E-newsletter Publishing

One of two Email Service Providers that I use and recommend is MadMimi. Their deceptively simple email editor is the easiest-to-use I’ve found after testing a dozen or so email service providers over the years.

Recently, MadMimi added a cool feature that all of you social media fans will simply love: the ability to add a set of icons that link to your favourite social networking sites, such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Just pick the sites you use regularly and Mimi will place specially designed icons to the bottom of your emails automatically.

These are the sites currently supported:

MadMimi is still free to use for as long as your list is under 100 subscribers! Try MadMimi today!

Check out also these related articles on my Email Marketing Blog:
Cool New Tool for MadMimi
MadMimi Brings the Fun Back to Sending Email “Blasts”

In times of recession, most small business owners tend to do the wrong thing: trying to save money by cutting back on their marketing spending. I hope you’re not one of them, and that you know that we must promote our businesses all the time, even when times are great, but even more so in tough times.

Well, I can say I’ve never been busier, and I’d like to share some of the secrets of how I got myself booked solid for the next several months!

Join me for a 3-hour training seminar in Oakville and learn how to

► Build an Email List
► Create Effective Email Campaigns
► Get More Clients

Did you know that Email Marketing has the highest ROI over all other marketing channels?

In my seminar I will teach you:

How to Build an Email List of Contacts and Subscribers

• How to use your web site or blog as a lead generator
• What you need to sign up visitors to your email list
• Secrets to generating traffic to your web site, or other online presence
• How to entice visitors to sign up to receive more information from you

How to Easily Create Effective Email Newsletters and eFlyers

• Follow up with automated and semi-automated messages
• Learn about auto-responders, e-newsletters and email flyers
• Find out about the technology needed to deliver email marketing messages
• Learn how to prepare email campaigns yourself

How to Make More Money with Email

• You don’t need an e-commerce site to make money with email
• How to take credit cards, e-cheques and money transfers online
• Find out the hidden potential in your business – any business
• Learn how to create products or services to sell online
• Finally reach your business goals in 2009 – regardless of the state of the economy

What Do You Get?

• 3 hours of coaching, tips, strategies you can use immediately
• You will create your 1st email newsletter – bring your laptop!
• Ask any questions you might have in Q&A sessions throughout the seminar

Bonuses:

• bonus CD audio+PDF presentation of my Email Marketing Tips and Strategies for Solopreneurs a value of $27 on its own
• Chance to win 50 Tips on Growing your Business Online 2 hours+ videos and eBook package valued at $47
• Free online Email Publishing Account – use it as long as you want to grow and manage your list
• Enjoy complimentary refreshments: hot coffee, tea and muffins!

For more information and to register now visit: iBizAcademy.com/Oakville-Apr-2/

Want proof?

See what other small business owners have said about my training courses!

I must admit I was a reluctant blogger. I knew if I started a blog I would have to publish on it regularly, and being already busy with publishing my award-winning ezine and working with clients, I thought I’d never be able to keep up.

Good thing I found the time!

Now I not only love it, but I recommend it to all my business contacts and especially my clients. As an Email Marketing Coach I love email marketing, which still delivers a great rate of return on investment, but I’m the first to say: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! If you’re a solo professional, or small business owner, you must publish an email newsletter, have an auto-responder, write on your blog, have a Facebook profile, do live business networking, etc.

Here are just three reasons why I love blogging:

1. It allows me to reach a much wider audience than by just publishing an email newsletter. Blogs have built-in features that basically “push” my content to search engines and blog directories. This would be hard, if not impossible, to accomplish by a “web 1.0″ web site. My blog site now allows me to reach out to my audience in 3 different ways: using RSS, RSS feed delivered by email, and via ezine subscription. This enables my audience to get my articles the way they prefer.

2. Deciding to build my new web site using WordPress, enabled me to create what I call a blog site: a combination of a static, web 1.0 web site, with the power and versatility of the Web 2.0 blog. My blog site is now search engine optimized, and every time I hit “Publish”, soon after, Google, Yahoo! and dozens of other services get “pinged” and my content gets indexed immediately.

3. Having a blog has also enabled me to attract the right type of prospects. Before starting a blog, my whole web presence was a 1-page “squeeze page.” It served its purpose well — it created a lot of subscribers to my e-newsletter — but after a while I realized that I wanted to attract a different type of prospect, one who’d like to get to know me a little bit before considering hiring me. A visitor to my blog site can now read my articles which build my credibility, so I don’t have to “sell” my self, my content does it for me.

Finally, blogging makes it really easy and fun to connect with other great professionals in the wider blogosphere.

Here are five people I’d like to see write a quick blog post on this topic:

Charmaine Idzerda
Sandy McMullen
Dr. Kiya L. Immergluck
Grace Yvonne Attard
Cheryl Scoffield

I invite YOU, the reader, too, to share here by commenting or on your own blog! Please send me the link if you post on your own blog. BTW, this whole thing started on TypePad.com – get the “official” guidelines.

Thank you Patsi Krakoff, for inspiring me to write this entry.

Blogging for your business is not an option anymore, but does it work better that Email Marketing?

How do you make the these two marketing strategies work together to create a powerful tool to boost your small business or professional practice?

