eMail marketing has changed a lot over the last 13 years. As a part owner of a mass emailing service at http://www.worldresponders.com I’ve enjoyed a birds-eye view of quite a few email marketing campaigns over the years.  In other cases, I’ve managed the lists for clients directly myself. The biggest list was just shy of 500,000 subscribers – broken down into about 15 separate mailing lists.

This, believe it or not, belonged to a “one man show!” He sold products in a sports niche.

Sending plain text emails to your subscriber base ensures the highest delivery rate in many cases. HTML based emails have a lower delivery rate, but a higher response rate. At the Worldresponders service, they system is designed to send out both – simultaneously. If the mail server rejects the HTML version, it can still receive the plain text version.

This is plain, basic, email marketing 101.

If you’re currently running an email campaign that is NOT successful, this would be a good time to step back and look at your overall process as a whole.

I personally use a statistics script to gauge the response of each email I send. After a whole lot of testing, I’ve found that it’s much easier for me to send a short message (via email) that includes a link to the rest of the article. If I’m marketing a product or service, I do the same thing. It’s much easier for people to retain information they’re reading on a web page, in many cases, than it is to digest the same information in a formatted email.

I don’t get too wrapped up with the exact statistics and percentages these days. There are more variables to consider than ever before. I keep things simple. In my opinion, the most important statistics are; are you making money and adding new prospective buyers to your lists?

Some email campaigns are a lot more aggressive than others. If you’re going to be sending mail to your list every day or every other day – whether it’s just for a short space of time or it’s going to be ongoing… there are a few things to keep in mind. First, you’re going to have to turn “skeptics into believers.” The skeptics believe you’re just out to make a quick buck, and really don’t care about anything else.

Believers are convinced you offer value – they just may not be ready to pull the trigger and buy anything yet. There can be multiple reasons why. If you use an aggressive squeeze page to generate leads, you’re going to have a lot of skeptics going in. If you hit them with too much, too quickly, they’ll be gone – fast. One person I know lost over 1,000 subscribers in a week doing that exact thing.

An aggressive squeeze page is basically teaser copy that prompts you for your name and email address before it will allow you to go a step further into the site. This used to be very effective for many people. I say “used to be” because the people I know who use it have large unsubscribe rates. It’s almost as though people are sending a message – “Thanks, but no thanks.” They’re getting what they came for, then – taking the nearest exit.

My suggestion to people still using this method is – track your results carefully.

Being personable is one of the advantages online marketing has over offline marketing. You can communicate with people easier today than any other time in history. The feeling that “there’s a real person on the other side” will go a long way towards whether or not your subscribers read your mailings or just send them to the recycle bin.

Some people are “into Golf.”  Others are “into computers.”  Everyone’s into something, right?  It’s hard to find a person who doesn’t have an above average interest with a particular subject, hobby or pastime.  Some call this a “passion.”  Passion may be too strong a word for others, though.  Especially today.  That’s because the average person has so many demands upon their time, day-in and day-out, they don’t usually set aside time to pursue the things they’d really like to be pursuing.

If you ask the average person what their passion is, they’ll probably just stare at you with a dumbfounded look upon their face for a moment or two.  Ask them what their interests are or what type of things they’re “into to,” though, and you’ll start getting some feedback.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the Internet may be the easiest place there is to actually make money pursuing something you enjoy or love being involved with.  In other words, you can make money by doing something you’re “into to!” For some, it’s a concept they’ve abandoned long ago.

Finding the bridge between what you’re currently doing and what you’d like to be doing may not be as hard as you think. Whatever your interests are, the easiest way to start online and create your first website is by creating a blog.  The movie “Julie and Julia” is a true story about a young woman who began writing a blog about Julia Child’s infamous cookbook.  She set out to make every recipe in the book within a year.  She used a blog to record her journey and was catapulted to fame as a result. The movie that followed was based on her story.

She became famous as made and recorded the results of every one of Julia Child’s recipes in 365-days. The blog remains as a testament to her journey. Here’s the link if you’d like to see how simple her idea was: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

Julie’s secret was in pursuing a topic that she loved at night, while toiling away at her other job by day. There is no reason you can’t do the same, is there?

