1 plus 1 makes 3

Are you using Email Marketing? Then read this!

Last month Ed Rivis announced his soon to be launched new book: "Email Marketing Dynamite".

"E-Mail marketing is the #1 most critical tactic any business can perform online. Pound for pound it’s also reported to be the most effective tactics any company can perform in terms of ROI (Return on Investment).

All the biggest companies use it to generate extra sales, revenues and profits - so if I have a ‘mission’ at the moment, it’s to get a lot more small business owners using e-mail effectively."

If there is anything I can totally agree with, it is his mission. Our own retail businesses thrives on web marketing which includes - of course - email marketing. If you have been following this blog for a while you know I even created "The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses" which is absolutely, purely based on our own successful experience with this modern tool.

Ed has asked (through his own email marketing campaigns in combination with his blog) if he could interview various small businesses about their experiences with email marketing: what effect it has had on their business success or even survival. I had the pleasure of talking to Ed for almost 1 hour as one of the interviewees.

You can subscribe to the pre-launch news of his new book - which, and I'm sure of it, if it is anything like any of Ed's other products and publications, will show/teach you how you too can effectively implement email marketing to grow/sustain your business in any economical circumstance.

First step: preregister your interest and profit from the opportunity to buy his book for only P&P the minute it is released.

WebMarketing ToolBox reduced in price

When The Best AWeber Strategies & Tactics for Small Businesses was launched, this WebMarketing tool was the first in the "ToolBox". Future tools will (still) include: using a blog platform to create your business webpresence and ScreenSteps unleashed: THE program to streamline your customer service FAQ and THE multi media publishing machine.

Eager business owners who want to learn how to use to above marketing tools to build and grow their business (off-line and/or online business) and buy the WebMarketing ToolBox for Small Businesses will not see any future price increases as soon as another tool is added to the 'box'. At the moment the price is £ 67.00, but due to recent developments in our own business (all good developments!) I've decided to reduce the price with £ 20.00 for the time being.

To be honest, due to various projects for our own retail business I'm afraid I won't have the time to finish any of the promised other E-trainings shortly and I feel it would be unfair to anyone 'financing' the price difference between the single tool (The AWeber S&T's) and the now not so in the near future next tools. Hence I've now set the price for both the AWeber S&T's and The Webmarketing ToolBox at the same level of
£ 47.00

(The PDF version, with no future updates, is still available at £ 27.00 + p&p)

For all further information - what's included in the first Tool of the ToolBox, how you can combine AWeber with at least 4 other tools, why and how this E-training will be kept up to date, how you can interact with other small business owners using the ToolBox and much more - read here.

Existing Webmarketing ToolBox 'students' will receive this discount too, of course!

Marketing: The Devil's in the simple Details

Marketing, from ads to email marketing, needs: focus, strategies, tactics and a keen eye for all the details. Without any of these you might as well stop before you even start.

No matter how small, large, known or unknown you and your business/products/services are, the Devil is truly in the Details. If you spend time to create the best worded advertisement with the best placed images in the best read magazine or paper it all has to be right. Your call for action should be hitting the right spot and the "tools" you provide your prospect to take that action should be securely in place, tried and tested.

If that call to action is for the reader to request free reports, free materials up to the value of £ 1,200.00 and you've got the targeting of your prospect absolutely spot on, you better make sure that tool works absolutely problem free. Because your irresistible offer will be seen by over 200.000 specially targeted readers and a handful of your existing private list members. Those are big numbers!

The details of the ad are spot on, what else do you expect from someone labelled marketing wizard who's private clients pay a 4 figure amount for an hour advice. I've read books, reports from this wizard, listened to plenty of recordings by him and know that if he launches a new program you better pay attention and try not to miss out.

The let down here was in the details of the email marketing tool. Not so much in using AWeber's default Thank You Page (now with added narration!) - many here know that is one of my pet-hates - after submitting my name and email address in the web form on the special landing page, but in the fact I almost didn't even reach that default Thank You Page:

For a moment I started to doubt myself - had I already received all these new free reports? and so checked the ad again. No, definitely an offer of new materials and a new program.

If you are promoting a new product, want prospects, clients to opt-in to a new program you are launching DO Create a NEW AWeber list/campaign for it!

(I have various email addresses I use to subscribe to various lists and used a different one to end up on the default AWeber Thank You Page, received the confirm opt-in email and even ended up on a custom 2nd Thank You Page. The first follow-up message contained a link to the download page - unprotected - where I indeed found all kinds of new material from the marketing wizard.)

Now it could be that I'm a nit-picker in this regard, possible because I know how easy and simple these details can be improved. But the fact remains, no matter if you are just starting out with email marketing or if you are regarded as marketing wizard: your email marketing is a part of your total marketing strategy - not just an after thought to be used as 'delivery vehicle' of your no doubt splendid and correct in every detail marketing messages.

You need to have Strategies and Tactics for the delivery vehicle too. If you are using AWeber as this vehicle, you will find practical, tried and tested strategies and tactics in this guide - or pop in your name and email address below to receive inside information about this guide first - to seamlessly integrate the delivery of your marketing messages into your marketing strategy.

