, auto removes, auto customization fields, data management, data collection and storage, backups, mailing, templates and a whole bunch of other features like RSS capabilities that I haven't even explored yet.

I've been using AWeber since 1999 and have been very happy with the customer service and the product. I consider them to be my business partner, and simply wouldn't trust the delivery of my newsletter to anyone else.

Get AWeber's Mailing Service and WhiteList Your Broadcasts ==> http://www.cdzn.com/aws

Posted at 09:43 PM    

Thu - November 2, 2006

Your Most Important Business Asset - IMS #106


Why do some businesses fail and others achieve greatness? Is it the advertising? Partially. Is it the quality of service? Yes that helps. Is it price? Not really. So what is it then?

It's the customers. And the relationship you have with those customers that will ultimately determine your success online or off.

So how do you get these loyal customers?

Ask any online business and they'll tell you it's the list. The money is in the list. I hate that.

And I really dislike it when marketers refer to their readerships as lists. Or when they email me, asking me to "hit my list." But like it or not, that's what they call it... a list.

I've been saying for years, the money is not in the list. It's in the relationship that you have with each and every member of your list.

Treat every subscriber as a friend. Follow a "tell don't sell" model. Try to help as many people as possible. And above all, listen to what your readers tell you. That's how you build a strong and loyal following.

That's why I wanted you to know about this new course from Michael Cheney. He's same guy that did the AdSense videos, that revolutionized where everyone put their ads on their pages for maximum clicks.

Now Mr. Cheney has turned his attention to his most requested item. How to build a readership. And how do it in as little as 11 days.

I've never endorsed a "list building" course before. But this one is different. Michael shows you how to build a list of readers, quickly, ethically, and without resorting to trickery.

I've been watching the videos and have been picking up all sorts of tips... Which isn't easy considering the length of time that I've been publishing online. I implemented just one of Michael's tips and picked a few hundred new subscribers in just over a week.

When this thing launches, it's going to include 40 some videos lasting several hours. And for the first week, it's going to be only a 127 bucks. So if you'd like to get a reminder, when this remarkable course is available, then go to the site and enter your name.

Oh right, I nearly forgot. The reason I'm telling you about this today, instead of next Tuesday when the course officially launches, is that you can get a whole lot of goodies by signing up now.

But you have to act before Monday. Michael told me on Wednesday, that all the pre-launch goodies will be coming offline on Monday. So I thought I better tell you right away.

Here's all you need do. Go to his site and register. You'll be shown a quick video on how this course came about. You'll get a five part mini-course and eight videos on how to build a readership.

You can ask Michael any question you want about building a following. You can even post on his blog, and try to win a copy of the complete course.

So that's the whole deal. This Tuesday launches the only "readership building" & "lead generating" course that I've ever endorsed. It's the only one that I've seen that follows the approved "whitelist" methods, to ensure you'll never get into trouble or be accused of spamming.

But you need to go to the site and sign up now. That way, you'll get all the pre-launch goodies and be reminded on Tuesday, about the low 127 dollar price he's offering during launch week.

Then once you get the course and watch the videos, Michael Cheney will show you how to build loyal following quickly and easily. And once you start that relationship with your readers, you'll understand why every marketer on the planet, calls their readership, or list, their most important business asset.

Are You Ready for a Loyal Following? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/11

Posted at 09:39 PM    

Wed - July 12, 2006

How to Get Subscribers and Keep Customers for Life


It's often asked, "How do I get subscribers in the first place?" This article lets you in on a few secrets. Not just how to get them, but how to treat them and keep them as customers for life.

Think of customer acquisition and retention like an archery target. Draw a dot in the center, with two or three concentric circles as the outside rings.

Think of the outer most ring of the target, as an item that you give away free. It could be a special report, series of tips, or a white paper.

The next inner ring represents your $50 thing. It may be an ebook, a series of audio interviews, or a half hour training video.

The next ring is like your $500 thing. It could be a course shipped on CD or DVD, mentoring, or coaching services.

