You know how sometimes you’re so blown away by the service you receive from a company, that you feel compelled to tell everyone about it?

Well, today I bought a suite of thirteen new professional WordPress themes from Simple Themes, but somehow managed to ‘break’ the first one I installed on a website I’m setting up for a new client.

I submitted a support ticket on the Simple Themes forum and left my office around 5pm.

In less than one hour, Casey from Simple Themes not only fixed what appears to have been an error on my side (a server issue – nothing to do with their theme which works perfectly), he also appears to have done additional work configuring the theme, adding images and extra plugins that make the theme sing.

I’m not used to that level of service from theme vendors. Like I say, I’m blown away (which is a phrase I don’t think I’ve ever used before!)

So, this is a BIG thank you to Casey from Simple Themes – fantastic WordPress themes and amazing service to go with it.

Ed.

Okay, so what I want to talk about today is on topic closely related to the above announcement.

A client emailed me today, asking for my advice about an idea he’s had for a new service, which he was thinking of offering to his email subscribers…

“I’m thinking of sending out an email offering << … >>> … do you think it’s a good idea?”

My answer was…MAYBE!

I suggested that instead of guessing what his list wants, that he instead runs a survey and asks them what they need help with.

I suggested he could at the very least create a list of ideas, and ask them to choose their favourite.

That way he can find the specific thing the majority want, then create and deliver it to them.

It’s much better than guessing.

Earlier this year I was at the same point. I was unsure what project to work on next. In fact, I had been working on a major programme for quite some time — but I’d started to worry that no one wanted it.

Unfortunately, I was right!

I ran a survey and gave people 12 ideas for products I was thinking of launching, including the programme I had been laboring on up to that point.

It turned out to be one of the least popular choices.

The most popular choice was for software that automatically generates sales-lead generation websites, and it was based on that invaluable feedback that I was able to instead invest my time and money developing something people actually wanted, rather than something I thought people wanted.

There’s a huge difference.

As an aside, guessing what people want seems to be the #1 mistake on Dragon’s Den, where said Dragon’s make the inventor realise he’s just wasted ten years — and hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money — creating a cure for a non-existent problem.

It makes for fascinating but often quite painful viewing – when I think of all the times I’ve attempted to second guess what people want, rather than simply asking them!

Luckily I got it right with Lead Site Launcher. There are a lot of people waiting for my new software at the moment, all thanks to the survey. (And of course it also helps to have a large email list of active subscribers too, which coincidentally you can build up using lead pages!)

All I’ve got to do now is finish it off and launch.

Nothing’s ever definite, but things look very healthy for this launch. I already have a rough idea of the people who are going to buy a launch copy of the software. And from my customers perspective, I know it’s going to fix one of their biggest and most common headaches... not because I’m a mind-reader, but simply because they told me so!

Take Action.

Before you start work on your next marketing campaign, product development or service innovation, first find out what the majority of people on your email list really want. What are their biggest ‘pains and challenges’?

Then, create a product that directly addresses the most common issues.

Taking it a step further, consider running a survey that asks your potential customers to choose from a list of product ideas, like I did in my my last survey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V55NSYW)

It sure as hell beats guessing! 

Happy surveying,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. I use SurveyMonkey, but there are lots of survey tools out there, some of which are built directly into email marketing software like GetResponse.

If you’ve implemented the advice in my second book, E-Mail Marketing Dynamite then you should have web pages that offer something free, (what I call ‘the Golden Carrot’), in return for your web site visitors name and email address.

When the visitor submits their name and email address they’re automatically sent the first of a series of pre-written emails, called an autoresponder, and also automatically become a sales lead too.

The emails in your autoresponder sequence should not only include the free information they requested, but also include sales messages offering them one or more of your products. And in this simple way you will increase your sales, usually quite significantly.

And therein lies a problem! Because you obviously don’t want your new customer to continue receiving the emails that are trying to sell them the product they just bought. That’s only going to annoy them, and get them to unsubscribe from your emails — or worse, complain and ask for a refund!

So what do you do?

