Keep a lookout for John’s next move tomorrow…

Although there are no hard and fast rules to drafting a marketing email that converts like crazy, however there are certain common mistakes that most marketers make, which if you do it correctly, will help to increase conversion. In actual fact, if you think about it, drafting a good email is all about putting your heart into the email and adding a pinch of common sense.

So here goes…

1. No use / over-use of personalization

When necessary, it is recommended to personalise your marketing email such as adding receipient’s firstname in the email’s subject, opening and closing. By doing so, it shows that your email is not another mass mail, but rather a personal message directed at the recipient, which the recipient may feel more obligated to read and response to. However, over-use of names in the email will seem too deliberate and result may backfire.

2. Too formal / extreme use of tone and words

Email is all about building relationship and to get your recipients to act on your request, thus it is good to maintain a friendly and business-like tone. Having too formal or extreme use of tone such as SHOUTING, use of vulgarity and harsh words, most of the time tends to put people off. “Talk” to them like to your friends, but add a pinch of professionalism so as to maintain your credibility and show of expertise in whatever you’re promoting.

3. Too pitchy

Nobody likes to be sold, and when you’ve received enough email, you can easily pick out a sales email just by looking at the subject or the opening paragraph. Instead of being too pitchy in your email, tone it down to be more of a sharing or recommendation. At least it won’t sound like you want to make money off them.

4. Lack focus

Each email should have just one objective, and that is to simply get the recipient to perform an action, not two, not three, just one action. If your intention is to get the recipient to visit a specific webpage, don’t give them links to other pages. If you want them to response to your questions, don’t distract them with any links.

5. Talk too much about yourself

Some marketers tend to talk too much about themself. Well, I’m not saying you shouldn’t share about yourself and your results, especially if your recipients do not know you, just don’t give too much non-relevant information that don’t benefit them. In the end, it comes back to the question “So, What?” and “Whats in it for me?”

6. No call to action

The call to action most of the time tends to be missing from the email. Imagine you wrote a fantastic subject line that got people curious and open your email, followed by great opening and body content that got them excited and wanting to find out more….then you sign off. What a waste! Give them something to do, even if you don’t have a product or service to marketing them, at least ask for their opinion. That is the way to create a responsive list.

7. Not giving specific reason to act

Yes of course, the call to action is important. But at times if you don’t give your recipient a reason to act now, they may proscratinate and put off the task and forget about it. Thus, you may want to adopt scarcity tactics such as time base or quantity base deadline.

So what do you do now? My suggestion is to take out 1 or 2 of your emails and see if you can find any of the 7 mistakes in there, and improve on it. Nobody can be an email expert overnight, but if you practice and test, you will gain the skill of an email marketer and see your income grow.

Before you move on, click on the link below for the back-door access to Michael Rasmussen’s training videos that teaches you how to write a good promotional email. And you don’t have to pay a single cent for them.

Click Here To View FREE Training Video

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What this means is that you no longer have to second guess the amount of searches done for a set of keywords from Google, the largest search engine. And it will be much easier for you to conduct your keyword research and finding the niche from a better perspective. On top of that, it makes Google’s Keyword tool much more favourable as a free service.

Instead of using ratings of 1 to 5 for the search volume, by knowing the estimated figures directly from Google, we will have a better insight on the demand, thus finding a higher quality, narrowly focused niche keyword sets, and also in planning our advertising budget.

In the short term, I would also expect leading keyword research software such as keyword Elite and keyword research service like Wordtracker to update their backend to incorporate this data for higher quality results for their clients.

In short, this move by Google to reveal it’s search volume data, is definitely adding great value to us as Internet Marketers. So do check it out now, and discover how it will greatly enhance your keyword research experience.

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To cut it short, the conversation is about Keith wanting to provide my friend a constant stream of income, where “Keith” will create the site and do the promotion for whatever product, while my friend just need to do a simple task, collecting the cheques. In fact, he dished out a few big names in the Internet marketing scene, including our local Internet hero, Ewen Chia, the super affiliate.

Too good to be true? What’s the catch?

Well, the investment my friend need to fork out is $3,500, which “Keith” conveniently asked for the credit card details over the phone. The proposal seems to worth much more than the amount my friend has to pay, but do you see the problem here?

“What if it’s a scam?”

That’s exactly what I told my friend and it hit him right in the face. BAM!

It is not for me to say whether the person is really the Keith Wellman we know, or that the proposal is legitimate. However, we should be doing our due deligence, and not just give our credit card details away freely over the phone. In fact, you’re putting yourself at a higher risk by giving away confidential information to strangers.  