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Powering up the Content Generator

Two months ago during a brain storm session about marketing my 'brain' partner set me a challenge: for a new report - to be added to our growing list of wood and wood related guides - I had to come up with 57 Reasons Why Natural Wooden Flooring Always Outperforms, Outlasts, and Always Looks Better, Than Any Other Floor Covering.

Why 57? I still suspect he plucked that number out of thin air. But a challenge is a challenge and I took to work. Within 1 day I'd reached over 63 reasons ;-) but since some of them were more or less double I did settle on the promised 57.

How did I end up so quickly with so many reasons? Through my Power Content Generator - ScreenSteps Desktop Pro - and the excellent advice by one of the creators of ScreenSteps: Plan Not To Plan your writing.

Here's a screenshot of my manual about the 57 reasons:

I started with 'writing' every reason I could come up with as the title of a "lesson", just loose thoughts and without writing the explanation or more details of/for a reason. Then one by one I started filling the reason with, well, reasons ;-) and adding images and 'statements' from experts or results from surveys.

When all that was done - another 2 days of research and writing - the report was finished and available with one click of a button as new wood-guide in PDF-file.

But that's not the end of the story of powering up the Content Generator. Earlier this week I've uploaded every single reason from ScreenSteps Desktop Pro to our FAQ & News site (aka blog) and then spent 15 minutes setting the Publishing day and time for each of them.

Now, every three days a new post is published automagically. No more head breaking about what interesting story to write next for our business blog. I've created content once, in one program and am now able to publish it in many different ways: as PDF file and as blog post in this case.

On the Kiss Business too (2) blog you can find out which other ways are also possible with this Multiple Media Publishing Machine.

I've come to the conclusion that for successful online marketing for any small business you only need three extreme powerful tools:

1. Web Presence with integrated automagically SEO - Typepad
2. Lead Generation with Permission - AWeber
3. Content Publisher - ScreenSteps Desktop Pro

And I'll put all of them into the WebMarketing ToolBox for Small Businesses in the very near future.

Sign up for the WebMarketing ToolBox for Small Businesses and receive tips on growing your business using the modern webmarketing tools in the most simple and effective ways for FREE!
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The Best AWeber Strategies & Tactics for Small Businesses - maximise Permission Marketing!

The first tool in The WebMarketing ToolBox for Small Businesses is available!

The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses - maximise Permission Marketing.

The E-training/E-book is based on our own experiences and successful implementation of AWeber's auto repsonder for our ethical email marketing. As independent specialised (rural) retailer we now reach prospects and clients in the whole of the UK and even beyond. Our success rate?

90% confirm their subscription, only a hand full ever unsubscribe and we convert many subscribers into clients.

The Strategies we use (trial and error discoveries) and which are now available to you too:

1. Being Effective and Efficient with your email marketing from the moment you start with AWeber (if you have been using AWeber for some time now I will tell/teach you what, where and how to change certain settings to improve your results immediately)
2. How to turn your 'sales' pitched into a logical sequence of messages, building up more trust between you and your prospect with every single message you write. Spreading your eggs over more baskets, baskets which all contain relevant and anticipated information that solves a pain/problem your prospect has.
3. I'll show you where and how you can substantially grow the number of self-qualifying subscribers in the most ethical ways. Our own list, as small retailer, has grown over 250% in 1 year time and continues to attract 45 - 50 new prospects per month. No matter how small or large your existing list is or how large you want it to be, these simple and effective tactics are guaranteed to make the numbers soar.
4. And I will show you, step by step, how you can combine AWeber with other (online) software programs to automate your email marketing campaigns even further without loosing a 'personal touch/voice'. PayPal is only one of the programs discussed.

The Strategies and Tactics (tried and tested) are available in 3 purchase options for you:

• as printed E-book - a one off product with no further up dates
• as "stand alone" online training: access your training everywhere you have Internet access, updated as and when AWeber changes any of its features. Plus you can interact with fellow students - who knows how many prospect/clients you will find among them?
• as first tool in The WebMarketing ToolBox, same benefits as the "stand alone" online option, but will include all future tools in the ToolBox without any additional costs for you
• ALL options come with a 90 days money back guarantee!

Select your preferred option here - the following page will also tell you why this first Tool is a must for both new and existing AWeber account holders. No matter if your list/lists have 100 or 10.000 subscribers, The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses will improve and further automate your ethical email marketing immediately!

Or buy now: £ 47.00 for E-training - never out of date!

Maximise the Permission Marketing principle and add real money to your business now.

Preview: TACTIC S4-5: Using AWeber with WordPress.com

This is one tactic we don't use ourselves, we use Typepad as blog platform which accepts all AWeber webforms, no matter if you have Basic, Plus or Pro account. Self-hosted WordPress blogs and Blogger also accept the javascript of your webform, only WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com refuse every AWeber coding, even when you use the raw html code of the inline form.
But there's a solution.