Well, the answer’s simple. You move them out of your series of emails for prospects and into an autoresponder series designed for new customers, called a stick sequence.

Now in case you’re worried, NO, a stick sequence does not mean you’re going to be repeatedly hitting your new customer over the head with a heavy blunt weapon! Quite the opposite in fact.

Here’s my definition…

“A stick sequence is an additional marketing campaign aimed at retaining your new customer and offering them additional products and services.”

In a nutshell it’s a sequence of emails — and possibly other media including posted letters and maybe even customer service phone calls — which are designed to overcome what’s called “Buyer’s Remorse”, which is the tinge of regret or doubt some people get after having just bought something.

Messages in your stick sequence can…

1. Thank them for their purchase.

2. Congratulate them for having made a ‘wise buying decision’.

3. Mention some of the results they can expect to achieve.

4. Refer to the dozens (or hundreds or thousands) of existing, happy customers and the kind of results they’ve achieved.

5. Give them a link to additional free information that adds value to the sale.

6. Maybe even send them a physical gift.

For example, regarding this latter point, I received a really nice book from a company I had bought from, with a message along the lines of “Thanks for buying from us, here’s a free book that you may be interested in.”

That was a really nice touch. Even though I already owned the book, I still appreciated the gesture, and it made me think very highly of the company who sent it.

It works for me too. My bigger programmes like my flagship Ultimate Web Marketing System includes valuable unadvertised bonuses, which people get when they open the box, and I get great comments about that.

Your own stick sequence may continue for a week or more, maybe even months depending on the size of the purchase, and could include any or all of the above.

Not only will it reduce (or perhaps even totally eliminate) refund requests or complaints and customer service issues, it could also become a huge profit centre for you too.

Why?

Because as well as suppressing your new customer’s buyer’s remorse, your stick sequence can offer your new customer related products.

In other words, your stick sequence can include up-sells and cross-promotions, and the response to those can be excellent because your sales offer is being received by a customer — someone whose already bought from you before, rather than a prospect.

A common statistic states existing customers are seven times more likely to buy from you than a prospect — someone who has not bought from you yet.)

Even better, the sales offers in your stick sequence can be laser-targeted.

For example when someone pays for my Massive Traffic book, (about generating web site traffic), the sequence of emails that go out to them not only thanks them for their purchase and gives them a link to download the digital version of the book, it also sends messages offering my premium DVD training programme Massive Traffic X4… the subject of which is of course totally related to the subject of the book they bought.

So, hopefully this has given you some ideas on how to use stick sequences?

Maybe now you’re wondering how to set one up?

Setting up your Stick Sequence.

This is where your Email AutoResponder service comes in.

There are literally hundreds of services to choose from, including my old favourite Aweber, MailChimp (which is free if you have less than 500 e-mail subscribers,) and more advanced systems like SalesForce and Octane.

The one I use is InfusionSoft — powerful online software which makes it easy to automatically move a prospects from prospect-only email sequences to Customer stick sequences.

However, even basic services like Aweber allow you to do this. (If you use Aweber then look for their advanced feature called ‘Automation’ — combined with PayPal you can make it automatically move prospects into customer stick sequences after their purchase.)

I hope you’ve not only added name and email capture forms to your website, that puts prospects into an autoresponder sequence to offers them one or more of your products, I also hope you’ve set up your web marketing system to automatically move buyers into a great stick sequences too.

Your new customers will appreciate it. Your sales ledger will too!

Yesterday I talked about the pointlessness of the debate over whether a web page should have long or short copy.

Today I wanted to answer another question I frequently get asked at seminars and workshops.

It goes like this.

I’ll have just given a presentation on e-mail marketing, during which I recommend the audience do not buy lists of people’s (stranger’s) email addresses, due to the problems that can arrive from that.

I explain how buying lists of email addresses and “blasting out” email to complete strangers will get you labelled as a ‘spammer’ — someone who sends Junk email — and that the activity puts you in serious risk of breaching your Internet Service Provider’s Terms Of Service.

