Comp. Explorer » business

How To Create An HTML Newsletter

explorercomp — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:39:02 +0000

OK So you’ve decided it’s time to send an HTML newsletter to your email list but you’re not quite sure where to start? No Problem, we’ve all been there. I tried and tested many times before I created my first successfulhtml newsletter.

Creating an HTML Newsletter is very similar to creating a webpage, with some minor twists on the old rules.

Now if you already know how to create a webpage then you won’t have any problems. But if you’re not sure, then you can always use a WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get HTML editors such as Microsoft Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver. Or you can skip all those steps and just download a newsletter template, and add your text.

The only real difference between a newsletter and a regular webpage is how it’s designed and how its sent.

Let’s Get Started.

1) Remove everything before the open (body) tag, and everything after the close (/body) tag. Then get rid of the body tags themselves. There should be (html) tag, (head) tag, (title) tag, (metatags), and no css stylesheets. The only remaining html code will be what you originally found BETWEEN your open (body) (/body) and close body tags – Tables, images, text, links etc.

2) No more javascripts – Email providers don’t allow javascript in their email and they will disable it. So if you have any javascript within your newsletter then get rid of it.

3) No Flash, No DHTML, No Web Forms – Most if not all of time they will not work so your newsletter will be better off if you don’t include them.

4) No more ads – Actually you can have ads, but just not the popular Google Adsense Ads. Google’s Adsense uses javascript and javascript won’t work in the newsletter. You can however find link exchanges, or other advertisers that use plain links for their ads, and include those in your newsletter. These ads, banners, and text links will work just fine.

5) No More CSS – Often designers will use CSS for a webpage’s layout, but in the case of an html newsletter it would be better to use tables, instead of writing lines and lines of inline css code. You can set padding, background color, and lots of other table properties, just as you can with CSS. Remember keep it simple.

6) If you must use CSS then get inline – Since you can’t import style sheets to style and format your html content you will need to use inline CSS which includes all of the css properties in line. EX: style=”background: white; color: black;”

7) Images – When adding images on a webpage we would normally use urls such as image1.jpg, but with a newsletter you’ll have to enter the complete or the absolute url.

Tip: Make sure to set your images’ border to 0 so that it will show up seamlessly inside your newsletter.

The first link in the email should be a link to the online version of your html newsletter. Even if you have option for html or text newsletter, it’s a good idea to include a link to your online version at the top of the newsletter.

9) Include an unsubscribe / remove me link at the end of your email, and text for compliance with canspam laws. If you don’t have an unsubscribe button then your newsletter could be seen as spam and you don’t want your subscribers thinking they have no way to unsubscribe. If you have more then one newsletter then include a link such as Manage my subscription or a link that takes them directly to their online account. Placing this link will allow your users access to their account and allow them to manage their subscriptions. Who knows maybe they’ll subscribe to more newsletters.

10) Test, test, and retest on major email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail). You may notice that with that the new MSN Windows Live Mail Beta the text in your newsletters will be centered. Don’t rely on defaults to left align your text, use the left align button on your editor to align them when needed.

During my previous newsletter tests some of the special characters in my newsletter rendered oddly in Yahoo, so make sure to find the character codes for those special characters, and then paste them directly into your html. For ex: this ‘ apostrophe will turn into ' This will allow the text to display properly. For more character codes scroll all the way down or google “Special Character Codes”

11) Before you send your email make sure to set the email’s content-type as HTML, so that it can display as an Html newsletter, or it will just show up as plain HTML code.

12) Get Online – Before you get started make sure to upload those pictures and your original HTML newsletter to your hosting account so that your subscribers can visit your newsletter online.

That’s it. Happy HTML emailing!

Creating Copy That Attracts Customers

explorercomp — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:14:22 +0000

Written words are a powerful marketing tool. They have the ability to persuade, reason, explain & direct the reader to take action. They can hold someone’s imagination and open them up to possibilities never before visualized. But used improperly or without due care & attention they can destroy all the good work you have done in one foul swoop.

