Imagine a prospect walks into your place of business and offers you a card. “I’m not ready to buy, but I’d be happy to receive more information about special offers, new products, or other news. Here’s my contact information,” the prospect says.

Would you refuse to take the card? It’s not a trick question.

Every day, prospects visit your virtual place of business when they go to your web site. They’re interested in what you sell, and they’re willing to share their contact information. If your site does not offer them an easy way to join your email list, you are “refusing the card.”

Creating the virtual fish bowl to collect contact cards is easy. Here are four steps to make your web site a list-building machine:

1) Select a reputable software service that enables you to create, deliver, and track commercial emails. These services include built-in sign-up forms that you can drop into your web site.

2) Place the form in a prominent spot on the front page of your web site. Don’t bury it where visitors have to scroll to find it.

3) Give prospects a reason to subscribe. Explain what’s in it for them. Describe the great content you will send them.

4) Assure prospects that you’ll protect their privacy. Promise that you won’t share or sell their information and keep that promise.

When a prospect joins your mailing list, you can share your message with them when you choose. If you “refuse the card,” you can only hope that the prospect will remember you later.

This article first appeared in St. Louis Small Business Monthly for which Tom Ruwitch writes a monthly marketing column.

We hear from many small business people who want to save a few bucks on their email marketing program and do it without a paid service. They say, “I can do the same thing you offer by creating and sending emails through my desktop email software. I create the email; paste the email addresses in to the BCC line; press send, and I’m done. It easy, and it’s free.”

Here are nine reasons that’s a bad idea and using a reputable and reliable email service provider like MarketVolt makes sense: 

While eating breakfast this morning, I was browsing through my online news reader on my computer when I came across the following headline: “Among Affluent Americans, Print Media Is Tops; Death of Traditional Outlets Has Been Greatly Exaggerated”

Print is number one!? That’s enough to make an online marketer choke on his Cocoa Puffs. Then, out of nowhere, the song started playing in my head, the old ’70s hit: “Torn between two lovers. Feelin’ like a fool. Lovin’ both of you is breakin’ all the rules.”

“I love online marketing,” I thought. “I can’t love print media, too!!!”

Or can I?

My wife will be pleased to know that I prefer monogamy when it comes to my love life. But when it comes to marketing, I have to spread the love.

So does that mean I use print advertising for affluent Americans and online media for others? No. It means I use print and online together for all audiences.

Affluent Americans may prefer print media, but they also have email accounts, browse the web, and use social media. So I might advertise in a print publication they read, but use that print advertisement to build my online subscriber or friends lists.

In previous posts, we’ve stressed the importance of marketing to the maybes. Your print advertising should do more than merely promote your brand. It should entice people to join your email list or follow you on Twitter or friend you on Facebook. That affluent American who reads your print advertisement will be a better prospect if you can also connect with her through online media.

So live it up, marketers. Have lots a lovers. You’d be foolish if you committed to only one.

A few months ago, I wrote a post recommending against image-only emails because many email clients hide images by default. Today, I received an email that reminded me the hidden image problem can bite you even if your email is almost entirely text.

The email had several short excerpts of articles on the organization’s web site. At least they seemed like excerpts. The problem: I couldn’t find any links to “read more. ” The email snippets just seemed to stop abruptly with no way to continue on to the web site.

I discovered what was wrong only after I clicked the “Display Images” button at the top of my email software. When the images appeared, I discovered that all of the “Read more…” links were clickable graphics (like the one to the right).

The link looks nice (a lot better than just some clickable text) — IF you can see the image. That’s a big IF when major email clients — including Outlook and Gmail — hide images unless you click a link to display them (or change the software’s default settings). I’m an email marketer and this email befuddled me for a while. How many recipients never discovered how to click through?

If you insist on using images for your links, you can avoid this problem by entering “ALT” text for the image. When creating an email in MarketVolt, you can edit the properties of any image you insert in an email. One property is “ALT” text. When a recipient opens the email with software that hides images, the ALT text will appear where the image otherwise would appear. If you’ve made the image clickable, the ALT text will be a link. So if you want a “Read more…” image, add “Read more…” ALT text.

