The pitfalls of email marketing

The Pitfalls Of Email Marketing

1070

Email marketing gets a bad rap. The controversy about email marketing is a quagmire that leaves many business owners in confusion in its wake.

According to a new study by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing delivers the highest return on investment of all media available to marketers. The study also projects that
email driven sales in the United States will show a compound annual growth rate of 14.9% between 2006 and 2011. But, statistics like that only brin...

Direct response,direct response advertising,email marketing, direct mail postcards,direct mail

Email marketing gets a bad rap. The controversy about email marketing is a quagmire that leaves many business owners in confusion in its wake.

According to a new study by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing delivers the highest return on investment of all media available to marketers. The study also projects that
email driven sales in the United States will show a compound annual growth rate of 14.9% between 2006 and 2011. But, statistics like that only bring about real understanding when the outcome of email marketing impacting long term customer-relationship-based revenue streams is fully known.

Patrick Valtin*, sales & marketing expert, president of M2-TEC USA, INC. and founder of one of the largest consulting company in Europe called U-MAN BELGIUM claims email marketing is highly profitable if done correctly. The main mistake is trying to convert a prospect when embarking on email marketing, he says. The direction one should take is instead is trying to attract a qualified prospect.

Attract first, dont try to convert. Its actually common sense if you think about it. What if some one came up to you and said BUY THIS with no enticement as to what it was and what it could do for you? Would you buy (convert)? Probably not. But say a girl scout comes to your door with a tray of cookies for you to pick one to sample. Did she entice you, attract your attention first? Yep, mostly likely. And how many boxes did you buy? And moreover, how many will you buy year after year after year on a regular basis?

Those emails that do attract your attention and entice you by putting that cookie in front of you to nibble on those are the successful approaches.

That begs the question if they already are opt-in prospects, do you still have to attract - arent they already qualified prospects if they are in your database?

Not always, according to Patrick. Patrick points out the best ROI approach to email marketing is to promote to inactive prospects and sleeping customers in your data base with the purpose to get them active - to turn them into (entice them to be) regular, loyal customers. Sleeping customers should also be treated as prospects. Old, inactive prospects were curious enough to inquire into your company to begin with. That is the crucial point as Valtin explains. The biggest false data out there is the saying they were just curious as to the reason a prospect didnt close. Look up curious in the dictionary it is interest. So curiosity IS interest. It is up to you to entice them even further so they become sold. Sold equates to being a repeat customer.

Valtin goes on to say that the ways to first attract prospects are done with classical marketing techniques before email marketing comes into the picture: pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization with your website, direct mail marketing the more traditional forms are the channels used to attract. Then once you get a prospect or even a first-time customer you can start email marketing to them.

Once your prospects are on your opt-in list, you have to entice. Just on a different level. You have their interest now hook them.

Three common mistakes in email marketing are:

• Trying to sell through the marketing email. You have to cut the gradient to attract and then convert. The question is: what will motivate them to join your list?


• Making the subject line too ambiguous; using trite phrases that are actually considered SPAM. What you have to watch, Valtin also warns, is too hot or too juicy is looked upon as SPAM by search engine spiders.

And

Not being consistent with From address line. From very beginning, the From line should be consistent. Even here there is a need to have instant recognition.

With customers receiving an average 400 emails per week and checking their email an average of 4 times per day, it is no wonder that email marketing has taken off. But dont fall in the trap of using it incorrectly. According to Valtin, when you screw up on email marketing lines with prospects or customers, you get cut off and most likely dont get another chance. Its too easy to junk your email address and be shut off from further communication.

Three Valtin tips for being successful in email marketing are:

• Make the subject line personalized. How would you like a free weekend in Acapulco compared with Dear Jane, how would you. increases by 200-300% your chances it will be opened. (Note: opened not convertedbut attracted.)


• Make one-time customers into repeat customers. Offer an exclusive newsletter only for customers with highly valuable content.


• Have an option for people who subscribe to your newsletter to systematically send it to a friend which acts as a referral and consequently per Valtin, makes it viral. SPAM legislation still requires those friends to opt-in before you can start emailing to them, but the referral raises your credibility and will give you more bang for your buck!

Valtin says there are many more principles to learn about email marketing. Having studied marketing and sales trends for the last 35 years, he packs a lot of lore under his Belgian skull. Understanding the outcome of email marketing impacting long term customer-relationship-based revenue streams is his forte. He teaches email marketing at marketing boot camps organized by Joy Gendusa, CEO of PostcardMania, and Marsha Friedman, CEO of Event Management Services, Inc. to business professionals nationwide.

Permission-based email communications can solidify existing relationships, initiate new ones and convert one-time clients into long-term customers, Valtin advises. Relationship-building emails leverage the investment you are making in all other forms of marketing, allowing you to grow your business more efficiently.

* Patrick Valtin is a renowned international consultant/trainer, specialized in human resources and business performance. He managed a consulting and training business for 18 years, directly trained 60,000 people in more than 25 countries. He is the author of The NE ERA SELLING® System: a down-to-earth, effective approach to constant sales success; and The RECRUTECH® System, a practical, result-proven recruitment procedure. Over 40,000 sales professionals have been trained by Patrick Valtin, in more than 20 countries around the world. Professionals having attended Patricks sales seminars include representatives of: BMW, Renault, Peugeot, Mercedes, Toyota, Ford, Century 21, Electricite de France, Gaz de France, France Telecom, Assurance Generale, Zurich Insurance, AIG, Motorola, American Hospital Supply, Travenol, Unilever, Lendl, Coffee Lavazza, etc.

 

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The pitfalls of business blogging

The Pitfalls Of Business Blogging

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Whether you are aware of it or not, your customers, potential clients, business associates, competitors and employees are already engaged in business blogging. They are conversing in real time about your products or services, news and developments in your niche. They are discussing about your new product release. Sad to say, if they have not spread it already, they are definitely gossiping about the customer service blunder you hoped you could keep hush-hush. Word travels fas...

internet, blogs, internet business, small business

Whether you are aware of it or not, your customers, potential clients, business associates, competitors and employees are already engaged in business blogging. They are conversing in real time about your products or services, news and developments in your niche. They are discussing about your new product release. Sad to say, if they have not spread it already, they are definitely gossiping about the customer service blunder you hoped you could keep hush-hush. Word travels fast in the blogosphere. Blogging gets you noticed and referenced, favorable or not, in your industrys conversations. Business blogging has its benefits but, alas, it also has its share of pitfalls.

A business blog can help build your companys reputation and credibility in your niche business area. It is a cost-effective way to communicate with targeted audience. It provides business feedbacks through comments. A well-executed blog can boost search engine rankings thus raising chances of potential customers visiting your site and ultimately generating sales.

More importantly, you should be aware of the pitfalls or perils that accompany business blogging. If you have finally figured out how blogging can work for your targeted market, then, seriously consider the technical pitfalls of creating a blog that might befall you especially if you are a newbie in the field of blogging.

Before embarking on blogging, you must have read and read some more blogs to familiarize yourself with the blogosphere especially your specific niche. Reading other blogs can spur ideas for blogging topics. Not doing any research will leave you writing in futility. You dont know what questions your target audience wants answered and what they would like to read. More so, you might not even have a clear-cut goal. What is the purpose of your blog? What problem does it want to solve or gap to fill? You have not determined what is it you are trying to get done. You definitely will not have good topics to write about because topics should be in consonance with your business objectives. Writing without a purpose will get you nowhere. It will just turn readers away.

Not knowing how to use your blogging software properly will, in most cases, produce a non-professional-looking blog. A blogging tool goes to great pains to ensure that your blog will look good, the text look beautiful and the html code it generates follow web standards. It will be to your business advantage if you understand how the vast and sophisticated features work to increase your blogs chance of being found on the Internet. Keep in mind that first impressions count with readers.

Not optimizing keywords, categories, subscriptions will make it difficult for readers to find your blog. The primary purpose of a blog to be successful is readership. Search engines are a great source of readers. If you are writing a blog post that you want to be read, bear in mind that readers will use keywords to find your blog entry. Keywords are vital to high search engine ranking. Top ranking equals traffic and traffic is readership. Categorizing your blog will also make it more user-friendly and make the content more search engine ranking friendly. Subscribing to an RSS feed allows readers to receive automatic updates whenever you publish fresh content. Not making frequent posts makes readers lose interest in your blog as there is nothing new to peruse. You have to make it a priority to post consistently. The more you post the more reasons the readers will come to read some more.

Finally, you have sorted out how to avert the technical perils of business blogging. Brace yourself; there are even deeper pitfalls with much more severe repercussions to consider. For one, businesses that allow misrepresentations faulty or misleading information to appear on their blogs can create a public disaster. Some business companies keen to develop one-to-one links with customers, set up character blogs. A character blog is typically conceptualized by marketing people to promote a product or service using fictitious character. This kind of blog is quite risky as some ardent bloggers regard them as an insult to the blogging community. A classic example is the Vichy case. As part of its marketing launch for its new anti-aging cream, Vichys advertising team created a blog featuring a bogus author named Claire who incessantly whined about the travails of aging using the same wordings as the Vichy print ad. It elicited a flurry of negative reactions from around the blogosphere condemning Vichy for pa

Turning a deaf ear to what the blogosphere is saying can be fatal to a company. Kryptonite, a lock maker company did not respond quickly to a blog comment and cost them millions of dollars. Engadget, a highly trafficked blog published a video file showing how a Bic ball pen can easily open a Kryptonite lock. Kryptonite took its time before issuing a statement that did not assuage the thousands who bought the lock in good faith. Bloggers lambasted Kryptonite and caused heavy traffic to the Engadget blog site. Finally, Kryptonite succumbed and replaced the locks at a staggering cost of $10 million. Take heed; monitor what others are saying in the blogosphere. Your blog is part and parcel of a dynamic conversation. You should track your image in the blogging arena. Reputation risks can surface if your company pays no attention or misjudge the opinions in the blogosphere.

Business blogging can expose your company to legal problems that can cause serious damage to your business reputation. Irresponsible blogging can subject your company to libel, slander and even harassment lawsuits. Off-hand comments may offend customers. Disclosure of confidential corporate information and trade secrets will definitely place a company in jeopardy. Several instances of indiscreet blogging have caused employee terminations. Ellen Simonetti, A Delta Air Lines employee was fired for posting inappropriate images of herself in uniform on her blog. A system administrator at the Manitoba Health Sciences Centre was sacked after posting on his blog Sitting around doing nothing for three hours while being paid priceless. Needless to say, companies should draw up corporate blogging policies that will state clearly acceptable and unacceptable blogging practices. Companies should educate its employees about the business and legal risks involved with blogging.

In a nutshell, do not blog for the sake of blogging. A clear business goal is a must. See to it that your blog reflects your companys desired image. Carefully weigh the implications of anything you post. Be wary of potential consequences and be reminded that with blogging, anything that appears on the Internet is instantly available to a global massive audience.

 

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The pitfalls and positives of abstinence only birth control

The Pitfalls and Positives of Abstinence-Only Birth Control

Whenever the question of the effectiveness of birth control comes up, abstinence is often proclaimed to be best option. However,there are flaws in this argument stemming from factors that are inherent to the nature of abstinence and how they interact with human behavior. Abstinence has both positive and negative aspects,and should not be taken as the only possible solution.

effectiveness of birth control

The effectiveness of birth control is something that can be difficult to properly measure on many levels. Each form of birth control is only effective up to a certain percentage, with condoms being only effective 80% of the time and such. However, that is not taking into account various other factors that either the people making the chosen method of contraception or the people using it have direct control over. Regardless, the question regarding the effectiveness of birth control and which ones are known to be completely reliable will continue to be asked. That doesn't mean that there's ever going to be any concrete answers outside of the quasi-traditional abstinence response, but that's never stopped people from asking before. Chances are, it never really will.

Abstinence, when it comes to discussions of the effectiveness of birth control, takes the prime spot. You simply cannot get pregnant in a practical manner (as practical as pregnancy can be, at least) if you're not having sex. There are ways around this thanks to medical science, but those require the tacit consent of at least the female half of the equation. However, this is strictly coming off from the raw material, of sorts. Abstinence is guaranteed to prevent conception, but only if certain external factors do not come into play. The fact is, while conservative groups will proclaim that abstinence is the only real effective form of contraception, they are ignoring a number of critical points.

First and foremost, abstinence only works if you're actively practicing it. This should be plainly obvious, but the moment that a couple ceases to abstain is the moment pregnancy becomes a concrete possibility. It may seem like common sense that if you're committed to abstaining and you stop, you're risking pregnancy, but it apparently isn't. Couples who abstain then have sex without the intention of having children often forget about using birth control methods. Clearly, this puts them at risk of pregnancy, without even the partial protection that a condom or a birth control pill can afford them. This has often been attributed as a fault of abstinence-only education, though that is arguable.

It should be also noted that being effective is not the only factors that people keep in mind when selecting a form of contraception. Abstinence may be absolute in preventing both pregnancy and the transmission of a number of STDs, but if people don't have the discipline to stick to it, then it isn't worth a whole lot. This is particularly true for couples with raging hormones and not a whole lot of self-control, which some cynics point out is a lot more common than people would like to believe. Of course, some people have pointed out that abstinence-only education does not really factor in human behavior, and even when it does, the media is blamed for everything. While these are arguable points, the reality is that most abstinence-only educated couples take great risks whenever their discipline wavers.

A practical solution to the problem might involve discarding the notion of abstinence-only or birth control-only, because neither option is completely effective. From a purely practical standpoint, abstinence is still the only completely effective birth control, but couples should be aware that of what they can use in place of it should they ever want to stop abstaining.

