My face is still red…

I used to say the world was divided into bankers and artists. I’ll revise that. It’s divided into techies and artists. People who know HTML coding and those that don’t. Only thing is, in today’s world it really counts to be a little of both!

So one day I decided to learn how to do a little HTML coding. After all, I can update my web site using Dreamweaver, and I can design a blog and make it look nifty, but I really don’t know what I’m doing. The software makes it easy.

My associate Garland Holt, a veteran geeky and founder of Graphiquest, gave me a tutorial in basic html coding last Sunday. And a homework assignment using basic bolding, italics, and bulleted lists.

Turns out, it’s really not that complicated, and I did it! So I wrote a smart-alecky paragraph in which I proclaimed I was no longer a techno-weanie, using bolded words, italics and bulleted lists. I told him he could no longer kick sand in my face.

Then, I used my shopping cart system to send him my homework message and told him he’d better watch out now, I was armed with HTML and dangerous.

Whoops! I pressed the wrong button and sent it out to my entire database. Oh yes, my clients, my affiliates, my potential clients, everybody.

I got messages that ranged from What the heck is this? Are you nuts? …and unsubscribe.

Got about 6 unsubscribes, unusual for my list.

Then I sent an apology, and got about 40 responses that were amazing: people forgave me, laughed out loud, told me I flunked, sent me back to dummy land, and shared their stories of similar goofs.

Turns out, people sort of like it when you mess up. They can relate, or they are just glad it was me not them.

One guy told me he thought it was a cleverly disguised marketing message and I should do it again.

One person told me he was glad that I finally made a mistake…what does that mean?

Happy ending…

Go figure. I sold 10 e-books and got two new annual subscriptions to my newsletter services.

Do you think they felt sorry for me? Have I stumbled across a secret marketing ploy? Is this really good advertising for my business?

Have you even goofed like this, and were people annoyed, mad, or pleased? I’d like to hear your stories so I don’t feel like such a techno-weanie again.

My friend Garland continues to send me HTML homework, but I think I’ll just study it for a while before sending it over to him…

Just an artist at heart,

Patsi

Special Deal on Secrets for Only 4 More Days!

"I hate to bother you but…"

I would start off all my marketing and promotions with that little polite introduction. The truth is I really hate tooting my own horn. It is so bad I hired a marketing coach, Denise Wakeman. She does a much better job of it than I do.

Here is what Denise wrote about the fact that you guys have only 4 more days to buy my ebook, Secrets of Successful Ezines, at the $47 price with the 3 bonuses:

Don’t wait until Monday!

There are only 4 more days to get your copy of "Secrets of Successful Ezines" for only $47. On February 1 the ebook goes up to $87.

This ebook is full of resources on content, formatting, and distribution. It features 35 samples of excellent ezines. In addition you get 12 sample Welcome messages, how NOT to do a welcome message, sample of a closing message, a "please forward" message, and a sample e-course message.

Finally, you can learn how 55 successful professionals have grown their ezine lists from 50 to over 50,000 in only 3-4 years.

Here is What You Will Get with this Guide:

• We’ll tell you how you can do it all for free or the lowest cost.

• We’ll tell you what and where and when you can outsource.

• You get hundreds of resources, tips, tools, and trade secrets.

• We’ll give you the questions to determine which parts of the ezine tasks you need to outsource.

• We’ll also tell you which questions you need to ask service providers so you can make your decisions wisely.

• We’ll tell you how to avoid the mistakes others have made with their ezines.

• You get 34 interviews with successful ezine publishers and we’ll tell you the secrets that grew their ezine subscription numbers to tens of thousands of readers!

• We’ll show you what makes an effective ezine.

• You get a step-by-step workbook to guide your ezine planning and purpose, connecting you with your values which will sustain your energy.

• You get content ideas and writing tips.

• You get several templates for formatting your own ezine.

• You get sample ezines others have created.

• We’ll explain the tech stuff like formatting, distribution services, avoiding spam triggers, autoresponders

• We’ll show you how your ezine ties in with your overall marketing plan

• We’ll show you how to make money from your ezine (even automatically).

