THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS
April 11, 2007
By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net
Hello to another week of stimulating information about e-mail marketing. My mailing list grows once again. Those of you reading my newsletter for the first time, I would like to direct your attention to the next article about why you’re receiving this newsletter and why I’m publishing it. I also continue to receive a steady flow of questions, which I’ll answer in the Q&A segment of this newsletter.
This week I will talk about sources for free articles that you could use in your own newsletter or even for support information in follow-up letters. This is excellent information for those of you who don’t have strong writing skills, because it will prove that you don’t have to write a single word and still be able to publish a very powerful e-newsletter publication.
IMPORTANT!!!
I found some disturbing news about our personal information in the face of the Homeland Security Act. A friend gave me information about a Web site that could have access to ANYONE’S driver license information. This is very disturbing information, that I want to pass to my readers here. I have included an article concerning this today.
Keep in mind that my previous articles can be found on my blog at:
http://primeconcepts.blogspot.com/
Let’s get started!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net
Answering questions in a newsletter is an excellent way to provide very informative content to your newsletter readers. I encourage all of you to send me your questions, and I will gladly answer them in my future newsletters. Thanks to your input, this Q & A segment is a permanent fixture to this newsletter.
Q: How do you fight spam?
A: This is a very good question that I should have answered earlier. Everyone has been confronted with spam, and that is especially so for me. I receive more spam than anyone I know, because I oversee over 200 Web sites. I receive more than 300 and sometimes over 800 E-mails a day, but I see maybe six to eight spam mails a day.
I use an Outlook plug-in called SpamBayes (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/), which is a spam filter that uses a statistical anti-spam filtering system. Plainly speaking, the spam filter learns what is spam and what is not then applies some math to sort spam out of my inbox. Best of all, it’s free!
Q: What is the best Web site you have ever created?
A: My business objective is not to create the best Web site for my clients, but to make as much money as possible with my client by using the Internet. That in mind, I have three “best” sites.
My first best is Maverick Company (http://mavcoland.com). This is one of my first clients who had become a very good friend of mine. My search engine promotion strategies used on the site generates over 10,000 unique visitors/month. I actually had to tear down parts of the site to slow down the number of contacts coming from the Web site.
My second best is a collection of Web sites owned by Harbor Breeze Cruises. 2SeeWhales.com generates over 60,000 unique visitors/month during the peak of whale watching season. In turn, the Web site generates over 60% of my client’s business. The other sites focus on different services offered by my client.
My best non-profit site is Apple Valley Rotary (http://applevalleyrotary.com). This Web site won the first two District Web site awards. I had to take a dive last year and again this year to keep the competition from looking like it was rigged.
Q: How many seminars do you do?
A: I’m one of the weird people that love to do public speaking. I had regular seminars on business Web sites at many of the local chambers, business resource centers and other functions. I haven’t done as many seminars as I used to, due to getting married in Vietnam last year. I will pick the pace up again as soon as my wife is stateside.
Q: How’s you Dad?
A: Many of you know that my Dad’s health is not very good. He suffers from many health complications related to his tour of duty in Vietnam, and things seem to be getting worse lately. He’s not dying, but he is requiring more care. He’s currently having a hard time with recent adjustments to his medication. I’ve been stretched a little thin during the past couple weeks because of this.
He came to Vietnam for my wedding and to receive acupuncture treatment, which improved his health almost immediately. We have plans to bring him back to Vietnam for further treatment.
Q: Where’s you wife?
A: My wife is currently in Hanoi, and will be going back to Saigon in a few days. My Uncle Chau, who lives in San Diego, had recently arrived in Vietnam and my wife has done a fantastic job in taking care of him. She has shown my uncle places in Hanoi that he has never seen despite visiting there many times already. My wife will be going back to Saigon
Keep sending those questions, and I’ll keep answering them!
SOURCES FOR FREE ARTICLES
By Dan Harley, Jr.