If you’ve been online for very long, and have clicked on any of the major marketing sites, you’ve probably seen headlines that promise, “Write Hypnotic Copy That Guarantees Sales!” or “The REAL Secrets of Writing That Will Make Customers Get Their Wallets Out!”

These ads can be tempting, because you really do want to see results – and fast. But is there really one method that works for all when writing to sell? And is it as quick and easy as the online ads (written by professional copywriters) claim?

The answer, simply put, is NO.

Creating irresistible copy takes work, research, and effort, unlike the promises you see (if it really worked and was as easy as ads proclaim, all of the major advertising agencies and copywriters would quickly go out of business, since we could all churn out our own hypnotic copy and get rich in 30 days or less).

But if you don’t mind approaching writing your copy the way that professionals do, you will reach your clients, and see improved sales. Here are the ‘killer’ steps for creating good marketing copy:

1) Know your audience
2) Know your product and why people use it
3) Position yourself – show why you’re unique in the marketplace
4) Personalize your copy
5) Give them reasons to buy from you
6) Give them a strong call to action
7) Offer an incentive

The Short Guide to Affiliate Website Building Success

explorercomp — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:56:37 +0000

There are many ways you can temporarily get an edge on your affiliate competition. At least one internet marketing “guru” invents a new trend every day to help you do this (his/her goal is to sell products). The problem is that these strategies usually don’t work, and even if they do, they’re only temporary. Eventually, these strategies will hurt your business.

If you’re serious about starting a business on the internet, the easiest way to this do is to market affiliate programs. You don’t have to be an expert on anything, you don’t have to handle customer service, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get started.

Although there’s a lot information about marketing affiliate programs, there are some simple tweaks you can do that will jumpstart your business, and anyone can do them.

Your first step should be to build a website. There is plenty of free software available to help you build a website without knowing HTML, and you don’t have to be a genius to learn how to FTP. (This is uploading your site to the internet.)

Most affiliates never succeed in a program because they’ll market the program for only 30 days, use only the sales materials the merchant provided, and then they wonder why they aren’t rich.

If you want to succeed in any business, affiliate or not, you have to be different. Presell the merchant’s products; you can only do that if you have a website.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either. You can take care of two business tasks at one time by simply building a lead capture page and promoting your list. Include several emails in your series discussing the merchant’s program. Explain why it works. Give your reader real information about your topic and not just an endorsement of the merchant’s product.

If you’re a customer of the program, even better because then you know things about the product most affiliates won’t. You can also use your website as a way of showcasing different merchant programs.

Although you need to avoid using javascript as much as possible because it isn’t search engine friendly, many merchant programs, especially on the larger sites like Commission Junction and Linkshare, have additional resources on their own sites you can use. This includes datafeeds and RSS, both search engine friendly types of code you can easily use to add self updating content to your website. This code keeps your website fresh, and the search engines will visit more often.

You’ll also find store generators you can use to generate pages for your site, and many of these only require you to add your affiliate ID, some keywords for the types of products you want to offer, and then you just copy and paste the code onto your site. Many of these store generators are now search engine friendly, making your site super search engine food, as well as unique.

You can find store generators by typing in the merchant name and adding the search term “store generator”. You can also visit the merchant’s site first to find out what tools are offered.

Finally, once you’ve developed a little technical expertise, and you understand the basics of site building and script installation, you can try your hand at some of the more basic scripts for site building. You can create anything from a full fledged Amazon store, to your own niche friendly Net Shop.

You can search for these scripts by simply typing the store you want into the the search engines, and then add the word “scripts”. For example, if you want an Amazon script, type in “freeAmazon store script”. You’ll find plenty of results, and some don’t even require a database to run.