Guest Blog Post by Dixie Gillaspie

I used to do this little mental two step every time I sat down to craft a newsletter:

1. One Step Forward – I have some awesome information to share (write article)
2. Two Step Forward – I have an announcement about a new event, service, product or other offering (write promo copy)
3. BIG Step Back – I don’t want to promote, pitch, sell, annoy, harass or generally tick off my readers
4. Repeat first three steps until exhausted and frustrated
5. Leave the dance floor in defeat

As you might have guessed, the people on my mailing list often forgot about me between mailings. I’m sure that when my newsletter arrived, their first thought was often, “Dixie WHO?”

I needed to be dancing to a different drummer, so I turned to a little red book, one I’ve read so many times I nearly have it memorized. It’s called “The Go-Giver; A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea.” It’s transformed the way I approach problem solving in my business and life.

I’ve been coaching, teaching and speaking from this book for more than three years. I’ve worked closely with the authors, Bob Burg and John David Mann, to create coaching and teaching materials that are now being used by Certified Go-Giver coaches around the world. I have found that The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success which the authors, Bob Burg and John David Mann, teach in this little parable, hold the answer to almost any business dilemma (and pretty much any personal one as well.)

It made sense to ask myself what my newsletter communication strategy would be if I applied those Five Laws.  So let’s see…

Law #1 – The Law of Value

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

Everyone knows that your communication strategy should be to “add value.” But how much value? How can a FREE newsletter add more in value than you take in payment? What is the cost to your reader to read your FREE newsletter?

What about time, attention and energy?  Let’s call it “bandwidth.” How much bandwidth will it cost your reader to read your content?

Answering that question for myself gave me a yardstick for a minimum amount of value. This allowed me to stop second guessing myself about whether or not I’d offered enough value to justify asking my readers to welcome my communication. Then I did my best to pile it on.

Law #2 – The Law of Compensation

“Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.”

Remember that the first law tells us how our value is determined, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be paid what we’re worth.  This law tells us how to get paid.  Make no mistake, I want to offer lots of value, but my newsletter is first and foremost a business strategy and that means I want the end result to be income.

One of the key benefits I find in working with MarketVolt as a partner in my communications strategy is that they understand that relevancy is valuable. Their automatic segregation of sublists based on interests (as indicated by click-throughs) is brilliant!

So I can create reach (the number of people I serve) through offering tons of value to people who subscribe (right now you can download a 20 minute audio that gives you the Five Essential Elements to Writing Your Own Success Story – it even includes a clip of an interview I did with Richard Bach, author of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”) Then I can make sure I serve them well by following up with relevant information (and offers) based on the interests they self-report by clicking on the inks in my original mailing.

Law #3 – The Law of Influence

“Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”

This was one law I found I was already satisfying. My newsletters create influence for me, both with my readers and with my strategic partners because I often include information and opportunities that have nothing to do with me.

So my readers know that if I find something of huge benefit, I’ll share. (And they know that on those rare occasions that I act as an affiliate, I am extremely transparent about it.) So they know I’m putting their interests first by delivering quality recommendations rather than just pushing what I offer.

Of course, I gain influence with my strategic partners, and often gain new strategic partners, when I provide links to their events, products or profiles and give them a testimonial in my newsletter.

Law #4 – The Law of Authenticity

“The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.”

I used to try to write “right.” Now I shoot for good punctuation (which makes a piece more readable,) but I don’t obsess over grammar. I want people to recognize my voice, get a sense of my philosophy and my humor, and generally feel like I’m inviting a dialog rather than broadcasting a monologue.

Once I gave up being “perfect” I started having fun. Somehow, people seemed to think the “fun” me was a lot closer to perfect than the “perfect” me. Go figure!

Law #5 – The Law of Receptivity

“The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.”

Ah, receiving. Getting a return. Isn’t that just what we complain our newsletters don’t do for us, provide a return?

In “The Go-Giver,” the mentor, Pindar” says to the frustrated go-getter, Joe, “In life, you often don’t get what you want. But, here’s what you do get – You get what you expect.”

Now we’ve all sent newsletters hoping we’ll get new business, we’ll get sales, we’ll get people coming to our websites, to our stores or to our events. But how can we expect that unless we’re really clear what we expect?

Now my rule of thumb is to be clear about one thing I expect readers to do. One thing.  You’ve heard it referred to as a “call to action.” I think of it as an “offer to engage.” For every message, one offer, not always of something to buy, but always of a way to engage with me at a more meaningful level than just reading my newsletter.