Believe it or not, there was a time that I was not a very good writer (some of you may think that I am still not a very good writer). The tech bug had bitten me early in my life, and it directly affected my abilities to write well. Other computer geeks could understand me, but hardly anyone else could. I cheated through college grammar courses by taking classes with a professor that worshiped my Dad, who was an icon at Victor Valley College during his teaching days. It was an instant “B” for me without hassling through studying proper grammar. I never thought that writing would be such an important part of my life back then.
I had become better at writing as I grew older and acquired more wisdom. I wrote more as time passed by, and developed my own writing characteristics, which made writing a lot more fun for me. Although I enjoy writing now, it can still be burdensome from time to time. Now, I think too much about what I write, and probably take longer than I have to just to write something simple. Long story short, I have just as many excuses to avoid writing articles for my newsletters and anyone else would, despite being (arguably) a better than average writer.
My old e-newsletter was a lot easier to publish than this one is, because I often used articles written by someone else. I had known Dr. Kevin Nunley (http://drnunley.com/) through the Internet, and often re-published his articles in my e-newsletter. He has some great information in his articles, and it took less than a minute to copy and paste into my e-newsletter. The cost was subscribing to his newsletter and giving him credit for writing the article. Sometimes, he would return the favor and publish one of my articles, which gave me incredible exposure to his 100,000+ readers.
You can find free sources for articles, like I have with Dr. Nunley, on any subject you can think of. Finding sources is as easy as searching Google for “free newsletter articles”. If you don’t want to wade through the thousands of sources for free articles, here’s a few links for you to look through right away:
http://www.freenewsarticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.articledepot.net
After wading through the hundreds of free articles available, you might be thinking about why so many people do this and what do they get out of it. The catch is the write receives free exposure. You will be obligated to national and international copyright laws, which simply means that you give credit where credit is due. Make sure you state who wrote the article and their contact information they want you to provide in trade for use of their articles. That is a heck of a deal!
You don’t necessarily have to use the articles for a newsletter. You could use them as follow-up information to support what you are doing with your customers. Many of you are realtors, and you could support your information with a related article. This will give you credibility on top of your own words.
Next week, I will discuss the information you will receive from the article following this one. See you later!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DRIVER LICENSE
I have recently come across some disturbing information concerning our privacy as citizens of this great country. I believe the Homeland Security Act has gone too far, and you should know what they have done in exploiting their power. Your personal information could be public knowledge now.
If you have a valid driver license, ANYONE could access this information through the National Motor Vehicle License Bureau’s Web site. I had searched for my driver license information, and am very upset with what I have found. You should see this for yourself. Go to the following Web site and search for your own driver license information:
http://www.license.shorturl.com/
Write me back, and let me know what you think.
OPPORTUNTY OF THE WEEK!
If you read anything in this newsletter, you will want to read this segment. I will have an offer of some kind published here weekly. It could be discounts on my services. It could be coupons for free dinners. It could be opportunities to earn cold hard cash.
This week’s opportunity is a FREE INVITATION…
I will continue this opportunity for one more week because it has been very successful.
For those of you who live in the High Desert, you may have heard about the Victor Valley Cigar Club. The Cigar Club is an opportunity for many of my friends to get together. I invite you to join the cigar club mailing list and join in our debaucheries.
To join, all you have to do is reply back to this e-mail with JOIN CIGAR CLUB in the subject line. I will add you to the mailing list, and let you know when our next cigar social will be.
END
Thursday, April 19, 2007
SUCCESSFUL E-MAIL MARKETING BY USING CONTENT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS
THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS
April 4, 2007
By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net
Hello to another week of stimulating information about e-mail marketing. I was a guest speaker at a business class at Victor Valley College last night, and some of those who attended are new readers here. Those of you reading my newsletter for the first time, I would like to direct your attention to the next article about why you’re receiving this newsletter and why I’m publishing it. I also continue to receive a steady flow of questions, which I’ll answer in the Q&A segment of this newsletter.
This week, I’m going to discuss about things that you can discuss in an e-newsletter or regular correspondence that doesn’t necessarily have to do with you business, but will still keep your prospects interested in you business. By the way, it was intentional if the subject line of this e-mail fooled you. You will see why when you read the article.