Regardless of what type of site you choose to build, whether it’s a simple list page, or a full fledged content site, make sure you build a list so you can recycle your traffic. Automation is a key ingredient in a successful business because it allows you to focus on the tasks that will make you money.

Find a few good affiliate programs you like, that pay well, do your keyword research and find an untapped market, and you’ll be well on your way to succeeding as an affiliate.

ClickZ Email Marketing Conference: Strategic Partnerships

explorercomp — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:35:51 +0000

We’ve all seen examples of how successful strategic partnerships work, leveraging the contacts and resources of every partner, for the benefit of all by generating business and defeating competitors that would have been impossible alone.

A successful strategic partnership is the best illustration of the expression, “all boats rise together on a rising tide” – so what’s the problem? What do you have to lose when considering s strategic partnership?

I met the owners of five small printing companies recently. Each had known the others for years, they are part of the same metropolitan area business community, yet when they began considering a strategic partnership – they took months to iron out the details. Why?

Because they envisioned using email to each other’s house lists (loyal customers and qualified prospects) as the process to jump start the process and they wanted to be absolutely sure how they were being represented before doing so.

They had seen strategic partnerships created to undertake a joint email marketing campaign. They had been on the receiving end of jointly sponsored mailings. What one such group found out too late – when you hit the “send” key, everything you have ever worked for is in play. You are instantly identified with the other partners. Your reputation, your brand it instantly at stake.

The elements of an email marketing strategy are many. Each element is a matter for discussion with your strategic partners. You want the look/feel, the message, everything – to represent your brand. You want the piece to be representative of you and your company.

But those are just the details. Unless the people you are partnering with are people you trust with your hard won customers, unless you’re convinced they’ll represent themselves and the strategic partnership in a way that you will be proud of – you’re better off, much better off going it alone.

Your brand is critical to your continued success. Email is immediate – what you’ve spent a lifetime creating can be jeopardized in seconds, literally. I know that many of you have been involved in strategic partnerships, selling ‘short-line’ products and services that support you core offerings. You’ve been developing your business with them. You are already mailing your lists offering their products.

In the context of an email marketing strategic partnership – you’re putting that program on steroids. Who will manage the list and the mailing? Will your valued customers receive your email, as well as emails from each partner – bombarding them and confusing them instead of exciting them with the opportunity?

There are lots of issues, message design, content creation, the opt-in process, list segmentation, etc. There are few business opportunities more potentially profitable for everyone than successful strategic partnerships. When you add email to the equation those benefits can be measured instantly and with proper list management and post mailing follow up – a successful strategic partnership will keep on giving for a very long time.

Remember those printing companies? Each owner was between 55 and 63. Each was facing the decisions around succession or exit, or growth by adding to their physical plant and their debt and the corresponding increase in fixed overhead, or see their profitability eroded by their aggressive and larger competitors.

Each of the five firms were well respected in a different area of printing. One had invested a lot of money in wide format printers and was very well known for its digital printing. Another offered custom services for consumers – wedding invitations etc. And so forth.

Once the idea occurred to them, each saw that as a group their combined services would allow them to compete successfully against anybody. Each had spent decades becoming well known and well respected in their niche. If they could package all five of their specialities together they’d be bigger and better than anyone in their marketing areas.

So, they created a new name, business cards and stationary (that was easy) and collectively began the process of cross training their respective sales people. Now they each have five times as many sales people – at no additional fixed cost!

Now, when anyone is bidding a job they are bidding it for the group. If it’s something their company does, they do it. If it’s for one of the others they collaborate on the elements so the process from proposal to delivery is seamless. They spent months putting it all together. When it came time to do their email marking they already trusted each other, they knew how they would handle the leads and the ownership of their current and the resulting merged email list.

The work they had done to insure their success was evident when the launched their email marketing campaign. 100% of the costs of setting up the partnership were recouped in 24 hours following their first emailing. The number one comment people made was, “We didn’t know you did that too” Careful planning and positioning made all the difference.

That’s why it’s so critical that you get it right.

What Is An Autoresponder Anyway?

explorercomp — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:35:40 +0000

One of the best methods of getting information to customers instantaneously is through the use of an email autoresponder.

Email autoresponders work like a fax-on-demand. If you send an email to an autoresponder address, you will immediately get back a prewritten email message. An email autoresponder is a 24 hour sales letter for your product or service. Up until recently, email responders usually only sent one message back. But as discussed above, people need repetition in order to fully absorb the message and understand theinformation . People even sometimes forget the message altogether after a few days. Some people also need a push to purchase a product or service. A series of follow-up emails gives them that push!

Today autoresponders allow a sequence of messages to be sent to a prospective customer at various intervals. For example, when someone requestsinformation from an autoresponder, there could be a sequence of five different emails sent every other day. Everything is done automatically for you using these sequential autoresponders and you do not have to do any hard work! All you are responsible for is creating the message in each email. It may seem like a lot of work to create all those follow-up email messages, but I can guarantee that the time will be well spent.

If a prospective customer doesn’t purchase after the first email, by using a sequential autoresponder, you can send follow up emails that offer a discount to purchase your product or service. The beauty of sequential autoresponders are that it does not cost you any extra money to send follow-up emails. You need to close the sale while the prospect is hot. They obviously have an interest in what you have to offer or they would not have sent an email to your autoresponder for additionalinformation.

Sequential autoresponders are not only good for follow-up sales letters, you can also offer a course over email. Offering a free e-course, report or newsletter is one of the best ways to not only capture email addresses or subscribers, but once set up with follow up messages, the most powerful tool on the internet.

The key to success with any online business is to build an opt in list and then to communicate with your list subscribers. Doing so manually is time consuming and time is money as we know. Automate with an autoresponder and see your profit soar!

Tips In Web Hosting Business

explorercomp — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:58:28 +0000

Web hosting service is one of the great business nowadays. It is a profitable business, and only need relatively low to moderate capital to invest. Disagree? Just type “web hosting” in your search engine, then you will see so much company compete in this business. Yes, this mean that the business is some kind of “real big fight”. But, the fact is that most companies still be able to live until now. That is why I still believe that this business still provide good profit now, and for the future too.

In order to doing this business , I collect some web hosting requirements. It is not “a must”, but believe me, you will not want to pass it.

Make sure that you use an updated server, with at last 2 Gb of RAM.
Control your service quality by limiting account on your shared server. Ideally one fast account can only handle around 200 account.
Offer money back guarantee, at least 14 day until 1 month.
Offer pro-rated refunds.
Make sure that your “uptime guarantee” is a real guarantee. You can make some note of limitation if it necessary.
Never charge your customer without permission! I see some hosting company did it, especially when the customer reaches monthly bandwith limit. Be honest. You can politely suspend the customer’s account, and tell him quickly.
Describe the allowed content on your web hosting clearly when customer signup.

Is it enough? Nope. There are probablt hundeds more. But, at least those tips can be used by you when deciding to enter this kind of business.

The Prosperous Online Store – Swimsuits Shop for Example

explorercomp — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:39:04 +0000

Online store business nowadays is a very prosperous business. As we live in the internet era, many customers buy things without wasting their time by coming to your shop. Moreover, your customer now can come from any places, thousands miles away from your real shop.

A lot of prospect customers buy things from their own desk, as long as they have an internet connections. All you have to do is only create your shop’s official online store. It’s not difficult, especially for you who know at least some basic things in creating a website. There are thousands tutorial available in the internet about how to making this kind of shop. Or, if you don’t want to waste your time searching for its tutorial, you can buy a tutorial book about it in almost every bookstore in your town.

In creating such website, you have to make sure that you have something good to offer. If you sell something just like another online store, then you don’t have something to make you better than others. Potential customers will bypass your site because they see nothing special in it.

For example, let’s take a look at this swimwear online store.

You probably think that this is just another online store, one from thousands, that offer usual bathing suits, bikini, or something like that. Well, that’s true. But, it also has a different offer from another online store that compete in swimsuits world. This store sell big ones or plus size! They point their site as a “plus size swimwear”. This keyword reach the top rank in google. This is their huge advantage. Another online store usually only sell swimsuits in standard size. Or, if they have big size, they forgot to point their customer into their big size collections.

My point is, whenever you try to make your own online store, you have to make sure that you have good selling point that make your store differ from others. Have a nice day!

Nice Collections For Rapidshare Download

explorercomp — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:17:38 +0000

For me and other millions internet users, file-sharing site such as Rapidshare must be very useful. We can share a large number of file to each other with no cost at all. I really feel happy when I found my high school memorable song through this site. I got it as a free MP3 download, because I believe the original song has been disappear from my local store. I do not know exactly who’s the one who upload it, but I must say thanks a lot.

Unfortunately, when I search for that song, I found another useful file in that site. Yeah, rapidshare collections provide me a lot of wonderful rapidshare links. Can you imagine, I even found a very classical movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, from their free DVDRip download link. This movie created in the year 1938. My parents even weren’t born yet at that time. lol.

Well, some software also available there. You can check it by yourself and explore some rare and lost file from their site.

Blogger Opportunity In Making Money

explorercomp — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:41:38 +0000

Years ago, the first generation bloggers would never imagine about making money online while blogging. Blog used only for daily journal or personal diary in that time. I still remember when the first time I had my own personal blog (in the year 2002), I did not find any benefit at all. Why should I write things online? It’s only wasted my time, and I did not find any fun in it.

Things changed when I graduated from college. One of my old friend told me about the chance to work from home because of his personal blog. It was hard to understand for me. How come you get an income if you only wrote a diary in the internet? Thanks God, he taught me a lot of things about the secret regarding blog advertising. It was clearly opened my mind, and that is why now I can describe myself as a full time blogger. I make money online, work from home, do whatever I want while most people stay at their work place.

One of the most interesting way to make money online is something called get paid to post. Imagine, all you have to do is a very simple thing, but you get paid. It is true. There are advertisers who want to advertise their website through bloggers. As a blogger, you only have to write something about their site, and in the other hand, they will pay you because of your help in advertise their site through your blog. Win win solution, right?

The Importance of Insurance Study

explorercomp — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:25:11 +0000

Insurance is an agreement between two or more parties, with which the insurer tie themselves to the Insured, with insurance premiums, to provide reimbursement to the Insured for loss, damage or loss of profits that are expected or legal responsibility to third parties that may be suffered Insured, arising from an incident that is not certain, or provide a payment that is based on dead or someone who lives be.

Agency that provides risk-called “Insured”, and accept the risk that the body of the “guarantor”. Agreement between the two agencies is called the policy: this is a legal contract that explains every term and condition that is protected. The cost paid by the “tetanggung” to the “guarantor” for the risk borne by the “premium”. This is usually determined by the “guarantor” for the funds that can be claimed in the future, administrative costs, and benefits.

For example, a couple buying a house worth USD 100,000. Knowing that they will lose their homes to bring them to financial ruin, they take the insurance policy in the form of home ownership. The policy will pay for replacement or repair their homes when the disaster occurred. Insurance companies on their premiums of Rp1 million per year. The risk of losing the house has been distributed to the owner’s home insurance companies.

The science of using a specific method to calculate the risk that they expected. This specific method use mathematics, particularly statistics and probability, which can be used to estimate the risk for claims in the future with the accuracy that can be relied upon.

If you want to know more about this, you can join insurance forum provided by insuranceforum1.com. You can find so many important things regarding any kind of insurance, the advantages, the uses, and many more. You can discuss so many things with people around the world in this forum. I really recommend this site.