Finally, I learned to dance with the idea of “selling,” It was actually the follow up book to “The Go-Giver,” a book called “Go-Givers Sell More” (if you read it carefully you’ll find that I’m even featured in it, by the way) that gave me the grace to step into that one.

In “Go-Givers Sell More” we’re told that the root of the word “sell” is actually an Old English word; “sellan” which literally means “to give.” We “give” value, we receive “return.” We call it “selling” and all of a sudden we’re terrified of overdoing it.

You can’t over-sell. You can over-push, over-manipulate, over-persuade. But you simply cannot over-sellan. Not if what you’re “giving” is value.

**********

Dixie “Dynamite” Gillaspie helps entrepreneurially-minded people blast through their brick walls and tap into the energy and clarity of their own passion and purpose in order to achieve stratospheric success. You can learn more at dixiedynamitecoaching.com

I have a distraught client. He called me a few days ago to report that only 26% of his 500 recipients were opening his emails and that fewer than 5% were clicking any of the links. “It’s not worth it,” he said.

I replied by asking how much his email program cost. Counting software fees and personnel costs, the company invests around $100 per month, he replied. “If just one of your recipients responded to your offer, how much revenue would you net?” I asked. “Several hundreds of dollars. Maybe thousands,” he replied. “Still think it’s not worth it?” I asked.

Email marketing can be humbling. The vast majority of recipients won’t open your emails. Averages vary by industry, but in any industry, 20% to 30% open rates would be fine. That means 70% to 80% are not opening the emails, and that’s OK.

Indeed, those are ego-shaking numbers. But your business goal is not to maximize your open rate. Don’t worry about the ones who don’t open your emails. Focus on the 20% to 30% of people who open them.

Apply the questions I asked my client to your campaign: How much does the campaign cost, including software and personnel? How much revenue would one sale net? How many sales do you need for net revenue to exceed campaign cost? How many sales can you attribute to this campaign? In most cases, that equation will generate happy results for you – even if more than 70% of your recipients don’t open your email.

(This article first appeared in St. Louis Small Business Monthly which publishes a monthly column, High-Voltage Marketing, by MarketVolt’s Tom Ruwitch.)

Imagine walking into a networking event with 1,000 people in the room. All of a sudden, the sea parts. And on one side of the room, you see 500 people who have absolutely no interest in what you sell and what you do. On the other side of the room are true prospects who have some interest. Which side of the room will you visit?

What if you could do this — identify the true prospects and separate them from the suspects — so you could focus your precious time and energy on visiting the side of the room where the interested parties reside.

Email marketing helps you do this. In this video below, I explain how.

This video was shot at an Experts 4 Entrepreneurs event. Experts 4 Entrepreneurs is a unique business community, committed to sharing mission critical resources for entrepreneurs and family businesses. I’m one of more than 30 experts who volunteers my time and shares my knowledge to help those in the community build their businesses successfully. Our goal with e4e is to give you a community with which you can connect so you don’t fly alone.

Our “Don’t Fly Alone” seminar series is designed to help you focus on taking action that leads to success.

Go to www.e4eCommunity.com to join the free online community where you can connect with other small  business people and meet the other experts.

What is the biggest mistake that email marketers can make?

How can segmenting and follow-up help you achieve your business goals?

What is “Brussels Sprouts Marketing?” and why should you NOT do it?

MarketVolt’s Tom Ruwitch answers this and many other questions in this short video. Ron Ameln from St. Louis Small Business Monthly interviews Tom about email marketing — what works and what doesn’t.

I have a new client who wants to launch an email marketing campaign. When I asked what business he is in, he said, “We sell telephone equipment and services.”

I offered a gentle correction. “Your business is to help clients operate with greater efficiency and less hassle by deploying smart telecommunications solutions.”

What business are you in? If you say you sell product “x” or service “y,” step back and reassess. Ask yourself, “Why should someone purchase my products or services? How will they benefit?”

The answer to those questions reveals what your business does. You are in business to provide value, to create a benefit. The benefit is what they seek. The product or service is just a means to that end.

Why is this distinction important? Your marketing communications must do more than merely inform prospects and clients about your products and services. You should design communications to interact and collaborate with prospects and client. Content, itself, can deliver a benefit.

My telecommunications client will send emails with tips (best practices for running a teleconference sales call), case studies (how a business like yours used video conferencing to reduce training costs), product comparisons, and other valuable content. He will solicit feedback through interactive surveys.

This will reinforce what the business does. It provides value and benefits. Because they benefit from this content, they’re more likely to see the value in buying the telecommunications products and services.

What benefit do your prospects and clients desire? Answer that question and then create valuable, benefit-driven content. Sales will follow.

(This article first appeared in St. Louis Small Business Monthly which publishes a monthly column, High-Voltage Marketing, by MarketVolt’s Tom Ruwitch.)

If you want to sell your business, one of the questions your suitor will undoubtedly ask is:

What is the size and quality of your “list?”

The buyer is not asking about your grocery list here, they want to know if you have a “house list” of existing customers and prospects that you are actively marketing to.

They want to know this because having an engaged, active list is equivalent to cash in the bank.  You might call them “Permission Assets.”

As a business owner, your definition of a list should be expanded to go beyond a list of customer addresses and phone numbers.

Today, we can build lists of “Permission Assets” in many low cost channels.

What Permission Means

When someone raises their hand and knowingly opts-in to a marketing channel that you control, they have become a Permission Asset.

Examples of the low-cost channels where permission assets can be built are:

• Email (using a system like MarketVolt)
• Social Media (using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc)
• Physical Meetings (using a system like MeetUp or Eventbrite)

When someone willingly opts-in to your email campaign, Facebook page or joins your meet up, they have become an asset to your company.  An asset that, if cultivated properly, is equivalent to money in the bank.

You are now able to easily and inexpensively reach them through these channels.

How To Grow Permission Assets

The consumer has wrested control over the messages that they receive via the Internet over the past decade.  Now, more than ever, the consumer is exercising the WIIFM rule.

What’s in it for me?

Sure, we can send spammy or “hard sell” messages via email, Twitter or Facebook.  We can disguise in-person meetings as informational and then hit the attendees with a pitch.

But these tactics don’t work twice.

To build a growing, sustainable set of permission assets that produce sales, we must provide an answer to the WIIFM question.

We must provide value.

Your market is asking for value in many forms including:

• Entertain Me
• Inform Me
• Inspire Me
• Protect Me (or things I love)
• Educate Me

Pop quiz:  Which email topic sent by a CPA gets opened and which gets deleted?

1. Check Out My New Tax Preparation Services
2. 10 Ways To Legally Avoid A Painfully High Tax Bill

If you answered #1, you haven’t been paying attention.

The Hub

As seen in the image above, the center of a “permission asset” strategy is usually a business blog.

The valuable content that you are creating should be “housed” on the hub and then distributed via email and social media.

A good website or blogging platform, like WordPress, will make the content that you are creating:

• Discoverable – Search engines (like Google) can easily find your content and send traffic to your site
• Interactive – Your market wants to comment, vote, rate or otherwise interact with your message.
• Shareable – Your market wants to easily share your content via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. with their social networks
• Automated - Your content can be automatically “pushed” out and shared with your social networks

Growing a list of permission assets is as simple as building valuable content on your website and distributing that content through various channels.  Then, providing the methods for the consumers of that content to opt-in to further messages and share those messages with their network.

Finding The Right Mix

I know what you are thinking.  My mortgage company doesn’t take “permission assets” — just cash.

Forming lists of permission assets leads to growing the bottom line.  The next time you are launching a new product or service, doing a membership drive or rounding up sponsors for an event — leverage your lists.

Assuming you have been cultivating these lists through a series of valuable messages, they will respond to an offer.

Understand that the response to your offer will be directly proportionate to the amount of value that you have been providing through these channels in the days, weeks and months past.

My likelihood to make an offer to my “list” is similar to my likelihood to withdraw money from my bank account.  In this analogy:

Communicating Valuable Content = Deposit

Communicating an Offer = Withdrawal

As you manage your permission assets and the messages you are sending the data will tell you, much like your bank statement, whether you can make a withdrawal or not.

Your open and click rates will rise and fall based on the number of deposits and withdrawals you are making via your email list.  As will the number of “likes” and “retweets” you are getting on Facebook and Twitter respectively.

If you are paying attention, you will know when your balance is in the red or black.

Guest Blogger Russ Henneberry provides marketing training for businesses that don’t have Chief Marketing Officers.  You can join Russ’s community by clicking here.