Keep in mind that my previous articles can be found on my blog at:
http://primeconcepts.blogspot.com/
Let’s get started!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Answering questions in a newsletter is an excellent way to provide very informative content to your newsletter readers. I encourage all of you to send me your questions, and I will gladly answer them in my future newsletters. Thanks to your input, this Q & A segment is a permanent fixture to this newsletter.
Q: What should I have an e-newsletter if I can’t write worth a damn and I don’t like to write in the first place?
A: You can still publish a professional and respectable newsletter without writing a single article yourself. However, it does help to write your articles. I’ll cover this more in depth in the following article.
Q: What is Plaxo, and why do I receive e-mails to update my information?
A: Plaxo is a service I use to help manage the thousands of contacts I have. Among many things, I use it to keep all of my contact information updated. The updating system is semi-automatic; whereas I press a button then Plaxo sends a contact e-mail to update your information and automatically updates it in Outlook for me. There are other Plaxo features, such as electronic greeting cards, which are helpful tools to have.
Q: What makes you different from a Web developer?
A: This question comes from someone attending my class last night. I do a whole lot more than Web development for my clients. Unlike most Web developers, my objective is not just to build a Web site and let my clients fend for themselves for other services. I want to make the Internet an effective tool for my client’s business, which requires much more knowledge and skill than just being a Web developer.
Q: What is a domain squatter?
A: A new client of mine just received some bad news regarding his domain name, which prompts this question. A domain squatter fits several descriptions of people or persons taking control of a domain name usually for immoral reasons. Most domain squatters are Web developers or Internet service providers, who register their customer’s domain names to them self rather than to their customer. The customer finds out that this has happened when they change services, and end up in a big mess in trying to get their domain back.
If you have a domain name and are unsure of whether it is being squatted on, contact me and I will check it for free.
SUCCESSFUL E-MAIL MARKETING BY USING CONTENT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS
By Dan Harley, Jr.
If you think I’m crazy about writing on this subject, you’re probably right. Before you contact a psychiatrist to have me locked up, you should hear about my crazy idea.
Good salespeople aren’t really selling whatever products or services they receive their commission checks from. They are selling themselves. They do this by building quality relationships with their prospects. The more they work on relationship building, the better they are at closing sales. So why not tell your prospects about your favorite hobby or sport!
We are good at something other what we do for work, and are probably experts at that something too. For instance, I’m a very accomplished horseman. This is something that is quite unique for being a techie and Asian. This is also something that will make me unique among my competitors.
My clients and prospects already know what I do and what I sell, so sending a sales letter regularly could become boring and even ignored. However, sending something describing my last ride through the Mojave Narrows with links to pictures that I took during my ride is a much different story. I can access places in the Narrows easier and faster than someone could on foot or even on a motorbike. So, I can talk about and show pictures of places that my clients wouldn’t be able to see them self unless they too have a horse. Now, that’s fun to read!
For those of you who were fooled by the subject line, think about why you opened this e-mail. It worked didn’t it! I fooled you to make my point. People are more interested in you rather than what you’re selling, and it should be that way if you want to be good at sales. I do have stories and pictures of Vietnam to show you. Here they are:
My Vietnam Blog: http://danharley.blogspot.com/
My Vietnam Pictures: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/danharley/
The blog is a compilation of e-mails that I sent home while I was on my trip. As you see, there is nothing mentioned about my business or services in them, but I still received four referrals when I returned home. Not bad for having the time of my life!
A suggested task for you to do is to think about something fun you’ve done that you would want your friends or family to know about. Now, send e-mail to your friends, who happen to be your prospects, and tell them about your experience. The reaction you receive will be much better than a boring sales letter.
Next week, I will show you how to obtain free articles on just about anything you can think of for your own e-newsletter. Talk to you next week!
END
April 4, 2007
By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net
Hello to another week of stimulating information about e-mail marketing. I was a guest speaker at a business class at Victor Valley College last night, and some of those who attended are new readers here. Those of you reading my newsletter for the first time, I would like to direct your attention to the next article about why you’re receiving this newsletter and why I’m publishing it. I also continue to receive a steady flow of questions, which I’ll answer in the Q&A segment of this newsletter.
