Find out how long it’s been since your subscribers have opened your message. Then, find out how many read the information and went to your Web site because of it. If you separate your customers based on the last time they opened your message, you’ll get a better idea of active and inactive recipients. In the last three months, how many of your customers opened your e-newsletter? It may be time to send an inquiry to see if there is an area that can be improved, but better yet, specifically target a new campaign to your most current readers. If they haven’t been reading your material in the last three months, there’s little chance they’ll open it now to give you feedback, but I’m an optimist … there is a chance if you take that list and upload it into another with a list name that will compel them, like a question in the subject line. If you hook ‘em with that, they may opt in to your new material with anticipation.

Either way, you don’t want to waste everyone’s time by targeting uninterested readers.

If your emails are dumping into spam filters, it hurts your reputation. Review Email Best Practices to make sure you are within appropriate guidelines to avoid becoming spam.

Was this helpful? We always love hearing from you, so please leave your comments below.

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I’m smart enough, I’m strong enough, and gosh darn it … people like me!

~Stuart Smalley played by Al Franken on Saturday Night Live

Maybe it dates me, but the old Saturday Night Live skits were pretty funny. My little sister makes fun of my positive attitude with this quote all the time. I know it was a skit that mocked  people’s addiction to 12 Step classes, but is it possible he actually had the right idea? Do you psych yourself up in the morning with positive affirmations in the bathroom mirror? Do you talk yourself up in the car on the way to a sale? I have definitely told my discouraged teenagers to take some time to encourage themselves before they face a difficult time. It’s really not bad advice. Even in business, we need to be keenly aware of what is going well.

Change Your Thinking, And Success Will Follow
Everyone who runs a business is marketing and selling something. If you’re not, you’re not going to get too far. When everyone around you is concerned about sales, you would do well to realize that if you’re business has slowed down, it’s because other businesses have slowed down. The right attitude to use with your customer is to share what you can do for their company that will in turn pick up business for them. If you go in commiserating about the down economy and fewer spenders, you aren’t going to have much success. You need to become better at language that recognizes the ‘upside’ of things. Have you thought about what can be done?

It won’t take you 30 minutes to jot down ways that you can incorporate more positive language into your communication. Find out what has gone right with your products or services lately. Many times conversations will surround needs for improvement, and while that is extremely important, you need to be an aggressive finder-outer of what has gone terrific and make sure your team realizes what’s at stake if they don’t do the same. When something goes well, expound upon why and how it went well, and do not forget to ask your client for written positive feedback in the form of an email or business review on Yelp.com, MerchantCircle or Google Local.

When you practice positive speak, people notice. Maybe not immediately, but sooner or later, the glass is half full approach will win the favor of your clients while the glass half empty approach will always keep them more distant than you realize.

What do you do to encourage yourself? Do you make it a regular practice? Tell us about it.

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My husband, Gerald, has built an impressive number of links to his Web site through forum posting. But for him it hasn’t been about building links at all. That’s just a happy byproduct. Gerald is the author of today’s post:

I spend several hours a week actively engaged on several of the scale modeling community’s forums. As an avid scale modeler, I enjoy the time interacting with others who enjoy and share my interest in this hobby. It has also been a lucrative tool to market my products directly to the consumers who use them.

My approach attracting new customers from this venue is very subtle. It has to be, as there are rules (terms and conditions of membership) I must obey. I approach this as scale modeler and member of the community first. Then as a representative of my business and its products second.

Those who join these communities only to self promote find themselves quickly being ignored, blocked and eventually outcast. These forums serve as a conduit of communication where the membership can exchange ideas, ask questions, share reference resources and most importantly to the savvy small business owner, provide referrals to towards your products and services that they are seeking.

Many of the forums which I subscribe have rules which ban out right advertising and product promotion. When the opportunity arises I will make recommendations and show examples of the results others as well as myself have experienced using the products I produce. Instead of it being a pointblank in your face advertisement, it is done in more of a whisper of sorts.

I try to be of service to others, providing hints, tips, techniques and guidance to my fellow scale modelers as they try to increase their individual skill sets or tackle a project which is outside their comfort zone. This earns one respect if your suggestions are sound and viable. That respect in turn leads to trust, which in turn can benefit you in your efforts to influence consumer’s product purchasing decisions…towards your products and services.