Using AWeber to use an AWeber submit form for WordPress.com blogs

Sounds confusing? It's not, as will become clear in the following steps. When I was writing the lesson on publishing a broadcast/newsletter online the solution for WordPress.com blog-owners suddenly seemed obvious.

When you have a WordPress.com blog it is hosted on WordPress.com server. These blogs are mostly used by those not able to host any web presence themselves (otherwise they would IMHO use the free self-hosted WordPress.org blog software which gives you plenty more options, but require more css and html knowledge).

The beauty of this solution is that you can have a webform of AWeber hosted by AWeber. All it takes is:
1) a template that resembles your blog design or your AWeber broadcasts
2) an AWeber broadcast - doesn't even have to be send out
3) an AWeber inline web form
4) a link on your WordPress.com blog

Note: this tactic also works when you use only the plain text message, but I think an html message in a template works better. I leave the decision with you.

Step 1: create a broadcast in your AW list

In TACTIC S1-4 "The overall appearance of your messages" I discussed using a template for your messages (html message) and if you use this tactic you have a general template in one of your lists ready to use.

Copy the source from your template broadcast and paste this into the source of your new broadcast. The title of your broadcast can be anything you like, from "Sign up for my blog-alerts" to "Request your free guide".

Write a short message in the body of your message: explaining what's on offer etc.
Don't use any personalised fields though, they will not be filled with details but show like {!firstname}.

Step 2: copy your webform in your broadcast

Have an inline webform ready (see TACTIC S2-3: the web forms) and copy the raw html code so you can change various items later, like the tracking code.
In your new broadcast, go to the source and paste the code in the position you want it to show. Save the broadcast, no need to write the plain text message this time (or you want to opt for plain text message only).
DON'T queue the broadcast, it is not the purpose to send it out.

Step 3: link to the Syndicate Direct Link

Every broadcast created in AWeber has a Direct Link. So open the new broadcast again, tick the box Syndicate and click the hyper link behind Direct Link. This will show you (in a new window/tab) how your broadcast including the webform will look online.
If needed, edit text or lay-out and once you're happy copy the url of the Direct Link to place this in the sidebar of your WordPress.com blog (or in any post you like).

Follow the link to the example I've made: Direct Link

Conclusion

It is of course not the most ideal (or even elegant) solution, but it is the most simple solution for WordPress.com blog-owners without any other additional hosting available. Try it out and do test it for yourself to see how it truly works - it will follow the same opt-in process as any other AWeber webform.

This is just one of the many tried and tested Strategies and Tactics you will find in the (almost) complete E-training: The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses - created by a Plus 1 Makes 3. Why not pop-in your name and email address below and receive more inside information about the E-training

Yes, I'm very interested in the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses,
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Q&A's on The Best AWeber Strategies & Tactics for Small Businesses E-training

Time to publicly answer some questions I've been receiving over the last few weeks:

What is AWeber Autoresponder?

AWeber is an online software program you can use for your email marketing. From sending out your email newsletter weekly, monthly or even daily to - sometimes even more effective - automating your sales messages through the autoresponder (follow-up) feature. It is a great marketing tool that delivers automatic e-mail responses, updates, offers, and instant messages.
AWeber's autoresponder puts an online OR offline business on Auto-Pilot. The Autoresponder works tirelessly, 24 hours a day / 7 days a week/ 365 days a year.

With the AWeber online software, you will be able to:

• set up unlimited campaigns
• unlimited messages
• spam checker
• text or html-based messages
• create blog-alerts every time you publish a new post
• manage your subscribers
• accessible from every where you have access to the Internet.

Why AWeber is so powerful:
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click through response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. AWeber is using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe. Plus AWeber itself (their email server that sends out all your messages in your name) is White-listed - ensuring an almost 99.9% deliverability.

I'm thinking about using AWeber, is this E-training for me?

Definitely! From day one on you will benefit from all the trial and errors we made when we started with AWeber (in Oct 07). You don't have to re-invent the wheel to find out what works best - saving you precious time, effort and perhaps also frustrations - so you can concentrate on growing your email lists and therefore your business in the most effective and ethical way possible.

The E-training also contains tips and advice on other web-marketing aspects, not just on how to set up your campaigns or where and how to insert web forms to your website/blog.

Preview of the Best AWeber S&T's available here

WARNING: AWeber web forms - the starting point of your lead-generation - don't work on free blogs hosted by WordPress.com (like you.wordpress.com). WordPress.com doesn't allow any javascript codes on this type of blog. (update 07.05.09: solution discovered- see here)

You either have to host your WordPress blog on your own domain (downloading the free blog software to your own domain and website area - needs ccs and html knowledge!) or opt for one of the Typepad blog accounts (no need for ccs or html knowledge, although knowing a little bit about the 'internet language' always comes in handy). Typepad isn't a free blog platform, but costs rather little (from £ 3.00 a month) and comes with an excellent customer support.

I'm already using AWeber, is this E-training for me?

