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Author Archive for Patsi Krakoff – Page 155
Might as well jump head into 2006 and address the future of email newsletters. Yes, there continue to be delivery problems, with some open rates averaging as low as 25-40%. Is there hope? Of course.
Research from the Jakob Nielsen Alertbox shows that readers prefer email newsletters for the following 3 reasons:
- Informative: They keep users up to date (mentioned by two-thirds of the users).
- Convenient: They’re delivered straight to the user’s information central and require no further action beyond a simple click.
- Timely: They offer current information and real-time delivery.
Newsletters that leverage these advantages (and other points that users mentioned) have a stable future. To survive, newsletters need only give users specific benefits that help them with life or work issues in the here and now.
So email newsletters must be more scannable. This same research shows that only 11% of recipients read a newsletter thoroughly. There is too much information and too much email to expect that your newsletter will get the attention it deserves.
Solutions? Use lists and bulleted points. Or, excuse me:
- Use lots of lists
- Use frequent subheadings
- Be brief, get to the point
- Don’t spend your time writing long discourses that will not be read
- Make your longer articles available for those dedicated readers who want to know more, by using "to continue reading" links.
- Focus on benefits to readers, what’s in it for them
Wishing all my readers the best for the holiday season, as we round the corner of 2005 and into 2006.
For me, it’s a time to catch up on reading, play some tennis, and reconnect with the lovely people in our other home town of Ajijic, Mexico, near Guadalajara. There won’t be any snow or winter decorations, as the weather is similar to San Diego. There will be lots of festivities in our little town for sure.
Here’s wishing you all the best!
How would you like to start 2006 with a team of professional coaches earning six to seven figure incomes, who are ready to "spill the beans" and turn you into a thriving coaching business owner?
Association of Coaching & Consulting Professionals (ACCPOW) is hosting their 2nd Annual Coaching Tele-Summit, which you can attend right from your home by telephone.
Last year, over 175 people attended the tele-summit from 17 countries around the world. Some woke up at 3 AM just to be a part of this live event, while others stayed on the line overtime just to get a chance to pick the experts’ brains!
The tele-summit kicks off on January 18, 2006 at 1pm EST and lasts 8 days.
It starts out with three exciting panel discussions:
- January 18 – Practice Building Panel Discussion
- January 19 – Practice Management Panel Discussion
- January 20 – Passive Revenue Panel Discussion
Following the initial panel discussions there will be five days of over a dozen coaching experts presenting their training sessions live. Here is who’ll be there to train you:
– "Setting up and Managing a Successful Coaching Practice," with Marcia Bench
– "Creating Client-Capturing Web Sites," with Kendall Summerhawk
– "Group Coaching Revenue Model," with Ginger Cockerham
– "Attracting High Paying Coaching Clients," with Terri Levine
– "Organizing and Hosting a Highly Successful Local Coaching Event," with Janice Copeland
– "Creating a ‘Million-Dollar’ Coaching Gym," with Chris Barrow
– "Building a Highly Targeted High Response Coaching Database," with Joel Christopher
– "Measuring What Matters: The 5 Key Metrics to Track, Watch and Cultivate, to Take Your Multiple Streams Business to 6 and 7 Figures," with Andrea Lee
– "Growing Your Coaching Business Fast With Strategic Alliances," with Christian Mickelsen
– "Getting Clients for Life: The New Model of Coaching That Makes You More Money and Provides More Value," with Marcia Bench
– "Setting Up Your Own Membership Based Coaching Program In 2 Weeks Or Less," with Christian Mickelsen
– "First 90-Day Marketing Plan," with Ramon Williamson
…and a couple more surprise coaches!
The entire event will be recorded and CDs will be sent to the tele-summit participants.
ACCPOW was founded and is run by Milana Leshinsky, one of the leading coaching entrepreneurs today, and the #1 provider of business tools for coaches.
Space is limited to only 197 coaches.
For details please visit this link here.
Hope you’ll be there! About the only thing missing in this teleseminar series is expertise on newsletters and blogs, but then you probably get enough about those tools from us!
Jill Lublin Speaks about Publicity
GUERRILLA PUBLICITY – Practical Strategies to Increase Your Visibility
Wednesday, December 14, 2005, 8:30 p.m. ET – FREE
Guest Expert: Jill Lublin, author of Guerrilla Publicity
Let’s face it; everyone needs effective public relations techniques in order to be a success. This presentation will help professionals in any industry to get their word out.
You’ll learn:
- How to find the belly of your message for the mass market
- How to establish yourself as an expert
- How to pull ’em, hold ’em, and pitch ’em in 30 seconds
- How to prepare a powerful press release that will get guaranteed response
- 7 must knows to developing a guerrilla campaign
- What the press says when they speak out – 15 things they love and hate
- How to craft an angle so that the press will embrace it
You will get an in-depth knowledge of public relations to maximize exposure. You will also learn low-cost, powerful, practical, original publicity secrets.
Jill Lublin is the author of two national best selling books, Guerrilla Publicity (which is considered the PR bible and is used in university marketing courses) and Networking Magic (which went to #1 at Barnes and Noble). She is a renowned strategist and international speaker. As the CEO of the strategic consulting firm, Promising Promotion, Jill has created successful techniques that implement bottom line results.
Jill is founder of GoodNews Media, Inc., a company specializing in positive news. She is currently the host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Do the Dream, where she interviews celebrities who have achieved their dreams. Jill has recently been featured in the New York Times, Woman’s Day, and Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as on ABC, NBC, CBS radio and TV national affiliates. Jill is currently working on her third book, How to Connect, and has a new TV show called The Connecting Minute.
Website: www.jilllublin.com
Register: www.ConversationsWithExperts.com
Conversations with Experts: How to Build Your Business On and Off-line
Hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.
Conversations with Experts is sponsored by Build a Better Blog System.
James Roche, the Info Products Guy, spoke with our listeners Wednesday on our Conversations with Experts Teleseminar series, about creating informational products for earning passive income and for marketing your services.
He advocates audio recording teleclasses and seminars, having them transcribed and then rewriting them to turn them into stand alone products your readers can buy.
Or, if you aren’t doing classes, take one of your main services or processes that you go through with your clients and outline it to form an ebook or special report.
Whether you give it away for free as a way to get people to understand your work better, or whether you sell it for a small price, you are growing your database. You can then announce bigger ticket items to these people (the product funnel metaphor).
Here are his four simple questions to get started on an info product:
1. Why? The benefits and motivation
2. What? Just the facts, m’am
3. How? The steps in bullet points
4. What if? How to apply questions and concerns
Actually, these four steps are a good exercise when writing an article or copy for a sales letter. Benefits first, features next, list the main points or steps, and then conclude with repeating the application’s benefits and answering any other questions.
Smart professionals know the importance of their e-newsletters or ezines. It’s been said that building up a database of subscribers is one of the essential keys for getting business online.
But you can’t communicate without subscribers, and you can’t build up a list of subscribers without delivering a consistent, quality newsletter that has value. When you do, your readers will stay subscribed and end up hiring you for services, or buy other informational products.
This Thursday, Dec. 8 I am teaching the basics of e-newsletters and ezines to a group of professionals through the Business Building Center. You can sign up for free by using this link: http://www.businessbuildingcenter.com/teleclasses.htm.
The Business Building Center has all sorts of useful resources for starting and running a successful business, for coaches, consultants, and other small business owners. Steven Fairley, who wrote Getting Started in Coaching and Travis Greenlee are the two entrepreneurs behind the Center.
You are invited, no fee, just register to get the phone number. It’s at 2 p.m. ET, or 11 a.m. for us folks in California and other parts west…
This Wednesday, Dec. 8, you are invited to our
Conversation with Experts
teleseminar at 8:30 pm ET
James Roché, The Info Product Guy
The Inside Secrets to Creating Great Info-Products
If you are an entrepreneur who is tired of slaving away, trading dollars for hours then join us for a one-hour Conversation where the “Info product Guy”, James Roché reveals the inside secrets to creating great info-products.
The fastest way to get off that treadmill and establish yourself as the preferred expert is to skyrocket your passive income (and prestige) by creating highly profitable e-books, audio programs and workbooks. But most entrepreneurs haven’t got a clue where to start. You’ll learn: How to select the right topic; how to develop content fast; how to pick the right price point; the biggest mistakes you can make and how to avoid them, plus much more.
Register: www.ConversationsWithExperts.com
Conversations with Experts: How to Build Your Business On and Off-line Hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.
Conversations with Experts is sponsored by Build a Better Blog System: www.BuildaBetterBlogSystem.com
Christopher Knight from EzineArticles.com gave a free teleseminar Tuesday night on writing articles. Christopher heads up one of the largest article directories and knows something about what makes for a popular article, one that gets picked up and redistributed by others.
Here are a few tips from this teleseminar:
Write articles in sets, creating 2-3 or more, instead of just one. It is easier to break them down into sub-topics this way, and have shorter articles.
Best articles are now only 250-400 words long, maybe up to 600 words, and never more than 750.
His best format? An introduction, 7 bulleted tips, and a conclusion.
Always use your keywords in the title
Christopher Knight intends to give a value-packed course on article writing in 2006, stay tuned, and read his blog for great writing tips.
Creative Nonfiction: I never knew this writing style had a name and a godfather, but it does in the form of Professor Lee Gutkind. Here’s a great interview of him by Jane Genova on her blog.
I’ve been noticing a change in the way the best writers of nonfiction present concepts. There are more narrative stories than there used to be. Even business books and sales copy have stories. Of course, the biggest examples of use of narrative is evident in blogs.
It is far more interesting, I think, to learn how a writer encountered a situation that illustrates a lesson or point, than to just deliver the facts. What do you think?
I am trying hard to develop in this direction; I guess it’s harder for us ‘old school’ types. My scientific and journalism training gets in the way. But I do know how articles in the Vanity Fair style of reporting/writing always seem to get me to read to the end of the story.
The challenge is in discerning which stories to include, which will keep a reader interested and teach something of value. Not all stories have value and you can irritate a reader by telling a story that leaves them scratching their heads in confusion.
Are you telling stories in your newsletters and copy? Your own stories or someone else’s? How do you handle confidentiality issues, if you have any?
Just hit the comment link below and…tell me your story!
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