How Not to Email Market
The last few days I’ve been feeling pretty ruthless with my inbox. I am pretty used to getting large volumes of email, that is my norm. It is not uncommon for about 500 emails a day to land in my inbox. The last few days, I’ve been hitting the unsubscribe links a lot.
I’ve spent a lot of time exploring listbuilding and email marketing. There appears to be two schools of thought on the subject.
One is build a relationship with your list. Treat them like you’d like to be treated and they will want to buy from you when you send them an offer. There is a lot of sense in that approach. Think about how you build friendships, you don’t build strong friendships based on what the other person can and will do for you. You build up trust and rapport. When the time arrives you need some help, a friend will usually do what they can to respond. There is a mutuality in a friendship which doesn’t really happen when building business relationships but I think you get the drift. 
The second approach is more of a scatter gun approach. Get the person on your list by what ever means you can and then just hammer the calls to action at them. I wont even say offers, as a lot of what I have been seeing lately is people engaged in ad swaps and sending me off to sign up for even more lists. Do they care if I unsubscribe? Not really, they are out there getting even more people on their list. The listbuilding continues forever.
The first approach takes time. It means you are committing to actually providing value to the customer or potential customer. You care that they have a meaningful experience on your list. People who take the first approach get a lot more of my attention and rarely do I unsubscribe. That doesn’t mean everything they send me gets my immediate response, or read, but I can usually see the person is trying to send me relevant material. Yes, they are going to send me offers, it is email marketing after all.
The second approach is what triggers my unsubscribe clicks. I get that building a list using ad swaps can be effective. Sending me emails that tells me you just found me this great resource and I should go there right now is not building a relationship with me. When I get to know someone and they start trying to push me around, I dump them. I don’t have to nor do I deserve that treatment.
If the resource you are sending out an ad for is so great, then why don’t you tell me about it before I spend my time clicking over to it and entering my info? Likely because you haven’t even looked at it and can’t be bothered finding out if the so called resource is any good. I’ve looked at all kinds of these ‘great resources’ and I’ll tell you, rarely are any of them worth my time. So why did I look? I was curious about just what is being offered.
Did it get anyone a sale? Definitely not. Will the tactic generate future sales? Definitely not, I’ll already be unsubscribed by the time you send me something I might have cared about.
Yes, I’m building a list. I’ll be using the first approach, not the second. I don’t want to be treated like a lemming and wont be treating others the same. I’d be honoured if you’d join my list.
Which list building approach do you prefer? What triggers you to unsubscribe? What motivates you to stay?
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Clickbank Giveaway
CB Giveaway
Anyone who has been online for even a short length of time knows about Clickbank. For anyone who doesn’t, Clickbank is the go to site for selling digital products and making a profit through affiliate marketing. They have a rock solid guarantee for consumers and dead easy process for vendors to sell their products.
Many of those vendors do in fact offer free stuff as incentives towards buying their product. Many of those free items contain some valuable nuggets of information for your marketing knowledge.
The free stuff is not always easily found, but I have found a site that gathers together the best of the freebies and provides you with directions on how to get to them. The site is CB Giveaway.
In the coming days I’m going to be providing you with some reviews of the products featured there and the free items offered. You don’t have to wait for my reviews though, go have a look at CB GIveaway now. It’s free to get into.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Beating Isolation While Working Online
Working online can be a great experience. It’s wonderful not to have to get up in the morning and trudge into a job. To put up with the politics and squabbles which are often part of the work experience. Great isn’t it?
But, people by nature have a degree of social need. We need some input from others in order to know how we’re actually interacting in the world. That’s hard to get when working online. Other than the feedback you get from customers or potential customers, you don’t really interact with other marketers like you would in a job.
One way to overcome that is to join a forum like Dennis Becker’s insiders forum Earn 1K A Day. No, it is not some hyped up membership which promises you to that you’ll make 1K or more a day. Building on his book 5 Bucks a Day and his most recent 5 Bucks a Day Revisited, Dennis provides a supportive environment for you to be able to work towards earning that first $1k in a day. What a target to go for, eh.