Definitely! This E-training will enable you to use it at a higher / or even maximum potential. No matter if you have been using AWeber just for a few months or for years - the Strategies and Tactics in this E-training (and many more other web marketing tips) will give you enough pointers, ideas and insight to unleash AWeber's full power.

Because of the medium I've selected to host this training you can interact with others working with the same training, exchange ideas, case-studies and even ask/answer questions. I'm sure you know that 1 plus 1 makes 3: combined expertise gives you triple value - equally true when you share experiences.

Preview of the Best AWeber S&T's available here

Why select this E-training over AWeber's own knowledge base and tutorials?

Besides being one of the most used autoresponder AWeber is also known for its excellent technical support service, no doubt about it.
AWeber has its own excellent online knowledge base, technical support and step-by-step videos, explaining and teaching you the what and the how of their system. We've been helped out by AWeber plenty of times - reading through their knowledge base, watching some of the tutorial videos and submitting technical tickets to the support team.

The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses E-book/E-training will go beyond the what and the how, it will explain and teach you the why behind our strategies and tactics:

Why you should follow certain steps in certain sequences;

Why you are sometimes advised not to follow AW standard set-up guide-lines; and

How to implement simple, but powerful, combinations you will not find (or not in detail) mentioned in the knowledge base.

You will learn all the tips, tricks and techniques in online lesson. Some of the online lessons will contain step-by-step guides (made with screen recording software), showing you exactly what you must do to achieve the results we consistently achieve. More than AWeber's own step-by-step videos they will go beyond the mechanics and demonstrate both the how as well as the why.

Other (local) small businesses have followed my "AWeber Strategies and Tactics" 1-2-1 workshops. The results are relatively immediately and profitable as every single one of my clients has seen an almost immediately increase in leads, prospects and conversion rate. In other words: their invested time, money and effort has produced a profitable return which can be seen as profit on the balance sheet. Time-after-time, with every new marketing campaign, my 1-2-1 workshop clients have added prospects and customers to their growing lists. Even, and in some cases especially, when they were already using AWeber.

Other benefits of this E-training is having access to it anywhere you have Internet access and the interaction between 'trainees' of the course. Plus with the medium I use to create the E-training (ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live) I guarantee that no matter what AWeber changes in their software or how often, these changes will be implemented in the online manual as soon as humanly possible - meaning your training materials will always be up to date.

 The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses is now available.

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If you want to discover more about ScreenSteps: 'early' webinar

Blue Mango Learning System will hold an 'early' webinar (early for the US, just after noon over here, thanks Greg) on ScreenSteps Desktop for new Users:

Tuesday 28 April 9am Eastern = 2pm BST

Today the Desktop 2.5 Candidate was launched, even more features, benefits and ease of use! As you can read - if you haven't done so already - on the Kiss Business too (2) blog, the program is awarded my KISS-award for Keeping It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business

I'm using both ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live to create the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses, if you want a pre-view of how it all integrates together as E-training, pop in your name and email address in the wb from below and I'll grant you a look into things to come.

I'm very interested in the pre-view of the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses
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Results of short survey on AWeber default Thank You Pages

Last week I used MonkeySurvey to ask 5 short questions on one particular feature/option the AWeber program has: the 2 Thank You Pages. The 1st page you are directed to after submitting your details in the webform and the 2nd page you are directed to after clicking the confirmation email link.

For both you can use AWeber default pages. Or you can use Thank You Pages you create yourself either on your website or blog (as page).

The questions in the survey concentrated on which option (Default or Custom) AWeber account holders use and why. If you've taken part in the survey I'm very grateful to you.

I was happy to note that most (no matter how long they have been using AWeber, from 1 year to 6+ years) are using custom Thank You Pages. The few ones using the default 1st Thank You Page state: "it saves time".

I'm sure it does, but it will costs you prospects. Leads coming from your own website/blog, where you have put so much effort in the wording and the offer to entice your web visitor to submit their details, are left hanging in the dark. All they read on the next page - which is a large empty white page with one single sentence: Please Check Your Email and Click the Confirmation Link to Activate Your Subscription.

Not very welcoming, not very conversational, not very 'polite'. It is always much better and will definitely increase the conversion rate of leads to prospects if you - as one of the contributors to the survey puts - "maintain the look and feel of my website". Don't interrupt the flow of conversation you are having with your lead/prospect because 'it saves time'. Don't let them wonder where you, your website and your conversation went.

The same applies for the 2nd Thank You Page - and happy to note that even most of those using the default 1st page use a custom 2nd page. Maintain the look and feel of your website.

There is however a rather worrying - in my eyes - practice mentioned by 50% of those using a custom 2nd Thank You Page: immediate access to downloads. They are in fact leaving the back door wide open. Even more worrying if you use AWeber as 'delivery' vehicle for your knowledge products (like E-books) or software products your prospect has paid for.
"This gets the report/software into the visitor's hands as soon as possible."