We don’t want you to miss this steal of a deal. For 4 more days you can get this comprehensive resource for only $47.  On Tuesday, February 1, the price goes up to $87.

Use this link to get your copy of Secrets of Successful Ezines ebook with Interviews and Sample Ezines for only $47:
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=120915

And to entice you further, you get these three great bonuses:

Free Bonus #1: Coaching session with Patsi about your marketing efforts and ezines. This includes a professional ezine review. Value: $150.

Free Bonus #2: $47 Coupon discount to apply to any ezine article, editing, formatting or marketing services offered by Patsi Krakoff at www.CustomizedNewsletters.com. Value $47 off price of article or service.

Free Bonus #3: Emotional Intelligence and the Executive Coach, a five-article PDF file with over 10,000 words of information on how E.I. impacts coaching with executive and personal coaching clients. Value: 5 articles at $69 each, $345.

My apologies…

If you hate being marketed to, hate bonuses, hate the whole selling process, you are not alone. That’s why I create ezines for professionals in the first place. Ezines are a great way for you to show people what you are all about without having to "sell yourself."

If you need help with publishing your ezine, help is available. Hire someone, take a course, read a book. This ebook, for example, is a great start.

Make no mistakes, however, there are a lot of secrets that go into making a good ezine. Get this book and learn before you make all those mistakes others have made before you.

Patsi

P.S. If you want to learn more about the book, go here.

P.S.S. If you want to get the free minicourse, go here.

Secrets of Successful Ezines
Minicourse # 7

The Highs and Lows of Ezine Publishing

Today’s lesson from Secrets of Successful Ezines is a chronicle from Suzanne Falter-Barnes, www.howmuchjoy.com and www.selfhelpsalon.com. She shares with us the history of her internet business and the ups and downs of her ezine.

It is a little long, but worth reading it.

This is a sample of the many interviews from people who successfully publish ezines that are included in the ebook, Secrets of Successful Ezines. You can buy the full ebook by clicking here.

But first, don’t miss out on this delightful tale of Suzanne’s ezine!

Suzanne Falter-Barnes
The Joy Letter [info@howmuchjoy.com]
The Joy Letter # 108 — Highs & Lows of Building a Net Business

Highs & Lows of Building a Net Business

In our recent survey to Joy readers, we were asked to provide a timeline of our ups and downs in building this joyful business at www.howmuchjoy.com. There have been definite highs and lows in my small business’s 5 year history. Here are some of them, plus lessons I learned along the way.

August, 1999. Launched site with trepidation, despite ‘gut feeling’ that it would succeed. Had no idea what I was doing. Hired fancy author’s web site creator/promoter at vast expense. But people came.

October-December, 1999. Went on 15-city book tour that I booked and paid for; met lots of people and signed ’em up for ezine, one at a time. Joy Letter list at about 1000.

June, 2000. Major publisher edition of ‘How Much Joy’ book comes out, and book is a dual main selection of One Spirit Book Club. Lots of publicity, more speaking gigs. Joy Letter list up to about 2000-2500.

November, 2000. List disappears! Guy who broadcasts it goes on vacation in Bangkok where he gets sick and is stuck for three months. Never bothers to tell me. I get police involved. High drama. Guy and Joy Letter list eventually turn up again. List up to about 3750.

February, 2001. I sign on with major ezine broadcast service and shopping cart. Launch my first e-products, which do OK, not great. I learn that people don’t really want e-courses as much as they want live contact of teleclasses… at least for my work.

May, 2001. I discover joint ventures with other websites, and begin swapping blurbs, offering teleclasses and more with partners. Jennifer Louden and I team up on what is now an annual event, The Writer’s Spa. It’s clear that two are more powerful together than apart. I continue to develop products and free items for the site.

January, 2002. I sign on with an Opt In list building service, which provides Opt-in names by promoting your ezine. Joy Letter quickly becomes most popular ezine and I regularly add 3500 double opt in names per month. This is great!

May, 2002. I notice that lots of those new names are suddenly strange numerical addresses and IP’s. I start getting flame emails from unhappy people saying things like ‘What is this #@%$*# Joy Letter and where did it come from??!!" Even though I’ve gotten close to 15,000 new subscribers, I pull the plug on the formerly great, now highly suspicious Opt In service.

