Myth #4: E-Mail Marketing is Complicated / Difficult – Part 2

[This is part 6 of the series "Debunking the Myths of E-Mail Marketing."]

In my last post I gave you some tips for getting over your fear that you’re not a good writer. Hopefully it gave you the confidence to start working on the next article for your newsletter.

The second most common thing I hear from new writers is “I don’t know what to write about.”

This problem is actually a lot easier to solve, because all it takes is a little research. The thing is, once you have the mindset of constantly looking for ideas to write about, the ideas will just start coming to you all by themselves. It’s pretty amazing actually, and that’s the way our minds work.

So here are some tips for beginners, to get you on the right track.

Keyword Research

I’ve talked about keyword research many times, and how important it is. It’s also useful to give you ideas.

Go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in some words or phrases you think your buyers might be searching on. It will spit back a long list of things people actually are searching on. This is a great way to fill your mind with ideas for things to write about, because you certainly want to be writing about things your buyers are searching on!

Idea File

I use my smart phone for this, but I used to keep a little notebook and pen in my car or in my purse. If I see something while I’m out and about, and it seems interesting in some way, I write it down in my Idea File.

When it comes time to sit down and start writing my article (or a blog post), if I can’t think of anything right then and there I consult my Idea File.

These ideas don’t necessarily have to be related to your industry. It’s amazing how you can tie things you see in every day life to your field, and these connections will be made once you start writing.

Customer Questions

As businesses owners our customers ask us questions all the time. If you find yourself answering the same question more than once, it’s probably safe to assume that more people have the same question and they just aren’t asking it.  This is a great topic for an article.

A question that has a fairly complicated answer can be the topic for an entire article. Or if you have a list of fairly simple questions you can write about a handful or related questions all in once piece.

How-Tos

People love to learn how to do new things. As an expert in your industry you know how to do all sorts of things, and many of them are things your customers want to know also.

How-To articles are always big hits in my field. It’s probably true of yours also.

Seasonal Topics

Do you own a beach resort? A gift shop? An accounting firm? A landscaping business? Many industries have seasonality, and your customers will get big value from reading about seasonal topics.

Just remember to stay ahead. Don’t write about planting shrubs in July, write that one in March or April. Don’t write about taxes in March, write about them in December. Stay ahead.

Interviews

Many people like reading interviews with interesting people. That’s why magazines publish articles based on interviews.

Who do you know in your field that is interesting, or has a success story to share? A mentor? A customer? A competitor outside your territory? Interview them and then either publish it word for word, or create a story out of it.

Article Writing Tips

So now you have lots of ideas (I hope!) for some upcoming articles you can write. Here are just a few quick tips on writing good articles…

1. Keep it short. 500-1,000 words is plenty. My articles usually run about 700-800 words. That’s a good length to keep people’s interest.
2. Write longer articles and break them up into a series. This makes people look forward to your next issue to read the next installment.
3. Be interesting. Have someone else read your article and tell you if it’s interesting enough. Make sure it’s someone you trust to be honest with you.
4. Be entertaining if possible. You don’t have to be funny or wildly clever. Just put a few quips and stories in there to keep people engaged.

Good luck! I invite you to post a link in the comment box below to your own newsletter so I can check it out. I promise I’ll be honest but gentle .

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Check out my new eBook, “The 3 Secrets of Online Marketing Success” which you can download for free at FreeWebMarketingEbook.com.

Myth #4: E-Mail Marketing is Complicated / Difficult – Part 1

[This is part 5 of the series "Debunking the Myths of E-Mail Marketing."]

When I tell my clients they need to write articles to send to their email subscribers, they tell me either one or two things, “I can’t write (or spell),” or “I don’t know what to write about.” Today I want to talk about the first one.

This is your fear talking. It’s not really that you can’t write. Everyone can write. You are just afraid that your writing isn’t good enough. But think of it this way: if you’re the expert in whatever your business is, and you are writing for people who aren’t experts and who want to know what you know, then your writing is good enough!

So here are some tips to help you get over your fear, and crank out some great content for your newsletters.

Public Domain Articles

These are articles that someone else wrote that anyone can re-print as long as you give credit. There is nothing wrong with sharing somebody else’s knowledge with your readers. They will be grateful that you took the time to find and share this great information with them!

Your newsletter will still have your brand and the other parts that you wrote yourself, like your announcements, your weekly tips, blog links, product reviews, etc. It’s still your newsletter even if you include someone else’s article every once in a while.

Another bonus: Doing it this way at first will help you get over the jitters of sending out a newsletter.

Ghost Writers

This is another good way to write without the work or stress. If you have some cash you’re willing to spend, hire a good writer on guru.com or odesk.com. Give them the basic outline of the topic and they’ll write the article for you.

I’ve had my Virtual Assistant in the Philippines do this for me a couple of times and she does a decent job. When she’s done I just proofread and edit the article to make it sound more like “me.”  Again, nothing wrong with this. You’re basically just farming out the research and the technical aspects of the job.

PLR (Private Label Rights) Material

This is similar to the ghost writer approach. PLR material is content that’s already written that you purchase. What you are buying is the rights to use the content however you want. You can use it word-for-word (which I don’t recommend) or you can change it to suit your taste and add your own “voice” and add your knowledge (which I do recommend.)

Simply search on your keywords plus “private label rights” or “PLR.” (BTW I love the acronym PLR. Back in the 80′s my favorite radio station out of New Haven, Connecticut was WPLR. I can still hear the guy’s voice saying… “This is P… L… R!”)

Proofreaders and Editors

If you’re really convinced that you’re a lousy writer, then write something anyway and have someone else do the edit/re-write. It will still be your content, coming out of your head. The editor’s job is to re-organize the article so that it “flows” better. A good editor is worth their weight in gold.

Other Tools

As you are writing, make good use of the dictionary and thesaurus. I consider myself a good writer and I still use both of these resources all the time. For example, when I’m looking for “just the right word” I pull up thesaurus.com and put in a synonym. Just reading through all the related words gives me ideas for not just words to use, but things to say!

Trust your spell checker. I tend to write my content in a plain old text editor so I don’t get distracted by formatting and other bells and whistles. Then I paste it into my WordPress editor and check for spelling errors.  I’m a good speller but sometimes the connection between the brain and the fingers gets woozy.  (Please no comments about age.)

Ultimately, good writing is all about practice. Just like anything, the more you do it the better you will get at it. And when you’re good at something, you like doing it more.

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Check out my new eBook, “The 3 Secrets of Online Marketing Success” which you can download for free at FreeWebMarketingEbook.com.

Since the beginning I’ve felt that the true benefits of using Twitter for business were elusive.  In addition, it seems like such a time-suck.  You might also be thinking: “I could sit and read tweets for hours, but it’s not putting money in my pocket!”

I’m not even saying there’s no value.  I get lots of great information from Twitter, and I don’t follow people who tell me what they ate for breakfast or post links to videos of their crazy cat.

I have also been posting on Twitter for quite a while (I use Hootsuite and a virtual assistant as time-saver tools) but I don’t engage with anyone.  I simply post interesting tips and links — it’s far from a two-way conversation.

I know this is not considered the correct way to use Twitter, but even with this minimalist approach I have still managed to attract a following of over 400 people.

Now I think it’s time to take a closer look at Twitter.  One of my trusted colleagues uses Twitter frequently as a networking tool.  She claims to have had good results growing her network and getting the word out about her business.

Hubspot, one of my favorite web sites/companies, recently published a free guide on how to use Twitter for business.  I’ve been on the lookout for reasons to give Twitter another try and I think this guide may have provided it.

Hubspot’s free guide is an introductory-level primer to help people get started.  I skimmed over the first several chapters on how to set up an account, optimize your profile, and get followers.  But section 3, which starts on page 27, covers strategies for how to use Twitter as a business marketing tool.  It goes into using it to drive traffic to your web site, promote your webinars, offer special discounts, and monitor what others are saying about you, among other things.

Some of these suggestions are obvious, such as tweeting about your latest blog post and including a link to the post.  But a few were new to me and made it worth reading the entire report in order to get the nuggets.  One such suggestion was to create a dedicated Twitter landing page.  I love landing pages, and they’re easy to set up, so this was a great takeaway for me.

If you’ve been resisting the call of Twitter for your own reasons, I hope you’ll reconsider.  If you don’t have time now, put it on your e-marketing roadmap for some time in August or September.  Here’s the link to the Hubspot guide again. And here’s the link to follow me on Twitter.  See you in the Twitterverse!

For years now there have been web design firms that specialize in building sites for certain industries.  For instance a lot of doctors groups get their web sites designed by “medical web site specialist” firms.

I’m not sure why this is, I suppose it’s has something to do with the specific issues that medical web sites need to consider that other sites don’t.  Making appointments, billing, patient privacy laws, and whatnot, are things that not many other sites would have to deal with.

So it makes sense from both a practical sense as well as an economical sense.  A firm who has already developed dozens of other web sites for your industry, whether that’s medical services or HVAC installations or sporting equipment, would be able to design your industry-specific site in less time and with less aggravation, and probably for less money.

In theory that would be a good thing.

But what I’m seeing is that all of these sites look the same.  Although the colors may be different or the photos have different formats or the banner has a different graphic, or one has video and another doesn’t, the essential structure is exactly the same.  Even the copy is the same… “We are proud that we have the best physicians in the region working at Metro Women’s Health Center.”  Gag.

It reminds me of my housing development.  There are 6 basic floor plans but an almost unlimited number of combinations of front porch styles and window frames and siding colors and landscaping and the list goes on.  So when you drive down my street all the houses on first glance look different.  But after you’ve lived here and driven these sames streets a hundred times you realize they’re really all the same. (Remember Mr. Potatohead?)

Maybe I only see this (back to the industry web sites) because I live in this world day in and day out.  Do the every day visitors notice?  Do they go to a doctors office web site to check their hours and think, “Hey I just saw a site that looked like this the other day?”  No, I’m sure they don’t.

The point is that if you are getting one of these sites and you think you are getting a deal for an amazing web site, think again.  It’s the same old thing churned out with different colors and photo frames and header graphics.

One more point, and it’s a pretty major one:  If your content is the same as 1,000 other competing sites, you will never get any organic search engine traffic.  Content needs to be unique and fresh.  The best thing you could do for yourself in this situation is start keeping a blog on your site to attract traffic.

Better yet, spend a little extra money and get a custom design created by a non-industry-specific designer.  It will be totally worth the price in so many ways, and most importantly, your site really will be special.

I’m feeling rather guilty that I haven’t posted in over a week.  But I have a good excuse, I promise!

Last week I went on hiatus in order to put the finishing touches on my recently released E-Marketing 101 Video Training Course.  Basically the technology needed to be fixed in order to deliver the lessons automatically to each subscriber every week.

And I did it!

Yup, I finished the job, and in celebration, I have posted an amazing offer on the web site.  Until the end of this month, you can get the program for just $47 per month for five months.  It’s a 21-week program that teaches you step by step how to plan and implement a complete e-marketing program for your small business.

The best part is it’s totally risk-free!  If you cancel within 60-days you will get your money back.  You can watch every single video and implement everything you learn and even keep all the handouts that come with it, and we’ll still give you your money back.  You don’t even have to tell us why.  Just cancel your account and ask for a refund and you’ll get it.  It’s that simple.

You can’t lose!

How can we offer you this?  Because we’re convinced that you will see the same amazing results that our other participants have seen who have gone through the program.

Check out the web site at www.LearnEmarketingNow.com.

If you have any questions, post them here and I’ll answer them as quickly as possible.  Or email me directly at lpecunia[at]avarrasolutions[dot]com and I’ll answer them privately.