It sure does, but so would the first follow-up messages from your AWeber list. Granting access to reports/software on your 2nd Thank You Page (or as I like to call it: the request confirmed page) also grants access to it for 'clever web surfers'. Just try this search on Google to see how many free reports and software products you can 'collect' without submitting your name and email address or pay for. (Actually doing so would be illegal, so just look - don't 'touch')

Thank you for your purchase = download

Close the door!

In the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses you will find: "TACTIC S1-2: The ongoing conversation during the opt-in process" about the use and benefits of custom Thank You pages and which also explains very simple methods on how to close that back door. If you subscribed to the pre-launch news you have received access to the pre-view area and this lesson is now uploaded.

If you want access to this - and other lessons of the pre-view - simply pop in your details below and the access code will be send to you in the first follow-up message.

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Short survey on 'ongoing conversation' practice

How often do you submit your name and email address in a 'web-from'? Did the writer of the article/blog-post or the hoover-over form kept you engaged in his/her writing leading up to the moment you were asked to submit your details? Did he/she explain what's on offer in exchange for your details?

After submitting your details what happens to the engaging conversation you just experienced?

In the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses I will dedicate a whole lesson/chapter to this practise.

If you are using AWeber as autoresponder and email marketing tool, would you be so kind enough to take a very short survey (5 questions only) to help me fine-tune this chapter. (Or at least find out I'm on the right track).

Click Here to take survey (SurveyMonkey) - and your time is much appreciated.

There's more to the submit forms than meets the eye

No matter what program you use for email marketing - for newsletters and/or auto-responders - the one item that drives your list is the 'submit' form in to which someone can enter name and email address.

We all know them and many use them on their website and/or blogs (nowadays even on Facebook)

 

From simple forms to hoover-over forms, we've seen and use them all. Offering free reports, free tests and even more. The submitted details, mostly just name and email address, end up on the all import email list where the conversation with the prospect starts in the form of follow-up marketing messages and broadcasted newsletters.

But the trigger - the driver - is the submit form. Without it, it becomes rather difficult to fill your list. A single form driving a single list, is in many cases the most effective way.

If you have 4 or 5 different products/reports to offer, all with there individual follow-up messages i.e. email lists, do you need 4 to 5 single forms?

Can you imagine a webpage or blogpage with 4 to 5 webforms underneath each other? Your reader - website visitor - will have to read all the headlines and then select the one he/she is most interested in. We - Wood You Like Ltd - have 5 quality 'wood floor ranges' and 4 have their own leaflet. But we don't have 4 forms underneath each other our interested prospect has to select from.

Our multiple list driver looks almost the same as any other normal submit form. The only apparent difference is a drop-down menu with the titles of the wood floor ranges.

But there's more in that form that meets the eye. This single submit form (web form) is able to drive all 4 individual AWeber lists we have set up for our ranges.

In the background, behind the scene, the selected option sends the name and email address of our new subscriber to the correct AWeber list. Our reader interested in the Basic range will receive the leaflet about that range and our reader interested in the Design Parquet range will receive, using the same submit form, the leaflet filled with all our Design Parquet patterns.

One form drives all 4 individual lists without us having to fill our web page with more submit forms.

In The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses the behind the scene work is explained step by step, so you too can - if needed - combine more lists in one single submit form. Saving you space on your website and offering a more user-friendly form to your prospect.

If you are interested in a pre-view of this particular lesson pop-in your name and email address in the submit form below and you will receive access to the lessons in the pre-view. You will also receive more inside information about the E-training.

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When 'failure' turns into innovation = win-win

Last year August I launched the Ultimate Practical AWeber Guide. All in all it had taken me over 2 months to script, record and edit the 59 minute long First! Part of the planned 5 parts of this IMHO covering everything a small business should know and could use to unleash the true power of AWeber.

My guide never got further than part 1. Main reason: two weeks after the guide was launched, AWeber changed - for the better - some items in their software program and announcement upcoming larger changes - again for the better.

So in fact, within two weeks part 1 of the Ultimate Practical AWeber Guide wasn't up to date any more. Knowing more changes were afoot soon I thought it would be better to wait until then to re-record (most of) part 1. But then I realised: what if next month AWeber changes items again - online software platforms frequently change, at least those who listen to their clients and keep on improving the system.

Three option:

1. forget the whole idea or
2. (and those in the know know I'm stubborn, or persistent) keep a close eye on any changes in AWeber and re-record part of the video as soon as possible or 
3. find a much more versatile medium to create the AWeber guide with

And option 3 it has become. I'm changing medium for the AWeber guide in order to make sure any changes by AWeber or other related programs can be edit/added as soon as possible without rendering any items of my Guide useless or out-of-date. Plus I'm changing the whole set up of the guide: AWeber's own video-tutorials and knowledge base cover many of the basics - my new guide will concentrate more on the Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses.

The medium I've selected is ScreenSteps and the guide itself will be a combination of Ebook and Etraining. The Strategies and Tactics are from our experiences using AWeber successful for our own small business: independent retailer Wood You Like Ltd.
And as promised above: the content of the S&T's will never be out of date, you will always have the latest version!