At the very center - the bull's eye - is your $5,000 thing. It could be a two week consulting project, or a retainer for SEO work.

The goal is to bring the reader in from the outside edge of the target, into the center. Moving the customer from the free thing, into the more expensive things, as they slowly come to know you, and trust you.

To get the reader in the first place, you've often heard me say, "Offer the reader something of high perceived value, in exchange for their contact info." But what exactly constitutes value?

Simply stated, value is the difference between actual price and what you are willing to pay. If the purchase price is higher than expected, it's a poor value. If the price is lower than expected, then you're really happy, because of the "high" perceived value.

In this case, the price someone is willing to pay, is contact info. It could be as little as a first name and email address. But if you want "real" and not junk contact info, then the product you offer - even though it's free - must contain high quality content.

First of all, don't give your valuable content all away at once. Meaning, don't put the information on a web page. Make them download a PDF file and "do some work" to get at the information. The sweat equity increases the value in their mind.

Make it a quick read. Keep it to 10 pages or less. Give out some of your best info. Don't be afraid of giving away too much. This is the bait, if they take it, all you need to do is reel them in and get a subscriber for life.

Tell, don't try to sell any products in the PDF. All you want them to do, is the next step. To sign up for your newsletter, memo, bulletin, periodical, articles, ramblings... whatever you choose to call it.

Then once they subscribe, give them a little "unadvertised" signing bonus. Be sure that you don't mention it elsewhere. Providing a "gift" at this stage will solidify the relationship between you and your reader.

Another method of getting subscribers, is to offer a course or tips via email. Have the course arrive in five to seven consecutive lessons. Follow the "tell, don't sell" model just like you would do with a PDF.

Then remind them after every note, if they like what they just read, and they want more just like it, to subscribe to your words. Be sure to offer a sign up bonus, just like you would in the PDF model.

Now comes the time to maintain the relationship with the readers. Be sure to contact them on a regular basis. Don't wait more than three weeks between contacts - unless you provide a paid monthly subscription - as it's very easy to forget. Pick a schedule like once a week and stick to it.

Here's another tip, always send the email from the same person using the same subject line. That way, there can be no mistake that it's their favorite newsletter. (Some people choose to change the subject with every issue. I've tested this and found better open rates when it's always the same.)

Finally... if you want to get a record number of people signing up, offer them a complete collection of you work on an iPod. It could be your complete course, ebooks, video or other training materials. Give away one a month if you can afford it.

(And here's a sneaky little secret. Be sure that your contest rules specify that the contest winner will be notified by email. If they unsubscribe they cannot win. You'll be surprised at your subscriber retention.)

If you offer high perceived value, in the form of a PDF report or seven day course via autoresponder, you will get people signing up to read what you have to say. And if you truly have something to say, there are people that need to hear it.

Treat each subscriber like a friend. Talk directly to them. Respect the relationship. Honor the fact that they are allowing you into their time and space. And always try to provide real value in every communication.

That my friend, is how you get subscribers and keep customers for life.

Posted at 12:40 PM    

Tue - May 23, 2006

Survey Time... Tell Me What You Want!


Your wish is my command. Just fill out the IMS survey and tell me what you want.

It's only been six months since the last survey, but the readership has grown by several thousand since then. I want to be sure that I'm giving you the type of content that you need.

In addition, I'm not just polling 300 random readers this time. I'm opening it up to everyone for at least a week. So please be sure to voice your opinions and concerns. Tell me what areas you're already good at, and tell me what you'd like to know more about.

It's only going to take five minutes of your time. And those of you that take the time will determine the future of this newsletter. The power is in your hands. Please go there now and voice your hopes, dreams, needs and desires. And I'll do my very best to fulfill them for you.

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Click ==> IMS Newsletter Survey ==> http://www.cdzn.com/survey

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Posted at 12:51 PM    

Fri - May 5, 2006

AOL Users, "A Bunch of Morons?"


Q - "Mike, my newsletter got blocked by AOL. What a bunch of morons. Even though they subscribed, when they got my newsletter, a ton of them clicked the "Report as Spam" button."

"It's not fair that a tiny fraction of AOL users should be able to block a legit subscription to ALL their users. It just doesn't seem right. Is there anything I can do to reach the thousands of subscribers I lost?"

A - Yes, there are a lot of beginners on AOL, but there are a lot of professional business people as well. Lots of people like AOL because they can access the internet from almost any country in the world. You don't need an internet cafe, or wifi hotspot, just a simple local dial-up number in any of the many countries they serve.

But that said... Yes, it happens to me too. And it's not just beginners that are doing it. Look at a these confirmed subscribers that clicked the Spam button after receiving my last newsletter.

Dave... subscribed on 06/05/2001
Sharon... subscribed on 06/26/2001
Ollie... subscribed on 03/30/2002
Anthony... subscribed on 04/19/2002

Note that they've been subscribers of mine for years. Write one thing they don't like and they hit the spam button. Helloooo??? Earth to AOL users... The report as spam button is NOT FOR "VOTING" on a particular newsletter issue.

If you don't like my newsletter, and don't want to receive it... there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every single email that I've ever sent you. Don't use the Spam button when you've double opted-in to receive something and risk looking like a _____ !

Ok... enough of that... When it comes to mailing AOL, use a mailing service like AWeber Systems that posts the subscribers actual subscription date in the header information.

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: "Michael Campbell"
X-Mailer: AWeber 4.0
X-Subscription: Subscribed on 06/05/2001

AWeber for Mailing ==> http://www.cdzn.com/aws

Be sure to follow AOL's "Best Practices" and recommendations for incoming mail by following the federal Can Spam Act of 2003. These include a one-click unsubscribe link and contact info.

According to the AOL website, "All subscription based e-mail must have valid, non-electronic, contact information for the sending organization in the text of each e-mail including phone number and a physical mailing address."

In addition, you can apply to for their "whitelist" status (just like Yahoo) which allows solicited mail to pass through their filters. There's a toll free number listed on their site along with a contact email address. Simply contact them and ask why you got blocked. http://postmaster.info.aol.com

Finally, be sure your newsletter really was blocked by AOL and not some other internet provider along the way. Every hop your mail takes across the vast internet can subject it to content or context filters along the way.

Lastly, you might want to send a short reminder once an html version of your newsletter has been posted online. Usually these "short" emails fly under the filters and reach the majority of subscribers.

Posted at 06:03 PM    

Tue - April 18, 2006

AOL & Yahoo... Just Pay Us and We'll Deliver Your Spam ;-)


You may have heard that AOL and Yahoo are about to start charging a fee, if you want to send email to their networks. The company that will be providing the "certification" is Goodmail Systems. So what will it cost?

(AOL and Yahoo represent almost half of the email audience in the USA, or roughly 73.5 million people, according to Goodmail.) So what will it cost? About 2¢ per 1,000 email. So if you have have a big list, it could get pretty pricey.

Imagine spammers that send 100,000 email per hour. That works out to $48 per day. Not enough to keep out "professional" copy writers that get results, but enough to keep out the riff raff.

If you can prove that you have a list of double confirmed subscribers you should be fine, and may avoid the "email tax" altogether. But if you've been "squeezing" people for email addresses before "sending that report" or "allowing access to your site" then you'll probably have to pay the tax.

Opposing the fee is a consortium of about 50 companies. Some are even threatening that if AOL charges us... then we'll charge AOL members if they want to send mail to our networks. Sheesh, what a mess!

Regardless of how this makes you feel, there's something even more troubling that underlies all this. The fact that AOL will allow - people and companies with money - to send broadcasts to their network, as long as they're willing to pay for it.

Don't believe me? Just look at how many companies are willing to spend 50¢ - where I live - on a postage stamp, just to deliver their junk mail to your home. They keep doing it, because it works.

Think about that for a second. If you're on AOL - and I understand it correctly - the amount of spam you get, could double or triple. Even if you've never given your email address to anyone except your Grandma. It doesn't matter. Soon you'll be getting "paid" spam delivered to your inbox.

So if you're an AOL or Yahoo user, you might want to get involved in the discussions and read the news posts. It's gonna get ugly... real soon.

Posted at 04:12 PM    

Fri - June 17, 2005

Confirmed Opt-in is Now Mandatory for Marketers


AWeber Sucks! I don't know who got my newsletter announcement or when. There are many time consuming other requirements! They don't explain up front about the verification steps. If I had known they require me to pester my customers twice, I would never have signed up with them!

Sorry you feel that way, but I think AWeber is great. So do most professional marketers. It's the best mailer / subscription manager on the planet.

Be patient. It takes time to learn any new piece of software. They have a very powerful system which gets easier the more you use it.

Yes, you can track your open rates. You can also seed your list with a couple of your own email addresses so you can "see" your broadcast taking place.

Verification is just a way of life now. You can replace their "stock" text with your own. But you MUST have confirmed opt-in, (often mistakenly referred to as double opt-in) or your emails won't get on the whitelist.

AWeber has to do it that way, because that's the rules laid down by Canspam, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and all the other major players. If you want to play the game... and get your email on the whitelist and delivered... AWeber has the best reputation in the business.

Posted at 07:49 PM    

Tue - April 12, 2005

Just how much email is not getting through?


Just how much email getting filtered. Just how much email is not getting through? It's much higher than you may think.

It happens every day. People ask me why I didn't respond to their emails... what email? I never got it. Not even from my sister. Turns out you can't say the word "amazing" not even in a family birthday invitation. It's worth three spam points.

But set aside spam for just a moment. How much email just gets lost, returned to sender, trapped, zapped or just bounces around the internet forever?

According to computer specialist Alan Zisman, a recent Australian University study set up a broad range of email addresses on several services and proceeded to send out hundreds of short - nearly contentless - email. They discovered that an average of 1.6% of email messages don't make it to their intended recipients.

Most services even failed to notify the sender, that the email never made it. One service failed to deliver an incredible 10% of all email. Note that this is not due to spam filtering, this is just email that fails to get delivered.

According to a study of 16 internet service providers by Return Path, an average of 19% of all legitimate email gets tagged as spam and tossed into junk folders, which rarely get looked at. When they do, most people select all and delete.

So if between 1 and 10% doesn't get delivered. And an additional 19% gets filtered, nearly 30% of all email has the potential of not getting delivered.

Sadly, a lot of these legitimate emails getting tagged as spam, are indeed transactions, orders, opt-in requests, confirmations, invitations, autoresponder courses, newsletters and other communications requested by the recipient.

I've learned that some .coms filter out every newsletter I send. Filters by Semantic and MXLogic stopped several of my recent newsletters from reaching subscribers. Another filter wiped out most of my Russian subscribers. Pretty much everyone at mail.ru is toast.

According to Aweber (the software I use to deliver newsletters), "In today's fight against spam, many ISP's filter emails using a technique called "content filtering". This filtering looks at the words, website links, and images that appear in messages and try to make a determination if that message is probably spam.

If they believe it is, that ISP may block the message from being delivered to the subscriber. A message that is incorrectly filtered is called a "false positive". This occurs when a subscriber has specifically requested this information but the ISP's filtering program mistakenly classifies it as spam."

They go on further to suggest "You should contact the ISP by email at: postmaster@domain.com. Uh yea... that would be like saying phone the government... well, at least they tried to help :-)

Sheesh, so what's a person to do? There are filters on the main internet service providers, my cable modem account and finally in my mail program. That's a lot of filtering going on. What's scary is that a domain renewal was almost missed, because all notices got filtered out.

I quickly set up some new email accounts. One for customers. One for family and friends. And a super important one to handle things like domain name renewals, hosting, money transfers, billing, banking and the like.

So with so much filtering going on, we decided to set up our own unscientific series of tests. We set up email accounts on all the usual suspects like Hotmail, AOL, MAC and a ton of other services. We sent two email, one with a 7 on the SpamAssasin scale, the other a lowly 3 on the same scale. (Anything under 5 is considered fairly safe.)

The result? The spammy one got filtered out somewhere along the many internet hops an average of 27.8%. That's pretty high. Turns out you can't say everyday things like: free, amazing, money, what are you waiting for, here's how you can.

What's really ridiculous, is that there's even a one point spam penalty for the most traditional opening of "Dear FirstName." How sad is it when you can't even call someone Dear?

With the normal - low spam - email, still a very high average of 5.3% of email sent didn't make it through. Again, how sad is that... I wanted to send it, the recipient wanted to get it... but somewhere, some filter, set up by somebody in one of the hops along the way, decided "for me" the communication was spam.

Finally I decided to send the most recent issue of my newsletter to the email accounts I had set up for the experiment. I made sure my SpamAssassin score was a super low 0.2 (which is way less than 1.0) and considered extremely safe.

At first I was very happy, as a very low 3.2 % of my email didn't go through. But on the other hand I thought... hey wait a minute, if you have 35,000 readers, that's over 1,100 people that will never see the newsletter.

So I decided to set up another test. I'd look at the newsletters I'm subscribed to, and see which ones made it to my inbox over the past couple of months. Here is how often they - and the internet - are successful in getting them to me...

Allan not so good at 60%
Phil nearly perfect at 95%
Ros dismal at 30%
Andy a hardy 85%
Ralph a mere 45%
Jim stopped cold at 0%
ClickZ a whopping 100%
Planet Ocean 100%

Ok, so obviously a lot of newsletters are not making it through. So why the differences? What people can do? What are the solutions?

As a publisher, you can start by using a reputable mailing system like Aweber. They usually include tools like SpamAssassin to calculate your total spam score before you send out the newsletter. It also highlights the offending bits making them easy to find and fix. One final check and you're usually good to send.

Publishers can also send out a short notice, once the html version of their newsletter has been posted. So in the case of Ros and Andy, even though I miss a large portion of their newsletters by email, I still get the reminder nearly 100% of the time and can read their newsletters online.

With Jim, there's obviously a filter along the way that's nuking everything from him, much like when I try to send email to Russia. When I noticed Jim's newsletter was missing, I subscribed under a different email address and then forwarded it to my main email address. This solved the problem, but unfortunately, Jim has no way of knowing I was having a problem.

Finally there are some alternative methods. ClickZ and Planet Ocean get 100% delivery because they don't send the actual newsletter. It's just a little bit of text and links which lead to web pages containing the full stories.

Last of all, you can migrate to other technologies like some publishers. They've all but given up on email, and have started information feeds with RSS tools, created Blogs and switched to alternate methods like subscription based software that pushes its content to readers.

The conclusion? All in all, email "usually" still works for newsletters and casual communications. And it's not going away any time soon. But as you can see from my experiments, it's far from being reliable.

So do me and everyone else a favor. Next time if it's really important, like shutting off hosting, a delivery notice, or a birthday party... pick up the phone!

So let me ask you, how come you never answered my email? ;-)

by Michael Campbell
Providing successful marketing strategies since 1988.
Click to Subscribe ==> Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter

Posted at 01:33 PM    

Fri - March 18, 2005

Newsletter Personalization


How do I personalize the subject line and opening greeting in my newsletter to the subscriber's name?

The system I use is called, "AWeber." I think of it as a bulk mailer service capable of personalizing each newsletter, even though that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's a double opt-in email address collection system. It's a subscription manager. It's a customer database. It's an ad tracker. It's also an autoresponder.

If you visit their site, you'll see them really advertising the autoresponder side. In my opinion, they should really be promoting it as a low cost bulk emailer system.

I've been a happy customer since 1999. And since it's an online service, you can access it anywhere in the world. All you need is a web browser and internet access.

Click to learn more about AWeber Systems.

Posted at 05:42 PM    





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