www.1001TopWords.com |
Signature Files: The Easy Way To Create More Business
If you do business as an affiliate, then you're constantly concerned with getting your name and your business information out there. You probably send a lot of e-mails, post on message boards, and submit articles to business e-zines. These are great techniques for making contacts, but are you taking full advantage of the visibility these forums create? One of the best ways of creating new business is to include a Signature File with everything you post, send or submit. What exactly is a sig file? It's that little paragraph beneath a person's signature at the end of an article, posting or e-mail. This is your opportunity to let people know who you are and to direct them to your business. Now you may already include your url at the end of your correspondence. That's great, but is that enough? Not quite. Of course it's great to have your url so that anyone who's interested in what you're saying can immediately check out your business site, but wouldn't they be more likely to click if you included a short description of what you do? For example, rather than closing an e-mail or posting with: Manny Jackson http://rockoutandrollover.com try something a little more descriptive and catchy, like: Manny Jackson Check out Manny's hot music publishing tips at http://rockoutandrollover.com, or one step further: Manny Jackson Manny can answer all your questions about music publishing. E- mail him at Mannyj@irock.com, or check out his website: http://www.rockoutandrollover.com That little extra bit could be the difference between a trickle of new business and a flood. It's not enough to just give an address, you've got to give people a reason to click. You've got to spark an interest in what you do. By creating a short, catchy and descriptive sig file, you can really set yourself ahead of the pack. About The Author Keegan Michaels knows affiliate programs. He knows what to look for and what pitfalls to avoid. Let him show you the roadmap to affiliate profits. Contact him today at keeegan@affiliateteacher.com or 801-328-9006. Get his Extra Money Newsletter FREE at http://www.AffiliateTeacher.com
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Who Else Wants to Sky Rocket Their CD Sales, Fan base and Indie Music Career? If YOU Answered YES, Then Start An Online Newsletter?It's Easy, Here's How! Guidelines For A New Sending Paradigm - Part 1 of 5 - Treat Email as a True Risk and Cost Center Sustainable email sending programs in an inherently hostile environment now require great care and planning. Before considering the technical complexities and the marketing tactics, email senders must adopt a basic paradigm shift. The five guidelines included in this series should become watchwords for ezine emailers as they incur the risk and responsibility of sending newsletters or any other repetitive type of email.Part 1 of 5: Treat Email as a True Risk and Cost CenterPart 2 of 5: Avoid Collateral DamagePart 3 of 5: Plan to Use Every Legitimate Tool and Tactic Available (M2M)Part 4 of 5: Build strong relationships (H2H)Part 5 of 5: Continuously evaluate messages, lists, and recipient populationsPart 1 of 5Treat Email as a True Risk and Cost Centernot as just an Internet infrastructure tagalongBecause it was "free", easy, and universally accessable online, email became the breeding ground for a vast number of experiments in communication and commerce. Ezines, newsletters, CRM programs and many other online publications are the product of some of those experiments. More pathological forms of information transfer also evolved in the same space, such as Spam and viruses. Today the Internet is trying to develop an immune system to fight those pathogens. Unfortunately, non-pathogen marketers and online communicators of all types have become the victims of this primitive new immune system's stumbling efforts.Many online publishers moved to email back when the costs were essentially limited to a computer, some bandwidth, and a lot of work. Well, email has changed since then in many ways, almost beyond recognition. As this guideline points out, the cost of email risk avoidance and email delivery assurance have now become significant, even when they are not direct out-of-pocket expenses.Senders need to catalog and understand the risks they face, and the costs to overcome these risks, as they adapt to the new hostile email environment.New Potential Legal Risks From Email Programs: Despite the prevailing opinion amoung newletter and ezine publishers that the recently enacted email legislation is directed only toward "Spammers", there is good reason to take these regulations rather seriously.Even if we assume that you only send permission-based email (that all of your recipients subscribed to your ezine), so by definition you are not a "Spammer", there are many other aspects of the email process that have now become regulated. Examples include email transmission practices, list records, operational control over complaints and unsubscribe requests, claims of false or misleading Subject Lines, and several other issues. Mistakes in these areas, even with clearly permission-based mail, can have legal implications. And in fact, precisely what constitutes "permission" is still being worked out in some cases.Online publishers should also be concerned about the motives and circumstances of some actions under the new laws. Targets may be chosen more for their ease of accessibility than for any serious infractions. It is much easier to find and go after a target you can see (such as an stable ezine) than it is to hunt down an elusive Spammer.Finally, there is a common assumption that the email laws of other countries are similar to those in the US, however in many important respects this is not true. The differences in these laws compels (at the least) strict controls be maintained for any lists that are not fully geographically targeted.See the Email PhD "Compliance" section to research the email regulatory environment further.New Service Access Risks From Email Programs:Impact on Your Personal CommunicationsSome online publishers assume that higher risk email programs, such as newsletters or promotional campaigns, are somehow