And of course I've set myself a target to have everything all ready (and tested) end of April/begining May. Some of you have been so kind to read the first draft back in February which has been very helpful - special thanks to Stephen! - and kind of had a pre-view of things to come.

The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses will enable everyone, beginners and long-time users, to benefit even more from Permission Marketing (ethical email-marketing) in the most effective AND efficient way. No need to re-invent the wheel, I promise to spill all the beans on all the mistakes and errors we made ourselves when getting to grips with AWeber!

You can opt in to receive more updates on the new guide by popping in your name and email address below - like before, pre-registering your interest, without any obligation!, also means pre-launch discount on the guide itself.

UPDATE: The Best AWeber Strategies and Tactics for Small Businesses is now available!

In search of conversations

In these days of online conversations - aka Social Media Tools - many businesses are engaging with their prospects and clients on the Internet. Through blogs - which I prefer to call dynamic and interactive web sites = "blog-sites" - YouTube, Facebook, MyBlogLog, LinkedIn, various forums and Twitter.

In December and January I dipped my toes in the Twitter world, in search for mini conversations: twittering or tweeting to followers in 140 characters. And on 21 January I had enough and 'untweeted' myself. The post I wrote about it focussed on what I experienced as seeing only one side of the conversation. I didn't get it.

February saw an avalanche of white papers, blog-articles, free reports and even handbooks on how Twitter is working for so many businesses. And as many of you know I'm never averse of publishing comments left, right and center about my own experiences. The avalanche became so thick and quick I almost decide I didn't even want to 'get it'.

This decision was halted at the end of last week.

Martin Malden - the WealthyDragon - wrote: "Is Twitter the New List?" on his blog Creating an Awesome Home Business. And low and behold, someone else had already left a comment that reflected my own feelings towards the subject.

"I can see this approach working for a very large company. It’s free and easy to blast a short message to throngs of people. If they pick up on it, great. If not, who cares?

For a home business, this just isn’t the case. You’re trying to establish deeper relationships with less people and I just don’t see that happening in 140 characters. Quality versus quantity."

Chris O - Referral Key - Your Trusted Referral Network

I followed suit with my own comments on list building. And a very interesting discussion started, listing experiences and 'tactics' about using Twitter for list building.

The 'tactics' - in the best meaning of the word - Martin listed made me think. Specially when he talked about using Twitter's search function on specific keywords to find other Twitters asking questions on subjects Martin feels he can help with.

So, what if you forget about Twitter as "conventional" Age of Conversation Tool and use it as a "finding Tool" for those in need of your expertise? The search on keywords can be rss-feeded into any 'blog-reader'.
Instead of watching the one side of conversations of those you follow, you use Twitter to contact the Twittee (?) who asked the question. You offer help in the form of a link to an article, blog-post or even, as Martin frequently does, write a whole new article/post to address the question.

Now, that's in my 'conventional' web-marketing eyes a perfect way to build a list and start a conversational relationship with new leads, prospects and clients in more than one way and in more than 140 characters. Twitter as start, not as "only on".

Don't you just love it when inventions turn into an innovation

"So are you saying that invention is merely the creation of some technology, but that the innovation is the idea of applying it to a previously unexploited market?"
Arthur M Gallagher

I can see that work for every small business: turning the invention Twitter, the mini-blog tool, into the innovation for finding those in need of your expertise/knowledge/experiences and as start of the relationship building conversation. Now that's what I do get.

You know what's funny (in my eyes at least)? I only realised this through an 'old fashion' multi-contributors discussion in the comment box of Martin's blog. Would the same have happened through mini-blogs of 140 characters?

Next project: setting up a new Twitter account for Wood You Like and we'll be in search for those needing help on all matters related to wooden flooring. Our FAQ & News site (aka business blog) has plenty of useful articles already we can direct them to and if needed we will write a special post for the answer.

Are you re-inventing your own wheel?

Re-inventing the wheel is commonly regarded as a waste of your time and effort. So how would we regard re-inventing your own wheel?
Believe me, it happens more often than you think - I've discovered this only last week myself.

During the second half of last year we noticed an increase in website visitors searching on the keywords: restoring or repairing parquet floor. Web marketing logic dictated we wrote a dedicated web page - wood guide -  on this subject (in fact, we wrote two: "7 Easy steps to repair/restore your parquet floor" and "3 Easy steps to clean and maintain your parquet floor")

The 7 Steps almost immediately became the most popular page of our 'static' website. We then took the step - no pun intended - to turn this wood-guide into our first digital wood product, complete with extra information and advice. This was launched end December and has been ordered 7 times already (not bad for a specialised and physical product retailer we think = average one a week).

Now, on our FAQ & News site we also have a most popular post containing simple tips and advice for DIY-ers. In fact sometimes we feel we are giving away too much information - information suppliers/retailers should give their clients. Most however don't and many DIY-ers end up on our websites. Even if they have already bought all the materials somewhere else. This and the "succes" of our first digital wood product gave food for thought, which in a meeting with our good friend "the company-doctor" also came to the forefront. Why not reduce the info in that particular post and create a Comprehensive Installation Guide, give this away for free to our own DIY-clients (on CD-rom) while making it also available (at a price) for others?