There’re many scams out there in the market, usually money motivated such as how much you can be making in a short time period. Sometimes, the figures just blow you off and keep you from thinking straight while you’re all hyped up. Thus, this phrase may come in handy to save you from a foolish move, and take a step back.

“If it excites you, don’t do it…”

By the way, if you have any related experiences, please do share with us by commenting to this post.

Latest announcement came in that Jeremy Palmer, the creator of the Black Ink Project, is pulling back the curtain and releasing the next installment of the project, called “Black Ink Project 2.0” and this is going to be better than Black Ink 1.0. Not just that, he is going to give away limited copies of his in-house affiliate tracking and cloaking program worth $94.

How much is Black Ink 2.0 going to be?

Well, it’s going to be the same price as Black Ink 1.0, which is FREE!

So what are you waiting for?

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Sounds confusing?

In short… You need an opt-in form, and you also need to replace it as well!

Wait! Before you pick up your computer and start throwing it at me, let us first take a step back….

As a marketer, you should have your own autorespondent software or services (I highly recommend aweber or getresponse) to capture visitors’ details such as name and email addresses. Normally, the opt-in process requires visitors to verify their email addresses, termed as double opt-in. Below is a typical process flow of an autorespondent with opt-in form embeded in a blog/website.

The ultimate goal here is to get the visitor’s opt-in detail into the mailing list, and you’ll notice that this happens only when the person clicks on the verification link in the email sent to them. Thus, there will definitely be a certain percentage of people who did not do that. Some of the common reasons for unsuccessful verification include:

1. Visitor opted-in with the wrong email
2. Verification email got into the spam folder
3. Visitor forgot/missed/did not bother to open the verification email and follow the instruction within.

We can address point 1 and 2 by giving proper instruction upon opt-in and also to drafting the email correctly so that it doesn’t get filtered as spam.

So how about point 3? You can reduce this problem and increase you verification rate by simply replacing your opt-in form.

Imagine this for a moment…

John visited your blog, likes it and decided to opt-in to your mailing list by filling up his name and email address into your opt-in form. Since John has not verified his email yet, the next time he visits your blog, instead of seeing the opt-in form, he sees a message reminding him to check his inbox for the verification email. After he has verified his email by clicking on the link in the email, subsequent visit to your blog, he sees a welcome message. This is illustrated in the figure below.

The typical process flow remains the same, only difference is what the visitor sees in replacement of the opt-in form. Think about it, since the visitor has already opted-in, whats the point of having the opt-in form up there taking up precious space? You can be creative with the space such as:

• Updates of new products in the members’ area
• Promoting products
• Special announcements
• and more…

Such “magical” process can easily be achieved through the use of cookies to track whether the visitor has opted-in and verified his email, and take the necessary course of action. Sounds simple doesn’t it? 

I won’t go into the technical details as it may be too confusing especially for those with no technical background. However, if you’re keen to get this process up running in your blog or website, simply leave your comment below and if there is a demand I’ll consider releasing the script.

Want to see the process in action? You can do so by filling in your name and email in my opt-in form on the right sidebar and see how it works. 

However, I do know that improving oneself is definitely a must, especially to feed our mind and soul with positivity, while we’re constantly surrounded with so much negative energy. Heck, just turn on the TV, and you’re already sucking in bad news of the quakes, death, riot, inflations and so on. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t keep up to date with current affairs, I’m just saying that we all need a balance of mind. 

Since my eyes are normally almost to the point of closing after reading 2 to 3 chapters of the book (other than comic books), I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks. This is definitely the most relaxing way to “read” a book without having to strain my eyes while traveling on a bus. In fact, I’m currently listening to the audio version of  ”The 4-Hour Work Week“. By the way, if you investigate further, you will be amazed at how the audiobook industry has evolved.

Anyway, here are 10 audiobooks I highly recommend to get your day moving while maximizing on your dead time, e.g. driving, traveling, gardening, working out, queuing and etc… to improve your mind.

1. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Timothy Ferriss
2. Awaken the Giant Within - Anthony Robbins
3. How To Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie
4. How To Get What You Want And Want What You Have - Dr. John Gray
5. How To Talk To Anyone - Leil Lowndes
6. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
7. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne
8. Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers
9. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind & Your Life - Martin Seligman
10. How To Stop Worrying And Start Living - Dale Carnegie

 Simply download them to your mp3 players and listen to them anytime, anywhere.

In appreciation for reading this post, and to kickstart your investment, I’ve included a 10% discount coupon code for your first audiobook purchase. Simply visit the Merlion Audio store, and use the coupon code ”stimes” when you check out. This coupon is valid till end of June, which is this month.

Enjoy!

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