The end result is the more time I spend interacting with those in my targeted consumer demographic the greater return I get. These subtle hints, aimed at a specific group, have yielded more return than a broad spectrum ad promoting my products. How do I know it works? The tangible result is more orders for my products. This is a direct marketing strategy with zero cost except my time. I enjoy the time spent so it doesn’t really feel like W-O-R-K.

Today’s Assignment: Identify and locate a forum group that applies to the consumption of your products. Join the group. Watch and listen to the group, then step in and introduce yourself. Engage in conversations but do not promote yourself or your company until you feel comfortable that you are part of the community.

My Dad often uses that kind of questioning when trying to explain something to me. He loves to incite thought, and isn’t above a little ribbing to get you to consider a notion.

Progressing isn’t a matter of whether or not a certain ‘thing’ exists, rather, that choices were made.

“It’s not our abilities, Harry, that show what we truly are, it’s our choices.” ~Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets

If that ‘thing’ is anything, it’s the ability to make choices. Two steps forward and one step back is a slow way to get to the top, although for a season, everyone experiences that. You can’t get past anything that you don’t go through, however. It’s what’s on the other side that motivates us and propels our ambition.

My youngest daughter played soccer on a city league when she was in kindergarten up through the second grade. She was the smallest on the team, some would say the runt of the litter, but she knew that ball needed to get inside the goal. There wasn’t one girl she wouldn’t take out to get it in there, either. Sitting in the penalty box was often the result of making the wrong choice with determination. She has always been a very determined young lady. She’s eighteen now, but I can still see her, running with her curly head down as fast as she could straight into another girl to knock her down like a ram! So tiny, so strong.

I’d like to remind her and everyone else that we can be determined to do the right thing or the wrong thing, and it’s not only the determination that brings us success, but the choices we’re determined to make.

Take 30 minutes today to make preliminary decisions about your trajectory. Start with where you want to be five years from now, and break it down to what that means you’ll have to do this year to make that happen. What then, will you need to do in the next six months, one month, and week to stay on course? Just a notepad and paper, your brain and you. Have a little meeting with yourself to see if you really want what you’ve chosen, and then determine to break through the inevitable obstacles until you arrive at your goals.

Oh, you’ve got what it takes alright. It takes you, determined effort, and hard choices. The question in the long run won’t be “Did you have what it took?” but “Did you do what needed to be done?”

Microsoft’s Bing, which has branded itself as a “decision engine” has been nipping at Google’s heels for quite some time now. When you bring a PC home from the store, Internet Explorer is the default browser and Bing is the default search engine. If your market is less than tech-savvy, this is especially relevant. They’ll stay put, and use what’s already installed and accessible.

If you rely on foot traffic for business, don’t overlook the importance of being found in local listings web-enabled phones, as well as through local search via the conventional office computer. Local search is one area where Bing excels. Check out this listing for my home town of Neenah, WI. It’s convenient, uncluttered, and easy to use.

Clicking through to the restaurant category reveals more choices. I can select a restaurant by the strength of customer reviews, by price point, atmosphere, and more.

Whether or not you use Bing isn’t the question. Your business needs to be found in its Local Listing Center.

To sign up for a Bing local listing, visit https://sssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx. You’ll need a Windows Live ID to sign in. Be sure to fill out your business listing as completely as you can. Use keywords as appropriate and DO link back to your Web site. Choose up to six categories for your business, listing the most important one first. As with Google, your listing will need to be verified to prove that it’s your business. Once they get in touch with you and verify your business, you’re good to go. Get out there!

Are you listed on Bing?

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In a way, it’s a nice problem to have. For me, it means business is good. But staying too busy for too long leads to burnout. And letting important things slide because you just can’t get to them isn’t the answer either.

If you can’t find the time to market your business consistently, expect a dry spell ahead. As small business owners, we are all too familiar with the feast or famine syndrome. Nine times out of ten, it’s a result of failing to find the time to promote ourselves a few weeks or months back.