Decision made.

We also agreed that if we were to sell our knowledge it should contain as much practical information as possible - we still feel a bit strange 'selling' digital wood products. And I saw a month of writing ahead.

And then I saw 'the light'. We've been writing advice, tips etc in posts and web pages for over 4 years! Why re-invent the wheel, or better our own wheel?

All I had to do was compile the written material already at hand. In between normal daily tasks of a retailer this only took me 4 days. A great help in this was of course one of my favourite software programs "ScreenSteps", the Rapid Documentation Tool.

You create a 'manual', name sections (like introduction, preparations, installation and resources) and in these sections you create your chapters (lessons).

In the lessons you write the 'steps' - every step is a 'sub header' - your audience/reader must take to complete the task at hand and even better, the 'camera' lets you capture screen shots for images. As in "a picture tells more than a thousand words".

In the lessons you can swap steps around by simple drag and drop them and in the manual you can swap lessons around in the same way.

Then the best part of the software takes place with one simple click of the button Export. The whole manual is converted into a PDF complete with:

• Cover page (you can add and edit the templates very simple)
• Bookmarks
• Index-page (with links to the 'lessons')
• Page header image & footer text (again you add/edit these in the PDF template and you can create an unlimited number of templates)

The whole process of converting the 57 pages - yes, 57 pages! - into a PDF took only 1 minute.

Since yesterday the new Guide is for sale on our website, the "delivery" of it is of course automated too: combining AWeber with Paypal (more on this in later posts).

Lesson learned: all of us have specialist knowledge about our job/trade/profession and most of us have written plenty of posts/articles/white-papers about it. Instead of writing new material, why not search through all you already have in your 'possession' - and only add new materials/edit existing material where needed?

Why re-invent your own wheel?

Feedburner switch to Google Account: take note

Feedburner - bought by Google a while ago - is asking every account holder to move all the feeds to a Google Account. The switch is easy, a few clicks on a few buttons to an existing Google Account or you can create a new Google account for this.

On the Feedburner-Google account you can only check feed statistics and no longer site statistcis (Feedburner thinks Google Analytics has the same features - it doesn't IMHO).

My feeds were switched this morning and I'm experiencing loads of "new" old blog-alerts in various AWeber lists that have a connection with Feedburner. Fortunately all my blog-alerts are not on 'Send Automatic' otherwise all my blog readers would have had an avalanche of old alerts!

If you have both a feedburner account and are using AWeber for blog-alerts you better edit the 'blog-broadcast' settings to none automatic sending before you switch Feedburner to Google.

Why opt-in email marketing is the right - the only - way to grow

Every business - small, large, selling products or selling service - wants to attract more prospects and clients. Email marketing has become one of the most cost-effective ways to establish this.

You can do this two ways: the right one and the wrong one.

The right one is to make your email messages personal, anticipated and interesting.

The wrong one is sprouting your marketing message to everyone you can find an email address from - bulk mailing.

The right one will take time to establish (lead generating can take a while, but done effectively every one of your marketing message will be read and when your lead is ready, acted upon).

The wrong one will take no time at all to establish (buy bulk email addresses from a broker, send out plenty of marketing messages to the list and perhaps one of two will not unsubscribe)

Seth Godin tells it way better than I can:

Email campaign case studies (one good, one bad)

You don't fail that easy

When you write blog-post, create an AWeber email campaign you want to reach out to as many readers, leads, prospects you can. That's our goal: writing compelling messages so that your readers, subscribers keep coming back for more. In order to be regarded as 'The Expert', 'The place' to go to for quality products or services. In short, to market your business.

And then you see a drop in blog-readers and receive notifications of subscribers leaving you (or you see a drop in total subscribers). Most of us will have the same knee-jerk reaction: oh dear, everybody is leaving me! What am I doing wrong??

Marie-Louise over at SuccessTrack can tell you exactly that: "When do you stop marketing to Customers".

Read and rejoice ;-)

Using Feedburner for Word-of-Mouth marketing

Every business is aware (or should be!) of the power Word-of-Mouth - it is regarded as the best (and 'cheapest') way to promote your business, products and/or service. On the Web it is no different.

Word-of-Mouth can be hard to establish, how do you get (unknown) visitors to your website talking about you? Of course it starts with having something that's worthwhile to talk about, be it your excellent service record, your excellent and high value for money products or excellent and useful content on your website.

Supposing you have all that in order, what is the next step to entice Word-of-Mouth? You can rely on other 'bloggers' picking up your content and linking back to it; you can rely on others Tweeting about it or mentioning your page and/or product on Facebook, a forum or whatever social media of their choice.

There is however a very simple way to help this Word-of-Mouth on its way: "email this to your friend". A simple link at the bottom of your article/post/landing page that automagically opens your visitor's email program, has already a subject and perhaps even some body text of your choice. The coding for this is not that difficult, click on this link to see an example of the result. (If you hover over the link it will display the actual code).

