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There are no 3-easy-steps to becoming a millionaire. If magic bullets and passive income really existed, we'd ALL be sitting around enjoying the view from our yachts. Cambridge Dictionary defines a 'magic bullet' as "a quick and simple solution to a difficult problem". None of the major dictionaries offer a definition for 'passive income'. These are marketing myths. They will cost you more money than you'll make. Or you will give up doing the work that is your expertise to spend your time doing marketing work. It's nice to dream but then get back to work. PS: There are no unicorns in real life either. Click to Tweet this Article
Received this message on Facebook : What is your opinion about sending this kind of email below out? I am on the fence. (I've changed the name on their signature and company for privacy.) "Hi Natasha, We are doing a little organizing and noticed that it's been a while since you have opened any emails or shown any activity via the "XYZ" email subscription. No worries! We value your time! We just want to be sure we are bringing good vibes to the online community whilst not pestering anyone with unwanted emails. Are we bothering you? If you don't want to receive any future emails from us you can click here to unsubscribe from the mailing list. No prob. If you do want to receive these emails then you simply need to do nothing. Keep on keepin' on. Find What Feels Good. Love, A" Consider this: If the motivation for sending something to your list is personal, think twice. Always give something of value - this email doesn't do that. Your emai...
Just because you say it's so, doesn't make it true. Take this email disclaimer below as an example. Please, read the small print. The first line sounds pretty good... ethical and all that. And hey, they respect me. I might believe it if I had actually subscribed. I know I didn't because I never subscribe to anything using the particular email address this came to. I'm already questioning their sincerity. Next they tell me that removal is automatic and "enforced" (whatever that means). Apparently "automatic" means 2-3 business days in this case. The link to click to start the "process for email deletion" opens an email with their address filled in, nothing else. Decidedly NOT automatic. The other way I know I didn't subscribe to this email list is that I would never sign up for anything that "may be a newsletter, press release, solicitation or advertisement." The "best practices in responsible email marketing...
If you're beating around the bush, you're wasting time and possibly money. Neil Everton of Podium Media and Communications Coaching suggests we look at our writing with a critical eye and ask: "Am I prepared to pay $1 for every word I've written?" Unproductive words and phrases abound. I've written before about wimpy phrases to avoid ; here are some slightly pretentious ones to also slice out. “Due to the fact that...” Use “because” at the beginning, or rearrange the sentence to use it in the middle. “For the most part...” Eliminate this one completely without changing your meaning. “In my opinion...” Use “I think” or eliminate it all together. I'm already expecting your opinion if I'm reading your writing. “On a regular basis...” Save $3 here by using “regularly” or “always” at the end of the sentence instead. “The first step is to...” Chop out 4 words and simply use “first”. Using more words doesn't mean you'll get read...
You know those workshops you go to where the instructor puts you on the spot right at the start by asking you to describe your target market? I'm one of those instructors. And I do it because a discussion about target markets is a critical first step to any marketing strategy and subsequent plans. Invariably there is at least one person in every class who tells me they can sell to anyone. I know I'll get the chance to preach, "You might be able to sell to anyone but you can't market to everyone." Marketing is expensive - in time and money. We need to find and develop content that is valuable ( useful and/or interesting ) to those specific people we want to have as customers . Once we've done that, we've got it made, right? So, who are we marketing to? potential customers customers Wait, there are more people we want to impact with our marketing: colleagues peers influencers referrers vendors partners collaborators Don't let me ...
photo by photosteve101 I'm such a newsletter critic. I think it makes me better at what I do - learning from others' good and bad examples. Here are the things that often stand out during my critiques: You didn't use a bulk email application. This is such a big mistake, it deserves its own post to list all the reasons why! You didn't include a link to subscribe. If your newsletter is good, your readers will share it with their friends. Don’t make those friends have to hunt for your sign-up form. Not everyone is tenacious. You used a misleading subject line. Perhaps you felt that you had to trick people into opening your newsletter. Don’t do this! Readers will feel like they've been duped if you don’t deliver on the promise in your subject line. I see obvious errors. There are spelling errors and, oops, a hyperlink doesn't work. Always get another set of eyes to check your newsletter. Don’t forge...
We often use the words editing and proofing interchangeably but there is a significant difference. If you're not aware of it, you could be failing at both. Editing is big picture or 'zoomed out'; proofing is detailed or 'zoomed in'. Editing is about the overall structure and flow of the article. Are the introduction and conclusion supported by the content in between? Are the paragraphs organized well? Is it easy to read and digest? Are the sentences structured well? When you're reading something and you have to pause to reread a line - that's a signal that editing is needed. Proofing is about grammar and spelling and punctuation. It's often about the little words, like 'of' instead of 'if'. And about missing words, like 'the' or 'an'. It's hard to proofread our own writing because our brains follow the same pattern as when we typed it. Reading out loud, or printing to proof with paper and pencil, are both good...
We often talk about the importance of making it easy to unsubscribe. I thought I would share with you my recent experience demonstrating the frustration that can occur when it is not. I decided to unsubscribe from Air Canada's onAir newsletter several issues ago. When my issue arrived, I clicked to unsubscribe and landed on a 'No Update' error page. No big deal, the internet can be glitchy, I would just do it the next issue. This went on for 4 or 5 issues at which point, I started to feel like they were sending me to the error page on purpose. I was getting a little hot under the collar. Last week, on a bad day for me, the current issue arrived and I landed on the same error page. I then went back to the newsletter and clicked the "contact us" link which took me to a form on their website called 'Let Us Know'. It was a lengthy form and the first section was my contact information in which I had to fill out my address, email, phone number and ...
Is this you... ? When you watch TV, you can't wait for the ads. On YouTube, you let every ad play fully. You open your email inbox eagerly every morning, anticipating all the emails with this week's sales or next week's webinars. You read the newspaper for those big black and white ads. You check out every promotional link that Google places in your search results. You go for the ads first when you log into Facebook. You're entranced by the billboards on the Bedford Highway. So, is this you? No? It's not anybody . There is no one eagerly anticipating your sales pitches. (Your mother doesn't count.) We keep on doing these things, even without an eager audience, because they work sometimes. That perfect timing, or perfect graphic, or perfect wording, sometimes gets people's attention. So we keep doing what works sometimes. Eventually, though, what worked sometimes starts to work even less frequently . As more and more marketers adopt the same st...
Every day I’m faced with opportunities to offer a deal. I receive calls asking me to invest in print ads. I can easily tweet a deal or insert it in our newsletter. I can offer an added bonus. I can low-ball requests for quotes. It would be like standing up and waving my arms and yelling, “Look over here. Have I got a deal for you!” It would be so easy to do. Every day I resist the impulse. Easy is not always better. A recent article by Bernadette Jiwa at The Story of Telling reminded me why. Take a minute to read it . It’s short, I promise. You need to remember why, too, and she’s a much better writer than I am. The ending is perfect: “…build your brand around being chosen on purpose.” Photo: elvissa / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article
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