On Wednesday, February 11, I will be asking ask Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, the dynamic duo also know as the BlogSquad, some tough questions:

• Is blogging an option for any kind of business?
• How to use blogging to strategically market a business?
• How to choose which blogging platform to use?
• What are some of the pitfalls and how to avoid them?
• I have a web site – why do I need a blog, too?
• I already have a web site – how do I connect my blog to it?
• I have an email newsletter – how do I use my blog to generate more subscribers?
• What is RSS, FeedBurner, FeedBlitz – and do I need to be a tech geek to create and maintain a blog?
• How do I blog without having a blog of my own?

These are a few of the questions Patsi, Denise and I will answer for you.

This is a FREE tele-seminar, LIVE on Wednesday, February 11, starting at 3pm EST

There will be no pitching or selling on the call, just pure content.

Seating is limited, so register for your chance to jump start your blogging efforts in 2009, or if you’re already blogging, to find out how to make the most of business blogging to promote your business.

If you can’t make the live event, a downloadable MP3 recording of the call will be available, so register now:

http://www.ibizacademy.com/blogsquad/

See you on the call!

Boris Mahovac – Email Marketing Coach

This last Monday, I was having a coffee at the Williams Coffee Bar on Trafalgar and Dundas, in Oakville, writing an article for this week’s ezine, when an email came in from “Writing That Works” announcing the APEX 2008 Awards.

I eagerly opened it, because this year I entered my biweekly ezine, Contacts2Clients, in the competition.

As I was reading through the list of winners I felt like I was 18 again. I remember, a long time ago when I was going through the list of students who made it through the entrance exams to university – going one line at a time, hoping to find my name on the list.

Unlike the university list, the APEX awards list was much shorter, however my name was last, because they sorted it by business name, and Your Ezine Coach, as you can imagine, comes pretty close to the end of the list.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I’m now an award-winning e-newsletter publisher!

If you’re publishing an e-newsletter, I’d highly recommend you enter the competition for 2009.

To celebrate this honour, I am giving away five (5) free Email Service Account set up, worth $199 each to 5 people who sign up for any monthly email production package or coaching.

You’ll have to call me or email me to set it up. You will also receive this added bonus – free Massive List Building Platinum Package - a value of $37.

Call me at 1-905-844-4247 (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm EST) to get your spot.

It’s bonus time!

Last couple of weeks I’ve been busy writing, recording, sound-editing, re-writing, and then re-recording my new special report: “The 4 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in Marketing Your Small Business.” It’s now ready in audio format you can listen to on line, or download an MP3 to your PC. I personally prefer to listen to this kind of educational materials in my car.

There will be a printable PDF version as well, hopefully by the end of the week. For audio recording I used Impact Web Audio and the files are hosted by AudioAcrobat.

This is an off line method of building your list, but you will be driving traffic to your web site, where your prospects can sign up. You will achieve best results if you can find a newspaper or magazine whose readership is your target market. For example, if you were a matchmaker you could place a classified ad in the “Personals” section of your local newspaper.

Bonus tip: Start small (i.e. cheap) to polish your ad, then work up to display ads which are more expensive.

Make sure you track the effectiveness of each of these marketing techniques. I recommend you use ad-tracking software, which allows you to assign a unique “ID” to each article, listing, or classified ad. This way you will be able to track your subscribers, see where they are coming from, how many are converting to clients, etc. This kind of information can help you eliminate marketing strategies that do not work, so that you can concentrate on the ones that do.

If you’d like to add ad-tracking features to your existing Email System Provider, I recommend HyperTracker.

With co-registration, you advertise your ezine along one or more other advertisers. A prospect can then sign up for one or more ezines at the same time.

You can set this up as a joint venture (free) with one or more ezine publishers or use a co-registration service (paid).

If you go the JV route, you will have to set up a custom script on your own web server, and your JV partners would do the same. There are many options available to you, simply search the web, or have your web master set it up.

If you’re not technically inclined, or do not have the time to look for JV partners, I recommend you use a co-reg service. In a day or two you can add hundreds of new subscribers to your list!

Simply put, you sign up with a service provider who then places your ezine ad on their web site. You sign up to buy a certain number of subscribers. I use ListBuilder and GetSubscribers (the latter only works with GetResponse, a highly-recommended Auto-Responder and Email Service Provider).

There are a number of these services available on the net, the one I recommend is New-List.com (free). These directories will show your ezine description or ad to anyone looking for information on a given subject.

Another good spot to look is DirectoryOfEzines.com (fee-based).

For one thing, submitting your ezine to ezine directories will create links back to your web site or blog. It will also generate traffic of highly qualified prospects who are very likely to be interested in what you have to offer. At the very least they will sign up to receive your e-newsletter, and from there it’s up to you to convert them to paying customers or clients.

If you are already publishing your newsletter or ezine, you have articles. You can write them yourself, or have them written by a freelance copywriter (see elance.com and similar sites). Distribute your articles to article directories. These are mostly free web sites that accept articles on many different topics.

Here’s a short list of highly-ranked article directories. My in-depth article on article writing is still on my web site.

1. EzineArticles.com
2. ArticlesFactory.com
3. ArticleCity.com
4. ArticleDashboard.com
5. BusinessKnowHow.com
6. ArticleBiz.com

How does article writing benefit you? In your article you are allowed to place links to your web site. All article directories allow so-called resource boxes, but some also allow links within the body of the article. A resource box is usually placed at the end of your article, and you can include your name, business name and any offer to entice readers to sign up to your list.