 

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The pioneer spirit lives once more

The Pioneer Spirit Lives Once More

The development of a home-based business is generally a very personal decision simply because it involves moving away from all that is familiar toward something that is profound in the amount of unanswered questions.

There is risk involved in going it alone. There is risk in being the one solely responsible for the administration of your own business. There is financial risk if the venture should fail.

However

There are rewards in being your own boss. There are rewa...

home business,home based business,entrepreneurialism.entrepreneur,online business,internet business

The development of a home-based business is generally a very personal decision simply because it involves moving away from all that is familiar toward something that is profound in the amount of unanswered questions.

There is risk involved in going it alone. There is risk in being the one solely responsible for the administration of your own business. There is financial risk if the venture should fail.

However

There are rewards in being your own boss. There are rewards in being able to answer only to yourself in matters of business. There are financial rewards should the venture succeed.

The growth of home-based business may well resemble the early American pioneers who ventured west looking for a better life. There was great struggle and not everyone made it, but those that did managed to work hard to carve out a life that was filled with both adventure and satisfaction.

The comparison is so appropriate for home-based business owners. In times past we may have only thought of home-based businesses as being a farmer or a rancher, but today it a field being pioneered by hearty souls in search of a better life for their families. Not everyone will make it, but for those that do its a journey filled with adventure and satisfaction.

Individuals are discovering that the very things they have enjoyed as hobbies may be moved to the forefront and given a new status as business venture. There are those who are making a living pet sitting, or providing freelance photography work. Individuals are writing from home or managing a home-based accounting firm.

Todays business office may be the very room we once called a den. The overhead cost is significantly reduced, the environment is very comfortable and the hours are left up to the business owner.

Many are seeking just such a lifestyle as a means of liberating a 9-5 mentality. The business suit may be packed away and the hours one works may be scattered over a longer period of time or can be adjusted to allow for the intake of life.

Many home-based business owners will say it is very hard work, but the benefits to both individual and family make it a lifestyle more and more aspire to grasp.

The pioneering spirit is alive and well and is prospering behind the screen of millions of personal computers that are providing the link between a revolutionary thought and the realization of a 21st century hope for a better future.

 

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The pioneer car stereo car audio with iasca award

The Pioneer Car Stereo: Car Audio with IASCA Award Winning Speakers

The Pioneer Company is a Tokyo-based corporation, and is one of the world leaders in digital entertainment products. If you look at any good car stereocar audio system and youll almost certainly see a Pioneer car stereo unit plugged into the console. Alongside with quality speakers and a strong lineup of accessories like LCD panels and navigational devices, Pioneer audio productsPioneer car stereos have earned a huge following the world over.

Pioneer car stereo Pioneer car audio units are not just simple head units. A car stereo can easily be comprised of several items built into the console of the car. Hardware like navigational devices, DVD players with LCD panels, coupled with the standard array of compact disc, mp3 and cassette players now usually go together. Usually, a Pioneer car stereo unit is a head unit with a radio, cassette and cd player. No matter how bare-bones this might sound, anyone will surely be impressed with the sound quality and features a Pioneer car stereo can boot.

Something like the DEH-P90HDD Pioneer car stereo single CD player head unit. The DEH-P90HDD allows you to record CD Audio (from the unit itself or from a changer) onto a 10GB hard disc drive, which holds about 200 audio CD's (using ATRAC3 digital compression). Your CD's are recognized by the pre-installed Gracenote CDDB database, which includes auto-playlists that make finding a specific CD easy. This Pioneer car stereo unit can also play your MP3 CD's plus CD Audio, CD-RW, and CD-R discs. Also, the MagicGate Memory Stick player lets you play recorded Memory Stick tracks. The Organic EL display is easy to read and accepts image downloads, so you can customize its look. Built-in DSP offers a 13-band graphic EQ and a huge variety of tools. If cassettes are your thing, the KEH-P4020 Pioneer car stereo cassette player head unit is a good product to choose. It is a full logic cassette system with multi-color display, 45Wx4 High Power, EEQ equalizer system, Tuner, IP-Bus System Control, flap face and has a deta

If youre planning to buy a Pioneer car stereo unit, why not match it with a set of Pioneer speakers too? Pioneer car stereo has made another innovation in their REV Series speakers, which incorporates technological breakthroughs in their IASCA award-winning Premier Reference Series (PRS) speakers. Rev Series speakers boast Pioneers Kevlar Fiber Composite Cones, Soft-dome tweeters and Wave guides. Each speaker features a bright yellow cone and distinctive wave guides, plus a six-spoke grill with a titanium finish that simulates chrome wheels.

With all these impressive products, is it still a wonder why they call Pioneer car stereos for your car audio

 

 

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