Then there are the extreme reasons why you may not want to buy data. For example one of my old clients actually had a death threat left on his company answerphone late one night – from a chap who was extremely upset he’d received an unsolicited email. Not nice!

Anyway when my presentation’s over, I have almost every single time had more than one person come up to me and ask… “Ed, I’ve just been offered the chance to buy a list of 100,000 e-mail addresses — but this is different to what you were talking about because they’re fully ‘opted-in’… so that means I’m okay to buy the list and use it right… right?”

I understand the question, and the reason for the tinge of hope in their voice.

After all, some of these lists of email addresses are less than $100 for 100,000 names and email addresses, so it sounds like an amazing opportunity doesn’t it. Just buy a large list of ‘opt-in’ emails, ‘blast’ out your sales message… and watch the money roll in, right?

Well, no actually!

Because the people on that list may have “opted-in” to something, and given permission to a person or organisation to email them … but not to the person buying the list of email addresses.

And that’s the absolutely critical distinction.

When someone opts-in they’re giving a specific company or organisation permission to e-mail them.

I frequently opt-in to other companies email newsletters and give them permission to email me when I buy their products, because I’m interested in what they have to say or sell.

However, what I am definitely not doing, when I opt-in to those company communications, is saying “Anyone now has the right to email me”.

Neither do I ever give any other company permission to sell my data to any third party. (I always untick the check boxes if I’m ever asked the question.)

In an ideal world we’d all be able to buy a list of one million email addresses and email them freely and build our businesses effortlessly, but of course (and thankfully) it’s not that easy… because if it were then our inboxes would be so full of unsolicited emails it would render email useless as a means of communication.

Sadly it appears to be going that way, but at the moment there’s still a lot of benefit from e-mail marketing… at least until list buying and spamming reach epidemic proportions.

Buying email lists is bad for you and for the people on those lists.

There are much better and far more ethical ways of growing your business, one of which is to simply get your customers and clients and prospects permission to email them.

What are your thoughts on buying email data?

I’m interested to know, and I’m also interested in hearing some of the things people have said to you when trying to sell you email data. Leave a comment below if you have anything to share on this subject, thanks.

Bye for now,

Ed Rivis

A few minutes ago I quickly typed out an email promotion for my next live Web Marketing seminar in July and clicked the [Send] button… and then suddenly noticed I’d mistyped the date of my Leeds seminar.

Oops.

So, if you received the email and are curious… NO, I’m not running a seminar on the 13th July 3010.

Of course my seminar’s on 13th July 2010, this year… and not in the next century.

Now, I’m quite sure my office will get a few emails and phone calls about this, from people who see the irony in a guy who wrote a book about e-mail marketing and makes such an ‘amateur’ mistake.

So, do I regret sending the email?

Actually — and I’m not being arrogant — but no I don’t.

Of course I’d rather the email was correct, but as I frequently tell my clients… it’s better to perform ‘slightly less than perfect’ marketing, than no marketing at all.

If you were going to get in touch with my office and kindly let me know you’ve spotted a mistake… no need, thank you. I already saw it.

And if you saw the mistake and are going to complain about it, then it may be quicker and easier for us both if you click the link at the bottom of the email which says “Unsubscribe” — because in recognition I’m human, I know for a fact I’ll make more mistakes in future!

Although, hopefully, not one as daft as todays!

Hope you’re having a great day,
Ed.

Come to one of my web marketing seminars and discover how to use the Internet to get more website traffic, get more customers and clients, explode your sales and profits and grow your business faster… even if you send out emails that aren’t 100% perfect!

==> Click here for more details and to grab a heavily discounted ticket.

At my recent 1-day web marketing seminar, someone in the audience mentioned he’d added a “Join our email newsletter” box to his website… but quickly removed it when he realised it meant he’d have to start writing one!!

We all laughed, and I know it was said with tongue in cheek, but it did remind me how so many small business owners struggle to write for their web marketing.

The biggest challenge is lack of time, but for many, when they do find the time to sit down and write something, many of them “can’t think of anything interesting to write.”