There is even a simpler way if you publish articles/post in a blog and have set up - of course you have - a Feedburner account. In Feedburner you have various additional options and extras. One of them is called FeedFlare (under the Optimise Tab)

Select at least "Email This" on Site, activate the service and as soon as the article feed is picked up by Feedburner it does the rest! (So sometimes it takes 5 - 10 minutes before the actual "email this" link appears - but it definitely will)

Every article will now automagically have a link at the bottom of your article to a webfrom where your webvisitor can fill in his/her email address as sender and send a message to one of his/her friends. It's as easy as that! And it works on most blog-platforms.

See below and why not try it out?

A new hobby horse: Web 2.0 for community building or growing your business?

Coming back to a recent article on the Kiss2 blog-site: Calling a spade a spade and some recent blog posts I read from well-known A-list bloggers.

To most bloggers, specially those who are deeply involved in social media communities, a blog should mainly be used to create a community. Conform to the expectations of Web 2.0

As a ‘brick and mortar’ company director and owner of various blog-sites I have a very different idea about what a blog can be. In that recent article mentioned above I consider any accessible entity on the world wide web as a ‘web-presence’, also those created on a blog-platform.

A web-presence build on a blog-platform is an effective marketing tool – a very simple, self-manageable tool that so easy gathers visitors to it – due to its embedded search-engine friendliness – and drives qualified traffic to your (if you have/need one)  ‘static’ website and/or webshop.

For small businesses – be it "brick and mortar" or services – it is not specifically about building a community that Web 2.0 advocates have in mind; it’s about growing your business by building trust.

Building trust by writing articles about your products, services. Written with – if I may be so bold – an educational value in mind: explaining to your web presence visitors in all honesty when, where and why your product/service might be the most suitable for them at that specific moment in time or later.

Educational because that’s what the world-wide-web is used for too: searching for information, specially when looking for new products/services to purchase. Perhaps that’s the most significant reason most ‘surfers’ (or is that a too much out-dated term?) start up their browsers for: looking for information.

And write in all honesty, because that’s nowadays also a very significant feature – if not the most significant for most of us - of the world-wide-web: almost every statement about your product, service you make can be checked against other statements, reviews by users or respected web journalists. Tell a porky nowadays and you’ll be ridiculed/told off/slapped on the wrist/loose credibility in no time at all! There are many global brands out there who know how true – and painful – it is by not taking this aspect of the world-wide-web for granted.

Building trust, because no matter how much information is out there on the world-wide-web, everyone will still look up to the ‘expert’, to the one who turns information into knowledge – and is very willing to share his/her knowledge to all who come looking for it.

And using a blog-platform - that self-manageable, search-engine friendly, simple to set-up, use and edit to your own likings, plus enormously interactive if you choose so – to establish all points mentioned above is IMHO the best ‘invention’ the Web 2.0 brought us as one of the most effective and powerful marketing tools any small business could ask for.

It is a rather low-instep media also. Anyone who is able to create a Word-document can write and publish an article on a blog-platform. A media that doesn’t need extra hosting, specific web-design or HTML-coding knowledge (if you do have those it can only work to your advantage but it is absolutely not a pre), can be edited by yourself without having to spend extra money (and time to explain your ideas to) a web design business.

It’s like using follow-up messages to any of your prospects and existing clients: if you don’t use this honest and effective marketing tool you’re definitely leaving money on the table. In these economical different times perhaps even more than ever.

Yes, I know. This is turning into a kind of ‘hobby horse’ of mine, but as managing director of a small brick & mortar business and owner of 7 blog-sites I see the positive results of using a blog-platform to grow your business on a daily basis.

I definitely plan to write more about this particular ‘hobby horse’ of mine in the near future and have already written other articles on using blogs and webmarketing to grow your business in a simple, effective and honest way. If you like you can pop-in your name and email address below to subscriber to the free and ever growing number of articles. They will land in your inbox at regular intervals, so you can learn and use them on your own pace. 

   

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Greetings from the 1 plus 1 makes 3 experts

Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

Who else wants to learn how to use a blog-platform to grow their business?

Our own business - Wood You Like, natural wooden flooring - has been using a blog platform (Typepad) for many years now (3 years to be exact). It is an integrated part of our whole web presence, is interactive, scores very high on the Google search results and is very simple to manage.
The 'fixed' pages feature enables you to create a 'standard' (or static) business website on Typepad's blog platform too!

Once you realise what the effect of a blog platform can have for a business, you - well at least I do - try to encourage others to use the same practical and simple online tool to improve their businesses too. Together with my friend Lesley a whole blog-workshop program was set up last year.

Now, by combining a typepad blog-site with the password protection feature and ScreenSteps (Documentation, Done, Right) The Practical Typepad Guide is now available as online home-study program. It is still an ongoing process of adding more and more lessons to the Guide, and I'm looking for eager beavers who want to have a go at it now for a reduced price.

UPDATE: Program is temporarily taken off the product list, will return soon as part of the WebMarketing ToolBox for Small Businesses.

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