Whatever your interests, a blog can be created to –

1. Attract other people across the world with the same interests.
2. Sell products or services based upon those interests.
3. Draw enough traffic to the site and sell advertising space to advertisers.

You can set up the Blog yourself or have partners join you.

I took the Blogging concept a step further by creating what I call – “Online Magazines.”  With multiple writers contributing articles, it’s very easy for me to maintain.  One of my favorite creations is – www.TheBoxingMagazine.com.  This site is actually a WordPress Blogging script with a nice, updated design.

Designs or templates can be purchased very inexpensively.  Just look up “WordPress Templates” on Google or Yahoo and you’ll find all sorts of interesting designs.  Some free, some not.

The important thing about pursuing a topic or area you’re “really into” is the fact that you’ll be updating your site, writing articles, marketing the site – after-hours.  That means, instead of watching TV until you fall asleep, your site will take the place of your television time.

Getting traffic to come to your site won’t be nearly as difficult if you pick a topic you thoroughly enjoy and have been into for most of your adult life.  That’s because you’ll already be familiar with the groups and social sites where other like-minded people congregate.  In my case, I was already visiting boxing discussion forums and had made many friends in that niche over the years.  Once my site was complete, I announced it at the boards I frequented. I also began spending time at Yahoo Answers (do a search on Yahoo Answers if you’re not familiar with the service).

Yahoo Answers is comprised of groups of people who ask and answer questions on every topic under the sun.  In my case, I went to the sports section… then, to the boxing sub-category.  I put the link to my site under each of my postings and just like that – even more traffic.  People asked questions about the sport of boxing and different fighters from the past and I gave my own answers.

Now, here’s the big difference between doing something you love and doing something – just for the money, or because you “have to.” Had I been doing everything I mentioned above – working with a topic I wasn’t really into, I wouldn’t have been able to put half the energy into the site that I did.  Do you see how that works?

That’s the problem I see with people in MLM.  They don’t love their products.  They love the potential the compensation plan has.  In the end, that’s not enough for most people.  Why, after spending all day long at a day-job you despise, would you want to invest the rest of your free time doing something your heart isn’t really into?  The desire to make money just isn’t enough.

When you’re into something, that’s where you’ll really shine.

Let’s face it, everyone wants to make money.  The Internet is filled with Get-Rich-Quick gimmicks that are here one moment and gone the next.  That’s because marketing professionals figured out long ago that “fast money” appeals to the masses.  And like a pyramid, most of the people are sweating on the bottom to make the few at the top – rich.

If you’re really serious about making money online, starting out part-time, you need to be involved with a topic you really enjoy talking about and being involved with. If not, you’ll burn out “chasing a buck” with all these ridiculous programs out there.

This also works if you bring a friend or two onboard.

I started Online Mentor Magazine with Jim Straw about a week after the boxing site was completed. I thought business (real business), marketing, publicity and entrepreneurial pursuits would attract a large audience. The two of us have complimenting backgrounds which covers a large spectrum of the business world.

Our readership and traffic continue to grow every month.

When you’re enthusiastic about a subject or project, it shines through everything you do.  There’s a sense of excitement that will otherwise be absent. That’s what you need! Imagine turning a hobby into a business?  Can you picture what it would be like to watch your site grow and develop from one month to the next?  Before I did this fulltime, I’d be thinking during the day about my business and what I would do when I got home that night.

I remember my first sales and how exciting that was.  I remember watching as 20 page views in 30 days grew to 10,000 page views.  The “You’ve Received Money” messages started coming in from PayPal. It felt great to be selling my own products and services.

Finally, I had learned so much; other people started paying me to help them, too.  And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since – consulting for others and creating my own products and services.

Has it been easy?  Not at all! But most of it was my own fault.  I had learn everything myself.  Those of us who were the original online marketers and business owners from the mid-90’s didn’t have any “how-to” books to read back then.  The courses had yet to be written.  Most of the courses available today aren’t worth the megabytes they’re written on. That’s because many unscrupulous marketers take advantage of people’s desperation to make money during tough economic times.

In my own situation, I made everything too complicated. Instead of following a simple plan and staying with it, I unwittingly took the complex route. Instead of focusing on a few sites that made dollars, I created a whole bunch of sites that made dimes.

It took a little while to figure out what I was doing wrong, but it finally clicked. I’m just like you. Stubborn.

I wound up going back, seeing what was working and what wasn’t… and began making adjustments from there.  I used to be like the guy who wanted to play football.  I bought all the equipment and gave it a good, hard 90-day effort.  If things didn’t work out, I’d be buying baseball equipment next.  This process seemed to repeat itself over and over again.

Everyone has their own unique path and focus.  And as maddening as it can be finding it, that’s the beauty of it, too. No one can tell you what’s right for you – because you have a setting deep down on the inside that tells you whether you’re on the right road or not. Other people are heading in the general direction but they need to refine things a bit.

If you point your car towards Florida and go, you’ll get there (all things being equal). But without the specifics, who knows exactly where you’ll end up?  Maybe the east coast, maybe the west?

Hey, please understand, you may be perfectly happy where you are, doing what you’re doing.  If you are, that’s great. If not, why not take a step of faith in a direction you’re better suited for? At worst, nothing changes.  At best… anything is possible.

_________________________________________________

If this article has helped you, let me know.

I’d love to hear from you.

Feel free to post your comments or send me an email.

-Jimmy

The concept of setting goals is, surprisingly enough, only about 100-years old.  This fact really surprises some people.  The term “goal-setting” became part of the American vernacular with the advent of sports into the American culture as the 20^th century got under way.  If you read the writings of self-help authors of the 1890’s and earlier, you won’t find any mention of the “goal-setting” at all.

Rather than debate the semantics surrounding this topic, let’s take a closer look at what it would take to accomplish something meaningful in your life. More precisely, what it takes to accomplish something meaningful in your own life over the next twelve months.

Although many analogies can be drawn from sporting events to illustrate the tests, trials and challenges of life, upon closer examination… you’ll find that life itself is really nothing like a sporting event at all.

In the real world there aren’t any off seasons, next seasons or starting over with game one.  It’s one continuing story.  Life doesn’t afford us timeouts or halftimes.  If you collapse in a heap along the sidelines, life just keeps on moving forward with the “ball” continuously in play, regardless.  Friends and loved ones have to pick you up off the floor because no one’s going to blow a whistle and stop the action, right?

In spite of all the uncertainties that go with life, people have risen up throughout the ages and have accomplished great things.  The majority are people who never attended a seminar or read a self-help book in their entire lives.  Some were educated, some weren’t.  People, educated and uneducated alike, have accomplished great things without using the goal setting processes that are so popular today.

People like Edison and Ford accomplished what they did without reading, “The Secret” or the book the secret was based upon “The Science of Getting Rich.” They did so without self-help books, life coaches, gurus and any of the other popular ideas people have today about achieving success in their business and in their lives.

How’d they do it?  What was their formula?

1. The decided what they wanted to accomplish.
2. They rearranged their priorities so they could focus their time and energy to accomplishing what they’d set out to do.
3. They had enough faith to take a step in that direction.

When you’re committed to the road that lies before you, your priorities change and your unconscious actions work with you instead of against you as you proceed along your path.

The problem is, most people never make a decision to take a specific course of action.  As a result, their priorities never really change.  And finally, as a result of the first two, they never commit 100% to a single course of action.  Many believe they’re keeping “their options open” by taking this approach, but more often than not – they’re simply sabotaging their own success without realizing it.

This was one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned in my lifetime.  It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you’re willing to change your priorities so they begin the mirror the things you’re saying you’d like to accomplish.  There was a time in my life that – when the going got tough, I’d just roll over and take a nap while trying to think positive thoughts.  Funny, but true!  And guess what?  Not much ever seemed to change.  Finally, it hit me.  I was investing my energy into so many different directions; I was going nowhere – fast!

Whether you’re trying to do a 180-degree turnaround in your life, or just trying to change one aspect of it, the principles work exactly the same.

1. Decide what you want to accomplish.
2. Make a commitment to sacrifice as many unimportant things as you need to in order to make progress – every single day for as long as necessary.
3. Take a step in faith in that direction.

Accomplishing anything worthwhile takes work.  And sometimes, the work is hard! There’s a price to pay to build a business.  There’s a price to pay to get into shape or lose weight.  There’s a price to pay to learn a new trade or skill.  Conversely, there’s a price to pay to sit back and do nothing, too.  And sometimes, you don’t realize you’ve been paying it until years later.