This week, I’m going to discuss about things that you can discuss in an e-newsletter or regular correspondence that doesn’t necessarily have to do with you business, but will still keep your prospects interested in you business. By the way, it was intentional if the subject line of this e-mail fooled you. You will see why when you read the article.
Keep in mind that my previous articles can be found on my blog at:
http://primeconcepts.blogspot.com/
Let’s get started!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Answering questions in a newsletter is an excellent way to provide very informative content to your newsletter readers. I encourage all of you to send me your questions, and I will gladly answer them in my future newsletters. Thanks to your input, this Q & A segment is a permanent fixture to this newsletter.
Q: What should I have an e-newsletter if I can’t write worth a damn and I don’t like to write in the first place?
A: You can still publish a professional and respectable newsletter without writing a single article yourself. However, it does help to write your articles. I’ll cover this more in depth in the following article.
Q: What is Plaxo, and why do I receive e-mails to update my information?
A: Plaxo is a service I use to help manage the thousands of contacts I have. Among many things, I use it to keep all of my contact information updated. The updating system is semi-automatic; whereas I press a button then Plaxo sends a contact e-mail to update your information and automatically updates it in Outlook for me. There are other Plaxo features, such as electronic greeting cards, which are helpful tools to have.
Q: What makes you different from a Web developer?
A: This question comes from someone attending my class last night. I do a whole lot more than Web development for my clients. Unlike most Web developers, my objective is not just to build a Web site and let my clients fend for themselves for other services. I want to make the Internet an effective tool for my client’s business, which requires much more knowledge and skill than just being a Web developer.
Q: What is a domain squatter?
A: A new client of mine just received some bad news regarding his domain name, which prompts this question. A domain squatter fits several descriptions of people or persons taking control of a domain name usually for immoral reasons. Most domain squatters are Web developers or Internet service providers, who register their customer’s domain names to them self rather than to their customer. The customer finds out that this has happened when they change services, and end up in a big mess in trying to get their domain back.
If you have a domain name and are unsure of whether it is being squatted on, contact me and I will check it for free.
SUCCESSFUL E-MAIL MARKETING BY USING CONTENT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS
By Dan Harley, Jr.
If you think I’m crazy about writing on this subject, you’re probably right. Before you contact a psychiatrist to have me locked up, you should hear about my crazy idea.
Good salespeople aren’t really selling whatever products or services they receive their commission checks from. They are selling themselves. They do this by building quality relationships with their prospects. The more they work on relationship building, the better they are at closing sales. So why not tell your prospects about your favorite hobby or sport!
We are good at something other what we do for work, and are probably experts at that something too. For instance, I’m a very accomplished horseman. This is something that is quite unique for being a techie and Asian. This is also something that will make me unique among my competitors.
My clients and prospects already know what I do and what I sell, so sending a sales letter regularly could become boring and even ignored. However, sending something describing my last ride through the Mojave Narrows with links to pictures that I took during my ride is a much different story. I can access places in the Narrows easier and faster than someone could on foot or even on a motorbike. So, I can talk about and show pictures of places that my clients wouldn’t be able to see them self unless they too have a horse. Now, that’s fun to read!
For those of you who were fooled by the subject line, think about why you opened this e-mail. It worked didn’t it! I fooled you to make my point. People are more interested in you rather than what you’re selling, and it should be that way if you want to be good at sales. I do have stories and pictures of Vietnam to show you. Here they are:
My Vietnam Blog: http://danharley.blogspot.com/
My Vietnam Pictures: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/danharley/
The blog is a compilation of e-mails that I sent home while I was on my trip. As you see, there is nothing mentioned about my business or services in them, but I still received four referrals when I returned home. Not bad for having the time of my life!
A suggested task for you to do is to think about something fun you’ve done that you would want your friends or family to know about. Now, send e-mail to your friends, who happen to be your prospects, and tell them about your experience. The reaction you receive will be much better than a boring sales letter.
Next week, I will show you how to obtain free articles on just about anything you can think of for your own e-newsletter. Talk to you next week!
END
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