June, 2002. Joy Letter list hits 25,000 and I have to pay a much higher fee to broadcast/shopping cart company. I get requests for a shippable binder version of the How Much Joy Facilitator’s work, which I launch. It’s an immediate hit.

February, 2003. One year after I begin selling e-commerce products, I find I can almost make a modest living from my profits. I’ve racked up some debt running this company, but it all still feels ‘right in my gut’. Joy Letter list has naturally grown, but broadcast company institutes their new ‘List Hygiene’ program and gets rid of all the addresses that are no good. Suddenly Joy Letter list gets whittled to around 15,000.

February, 2004. CAN-SPAM laws, new SPAM filters, and other obstacles conspire to keep Joy Letter readers from opening their emails from me. I study how to follow the law and still deliver the ezine to those who opt in to receive it. I get less email than I used to, in response to articles, and it’s a new world in email-land. Meanwhile, my e-commerce business continues to grow steadily and I now make a viable living from the website … oh yeah, and I’m still in debt, which I’m working hard to get out of.

June, 2004. I launch a new website, www.selfhelpsalon.com, which I spend the entire winter developing. At the last minute, my advisors make me get rid of the ‘zany New Age guru’ who was gracing the site’s pages, and stick to the topic at hand. We do an entire re-design in 10 grueling days, and I still launch on schedule. As usual, the advisors were right. (But believe me, the zany guru was really fun.)

October, 2004. Still in debt … sigh. Probably will be for a while, but boy am I learning A LOT about how to run a business. I’ve incorporated and become an LLC. Some months I get lots of sales, excited emails from customers, speaking invitations, and great windfalls of all kinds. Other months, I get a whole lot less. But isn’t that just like life?

Downsides are that I have ‘Internet Butt’ from being parked in a chair 8-10 hours per day. And that I find myself getting up at 5AM to tackle the big pile up in the office… but still, even after the creeping waves of overwhelm, and the frequent sense that I don’t know what I’m doing, I STILL feel like I’m on the right path. Above all, I’m grateful for you, my readers, that I get to do what I’m called to in this life. It’s all just evidence of my work’s primary principle: if you’re called to do something, just trust it. The work really will guide you every step of the way.

Additional Fodder:

Some helpful lessons I’ve learned:

Learning how to do things you’re afraid of, like html coding, can only be avoided for so long. But by then, there’s usually a more user-friendly way to deal with it. So, a little avoidance isn’t altogether bad.

Get up and stretch every few hours. You’ll be a nicer person for it.

Don’t refuse to delegate tasks. On the other hand, don’t become wildly dependent on your support staff either. You, too, need to do some of the basic work on your site.

If you want to deliver a quality product, use quality services … not, say, a sketchy broadcaster with plans to leave the country for an indefinite period of time (even if the price is right.)

You’ll always make typos. So proofread. Again.

Nothing is glorious all the time – not even your dream. Expect a little down time now and then, and use it to clean out your desk.

Don’t let the kids use your computer while eating popsicles.

___________

Thanks, Suzanne, for sharing your interesting experiences with us!

If you find this interesting and helpful, you will get a lot out of reading Secrets of Successful Ezines. Don’t miss out, click here to buy.

If you like this ebook and know of other colleagues or friends that would like it, become an affiliate and earn $25 on each copy you sell. Go here to sign up as an affiliate.

Patsi Krakoff

www.customizednewsletters.com

Secrets of Successful Ezines
Minicourse Part #6

How Will I Know if My Ezine is Successful?

You might not get a lot of feedback from your ezine right away, and may wonder if anybody out there actually reads it and finds it useful.

Besides finding your articles useful and valuable, you would also want them to get results. What kinds of results are you looking to get from your ezine?

Besides getting notification in your inbox each time a new subscriber signs up, you would also want to get clients. This may take time—time for people to learn to trust that you are an expert who can help them with their situation.