A New Year has begun.  What is it that you would like to accomplish in your business or personal life? Doing something because someone else thinks you should isn’t good enough.  You have to want this for yourself.  Then, decide what you’re going to sacrifice in order to daily progress.  That’s it in the nutshell.

Those are the basic principles I’ve used to grow a variety of online businesses and services since 1998.

If you decide to use these simple principles for yourself, send me an email and let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.

That’s all for now.  Here’s to new beginnings wherever you need them, and may 2010 be the year you’ll remember as the time your life truly changed for the better!

I got a really good piece of business advice, way back in 1986. I was told, “Be the same, but different.” People are drawn to familiarity… but intrigued by uniqueness. If you “mimic” another business’ style and marketing too closely, you’re going to come across as a cheap copy. You initially learn something new by copying. That includes learning to speak as a baby… to learning how to sell yourself as an adult.

Sooner or later, however, your own personal style has to evolve. If your style isn’t “making it,” instead of getting frustrated and giving up, go back and tweak little things here and there. Life and business isn’t one big game with everything riding on your making “one big shot.” It’s a series of little games that make up one, large season.

If you found yourself sitting on the bench the last decade, hopefully you watched and learned while you were there. The time will come when your name will be “called” and you’re going to be back in the game again! Who cares what happened yesterday? You were facing a different situation under different circumstances. Even if every moneymaking venture you ever attempted went up on smoke, today still presents a unique set of circumstances – and you still have yet another opportunity to get it right.

Listen, you can go to seminars and read books all night long – making plan after plan, determining what you’re going to do next. The smallest action, though, can have a greater impact than all the books, DVD’s and seminars out there.

Unless you’re pioneering something brand new that’s never been heard of before, if you’re going to succeed in business, you may want to consider the advice I was given over 20 years ago.

“Be the same, but different…” How do you do that? That’s something everyone has to discover for themselves.   Chances are, you know you’re unique… but uncomfortable showing it.  Just remember, though, that nothing’s memorable about just another “copy” or “clone.”

www.JimmyKrug.com

Over the years I’ve experimented with a variety of online businesses.  I start very simply by taking an idea or concept and develop it from there.  The problem was, when I first started back in 1996, you had to do just about everything “the hard way.”  I learned HTML and worked around the clock just to get things off the ground.  By the time that happened, it was six months down the line.

Today it’s much easier.   There weren’t too many short cuts around in the mid-90’s.  You had to do just about everything by hand.  A lot has changed since then.  Now, it’s easier than ever before.  While it’s true there’s more competition than ever before, don’t lose any sleep over that.  Like most offline businesses, they don’t know how to market correctly and go out of business fairly quickly.

The toughest thing for most people to do today is – focus.  Advice comes from people from all four corners of globe.  Most of it sounds too good to be true – because it is.  It’s just the Internet version of “a miracle cure.”

The easiest way to succeed is to learn from one or two people who’ve already succeeded in doing the same or similar business you’re interested in.  That goes for anything, online or offline.  It’s easier to learn from someone who knows what they’re doing than it is learning from trial and error.

Now, let’s take a look at the steps you can take to lay the foundation for a successful online business.

1. The Idea Stage: Successful Internet Businesses are usually based upon an individual’s experience, interests, hobbies or any combination of the three.  If you’re going to have a partner or partners involved, then it will be a combination of each of the individual’s strengths and backgrounds.  If you’re dealing with a topic you already have a personal interest in, you eliminate the need for having to spend loads of energy with time consuming research.  Plus, if it’s a topic or an area you already enjoy being involved in, it won’t seem like “work!”
2. Tightening the Focus: Once you have the base idea for your business, you have to tighten the focus.  Most online businesses fill a particular niche.  For example, Sports in general is too vague and too broad a topic. In my case, I choose Boxing because I enjoy watching the sport and have collected magazines and other boxing related items over the years.Once I determined my niche, I spied out the competition.  Most of them dealt current fighters and current match-ups.  So instead of competing with that… I chose to focus upon great fighters of the past and “dream fight, ” fantasy match-ups.  I found a niche within a niche to experiment with.
3. Create your site – planning the project with a Marketing Mindset: Marketing is “Selling in Print.”  If you followed the first step, you will be marketing something you’re already familiar with and enthusiastic about.  This will give you a great advantage because you will already be familiar with what causes people with that particular interest to buy.