So what can we let slide? What can we put on hold without jeopardizing our profitability? It certainly can’t be the client work, the producing of products, the running of the store. Likewise, we can’t skimp on customer service or the business bookkeeping. (Try telling Uncle Sam that you just didn’t have time to do your taxes.)

No, those are all core business tasks – and I put marketing first on purpose. It’s the easiest thing to excuse with the thought that we’ll get back to it next week. But it must remain a priority – a top priority, day in and day out for any business that wants to move beyond the cycle of feast and famine.

This line of thought was why I changed the focus of this blog to 30-minute, actionable, small business marketing tips. Just 30-minutes, five days a week is enough to make a difference.

Productivity Tools

I find it helpful to focus on one task at a time, eliminating all other distractions. You can use a kitchen timer or a web-based tool like Toggl. I’ve grown to really appreciate the latter as it provides an easy way for me to keep track of where my time goes each day.

Another productivity enhancer, especially if you collaborate with others or manage large projects, is DeskAway. My team is still adjusting to it, but it saves me time because all communication regarding one project is in one place, easily viewed and managed. In addition to team projects, I also use it to assign time-specific tasks for myself – 30 minutes of social networking, 30 minutes on product creation, 30 minutes of marketing, daily planning, weekly bookkeeping, etc. At the end of each day, I fill in the time spent on each client project and on my personal tasks (gleaned from Toggl). It’s easy to use, and has helped my daily organization and productivity.

Social Oomph remains my social media productivity tool of choice. I use it to vet my new Twitter followers (is it someone I want to follow back?), and also to schedule some tweets in advance. It has many more functions, but these are my favorites.

Facebook business page updates just got easier, thanks to a tip from Social Media Examiner. I’ve set Facebook’s Notes application to import all tweets that I mark as favorites. So whatever I find that’s relevant for our page – with one click of the mouse also becomes an update for our Zero To Sixty Marketing page.

Neither of these last two tips are meant to take the place of time spent actively social networking. The name of the game is engagement, but that’s a topic for another day.

And last, but not least, think about what you could outsource. You don’t have to do it all yourself!

Today’s Assignment: Focus on productivity. Check out one or more of the tools I’ve mentioned. Might any of them be useful to you? What are your favorite productivity tools?

Related Reading:
Managing Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? by William Oncken
No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy
First Things First by Stephen R. Covey

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There are many article submission sites out there, believe me – I’ve gone through several. What I love about EzineArticles.com can’t be said in one sentence.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, their tutorials will develop your skill, and if you do know what you’re doing, well…you’ve probably already been using the site. If you’re a lousy scammer/spammer using unhealthy tactics, they will toss you out on your ear. It’s nice to know that when your article has been approved, you won’t be mistaken for that. Here are a few of the reasons you should take 30 minutes to build your author profile on this particular submission site and establish credible articles surrounding the niche you’ve chosen to tackle.

• All articles are available for reprint with your personal bio box attached with it.
• Your bio box includes your business information and links back to your Web site.
• You can take advantage of keywords they provide based on your content, or you can add your own to increase visibility.
• If you have a basic knowledge of HTML, you can refine your article format.
• If you don’t have any knowledge of HTML, you can write in the ‘what you see is what you get’ editor – or WYSIWYG
• When you sign up for their newsletter, they hand serve you ideas for article submissions right through your inbox.
• At every stage of your article submission, you are given advice and guidance to improve your article before it goes through approval and goes live.

The link strategy here is especially helpful if you take the time to research the keywords that your readers will be using when they look for information you divulge. Your article will be required to fit into a category and if possible, a sub-category. When you’re careful to use appropriate keywords in your category, title, teaser summary, and headers, your articles will be found when someone Google’s those terms. Remember to write for a human first, and a spider last. Don’t assume the words by themselves do ANYTHING, they don’t. Good writing incorporates keywords naturally, and thereby causes a reader to want to read your information. That practice will cause search engine spiders to notice the correlation between the words that are typed into search by a searcher, and the words used in your article.

Once your article is approved it goes live immediately. Make sure you promote it by:

• Using a URL shortener like bitly.com, or an owly link from Hootsuite, and post the article’s URL on Twitter.
• Post to Facebook with a short reason why your article should be read.
• Link to it on your MerchantCircle blog or newsletter.
• Write a blog post for your Web site and refer to your article.
• Write several related articles and set them up in a Squidoo lens surrounding that topic.

Have fun developing this skill. It will benefit you greatly over the years. The more articles you have in the directory you’ll be building for yourself, the better your links will get. Naturally, the longer your articles are live, more eyes will have a chance to review them. Meanwhile, you benefit from the link in the bio box back to your Web site.

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Have your prices been reduced for a sale or have they been reduced by 25% for 3 days only?

Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. They leave no impression whatever. To say, “Best in the world,” “Lowest price in existence,” etc. are at best simply claiming the expected. But superlatives of that sort are usually damaging. They suggest looseness of expression, a tendency to exaggerate, a careless truth. They lead readers to discount all the statements that you make.” ~ Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising

Whether we’re talking about your overall message, the sales copy for your next ad, or the content of an email blast, the more specific your message, the more weight your message will carry. A specific message is either truth or a lie. There’s no middle ground, less opinion, more fact.

If a claim is worth making, make it in the most impressive way.

Today’s Assignment: Create a checklist of specific claims that you can make about your product or service. Don’t just file it away when you’re through. Post it somewhere you’ll see it often. Add to it or delete from it as needed. Refer to it when creating your next ad or promotional copy. Turn it into a flier and use it as a “leave-behind.” Post it to your Web site as an FAQ page or as a list of reasons to do business with you.

David Daniels of Radon Specialists of WI does this brilliantly. Every customer question and its answer is posted to an extensive FAQ page. Another page shows photos of poorly installed Radon systems by unnamed competitors, each with an explanation of what was done wrong and why it matters. The end result is a site that shows his company’s expertise. He doesn’t shout “we’re the best” from the rooftops; he specifically shows how and why they excel at what they do.

Wired ZipLine Challenge Course in Canton, Texas has the right idea too. They’ve issued a charitable challenge: Fan them on Facebook from now through the end of March and they’ll donate $1 to North Texas Food Bank for each new fan. They’ve issued a press release with (you guessed it) all the specifics.

Get specific. It works!

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Delicious.com links are no-followed, meaning it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to spam their system with a link to every page on your site. In fact, bookmarking your website pages to promote or advertise them is against Yahoo’s terms of service. Still, it does make sense to bookmark information that you want to easily return to and sometimes that WILL be to a page on your own site. And I don’t know how or why, but those no-followed links still help your page’s rank on the search engines results page. Confused? So are the experts. But here’s my take on it: Just bookmark relevant sites that you want to return to. Enjoy the ease and simplicity of saving your bookmarks this way, and know that your public bookmarks are visible and included in the Delicious.com search results. Check it out for yourself, and if you find this post useful, please share it with your friends and / or bookmark it on Delicious.com.

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Clicking on the map pin for any of these businesses will bring you to the Google Maps page for the same keywords. In the screen shot below, I’ve clicked on the top search result, which brings up a balloon with expanded information from the Local Business Center listing.

Alternatively, you could click on the “Directions and more” link in the first screen and go straight to the Local Business Center listing below. If this is old news to you … good for you! I hope you’re taking full advantage of this free listing. If not, I hope you can now see its value.

Either way, here’s where it gets interesting. Just this month Google added a new feature to their Local Business Center. Now you can post short snippets of information directly to your LBC listing as frequently as you like.  Whatever you post will show up where the arrow is pointing, below. Wouldn’t that be a handy way to keep your listing fresh and updated with the latest information?

The “Post to your place page” box is in the upper right of your Google LBC dashboard. You’re limited to 160 characters, so you’ll have to be brief, but that’s plenty of space to post a note about a sale or an event.

Today’s Assignment:

If you don’t yet have a Google Local Business Center listing, log into your Google account and set one up. For detailed instructions on how to do that, please see Have You Claimed Your Google Local Business Listing. You’ll need to complete this quick and painless process before taking the next step.

If you DO have an existing Google Local Business Center listing, log in from your Google account, then post your first update. Add a reminder to your calendar to update it at least within the next 30 days.

This feature is not yet widely known about. I believe it has great potential, but only time will tell. What do you think? Do you agree that it’s worth a try?

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