To succeed online, you must carry your message to your
prospects; you cannot merely wait for them to find your
website on their own and, finding it, do what they're
supposed to do. No way!
You need a means to get information about your business
into the hands of your prospects quickly, easily,
inexpensively. That tool is your business newsletter, and
if you don't have one now after you read this you're surely going
to want to create one.
As I write, online businesses are making two major mistakes
about company newsletters. Either 1) they don't have them at all,
or 2) they have them but are failing to use them as SALES tools.
So, let's be clear from the start: the one and ONLY reason to have
an online newsletter is to make SALES. There is no other reason.
Once you understand the objective, you're on your way to achieving
it.
To send your newsletter, you must have a listserver. A listserver
is software which enables you to send information to every person on
any given list at the touch of a button. Because a business newsletter
is mandatory for sales, a listserver, then, is equally mandatory
because it is the listserver which actually sends the newsletter to
every person on the list -- whenever you wish!
Once you've got your listserver, the focus must be on making money
from your newsletter. Here many businesses go right off the rails.
Perhaps secretly many businesspeople have longed for the day when
they had a bully pulpit at their disposal, where they had the means
to write about whatever takes their fancy, no matter how disconnected
from their businesses and making money. GUARD AGAINST THIS TENDENCY
WTIH YOUR LIFE!
Remember, the one and only point of your business newsletter is to
MAKE MONEY, to make sales, to tell prospects about your products and
services and so get them to purchase. The goal is not to give you a
soapbox wherefrom you can spurt the suppressed opinions of a lifetime.
Use Your Newsletter Space Wisely -- To Make Sales!
The space you have available in your newsletter must be used to make
SALES. This begins right away in the subject line of your newsletter.
Most publishers waste this space by merely putting in the name of the
publication. However, your subject line can easily be 3-5 lines long --
just enough space for a subscriber-centered ad, offer, daily special
or something which otherwise gets readers to sit up, take notice, and
ACT! In short, your ability to sell starts in the subject line, not
merely in the body of the text.
Start your newsletter with a fantastic offer -- every day. Offers
motivate people to act. After the subject line, the most important space
in your newsletter is the initial headline... and the space immediately
after it. Again, dull publishers use this space to tell you the name
of the publication, how glad they are that you're reading, and perhaps
something from "Bartlett's Quotations." THIS IS A WASTE OF PRIME
SELLING SPACE!
Remember, the goal of your newsletter is to make sales. The first
headline and the space immediately following are vital in this regard.
Your job is to create a sizzling offer and to use the opening space
to motivate immediate reader response. Sure, you'd like every single
reader to read every single word of every single issue, wouldn't you?
But it ain't gonna happen. People are busy. They skim. Thus you need
to put your prime offer, your most motivating offer, right up front
where people will see it -- and RESPOND!
What else should be in your newsletter? Consider your newsletter a
means of motivating action. Think of yourself as a fisherman catching
fish. Think of your newsletter, and each thing in it, as customer-
catching bait.
You should ask yourself before placing ANYTHING in your newsletter:
is this bait? Will it motivate a prospect? Can I either get a sale
from this or a prospect? If so, run it. If not, scrap.
The same is true of any full-length articles you run. Lots of authors
send out articles online free for newsletter publishers to use. The
question is: how do YOU benefit from them? Do those articles help you
generate prospects and sales -- or do they just give you the feeling
that you're running a "real" newsletter? Personally, I don't care
whether anyone thinks my newsletters are "real" or not. I ONLY care
whether they get people to act and to BUY!
In this regard, if you send your newsletter out today and you fail
to generate prospect leads or sales, you'll have proof positive that
you need to refocus on turning your newsletter into a sales machine,
foregoing the pleasure of publishing for the sake of your ego.
Resources
A listserver comes as standard equipment in all Worldprofit's
professionally designed, ready-to-move-into e-properties at
http://www.trafficcenter.com/properties. To see what else your
e-property contains, go to http://www.worldprofit.com. Click
on DOMAIN HOSTING and take the TOUR. See an e-property you
like? You can take advantage of our easy, monthly payment plans.
You can also get a listserver individually. For assistance,
mailto:drjlant@worldprofit.com.
For professional website design, use Worldprofit Design Services
at http://www.worldprofit.com. Click on DESIGN SERVICES. Take the
TOUR. For personal website design assistance,
mailto:customerservice@worldprofit.com.
___________________________________________________________________
Dr. Jeffrey Lant is Co-Founder and CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at
http://www.worldprofit.com. For FREE subscriptions to Dr. Lant's
& Worldprofit online business newsletters, go to
http://www.worldprofit.com/ezines. For Dr. Lant's Sure-Fire Business
Success Catalog, visit http://www.jeffreylant.com. For detailed
FREE reports on how to succeed online, visit
http://www.worldprofit.com/reportshttp://www.worldprofit.com/reports.
Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Your professionally designed website is ready at
http://www.trafficcenter.com/properties.
Get a FREE AD PACKAGE when you click here
http://www.worldprofitleadsource.com/information.cfm.
See how Worldprofit can put you online
http://www.worldprofit.com/uhbp.
For personal assistance, call me (617) 547-6372 (Eastern time)