The Internet is one of the few mediums where you can go from concept to creation in record time.  You don’t have to worry about building permits when you’re using megabytes instead of cinderblocks.  It’s also a place where you have to freedom to take something as simple as an idea… and create something that’ll change the course of your life.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with working a 9 to 5 job if you’re happy with that.  Some people have great jobs, there’s no doubt about it.

Just remember, there’s a whole other world out there that’s attracting more people than the gold rush of the 1800’s did.  If you think there’s not room for more success stories – think again.  I’ll be more than happy to go on record saying – the best is yet to come!

When I first started online in 1997, Search Engine Optimization didn’t exist in the form it does today.  “Googling it” had yet to be coined as a term.  Making money online in the mid to late 90’s may seem a lot different than it today, but it really isn’t.  People are still people and they still buy for the same reasons today as they did ten years ago.  In fact, they still buy today for the same reasons they did in the 1920’s.  People have and always will buy – solutions or end results.

When you rent a movie, you’re actually spending your money – not for a disk or even a download.  You’re spending your money for entertainment.  That’s the end result, not the disk or format the entertainment happens to be contained on.  The deliver method makes one source of the entertainment more appealing than another.

The most appealing source gets the sale.

If you provide the results people are looking for at a price they can afford, you’ll make money in any economy in any decade in any medium – online or offline.

Most beginning marketers or beginning SEO experts make the mistake of focus on traffic as being the key to your ultimate success.  The truth is; it’s only one part of the equation.  At the end of the day – your OFFER will either make or break your business.

I personally have many thousands of people combined on my mailing lists (see www.mynationalpublicity.com).  If I send them junk about the latest MLM offer, I end up with out 5,000 by the end of the week.  If you have the right product, with the right offer… then traffic will the final piece that completes your picture.

Get the traffic with the wrong offer in place… and the money will just pass you by.  If you think you have the right combination… test it in a small number of people.  The rule I follow is – if you get a 7% response from a list of 500, you’ll get a 7% response rate from a list or group of 5,000.  That’s the way it works.

If you want to learn more about how to set up a successful eMarketing Campaign, feel free to contact me using the contact form. The link is at the top of this site.

I offer a free 7 minute phone consultation for your particular business type, products and/or services.

You’ll spend a fraction of the cost hiring a professional consultant like myself, with over ten years experience, than you will buying dozens of marketing courses and reading article after article on what to do and how to do it.

Once you’re business is set up, all you’ll have to do is repeat the techniques you’ll learn from me.

It can be that simple!  Then, you can spend your time doing what you do best and have a marketing system in place that will work for you, even while you’re sleeping.  What can be better than that ?

The model looked great at first.  People are creatures of habit, though, and most city sites failed because most people are used to going directly to Google and/or Yahoo to do their searches.

The pages are generally cleaner and easier to navigate than a City or Town Portal site.  And so, rather than going to the City Web site and typing in “Chinese Food, Bradenton,” – they’d rather go directly to Google and get the information there.  Does this mean a city site is dinosaur money-making business model in 2009-2010?

Not at all.  What it does mean, however, is that the niche is going to have an even tighter focus.  For example, you can create a restaurant site… but even that’s probably too vague – depending upon where you live and the number of businesses located there.

What if you had a site dedicated to one particular type of food?  This would be a much tighter focused niche.  At the end of the day, if you’re online with the intention of making money, you still have to sell something.  That “something” can be -

• Advertising Space
• Web Space for individual businesses
• Marketing Services for Business
• Services (such as coupon distribution for businesses)
• Free information (to help make a “buying decision” either immediately or somewhere down the line

An Online business is really not much different than and Offline business when you really get right down to it.  Everyone is either selling a product or service… or they’re being paid to assist others in selling products or services.

It’s as far from “cutting edge science” as you care to imagine.  In fact, it’s more psychological than anything else.  People will usually buy what they want before they even buy what they need.