Dennis doesn’t promote any particular business model, he provides forum areas for people in various models to interact and support each other. Check it out, it’s a great way to break out of the isolation of online business.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Beating Isolation While Working Online
Tagging People in Facebook Status Updates
Came across an article on Mashable with described ten things you can do with your status updates on Facebook. I was particularly interested in this one:
To mention someone in a status update just type “@” (a la Twitter) in the status bar and start typing their name as it appears on Facebook. An auto-generated list will then come up with people in your social circle whose name starts with the letters you’ve typed. The feature also works with pages, brands, events and companies.
Hit the name you want, complete the update, click share and the name will become a hyperlink (you won’t see the @ symbol) and will appear in blue text
When you do this, your update shows up in that person’s newsfeed. The possibilities could be endless here for getting your status updates seen.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Tagging People in Facebook Status Updates
Membership Site Arrives
It has taken me a while to get the hang of the configuration and model but at long last, I have this site configured as a membership site. Postings here on the blog will continue. Most of the posts will point you to the content within the membership areas.
Basic membership is free and will give you access to files, articles etc to help you learn internet marketing. Once in the membership area, you will be given the opportunity to upgrade to a premium membership for even more advanced materials.
If you are looking for promises of vast riches to be made overnight. You wont find that here. If you are looking for material to help you understand online marketing and building your business, you’ll find that here.
I’ve added Facebook functionality to every post and page. I encourage you to post your comments and questions so all members can help and support each other. Let’s build our businesses.
I’m off to start adding content into the site for you.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Welcome
Welcome to It’s All About Money. This site is dedicated to helping you to learn how to make money online. This site will not claim to show you how to make millions overnight.
This site will not promise that you will make easy money while doing hardly any work. Making money online is about establishing an online business. A business doesn’t appear overnight and it doesn’t appear without you knowing at least some basics on what you are doing.
So, if you’re looking for get rich quick plans/schemes. Thanks for stopping by. If you are looking to figure out how to establish your online business, please explore.
This site is a membership site. You commit to me, I commit to provide you the best guides I can find. There are many methods for building an online business, the most important first step is reliable knowledge on how to get started.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Cold Hard Facts of Success
David Risley is one of the bloggers I watch on a regular basis. He’s straight forward with what he has to say and doesn’t gear everything he says to selling his visitor on the latest miracle product. He’s someone I pay attention to and give some consideration to what he has to say.
In a recent post he writes on the cold hard facts of success in business. As much as we’d like to think that succeeding at business is finding the ‘magic formula’ to get people to open their wallets, the reality is, success starts with our own mindset.
He talks about the 8 facts we need to embrace and accept for success:
- You need to be able to make a decision and move forward.
- You need to be all in.
- You need to be willing to fail.
- You need to be willing to march to your own drummer.
- You need be OK with not everybody liking you.
- You need to be willing to work your ass off.
- You need to be willing to not have a safety net.
- You need to be ethical, and guided by the best survival for all
To learn more about each point, visit the article, it’s worth the time.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Successful Selling on Social Media
Mike Schultz over at Social Media Examiner has a great post on eight ways to successfully selling using social media. In a nutshell, here’s the points:
- Boil the Frog — I could explain this, but I’ll leave it for Mike. Love the analogy. Basically, don’t come on too strong
- Givers Gain — pretty much self-explanatory. Just give, don’t worry about the return.
- Make Henry Kissinger Proud — great way to do your best
- Be Brave
- Be Positive and Pleasant
- Prepare for Window Shopping
- Let Your Personality Show Through
- Take if Offline, When it’s Time
Social media can be a confusing place to catch onto the culture of. Reading and applying as much as you can, sure makes a difference. So, hop over to Mike’s blog and have a look at the full article.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Successful Selling on Social Media
Membership Site Coming Soon
Okay I know, it has been over a month since I posted. I haven’t wandered off into cyberspace. I have been doing a lot of learning and planning. Sometime ago, I wrote about the need to keep it simple in internet marketing. The basic idea is to choose a method, a business model, and develop it.