naturally distinct or compartmentalized away from other types of personal email channels. Unless specifically designed as such, this is usually not true. It has come as an unpleasant surprise to many that blocking caused by, for example, an email marketing campaign can also cause the blocking of your email to friends and family. Blocking caused by a simple auto-response program at a minor Web site can disrupt your ability to communicate with anyone at a particular ISP.One basic response to this type of risk is to segment and isolate different types of sending streams so that a shut down in one area does not push your entire e-communications system offline.Recipient ISP DisruptionIt is usually easy to determine when communications are cut with a major ISP, potentially denying access to a large number of customers or subscribers. But blocking at any one of hundreds or thousands of smaller corporate and local networks can be robbing you of revenue, customer satisfaction, and name recognition without your even knowing it. Testing for these blocks can be a difficult and involved process.Direct blocking is not the only way in which email communication is disrupted at recipient ISPs. Having messages land in the Junk-bin rather than the In-box effectively eliminates that message for many recipients who automatically delete those messages without looking at them.Every recipient ISP has the right to interfere with communications it judges to be inappropriate for its network. Unfortunately, a small number of Spam complaints, an appearance on a Blacklist, or just the perception of that system's administrator may cause breakdowns that can be very difficult to detect and resolve.Unless you are an email wizard yourself, one of the most effective ways to begin to track down your delivery profile is through a delivery testing company. See the Email PhD "Data and Tracking" section for more information on this type of resource. Unfortunately, this type of service also represents a new cost for online publishers.Hosting ISP DisruptionEven more directly, publishers are sometimes surprised to find that their own ISPs or NSPs can, and will, kick them off the service based upon email sending history.It is amazing to realize that despite the sales cost and effort of acquiring new customers, and the service and support cost of retaining satisfied customers, most ISPs have placed the decision as to whether you can keep your service into the hands of a small group of "abuse" administrators. By declaring a violation of the contractual Acceptable Use Policies or similar provisions, these administrators have suspended many email and Internet accounts. Sometimes this can occur without notice, and often without recourse. Even very low levels or ratios of complaints can force you to scramble for new sources of Internet service.See the Email PhD "Sending Signature Management" section for more information on avoiding basic disruptions within your email service chain.Customer Affinity Risks From Email Programs:Changing Consumer PerceptionsIt is not unusual for a recipient to sign up for an email list on one day, and to report that email as Spam the next. The reasons why this happens are numerous, but unless a companies' email program is well managed and controlled there is a risk that a few recipients can do a lot of harm."Everyone knows" that Spam is a potentially dangerous pervasive evil online, and that any email they don't immediately recognize or want to receive at that moment is Spam (as incorrect as that definition is). The news media, recipient ISPs, and companies selling anti-Spam products are also training recipients that they need to actively suspect every email they get.Online publishers have to adapt rapidly to provide assurance and reminders to recipients that they actively requested to receive that email, and to embed relevant and high interest content in all of their sends.Negative Brand ImpactsBeyond the risk of turning off individual recipients with ineffective email programs is the broader risk of reputation loss within the general online community. Highly compliant, carefully managed email programs are their own reward when it comes to avoiding uncomplimentary PR outbreaks or having your name posted on the anti-Spam activist boards.See the Email PhD "Content Controls" section to further research customer perception management issues.Increasing Costs Within the New Email EnvironmentBy all accounts commercial email can no longer be treated as if it were free. Whether for increasing internal control time and costs, or external service costs, you need to allocate the resources necessary to operate a sustainable and effective email program.Increasing need for technical and strategic expertiseMore than ever before, email has become a domain requiring a broad mix of different types of expertise. Because this knowledge can be highly specialized, or require access to proprietary data, this expertise often needs to be acquired from outside the sending organization.Costs of outside service providersIt is frequently the case that an external Email Service Provider can better handle certain types of email sending. And there are obvious advantages to off-loading infrastructure risks and to increasing the embedded expertise (such as in ISP relations) by using ESPs. The trouble is that they cost money. The range of pricing among ESPs is extreme, as are the levels and types of services offered. Check out potential service providers carefully, and comparison shop - it is well worth the trouble.Additional costs for administration and controlsCompliance elements and rising recipient expectations require more time and better records, and the need to track and respond to all complaints from numerous sources has added new manpower requirements. Of course, the costs of defensive records and permission audit trails are also growing. While these costs pale beside potential costs of non-compliance or customer erosion, in many cases they represent new and unfamiliar budget items.Costs from distributed bandwidth and sending system architectureThe need to segment and distribute outbound email streams can increase both bandwidth and technical administration costs. The need to capture and retain more extensive