Friend’s of mine own a self-storage business in Brandon, Florida.  It’s state-of-the-art to the max.  When you go there, everything is bright, well lit, clean, safe and secure.  You can check out their video walk-through of the location at http://www.stornmore.com

You can store items in or at a number of locations in any town or city you can think of.  One of the thing’s that have helped Stor-N-More Self Storage so much is the fact that everything they do projects an image of – bright, clean, safe and secure.  Once you’re on the property, you’ll see that the image and the reality behind the image are one and the same.

Marketing is about projecting who you are, what you have and what you have to offer – from a distance.  That distance can be anything from a flyer/leaflet/postcard to a full-blown web site.  Once the people come to your door, whether you thrive as a business or not is determined by your ability to deliver on your promises or image.  And when it comes to building a web site that targets a specific geographical area or zip code… the Internet is the most cost effective medium there is to deliver your message.

“Local” web sites will thrive in the 21st century.  They have the capacity to eclipse the coverage of local newspapers, magazines, TV or Radio shows.  For the aspiring web-entrepreneur, the sky isn’t even the limit.

I’ve personally been building niche sites for the last 11 years.  Some I lost interest in promoting (I’m being 100% honest with you) and some have been making money for me – every single month without spending more than 10 minutes a month updating.

If you have any questions about building local sites, be sure to let me know.  Once too much attention gets focused upon any one single area, the window of opportunity to build a very successful business gets smaller and smaller.  So, if you’re thinking about getting started… don’t wait too long.  This is Jimmy Krug… thanks for reading.

www.JimmyKrug.com

The model looked great at first.  People are creatures of habit, though, and most city sites failed because most people are used to going directly to Google and/or Yahoo to do their searches.

The pages are generally cleaner and easier to navigate than a City or Town Portal site.  And so, rather than going to the City Web site and typing in “Chinese Food, Bradenton,” – they’d rather go directly to Google and get the information there.  Does this mean a city site is dinosaur money-making business model in 2009-2010?

Not at all.  What it does mean, however, is that the niche is going to have an even tighter focus.  For example, you can create a restaurant site… but even that’s probably too vague – depending upon where you live and the number of businesses located there.

What if you had a site dedicated to one particular type of food?  This would be a much tighter focused niche.  At the end of the day, if you’re online with the intention of making money, you still have to sell something.  That “something” can be -

• Advertising Space
• Web Space for individual businesses
• Marketing Services for Business
• Services (such as coupon distribution for businesses)
• Free information (to help make a “buying decision” either immediately or somewhere down the line

An Online business is really not much different than an Offline business when you really get right down to it.  Everyone is either selling a product or service… or they’re being paid to assist others in selling products or services.

It’s as far from “cutting edge science” as you care to imagine.  In fact, it’s more psychological than anything else.  People will usually buy what they want before they even buy what they need.

Friends of mine own a self-storage business in Brandon, Florida.  It’s state-of-the-art to the max.  When you go there, everything is bright, well lit, clean, safe and secure.  You can check out their video walk-through of the location at http://www.stornmore.com

You can store items in or at a number of locations in any town or city you can think of.  One of the things that have helped Stor-N-More Self Storage so much is the fact that everything they do projects an image of – bright, clean, safe and secure.  Once you’re on the property, you’ll see that the image and the reality behind the image are one and the same.

Marketing is about projecting who you are, what you have and what you have to offer – from a distance.  That distance can be anything from a flyer/leaflet/postcard to a full-blown web site.  Once the people come to your door, whether you thrive as a business or not is determined by your ability to deliver on your promises or image.  And when it comes to building a web site that targets a specific geographical area or zip code… the Internet is the most cost effective medium there is to deliver your message.

“Local” web sites will thrive in the 21st century.  They have the capacity to eclipse the coverage of local newspapers, magazines, TV or Radio shows.  For the aspiring web-entrepreneur, the sky isn’t even the limit.

I’ve personally been building niche sites for the last 11 years.  Some I lost interest in promoting (I’m being 100% honest with you) and some have been making money for me – every single month without spending more than 10 minutes a month updating.

If you have any questions about building local sites, be sure to let me know.  Once too much attention gets focused upon any one single area, the window of opportunity to build a very successful business gets smaller and smaller.  So, if you’re thinking about getting started… don’t wait too long.

- Jimmy Krug

www.JimmyKrug.com