That’s quite unfortunate, because if you don’t regularly communicate with your active customers and clients and prospects — in an interesting way — then you aren’t maximising your sales, and they’ll become lapsed customers and clients and prospects who your competitors may start mopping up.

Failing to communicate with email subscribers is a big mistake.

The other big mistake is failing to communicate regularly.

Once a week is great. I’d say once a month is the absolute minimum for most businesses.

I didn’t post any articles to my here blog in May. That was a mistake, not something I’d recommend. It indicates my system for posting fresh content to my blog isn’t working, and needs improving. I’m on with that this week, although unfortunately I’ve got a funeral today so it’ll probably be tomorrow or Thursday when I get to that. And I’ll share the system I create, because you may be able to use it for your business too.

One problem I don’t have is thinking what to write — but I think THAT is the most common reasons marketers fail to communicate with their email list… not knowing what to write about.

As a result any available time is spent trying to think of something to say, rather than simply typing the email, posting the blog article or recording the video.

The ability to create and send interesting communications really important, not just in web marketing, but in any kind of marketing. Sometimes all you need is the right idea or concept, then the words start flowing.

So, without further ado here’s a list of 77 ideas you can use to brainstorm interesting things to say about what you do.

(And by no means is this list exhaustive, but hopefully a quick glance at this list will help you ‘unlock some ideas’ and quickly start typing.)

Stimulating Sales / E-mails to prospects

1. How to [achieve a great end result - be specific]
2. How [customer] achieved [end result] (Compelling case study)
3. Why I wrote/made/manufactured/built/designed/sell [product]
4. Reason why [product] is/has feature/benefit
5. What [third party] said about our [product]
6. What do you want to know about [end result]?
7. The secret to [end result]
8. Reveal research & design efforts
9. Unusual story (e.g. how customer uses it in a way we never thought of)
10. Comment on third party results
11. Behind the scenes at our office
12. Introducing (office member they may speak with/hear from at some point)
13. Comment on third party web site article, blog post or forum comment
14. Link to YouTube (etc.) video or comment on other (social) website content
15. Mention (and link ) to press coverage
16. Publish & comment on your own in-house research or survey results
17. Offer a contrarian opinion
18. Announce survey (with link to survey on Surveymonkey.com or similar)
19. Micro-survey "Simply hit reply to this email to send your answer"
20. Tell a story or sequence of events that involves different products (with links)
21. Video demonstration (Either ‘guerilla’ style or professionally produced)
22. Book review from your industry
23. Interview an industry expert
24. Link to third party blog post with commentary
25. Product being removed/deleted (last chance to buy- consider 24-hour special)
26. Guide to achieving [end result] (a story-like description of how using two or more products in conjunction]

Events

1. General invitation to come and see us at [event]
2. Visit us at [event] and get gift/incentive ‘for coming to say hello at [event]‘
3. Quick reminder about [event] on [date]
4. Live from [event]
5. Thanks for coming to see us at [event] the other day
6. Results of competition held at [event]

Birthdays, Anniversaries & Seasonal

1. Happy Anniversary
2. Happy Birthday
3. Happy ______
4. Merry _____

General

1. Open floor question time (optional gift to best question)
2. Answer time (and announce winner if offered a gift)
3. Ask what people want to know more about (and list subject categories)
4. XX reasons to check out the company blog (short list of best blog posts)
5. Reward for opening e-mails – first XX people (NB: EMSP must be able to tell you this data)
6. Free gift to first person who comments on blog/asks question/ adds link from their site blog/does ‘X’ and sends evidence)
7. Mention number of blog readers and offer gratitude
8. Announce Blog Birthday (and do something special for readers?)
9. Open invitation for articles from other professionals.
10. Ask for links and optionally offer to link back/review or mention somehow in future
11. Reveal behind the scenes processes & procedures
12. Expert Interviews (audio/video with optional transcript) ending with call to action (aff.)