records, or to access sending, delivery, response, unsubscribe, and complaint information in a timely fashion may require additional investment in computing hardware. Updated sending and tracking software purchases may also be needed.Performance Benefits That Offset CostsSimply put, you may have to absorb many of these costs to maintain effective, deliverable, and sustainable email programs. It is very likely that without this investment the efficiency of your email program will continue to slide, at the same time that the risks of uncontrolled programs are increasing.Conclusions:Over all, email sending programs have moved significantly away from the simple question of what "can" be done to a much heavier emphasis on what "should" be done, based upon increasing legal and recipient perception risks. The cost of sustaining effective programs is growing. Fortunately, so is the differential advantage of maintaining a working email communications channel.Copyright © by Email Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. Email Etiquette: How To Send Emails People Will Read You may remember a time before there was email?a time when communications within most organisations were more formal and followed strict lines of protocol. Email has done wonders to break down some of the communication bureaucracy and hierarchy within organisations; today virtually anyone can speak to anyone (and everyone) within an organisation with the click of a mouse ? which can have both exciting and devastating implications! Email has brought with it a new informality to business communications and a new short-hand vocabulary and style of communication ? but it didn't come with instructions. Overtime, a generally unspoken email code of communication has emerged. Master email etiquette, and you'll not only be on safe ground but people will enjoy reading and responding to your emails. 5 Quick Tips to Get Your Ezine Rolling in the Right Direction Publishing your own ezine is critical to establishing a long term and successful Internet presence for you and your business. What is Email Marketing? There are many avenues available for marketing online products. Radios, TV advertisements, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and that big sign on the highway are examples of the traditional marketing approach. Yes, these approaches can work, but then after spending a lot of money it's tough to calculate return on marketing investment. Now these days, there are two effective and low-cost approaches, search engine marketing and Email Marketing. Spam Check Your Newsletter for FREE Spam is a bigger and bigger problem nowadays. Recently Ralph Wilson, Paul Myers, and other Internet marketing gurus have written about the problems that spam is causing honest, hard working Internet marketers. Top 5 Reasons to Use Autoresponders One of the best and newest tools out there for generatingrevenue is the Auto-Responder. If you aren't using thistool in your business you are *losing money*! Top 10 Business E-Mail Basics When it comes to your business e-mail communications, you need to make an impression that can lend to the determination that you are someone that will be a pleasure to do business with. Let The Email Wars Begin Things just got a lot hotter in the hyper-competitive world of online email providers. Who Is Your Real Competition? If you design kitchens, is another kitchen designer your competition? Most likely not. And the sooner you can position and modify your marketing strategy against your real competition, the sooner you will start to see more business come through the door. So Who Really Is Your Competition? The answer to that is always--Never the most obvious. So let's take the example of the kitchen designer. Having decided that another kitchen designer isn't his competition, he now has to decide who is his real competition. Power at your Fingertips It is just amazing. Power right at your fingertips. It feels good to have access to such a powerful thing. Raid Your Autoresponder Attic For Content Why you need new website content. 10 Ways to SCREW-UP Your LIST Just in case you don't know, your 'LIST' ? is you list of optin subscribers who have taken the time and effort to personally subscribe to your newsletter or ezine???.. 5 Things You NEED to Know About Your AOL 9.0 Subscribers In Fall 2003, America Online (AOL) released its brand new AOL Version 9. (Have you noticed all the TV ads?) AOL estimates that up to 50% of their users were using the new version by the end of December 2003. 3 Simple Steps on how to Get Unlimited E-Mail Accounts for Pennies a Day As an Online Home Based busy owner you will reach a point where all those free E-Mail Accounts just don't work anymore. It is possible to get Unlimited E-Mail Accounts for Pennies a Day just follow these 3 Simple Tips Attract New Subscribers With Magnetic Ads One of the most effective methods of advertising your e-zine is placing ads in OTHER e-zines! Real Estate Agents ? What Type of Content Should You Include in Your Newsletter? One of the biggest concerns for Realtors who publish their own email newsletter is determining the type of content that will gain interest from their readership. After all, real estate agents who engage in this endeavor want prospective buyers and sellers to open their newsletter and thus be reminded that the agent is their local real estate expert. Ideally, readers should find the content so interesting that they will even forward the newsletter to their friends or relatives who might be prospective clients as well. This "viral marketing" often leads to a profitable source of income for agents. All I Really Needed to Know About List Building I Learned From Stephen King! I have always been an avid reader of Stephen King's writings overthe years, he's one of the few authors that I can safely say I have read everything he has written. Granted, I am a coupleof years behind, but I do manage to catch up as I getthe time and opportunity to read him. Should You Be Writing A Newsletter As Part Of Your Online Business? Let's start at the beginning - why do you need a newsletter? How You Can Automate Your Business Using Autoresponders What is an Autoresponder? |
© Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |