Do you dream of a job promotion, yet somehow it never comes? Perhaps it's because you're dreaming too much and not taking initiative. If you want to get promoted, you've got to take action. Here are 7 action steps to help turn your dream promotion into a reality.
1. Be on time all the time
It may seem like a no-brainer, but how can you expect a promotion at work if you're consistently late? Employees who squeak in even a couple minutes late are sending signals to the boss that work is where they'd rather not be. Show your boss you're eager to begin your day by showing up at least 10 to 15 minutes early, with time to spare to make your coffee and get settled before working.
2. Work extra hours
This, of course, is a tricky one. While you don't want your job to dominate your life, you do want your boss to see you as someone who will give a little extra to the organization, and that includes offering to stay late if needed.
3. Dress for success
Image is everything. If you want to be seen as a professional, then you have to start dressing like one. While this may seem shallow, your appearance is a visual cue to the boss of what type of employee you are. Will you be one who slaps something on in the morning for your dead-end position, or are you one who dresses like you already are a professional?
4. Learn something new
Go the extra mile by learning new skills. Find out about the technical knowledge required in the position you're aiming for and then learn about it, either by enrolling yourself in training programs provided by your employer, or enrolling in classes in your community or online. Nowadays it's important to have some knowledge about computing, and you should learn it even if the company doesn't provide it or tell you to do so.
If your company has offices in other countries, you may consider learning a new language, specifically one that is used in one of your major offices. This means that you can function wherever you may be assigned. Just in case your company needs a new manager in Tokyo or Paris, they'll know who to promote.
5. Ask for more responsibilities
Asking for more responsibilities signals to the higher-ups that you may be ready to move up the company ladder. You're no longer the average Joe or Jane who's just putting in time, but rather someone who has initiative and cares about the success of the company.
6. Learn public speaking
This may not be necessary for some positions, but often when you move up in a company, you may be called upon to give a presentation, or address a group of people. Be ready for it by acquiring some public speaking skills. This will not only help in giving presentations to groups of people, but will also help with small group interactions, where you might be called upon to present an idea to your boss and other leaders of the company. You can take public speaking courses at the community college level, or join a Toastmasters group, where you will receive much needed practice giving speeches.
7. Make yourself known to the Human Resources Department
No one knows the staffing needs of the company better than the Human Resources Department. Get to know members of that department so you can stay informed of future job openings. Make it a point to let them know who you are, and that you're interested in moving up. That way, when a position does become available, you will be among the first people they consider. Of course, this also can be a bit tricky. The last thing you want is to be phony and pushy. Try to make your presence known without becoming that annoying person they all try to avoid.
These are just some of the ways to go the extra mile to move up at work. Yes, it all takes effort. But, hopefully, the rewards will be great.
Tuesday, December 18
Top 7 Tips to Get a Job Promotion
Sunday, October 28
Web Site Marketing Strategy Hints And Tips
by Eric Menzies
Your web site marketing strategy is the essential factor that determines the success or failure of a business web site. This is true whether your web site is an extension of an offline business, or you run an completely online business. Web site marketing is unlike any marketing you may have done using other media.
However, marketing your web site on the internet shares many common core marketing foundations that underlie your marketing efforts regardless of the media you use. I am a strong believer that for a small business, all marketing should be based on the old direct marketing mantra of attention, interest, desire, and action. In this article I am going to discuss those aspects in terms of how they are crucial in marketing your web site on the internet.
Regardless of the media you choose, nothing will ever happen if you don't attract the attention of prospective buyers. This is one of the very basic tenets of successful marketing. On the internet, this concept is evaluated by the traffic that you receive on your web site. But there are a lot of factors that affect how much traffic you get, and only part of it is the actual content of your web site. There are two ways you can get attention in any media: you can earn it or you can buy it.
All the major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) show up two different types of results when a customer uses them.
The most relevant results based on the search algorithms used by the engine are called 'free' or 'organic' since they are the natural result of running a search.
The second type of result are actually paid advertisements, and they can be very difficult to distinguish from the results that are actually relevant to you query.
It is important to keep in mind that no matter how good the engine, the results are still hit or miss. It is a computer program sorting web pages based on mathematical formulae, not live people helping you select the best results, so as a person hoping to be indexed, you must be willing to put the time and effort into checking how you rank on the major engines and tuning your word choice to optimize that. If you can't make it onto the first (or second at the very least) page of results, your traffic will drop dramatically! Most people don't bother to wade through the hits on the pages after that. Even second-page ranking will hurt your ability to attract new users.
One of the most effective ways to increase internet traffic is buying some form of advertising. One of the most pervasive forms is banner advertising. Originally, these were very popular forms of advertising, but as they became more prevalent, their effectiveness waned. They can still be effective as long as you have a clear marketing strategy and are able to track your advertising statistics.
Text advertisements are probably the most common form of internet advertising today. Google has paved the way, and if done correctly, your internet traffic can multiply quickly by using Google ads. MSN and Yahoo also offer text advertisements on their sites. One downside to text advertising is that the cost can add up fairly quickly, depending on how many hits you receive for your ad. Each time a searcher clicks on your text ad, the provider charges you a set amount. Another way to increase traffic to your site is to buy traffic from someone who has an e-mail contact list or has a lot of traffic on their site already.
Any approach to publicizing your website or portal must begin with the aim of grabbing attention of the web surfers and internet addicts. To grab attention, you must deliver your message to surfers on websites they frequently visit. You can publicize your website by doing the hard work yourself or by availing expert help, or a mix of both.
Doing it yourself means you will have to commit your time, energy and money. It might sound daunting but ultimately proves to be cheaper as well. Availing expert help can get your results without eating your time. To set the cash registers ringing, it is suggested that you develop your own mix of both ways suited to your own needs and resources.
About the AuthorYou can get more information about Business Marketing at http://www.BizRave.com.Eric Menzies writes about Search Engine Marketing
Firms and other topics.
Labels: Hints, Marketing Strategy, tips, Website
Wednesday, June 13
Make Money From Internet Writing - TOP 5 TIPS
You can make a lot of money by writing and self-publishing your own material, if you are willing to write ebooks, articles, reports or newsletters that millions of people across the United States, and throughout the world for that matter, desperately want to buy.
Today, more than ever before, is the age of information. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, there continues to be an incredible demand for information throughout the world. There is an astronomical demand for information-packed ebooks, articles, reports and newsletters of almost every imaginable kind. You can start putting a price on information you have no doubt been giving away.
1. FIND YOUR MARKET-THEN WRITE YOUR MATERIAL
Anyone who can communicate an idea to another person, should be able to get their same message across on a written page. If you are either an expert on some subject, or are interested enough to obtain the information needed for a project, you have what it takes to go from having an idea, to self-publishing your own material in whatever format it develops into.
There are hundreds of publications filled with ads by people just like yourself, who discovered they could make a lot of money writing and publishing their own work. Looking through opportunity magazines, Article Directories on the web or other publications that cover the field you are interested in, is a good place to start looking for ideas.
Review all the advertisements in the magazines or Directories you have chosen to see what popular topics and subjects are being written about in ebooks, articles, reports and newsletters. Then ask yourself if you can come up with a better way, or have equally interesting information you can present from a different angle, or with a different twist that would also be of interest to the readers in that market. If the answer is "yes," then you can enter that market and also make some money!
2. HOW TO PACKAGE YOUR INFORMATION
After you have written your material, you will have to decide on how you will package the information to make it sell-able. Depending on your market, some packaging will sell better than others. For example, you can print your information in a series of publications, print it in a ebook, article, report or newsletter.
One thing is certain, people are paying billions of dollars to obtain well-packaged information! There are ebooks that sell for up to $100 and more, with articles coming in a close second. There are reports that consist of 10-12 pages selling for up to $10 or more, while some seminars can cost as much a $15,000 for a single weekend. It may sound incredible to the average person, but people are willing to pay top dollar for information. However, the "packaging" must be perceived as being worth the price you are asking.
But before you decide on how to package your information, you must first consider who your primary audience is, and cater to those people in everything you do.
3. FOCUS ON SUBJECT MATERIAL THAT IS SELL-ABLE
Information for your subject matter can be found in various places. For the very best results, start with your own field or expertise and turn it into a ebook, article, report or newsletter.
Focus on providing your targeted market with simple, understandable, and helpful information. It must overwhelmingly appeal to your customer's wants and desires.
Never forget that this is the age of specialized information. People are completely willing to spend their money for tens of thousands of different forms of information, provided it is useful to them. Your job is to either find a need and fill it, or create the need and supply it.
One of the best ways to get started is to sit down with some paper and write down every subject you have some degree of knowledge about. Your list of subjects doesn't have to be in any particular order. Don't force it. When ideas for headings no longer come easy, stop and start up again at a later time. When you feel comfortable that you have covered most of the areas you know, start picking out the topics that interest you the most. Then you can start researching more material for your writing projects. A great place to find material for articles is in Article Directories. You will find lots of these on the internet.
4. BASIC ADVERTISING RULES
Effective marketing is a vast field. It includes using marketing tools such as: direct mail; classified ads; signs; internet marketing; radio and TV commercials; business involvement, and more. In fact, the approaches you can take and the methods you use are only limited by your imagination and resources. There are basic rules that do not change, however. They are as follows:
Rule No. 1 - You must get a prospect's ATTENTION. The Headline is very important.
Rule No. 2 - You must create reader INTEREST.
Rule No. 3 - You must arouse the reader's DESIRE.
Rule No. 4 - Your ad must move them to ACT.
It is essential that you have a plan before you take action on developing an advertising strategy. Your plan must be based on an objective analysis that has resulted from your knowledge and research. It doesn't matter what your background is, you can learn to master the type advertising that is needed to launch a self-publishing business.
Through research and careful planning you can become familiar with the writing skills you will need to create effective adds. Obtain all the information you can from the masters in the business. Read and study every ebook, article directory, report, newsletter, ad, article, and publication you can get your hands on that will help you in developing your own successful strategies and techniques. Then bring all of that knowledge together to obtain winning results.
5. How to Make Money
You can make money from your writings in several ways. You can sell you writings in the form of an ebook or report on Ebay. You can sell it in the form of a newsletter on your webpage and ask people to subscribe for a small fee.
Another alternative method is to write your article for free but attach a link to it for some product which the article is promoting. There are lots of products on the web which you can sell for other people and earn a good commission. Sometimes up to 70% commission. Examples of such websites are Commission Junction, and Click Bank. You can submit this article with the link to hundreds of Article Directory websites for free.
The advantage of this is that you will have loads of links on the internet promoting your product. This in turn will lead to sales and profits!.Please don't blatantly promote the product in your article and don't include links to it in the body of the article. Most Article Directories will decline such articles.
Marketing Strategies Success(TIPS 7): Triggers That May Cause Email Filters To Delete
Hi guys,
Even though you may have the perfect marketing plan, along with the perfect email sales letter, you still have to overcome the obstacle of the dreaded spam filters. Spam filters are automatic and unrelenting, and what they do is irreversible. When your message is snatched up before it reaches your prospect`s inbox, it`s gone for good.
What an unfortunate fate for of all that beautiful sales copy! To keep from having your messages go down the drain,you need to know the words, phrases, and characters that will cause your email to be treated like it has The Plague - isolated and left to die alone.
In today`s lesson you`re going to learn certain words and numeric characters that activate spam filters. If your email or subject line contains these "hot button" words, it`Good-bye consumer and hello trash bin.
Let go..
Triggers That May Cause Email Filters To Delete
Foolish, short-sighted marketers have created a "crisis" in email in much the same way unscrupulous telemarketers gave THAT business a bad name. (There`s nothing wrong with telemarketing, per Se, just with shady telemarketers and the ones who interrupt dinner!)
By sending millions upon millions of unsolicited messages,"bulk marketers" have turned consumers into enemies and their email boxes into barricaded fortresses with fortified perimeters. Utter the wrong word - one of the "dreaded"TRIGGER WORDS that email filters know and hate - and you`re wasting your time.
Your message will be deleted instantly and your carefully crafted offer - with all those brilliant headlines and benefits, the terrific bonuses, the zero-risk guarantee, and the irresistible post-script...none of it will ever be read!What a waste.
THE HALLS OF JUSTICE
The U.s. Congress has even gotten in on the act (pardon the pun) of trying to cut down on the garbage truckloads of unsolicited email that`s flying through cyberspace. In2003, the CAN SPAM Act became official, with laws dispersed state spam laws and fairly clearly spell out what is and is not acceptable and required when it comes to sending email.
So how can you ensure that your emails make "safe harbor" in a cold, cruel, and unwelcoming cyber-world? Good question.
The best way to help your message reach the eyes that you want to see them is to familiarize yourself with the TRIGGER WORDS AND CHARACTERS that activate filters and get your message a one-way ticket to the trash. Get to know them and then never use them.
Here`s the trick: JUNK AND ADULT CONTENT FILTERS work by looking for specific KEYWORDS, key phrases, and key characters (like the dollar symbol, for example). Filters check the To and From addresses for these keywords. Then they go hunting for those words in the subject line and the body of the message, or in a combination of the two to see what`s being used and over-used.
USE WITH CARE
"Over-used" is an important part of the trigger word equation. A single use of the word " free" (as an example),probably won`t "raise an eyebrow" on a common filter. But use the word a dozen times and it`s "Goodbye Charlie."
THE "Z" LIST (as opposed to the "A" list)
To serve you better, i has compiled an up-to-the-minute list of common "trigger" words and combinations that when used - or overused - activate spam filters. Use this information to wrap your messages in protective "force field" that even the most powerful filter swill pass right over.
Triggers That May Cause Email Filters To Delete Your Email AKA: The "Z" List
- First 8 characters of the From address are digits
- Subject contains "advertisement" or "adv"
- Body contains "money back"
- Body contains "cards accepted"
- Body contains "spam removal instructions"
- Body contains "extra income"
- Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "$"
- Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "free"
- Body contains ",000" AND Body contains "!!" AND Body contains "$"
- Body contains "Dear friend"
- Body contains "for free?"
- Body contains "for free!"
- Body contains "Guarantee" AND Body contains "satisfaction" OR "absolute"
- Body contains "more info" AND Body contains "visit " AND Body contains "$"
- Body contains "SPECIAL PROMOTION"
- Body contains "one-time mail"
- Subject contains "$$"
- Body contains "$$$"
- Body contains "order today"
- Body contains "order now!"
- Body contains "money-back guarantee"
- Body contains "100% satisfied"
- To address contains "friend@"
- To address contains "public@"
- To address contains "success@"
- From address contains "sales@"
- From address contains "success."
- From address contains "success@"
- From address contains "mail@"
- From address contains "@public"
- From address contains "@savvy"
- From address contains "profits@"
- From address contains "hello@"
- Body address contains " mlm"
- Body address contains "@mlm"
- Body address contains "///////////////"
- Body contains "check or money order"
- Body contains "click here" or "click below" (try using "visit here" instead)
THINKING CAP TIME
It`s going to take a little more creativity on your part to write emails that won`t be deleted by filters. You`ll need to replace trigger words with equally effective non-trigger words. But don`t worry - that`s why the Thesaurus was born!
Today, you`ve learned how to protect your messages from being deleted by spam filters. Next time, we`re going to talk about how to make sure your messages are hitting the right target audience to ensure a "bulls eye" for selling.
Da!!
Friday, June 8
Marketing Strategies Success(TIPS 6): 8 Steps to Irresistible Email Copy Every Time
Hye new tips arrive
Step #1 - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU`RE TALKING TO?
Before you sit down to write your email sales letter, you`ve got to determine exactly who your audience is.
This is a master key to getting results from email marketing. Ask yourself these questions:-
What do your prospects/customers want?
What frustrates your prospects/customers most?
Who else is selling something similar to you?
Why should your prospects/customers believe you?
Why should prospects/customers respond to you instead of someone else?
What kind of appeals will your target market respond to?
Step #2 - A GREAT SUBJECT IS YOUR OBJECT
Before an email can generate results, recipients need to open it. But what can you do to spark their interest and get their interest "motor" revved up?Your SUBJECT LINE is the key.There are four types of email formulas you can use as a guide in crafting your email.
Each has a different PSYCHOLOGICAL APPEAL that works like magic on consumers.Here are some examples:-
State a powerful benefit "Satisfies Your Need for Leads"
Pique curiosity "We Has Uncovered the Secrets of Success"
Write your subject line with a news angle - "{company name) Launches RSVP For Those Who Want to Double Their Money Fast!"
Offer Immediate Gratification - "With (company name) RSVP, you can start the money wheels turning before the sun goes down tonight"
Here`s an important "homework assignment": Write at least25 SUBJECT LINES before you decide on which one to use. Take the best two and test them against each other in your marketing campaign. (Save the "losers" to use for other purposes or spruce up later.)
Step #3 - WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM?
Sit down and write every conceivable benefit your product has. Don`t know the difference between features and benefits? Features describe the product; benefits describe the results of using the product. Features appeal to logic...logic justifies emotion...emotion drives sales (see below).
Here`s a rule of thumb for benefits: ask yourself "What can my product or service do for my customer?" Then begin to write your letter telling your reader WHAT`S IN IT FOR THEM.Tell them how much better life will be for them after they buy from you.
Tell them how much better they`ll feel. Tell them how their peers will respect them more.
Step #4 - AN EMOTIONAL APPEAL
When promoting anything to anybody, you must remember that buying decisions are based upon emotion and later backed up by logic. Before you write a single word, determine what emotional hot buttons you need to push to "jump start" your prospect.
Selling health supplements? Go for the "fear of illness"button with "A Natural Way to Save Your Eyesight." Selling political bumper stickers? Hit the "anger" button with:"Let the President Know What You Think of His Policies."Other buttons include: curiosity, greed, ego, vanity, hope,and/or fear of scarcity or security
Step #5 - A NAME YOU CAN TRUST
To convince people to buy your product or service, you must make them believe that your offer is credible and that you(or your product) will deliver as promised.How do you do that? Here are three ways you can build credibility with the readers of your sales letter:-
Provide testimonials.
Include endorsement letters from authority figures in your industry.
Make your offer and promises sincere and believable.
Step #6 - A GUARANTEE
Nowadays, trying to sell without some type of guarantee is losing proposition. You`ve got to have one. And the stronger your guarantee, the better your response will be. And,believe it or not, although most people will NOT ask for are fund, they`ll trust your offer knowing that you stand behind it.You can offer a 24-hour, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day, or even full-year.
And here`s an interesting fact: The longer the time period, the fewer returns you`ll have! It`s human nature to procrastinate, so the more time someone thinks they have to get a refund, the more they`ll put it off or forget about the refund altogether.
Step #7 - DON`T FORGET TO ASK
It happens all the time. Someone makes a fantastic sales presentation, and then doest`t close the deal because he/she didn`t clearly ask for the order or made the process confusing rather than simple.
From the Research Department: Statistics show that you need to ask for the order at least three times to close substantial sales. (Some studies put the number at 7!)If you can, offer several ways for your prospects to order consumers love choice. It tells them, "You`re talking directly to me and meeting my unique needs." If you only offer one way to order, make it crystal clear how AND how easy it is. Describe it in detail and ask for the order. Then ask again
Step #8 - THE EYES HAVE IT
It`s a well-known fact: Large blocks of copy are intimidating and will often send people running for the hills or at least the Delete button.The solution? Break up paragraphs into two to four sentences. Use several subheadings throughout the email letter.
And use asterisks, dashes, and ellipses (...) to give your copy more rhythm. Bullet points are excellent eye-catchers - use them whenever appropriate.That`s a wrap for this lesson.
Next time we`ll be saluting"Triggers." No, not horses named in honor of Roy Rogers old steed -- trigger WORDS that will have consumers begging you to take the money out of their wallets.
Sound good? Stay tuned!
Labels: Copy, Email, Every, Irresistible, Marketing Strategies, Steps, Success, Time, tips
Wednesday, June 6
11 Tips for Pay-Per-Click Success
This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.
1) Do your keyword homework.
Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.
2) Don't bunch your ad groups.
You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.
3) Drive home your selling point.
What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.
4) Don't send users to your home page.
This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to your Pay-Per-Click campaign. Internet users are notoriously impatient. Send them to your home page when they were searching for a specific product or service and see how fast they leave. Don't waste your advertising budget - send them to optimized landing pages.
5) Optimize your landing pages.
Your landing pages need to drive something home immediately for your users: "you have landed in the right place." They need to know that, yes, this is what they were looking for, here it is, here is why it is better than the rest and here's the easy thing they need to do to get it. In most cases you'll need to create multiple landing pages based on your different ad groups and keywords, but look at it this way - if your users aren't landing at pages geared exactly to their search phrases they'll leave and take your advertising budget with them.
6) Don't lie in your ads.
People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.
7) Your domain name counts.
In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.
8) Utilize negative keywords
Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.
9) Test, test, and test some more.
The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!
10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.
Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!
11) Don't pigeonhole yourself.
We all know that Google AdWords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click service out there. Your competitors know it, your users know it - even your grandma might know it. It would be foolish to ignore Google as a venue for advertising, but don't forget that there are other search engines out there who offer similar services. Yahoo!'s new Panama search system is catching on, and Microsoft's adCenter is nothing to sneeze at either. Both companies are currently offering sweet promotional deals to new Pay-Per-Click advertisers to stay competitive so take advantage and diversify!
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About the Author: Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.
Labels: Pay-Per-Click, Success, tips
Tuesday, May 22
Marketing Strategies Success(TIPS 1): Essential Rules for Effective Email Marketing
Find a comfortable spot, put up your feet and let`s getready to rumble!
Ok,
If you want an email campaign to succeed, you don`t want tooffend anyone when sending your messages. Turn off aconsumer with your email and you can be sure they`lltune out your message. Don`t let this happen to you!A message that earns respect makes sales.
That`s why ourfirst topic for discussion is email etiquette. (Later in thecourse, we`ll talk more about how to write an email salesletter.)Train yourself to always -- and I mean ALWAYS -- stick tothe rules below when crafting your email message.
RULE #1 - ALWAYS WRAP YOUR LINES AT 65 CHARACTERS OR LESS
Whenever you write an email, always format the lines so thatthey`re 65 characters, or less, across. To do this, you mayneed to do a "hard return" by hitting "Enter" at the end ofthe line.Wondering why to limit your lines to just 65 characters?(Good question! It shows you`re thinking.) There are tworeasons that "less is more":
~The first thing to remember is that looking at a computerscreen for a long time causes EYE FATIGUE for many readers.The shorter span of characters across the screen makesreading easier and more appealing to the recipient of youremail message.
~The other reason to go short instead of long is this:some email clients AUTOMATICALLY ENFORCE LINE-WRAPPING at 60-65 characters on received messages. If your email is wrapped at 70, the content will arrive all "chopped up."This makes it unattractive...and worse -- unappealing.
~ Tip within a Rule #1: Email clients such as OutlookExpress allow you to SET THE LINE-WRAP to anycharacter-width you choose. That means you won`t have tohit Enter each time after typing 65 characters. Makes lifeeasier! -- Tip within a Rule #2 - You can type 65 asterisks ordashes in a Notepad file to create a template. Then pasteyour email below it to see if any lines extend too far tothe right.
~Tip within a Rule #2 - You can type 65 asterisks ordashes in a Notepad file to create a template. Then pasteyour email below it to see if any lines extend too far tothe right.
RULE # 2 - BE CAREFUL USING ALL CAPS
How many times have you changed the TV channel to avoidlistening to a screaming car salesperson? No one likes ascreaming salesperson...and no one likes a "screaming" emailmessage, either. Odds are, when someone has over-amped thevolume of their message by using too many capital letters(not to mention too many exclamation points and otherpunctuation) - you`re going to be turned off.
On the Internet, email messages written in all caps areconsidered yelling. It`s okay to write some sentences andsome words in all caps, but don`t go overboard. (As you cansee in this message, I`ve tried to use capital letters tohelp break up sections of the content from time to time)
~Tip within a Rule: Consumers buy from a source theytrust. Emails in all caps are perceived as "shady" oruneducated, and have an appearance that damages thecredibility of an offer.
RULE #3 - WATCH YOUR Ps & Qs (Spelling and Grammar)
Would you be influenced by an email selling you somethingthat had noticeable spelling and grammar mistakes? Sure youwould...and the influence would be negative, not positive!When a consumer reads a sales message that`s filled witherrors, they think to themselves, "Good grief, this persondoesn`t even take the time to get his emails right.
Hisproduct is probably the same quality as his emails."When you`re in business, YOUR IMAGE IS YOUR REPUTATION and your reputation is the reason people buy from you or the guy down the block. It`s essential that you create an image of INTEGRITY, CREDIBILITY, and HONESTY in the mind of your prospects. Sending emails filled with errors doesn`t hurt your professional image...it destroys it.
That`s it for now.