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Vol. II, Issue 12: 16 October 2007
Editor & Publisher: Tracey Dooley
As always, thank you for being a CfS subscriber. (You are
receiving this newsletter because you requested it.) Please help us grow together and forward this issue to any friends, peers and associates you think would benefit. Thanks!
In this month's success-packed edition:
1. Publisher's Preamble
2. NEWS: Sky One Wants YOU!
3. ANNOUNCEMENT: Want to Increase Your Sales?
4. FEATURE ARTICLE: Watch Your Business Grow With a Simple Newsletter
5. About the Word Doctor
6. TIP: Five Quick E-Newsletter Success Tips
7. Client Corner
8. READER Q&A: How to Attract Customers Without Being Pushy
9. SALE: Christmas Comes Early
10. RESOURCE: Online Nip & Tuck
11. Join My Affiliate Programme
12. Business-building Marketplace
Well, hello again! And welcome – especially to the 157 new subscribers among you. Just to let you know, in case you didn’t already, we missed the September version of CfS due to my recent home and office relocation. So expect this issue to be a bumper issue…
Wow, autumn! I LOVE this time of year. Similar to spring, it’s the time of the year that is ripe with possibilities and ‘new beginnings’. It’s that ‘buzzing with enthusiasm’ feeling.
However 2007 has been for you so far, do you know there are still 76 days left of the year? So there is ample time to achieve plenty of successes – whether in your business or your personal life.
Perhaps you have been struggling with a particular feeling. Or putting off a project… Could you commit to it right now, if you knew you could get it over and done with by the end of the year? All you really need is to decide to do it, and then accomplish one small thing each day or week in order to move beyond being stuck.
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Keep in Touch – and Capitalise
on
Existing Traffic
To Boot!
This month's lead article focuses on an area that many people seem to struggle with. It’s definitely one of those 'should' things that falls into the same category as, say, clearing out the loft or preparing your will. Which is why it’s easy to keep putting off.
But, this easy-peasy, small ‘keep in touch’ system has the |
potential to dramatically transform your marketing AND publicity results – so it’s definitely worth making time for. What’s more, once you start, you’ll wonder why on earth you procrastinate for such a long time.
Until next time, love and success to thee and thine
Tracey
PS Are you taking advantage of your FREE CfS subscriber ad? There are only 1-2 free slots per issue. Send yours here. Please make sure you keep it to a maximum of 5 lines, 65 characters per line (including your URL or email address). Copy deadline for the next issue is 12 November 2007.
PPS Please add the following email addy to your whitelist or address book in your email program so that you always receive your issues:
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Small businesses looking to boost their sales and their profile have the opportunity to do both by taking part in a new TV series on Sky One, which claims to guarantee success.
Production company Diverse, the maker of the series called Hard Sell, is looking for businesses of all sizes that feel their sales force needs "a kick up the backside". The focus will be on participants' methods of selling, rather than the product being sold.
A "high-profile sales guru" will identify sales strategy problems force and suggest changes to "guarantee results" inside just six weeks.
For more information, or to apply, email hardsell@diverse.tv.
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Announcement |
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| Want to Increase Your Sales? |
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What's the quickest way to increase business profits? Retaining more customers! It can cost businesses up to 10 times more to find a new customer than it would to invest in an existing customer. So you can see why focusing on your customers, past and present, makes sense. If you need help in keeping in touch or nurturing your customers, I can help! Just get in touch.
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Business-Building Feature Article |
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| Watch Your Business Grow With a Simple Newsletter |
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Whether you run your business out of your spare room or garage, or you have a fancy office, complete with a corporate-style biscuit tin (it helps the grey matter, or so I tell myself!), chances are you have learned the hard way that you absolutely MUST use marketing methods that make every penny count.
Rather than a big, glossy (and highly expensive) self-serving advertisement that says, “Me, me, me!” and “I’m just like all the rest, really,” you need a marketing tool that really engages with your potential customers and lets them know why they should choose you, not your competitor down the road. Something that gets across your expertise and ‘point of difference’. Something that isn’t in your face or pushy on the sales front. Something that can double up as a way of communicating with your existing and prospective customers…
And that reminds me: We all know the importance of staying in touch with customers and prospects. The thing is, if you don’t have a system in place for this purpose, then you will find it both expensive and time – especially if you are a solopreneur. Not so with an email newsletter .
An email newsletter or ezine is perhaps THE most important marketing asset you can have as a business-owner. Studies have shown that newsletters have a positive emotional aspect with readers, in that they can create much more of a bond between the end user and the company than any website can. And it can take as little as half an hour and zero cost (aside from the usual internet-connection fees) to send one out an ezine.
Timing is Everything
Statistics show that people aren’t ready to make a purchase until they've seen 7 to 10 messages about the product or service. This is because people need to trust whoever is offering the product or service, which can take time, and the fact that people's needs change over time.
But an email newsletter like this one can help you build up trust and a relationship over time. It plants the necessary ‘seeds’; so that when your readers are ready to buy you are the person they automatically think of.
However, simply publishing a newsletter and hoping that it will magically transform into sales is a bit like an aspiring singer voicing her talent on the Underground in the hope that she will be 'discovered'. You have to have a system in place for generating those sales.
Don't Forget Your Readers!
This can be as uncomplicated as making sure you tell your newsletter readers what you can do for them. I’ve received some truly creative ezines in my Inbox over the years that someone has clearly spent a huge amount of time and effort on, but I haven’t a clue as to what the author does, or, more specifically, how she can help me.
Now I’m not suggesting you go all ‘salesy’ and hype up the benefits of your product or service. Just that you need to explain clearly how you can help make your readers’ lives easier with what you offer. Provide testimonials, special subscriber-only offers, product application tips, case studies – anything that shows exactly why they should hire you or buy your product if they are in a similar situation.
Optimise Your Revenue Streams
Don’t be afraid to give valuable, relevant content away, too! Your readers will soon lose interest and feel cheated if your ezine is little more than a thinly veiled advertisement for your products. So make sure you have a good content:ad ratio, with the focus being on the former.
Then again, you don’t want to give too much away, either. You want to make sure you keep something back, else why would they hire you if you are, say, a coach offering for free all the tips and knowledge you’ve gleaned over the course of your career?
One more thing: If there’s one must-include in your newsletter make it an offer. It amazes me to just how much trouble people will go with their ezine, but fail to add an offer or two. Think about what it is that your readership desires that you can help them with. And then think about how you can present your offer, making it as irresistible as possible.
(C) 2007 T Dooley, All Rights Reserved
Want to use this article (or any tip in this newsletter) on your website, blog, a message board or in an ezine? Not a problem! But please give credit where it's due. You MUST include the following:
Tracey "Word Doctor?" Dooley of MediaMinister (www.mediaminister.co.uk) is an experienced copywriter, editor and marketer. She has spent almost 14 years crafting compelling copy that successfully sells, informs, educates or entertains. =====>To sign up for her freebie business-building tips, marketing and publicity pointers, visit www.mediaminister.co.uk.
***Feeling overwhelmed about where to start? Current email newsletter not going to plan? Got questions on technology, format or where to find inspiration for content each issue? My 'Newsletters that Build Customer Relations AND Fill Your Inbox with Orders' MasterClass system answers these and more pertinent questions, AND offers an easy step-by-step system to give you exactly what you need in order to get maximum results with your ezine in minimum time.
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Tracey "Word Doctor" Dooley is an experienced copywriter and PR/marketing & editorial consultant. She has spent almost 14 years crafting compelling communications copy that successfully sells, informs or entertains.
She can remove the hassle of writing, editing and producing all your marketing communications – including general business writing, blog writing/producing, web content, customer retention and sales letters, postcard campaigns, direct mail packages, brochures, ads, PR materials and more. She can ghostwrite your business articles, too.
Just let her know a little about yourself (include things such as who you are, which company you own/work for, the size of your company, your industry, and so on), which service you |
require, the type of copy you’re interested in (ad copy, direct mail copy, etc), and she’ll get right back to you.
Get in touch via the online form at www.mediaminister.co.uk/contact.htm or email her
your full brief and any supporting documentation.
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Business-Building Tip |
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| Five Quick E-Newsletter Success Tips |
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1. Work out how often per week, month or year you are going to send out your newsletter, and then stick to this schedule. Consistency and regularity are key.
2. Provide quality content that is relevant to your target audience and is worth reading.
3. Hold competitions. People love the opportunity to win prizes, and a good competition can make your ezine ‘viral’.
4. Don’t overpopulate your email newsletter with ads.
5. Be patient. It takes time for newsletter marketing to work.
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Client Corner |
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| Because You're Worth It! |
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"A professional, swift service was provided from the outset. The copy that was written added the sparkle necessary to target those tricky marginal sales! All copy followed exactly to the brief provided and a lot of time was clearly invested in the preparation of the work. A perfect all-round package."
UPDATE: "Hi Tracey. Early signs are good! At least one order a day so far and each one has been for more than one product."
– Joel Dickinson, Genie Gadgets
PROJECT: Product description copy for all products on site.
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Reader Q&A |
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| How to Attract Business Without Being Pushy |
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Question: "[Is it possible] to attract customers without going out to sell to them?”
– Beej Doshi, skytechafrica.com
Answer: Wow! What a question – the answer to which could quite possibly fill an entire newsletter or two in itself!
Well, one of the surefire and perhaps best ways to attract business without doing the hard sell is via a newsletter. See this issue’s main feature article for more on this.
Other ideas include attending exhibitions as an exhibitor, publishing press releases, participating in online forums and discussions, holding competitions, generating a referral system, giving away samples, offering time-limited discounts or vouchers, and – the biggie – positioning yourself as an expert, via public speaking, training (others), offering a free e-course and article writing. I recently published a blog post on this very topic, which you can read here for further tips.
The idea is to establish yourself as a trusted industry leader or source of valuable information. Someone who has the relevant know-how and/or product. In time, if you keep in touch and follow up with people via your ezine or e-course, you will be seen as the provider of choice (or at least foremost in their mind) when a prospect could do with the service or product you offer. By putting an end to chasing clients (at least most of the time, anyway) and starting to attract clients, you should find you’re getting more prospects into your sales funnel – and even close the sale in due course.
Above all, be authentic and focused in all that you do. People like to buy from people they know, like and trust.
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Business-Building Competition |
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| SALE: Christmas Comes Early! |
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How about boosting sales in the lead-up to the festive season?
Well, now it’s just become a whole lot easier. For a limited time only, all CfS subscribers can enjoy a whopping 25% off the
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marked prices of all my marketing tools and systems.
Simply email the voucher code "CFS710d" in an email (before 31 October 2007) to:
Don't forget to let me know which resource[s] you would like to save on. And I’ll do the rest!
Recommended Resources
* Articles to Promote Your Business and BOOST Your Credibility & Sales
* Newsletters that Build Customer Relations AND Fill Your Inbox with Orders
* Using Online Marketing to Your Advantage
* Powerhouse Publicity – How to Profit from the Media and Get FREE Publicity
* A Guide to Promoting Your Business
* Stop Working With Deadbeats! Attract IDEAL Clients & Knock Out The Competition Instead
* Website Copywriting Secrets that Convert Web Readers into BUYERS
* The Secrets of Successful Sales Letters – What Works, What Doesn't and All You Need to Know to Turn Panic into Profits
Don't Miss Out – Visit These VIP Sites Today!
 http://www.successfulsaleslettersecrets.mediaminister.co.uk
http://www.freepublicitymadeeasy.mediaminister.co.uk
http://www.mediaminister.co.uk/products.htm
http://www.mediaminister.co.uk
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Business-Building Resource |
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| Online Nip & Tuck |
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Have you ever opened an email or read a website page that urges you to click on a link similar to the following?
http://www.totallyphonyurl.com/things/stuff.adp?ovi=1&mqmap.x
=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bIgpXRP3
bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6
Well, apart from looking really, really ugly, long links like this can create havoc in cyberspace. Many email software applications shorten long lines by adding paragraphs returns. When this happens, a reader clicking on the link is only clicking on part of it, and she will be taken to either a page that doesn’t exist or work, or another place where you really don’t want her to be.
Make life easy for you – and especially your readers – by ending the burden of long, broken URLs.
TinyURL.com is a free service that turns long URLs into short ones. You simply paste the long URL into a box on the TinyURL.com homepage, click a button and – hey presto! – TinyURL.com gives you a much shorter, more manageable URL that is easier on the eye to use in its place. For example, it turns the unwieldy URL from above into:
http://tinyurl.com/23calm.
Point your browser to and get chopping:
http://www.tinyurl.com
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Business-Building Refer & Earn |
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| Join My Affiliate Programme |
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Join my affiliate programme and you could earn as much as 33% per sale just by recommending them to your clients, colleagues and friends. Easy passive income!
To find out more just go to ==> www.mediaminister.co.uk/affiliate.htm
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Business-Building Marketplace |
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READING THIS AD? YOURS COULD BE HERE, TOO! To find out more and get on board to reach entrepreneurs, business owners and consultants, just email the Word Doctor using the contact information below.
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TRACEY DOOLEY’S SERVICES
Yes, in fact I DO more than write articles and publish newsletters. : )
 Ask me to write for your blog, emails, marketing communications, newsletters, or website:
http://www.mediaminister.co.uk/services.htm
Hire me as your business copywriting or marketing coach:
http://www.business-marketing-advice.mediaminister.co.uk
Ask me for a second opinion on your marketing-communications materials: http://www.mediaminister.co.uk/consult.htm
Disclaimer: Neither Tracey Dooley nor MediaMinister endorses the accuracy or reliability of any of any third-party advertisements in this e-newsletter. Rest assured, advertisers are carefully selected and sometimes personally known, which can only be a good thing for you! However, I simply can’t (and don’t) investigate the legitimacy, validity or legality of any item advertised. It therefore always makes sense to check each one out using your own diligence.
Feel free to FORWARD COMMUNIQUÉ FOR SUCCESS! in its entirety to anyone you think will find it useful. When doing do please add a note explaining why you're sending it to them, else they might think I've sent it to them without permission – thanks.
Join my email list (your privacy is totally safe)!
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