I had recently decided on the first niches I wanted to do business in. But had not solidly laid out a plan on how I was going to do business. That’s creating a barrier for myself. Until there is a plan in place, there is no plan and no direction.
Over the last month I’ve been learning a lot about the value, power and diversity of creating membership sites. I’ve learned, like most models, there is a lot of misinformation out there. Learning how to go with a model means to learn how to apply the information and sift out the junk.
It has taken some exploring but I think I have managed to do that. So, I’m letting you know within a very short time this site will be a membership site.
Having said that, I know I am a virtual unknown in this market and even more so as a person running a successful membership site. Everyone has to start some where. So, while this site will become a membership site, the membership will be free.
I may later decide to add a paid membership here, but there will always be value delivered free. The members who join the free site will be the customers who had enough faith in me to sign up even though I was cutting my teeth on this model.
Now, I’m not committing to everything inside the membership area being free. I am committing to value. Stay tuned.
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Broke My Rule; Learned A Valuable Lesson
photo credit: Harvard Avenue
If you read my last post on Keywords, you’d have seen down near the end my statement:
Alas, one of the goals I laid out for myself was to not spend any more money on tools, books, software or even domains until I have used what I have to generate some actual income. I slowly put away my ‘buy’ urge and settled back to do the hard slugging until I can meet my goal.
Well, I broke that rule last week. I succumbed to a marketing offer claiming to show it’s customers how to get Facebook ads for nothing in order to promote on Facebook. I bought the offer and then quickly realised the promises were way bigger than the delivery.
The promised ‘free ads’ were nothing more than buying ads and then offsetting the cost of them by the income derived as the result of placing the ad. The fact is, unless you hit it lucky with a hot market, you would likely lose more than you’d make. I immediately went to Clickbank and requested a refund.
I then did what I should have done in the first place. I visited the review section of the Warrior Forum. (if you are not already a member, you should become one) Sure enough the product was being reviewed. Customers were not happy at the sense of being ripped off.
If you want a lesson in what not to do when it comes to producing and launching your own product. Read that thread. If you watch closely as you are reading, you’ll discover that the product owner JaniG only posted to belittle those who were unhappy. He also tried to thwart people wanting a refund by changing their refund requests at Clickbank to tech support.
Neither action did him any good. People became angrier not just at him but also at those who push products in the same manner. Clickbank made the refund promptly when I called them. Now, one marketer did suggest that he had some good ideas, but they were not what he promoted.
So the lessons learned:
- check for reviews, real reviews, of a product before buying. The Warrior Forum is the best place I’ve found to get legitimate reviews. Not reviews produced as part of the marketing of a product launch.
- When you launch your own product, make sure what you promote, is what you are delivering. Don’t promise free, unless it truly is going to be free. You might think it’s clever to play with the language. It just makes your customers angry.
- If you are participating in promoting a product launch, make sure you have a look at the product before putting your name to the promotion. You’ll see in that thread that some marketers lost subscribers because of their promotion of the product. I’ll admit, I unsubscribed from several who promoted it to me.
- When customers want a refund, give it to them. Don’t try to make them feel like they are caught in product hell. Sure, there is nothing wrong with trying to communicate with the customer and encouraging them to reconsider, once. JaniG kept sending the same canned ‘encouragement’ and then changing the refund request to ‘tech support’ which only served to make his customers angry.
- If you make mistakes or handle something badly, don’t compound the problem by continuing to handle the situation badly. Own up to the problem, either resolve it or offer the refunds being sought without question.
So, back to my rule about not spending until I’ve made income.
What have your experiences been with products you’ve bought? Did you learn lessons from how the sale was handled?
visit the Patti Network News to see where else I’m writing.
Broke My Rule; Learned A Valuable Lesson