You may hear several months later that what you wrote had a profound effect on a reader. In the meantime, here are some other indications that your ezine is working:

People are forwarding it to others
People are subscribing

You are getting more visits to your web site on the day you publish

You have more email inquiries about your services, or emails with questions about your article

You may get a phone call for a free consultation

If you have any free reports people can download, you will see an increase in click-throughs on the day you publish

If you publish in HTML and have a distribution service that tracks open rates, you will be able to know how many people open and read your ezine

Another ezine publisher may request permission to reprint your article

If you offer teleclasses you may notice more sign ups on the day you publish

In it for the Long Term…

Ezines are a long term marketing tool for professionals, not particularly designed to sell products or services like an email promotional broadcast would. Therefore they are part of an overall marketing plan that includes your web site, shopping cart, and other internet tools.

Ezines are designed to build client relationships because you can talk about issues that normally might not come up in a networking or association meeting. Also, you can reach far more potential clients through an ezine than through one-on-one meetings.

Ezines are an adjunct to your other marketing. If you are a speaker, you can always print out your ezine and use them as handouts. They make nice introductions to your services at networking meetings. You can also print and mail articles to potential clients. Giving a free report that is pertinent to a client is perceived as a gift.

Never underestimate the power of the written word. You can use your ezines in multiple ways. They can be repackaged and sold or given away as special reports and ebooks.

You can create mini-courses and telecourses based on what you have written. Take any topic and turn it into a ten-step how-to course and deliver it either by phone or autoresponders. When delivering a teleclass, don’t forget to get them recorded and transcribed; these can form the basis of other free or for fee products.

Click here now to download the ebook, Secrets to Successful Ezines;
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/netcart.asp?MerchantID=43998&ProductID=2098976

Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D.

www.customizednewsletters.com

Secrets of Successful Ezines
Minicourse Part #5

What’s the Best Way to Distribute Your Ezine?

You have several different options for distribution your ezine.

Factors to consider include:

Price – How much do you want to spend?

Format – Are you sending a Text ezine, HTML, both Text and HMTL or PDF

Reporting – Do you want to know how many people opened your ezine or clicked on the links in it?

Do it yourself

The most basic way to distribute your ezine is to just send an email.  Many people will use this method when just starting out.  It’s free and your email is less likely to be flagged as spam than other methods. 

However, you are pretty much limited to a plain text ezine and you don’t know how many people got your ezine and opened it.  You have to manually handle subscribes and unsubscribes.

Yahoo Groups

Although Yahoo Groups is typically used for groups of people with a common interest, they can also be set up in a way that makes them a good way to distribute your ezine.

Some of the benefits of using a Yahoo Group is that recipients can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves, you can send attachments and you can include images in the body of your message.  And best of all, it’s free.

On the down side, several ISP’s including MSN, block Yahoo Group messages.
Subscribers need to either already have a Yahoo account or set one up in order to subscribe to your group.  And like sending an email, you don’t know who opened your message or visited the links in it.

Distribution Services

There are dozens of ezine distribution services ranging from free to several hundred dollars a month. The services geared toward small businesses run between 15 and 50 dollars a month, primarily based on number of subscribers.

The general process is pretty much the same regardless of which service you use. However, there is a fair amount of variance in the number and quality of features each service has.

Most distribution services will allow you to send both HTML and Text ezines; however, they typically won’t allow you to send an attachment.  A distribution service will completely automate the sign up and unsubscribe process; they even provide the sign up form code for your website.

Since there is a lot of variation in features, it’s important to do your homework and make sure the service you have is going to grow with your business.

Changing distribution services is not a simple matter.  Each time you change services, you have to re-invite everyone on your list.  You can expect to lose about 50% of your subscribers each time you do this.

Want to know more? We have compiled a list of services that distribute your ezine and done a comparison chart of the different features. This valuable resource is only $9.95.  You can save hours of research time and be sure to choose the best service for your needs.

To purchase the Distribution Service Comparison Report, click here.

In the meantime, keep writing, and use your articles to reach potential clients through the ezines and blogs.

For those of you wanting to create a web presence in just a couple of hours for under $10, you really should learn about blogs. Next Tuesday, Denise Wakeman and I are presenting a free teleclass about how you can use a blog as both your web site and ezine with little or no tech skills. To register, go here.

Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D.
Elge Premeau

P.S. To buy the ebook Secrets of Successful Ezines, click here. It’s only $47 until Jan. 31.