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