Competitions

1. Set task
2. Stimulate entries
3. Announce winner & comments

Affiliate Marketing

1. Recommend third party product/service or free gift
2. Review complementary third party product
3. Video review
4. Interview with the author
5. Announce teleseminar/webinar

Special Offers

1. Sell Super Package (multiple products)
   1. First person to send £XXX via Paypal gets [special offer]
   2. Extra item ‘added to box’
   3. SOLD!
2. Act fast! Only X remaining…
3. I’ve reserved this especially for you
4. Price increase warning
   1. Price increase announcement

Customers only

1. Congratulations on the purchase (remind them why they just made a good decision to buy)
2. Tip(s) on how to use product or service they just bough
3. Example of how customer/client/patient got specific results (step by step they can follow too)
4. Customers who bought this also bought [related product or service]
5. Would you like this (enhancement or upgrade)
6. Free gift – thank you for your business
7. Become an affiliate
8. Can we have a few minutes of your time (Send us some feedback/testimonial?)
9. Can I interview you for my next report/whitepaper/book?
10. Customer satisfaction survey (general)
11. Ask them to answer ‘x’ specific questions and provide a photo of themselves
12. Ask for feedback about [product]
13. Arranged for you to get this preferential customer-only discount from a preferred supplier (aff. link)

Product Launch E-Mail Sequences

Before…

• Coming soon
• Survey – what would you like to see in the product?
• Preview photos (‘Spy photo’)
• Mention a feature and how it’ll be a big benefit
• Give a progress report/status update
• Launching next week
• Launching tomorrow for ‘xx’ hours only

Any of the above emails can and should be seeded with links to your products and services, or links to other comapanies products and services if you’re into affiliate marketing.

The key thing is this; aim for every email you send to be interesting, relevant, useful and informative for as many of your prospects and customers and clients as possible. That way, every email you send will demonstrate you care and want them to achieve great results, resulting in better, more profitable customer and client relationships and stand more chance of turning prospects into paying customers and clients.

Ed.

P.S. Feel free to leave a comment underneath this blog post with your own ideas for company email newsletter content. Thanks.

Here’s a story that not only highlights how incredibly effective e-mail marketing is, but also the inherent dangers of it working too well.

My new book E-Mail Marketing Dynamite has been on Amazon a while, but until a few weeks ago didn’t have any reviews.

That was a problem for me, because at the beginning of January I signed a contract to promote my new book to around 213,000 small business owners here in the UK.

I was therefore concerned that if any of those 213,000 business owners decided to see what the reviews are like on Amazon, they would see there weren’t any!

That was obviously less than ideal, so on the 18th Jan (11 days ago) I emailed everyone who got the book directly from me, and asked them if they’d mind posting a review on Amazon.

I didn’t ask for a ‘positive review’ or ‘testimonial’ – I just asked for ‘a review.’ I think the difference is subtle, but hopefully people would see I wasn’t trying to influence reviews one way or the other.

Even so, within the first few days of sending my email I’d already received 22 fabulous reviews — and that number has since gone up to 27 reviews, all of them 4 and 5 stars.

Which is brilliant. Thank you if you were one of the reviewers, I really appreciate it.

So of course I’ve been basking in the warm glow of all this positive feedback — it’s quite a relief to know my book’s been so well received because you never really know what people will think of a new book until the first batch of feedback comes in.

Unfortunately yesterday things turned a bit sour.

A really negative review of my book suddenly appeared, giving my book just 1 out of a possible 5 stars!

Of course a poor review is always disappointing, but I totally accept everyone’s entitled to their opinion. (I guess that’s why Amazon call them ‘Reviews’ and not ‘Testimonials’!)

However in this case it’s downright frustrating… because it appears the reviewer hasn’t even read my book!!

The reason he gives for his 1-star is that he doesn’t believe the other 27 four and five star reviews are genuine!

In fact — and it may just be me being a tad paranoid here — but it seems he thinks *I* made up all those reviews, and also that I’ve been seeding the Internet with other positive reviews about my books.

What a cheeky chap!

I know of one Internet Marketer who does that, but it’s certainly not my style. Besides, even if I wanted to do that, as a business owner as well as an author I haven’t got time to do it. (I’m sure as a business owner you probably know all about lack of time too!)

Anyway, I think this all goes to show just how incredibly effective email is… sometimes perhaps too effective!

My email subscriber list isn’t huge (at least not by Internet Marketing guru standards where they have hundreds of thousands of subscribers on their lists), but I do have a great relationship with many of my email subscribers, many of whom have seen me live at various seminars and workshops around the country.

Effective e-mail marketing is all about building a strong relationship with your email susbcribers – a key point I make in E-Mail Marketing Dynamite.

The email I sent out asking for reviews produced a fantastic response — in fact from the reviewers point of view it generated an “unbelievable” amount of testimonials, too quickly.

Maybe I should have asked for reviews in a different way, e-mailing people in small batches over an extended period of time. Or then again, maybe no matter what you do someone, somewhere will take offence?!

I suppose the key is to not let these things get us down as business owners and marketers, and keep pushing forwards and taking maximum advantage of tools and technologies like e-mail marketing.

Even with this unfortunate side-effect, I still highly recommend email as a highly effective way of promoting yourself and your business – just beware that sometimes even the best intentions can produce a degree of unwanted side-effect.

Have a great day!

Ed.

P.S. Thank you to Caroline Cooper for replying (on Amazon) to the non-believing reviewer… to assure him she is real! Thanks for standing in my corner Caroline – really appreciated.

P.P.S. Also yesterday I had a worrying conversation with a customer who paid the £2.36 postage and packing a few months ago to order his free copy of E-Mail Marketing Dynamite, but he never received it, and worse – my back-office system here didn’t show his order!
His book’s been dispatched today, with my profuse apologies of course — but if you ordered my book more than a week ago and are still waiting for it to arrive please contact my customer services team either online or via the phone. (UK Freephone (0800) 612 0616 or International +44 (0)1377 267365). Thanks.

My new book E-Mail Marketing Dynamite launched yestersday.

At the moment I’m giving it away FREE!

If you want a copy all you have to pay is a few pounds to cover the cost of postage and packing to anywhere in the United Kingdom. (Overseas costs a little bit more but the book is essentially still free.)

As the name implies this one’s all about e-mail marketing – how any small business can get massive leverage on the incredible power this medium provides to boost sales and profits.

Click here to grab a free copy of E-Mail Marketing Dynamite — but do it now before I regain my commercial sensibilities and start charging for it!

I wish you the best of success with your e-mail marketing – let me know how it goes.

Ed.

P.S. The book also features interviews with 11 small business owners who are successfully using email to grow their businesses — and they even include a plumber and a ‘high street’ retail shop — so hopefully this book will once for all dispel the myth that only technology companies can use email marketing!

As promised here’s a short report containing all the great comments left by people who took my e-mail marketing survey – including some fantastic ideas on how to build a large e-mail list, and also the common challenges small business owners are facing.

I won’t say anymore here – it’s all explained (and self-evident) in the PDF.

Click the image below to save and download the file…

DOWNLOAD

Enjoy!
 
Ed Rivis

P.S. If there’s anything in the report that you don’t understand or want me to expand on then leave a comment here (using the form below) and I’ll endeavour to reply asap.

P.P.S. I’m also toying with the idea of running my first ever webinar to give the answers to the most pressing problems in this survey, in advance of my book launch. May announce that shortly.

I’ve just done a short (11 minutes) video where I walk through the results of my e-mail marketing survey that started last Friday (14th August 2009).

Watch it here:
Small Business E-mail Marketing Survey – August 2009

You’ll see some really interesting results and feedback.

The survey’s certainly reinforced my decision to launch a book on the ‘old’ subject of e-mail marketing because it still seems so many small businesses are either not using it, or of the ones who are, feel they could be getting a lot more from it.

If you’re not registered for private updates about my book then go here and sign up.

Do that on the launch day you’ll get the chance to grab the book free (only pat postage and packing) and you’ll also get loads of additional tools and resources to either start e-mail marketing the easy way, or, get more sales and profits.

Bye for now,

Ed.