Download The Fiverr App Today And Find Quality Freelancers For Your Small Jobs

Business owner working around the clock? Rushing to complete a project? Entrepreneur on-the-go? Say hello to Fiverr - the largest marketplace for digital services. Get instant access to a global network of quality freelancers and find everything you need to start or grow your business.

Does Everyone Ignore Your Newsletter?

As Internet marketers we all know how important it is to have a successful newsletter to help us keep in touch with our customers. But it can be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing content and campaigns only to have the program flop. Open rates can dive into the single-digits and click-through rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent. So if this happens, what do you do? First of all, don't panic. Usually, if you spend a few minutes looking at your data you can identify the problems pretty easily. Determine Which Problem to Fix Take a look at where your leads are coming from. If you are purchasing lists from other websites or publishers, make sure you segregate each source in your reporting so you can measure the quality of each list. You want to make sure you have a way of determining the quality of a list source before you merge the purchased group into your master list. Also, if it has been around for a while, try segregating your opt-in list into three groups by age: * Under 6 months * 6 months to 1 year * Over 1 year It is normal for open and click through rates to be highest for the "Under 6 Month" category, and lowest for those who have been on your list for over a year. However, there should not be a significant drop off as people move from one category to the next. Look for anomalies in the data. Here are a few things I look for when I'm troubleshooting a client's campaign: * Is there a significant drop-off behind the first mailing? If the first mailing that a recipient gets typically achieves a 35% open rate, but the second has a 7% open rate, then the problem is not with the list source, or the header information (subject line, "From" address, etc.) it is with the content of the newsletter itself. If the drop off is 35% to 29%, then one might consider that to be normal. * Has there been a change in frequency? We all get busy, and one of the first activities that can get forgotten is the newsletter. Unfortunately, absence in the Email marketing realm does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In fact, a prolonged period of non-communication is one of the leading causes of opt-outs. * Are your articles relevant to the demographic? It is a good idea to survey your house list periodically to test your assumptions about their levels of expertise and interest in different subjects. Wake Up Your Sleepy Optin List Look at how you approach the people who have subscribed to your list. Remember that with email newsletters the permission your subscribers have given you to send email to them is not permanent; they can opt out at any time if they lose confidence or interest in your newsletter. More often than not, however, people don't actually opt-out. They simply stop opening and reading your email. I call these "sleepy" subscribers. They are getting your messages, but since they are "asleep" they can't read them. Although there's no way to know for sure, I would guess that your "sleep" rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of your opt-out rate. So your opt-out rate is an indicator of your "sleep" rate. It is vital to understand what your subscribers think of your publication. Again, surveys are a great way to get feedback on your program. You can also provide an open link on each newsletter that asks for general feedback. Very few people will take the time to provide feedback on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do represent a large chunk of your audience. Take their feedback seriously, and learn from it. Five Steps to Improve Your Performance Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance of my campaigns. * Get in touch immediately – From the moment someone signs up for your newsletter, they start to forget you. If you take three weeks to send something to them, then they won't remember signing up and they will reject your email as spam. Make sure they get an issue of your newsletter (or an ebook, or a free report; something that is relevant to them and has value) immediately after they sign up. * Make it personal and entertaining – Email marketing is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best to keep the tone personal and entertaining. Try telling a few stories about yourself or your company. Let people get to "know" you, and feel like an "insider" with your company. This increases their personal equity in your brand. * Make all emails "high-value" – Every time you send an email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just to you. Straight sales letters with no "meat" can dampen open rates for future mailings. Train your recipients to view each email you send as a valuable piece of information they cannot afford to miss. * Test multiple article types – You can write all kinds of articles, and depending on your industry and demographics of your subscribers, they may prefer instructional and how-to articles; others may prefer current industry events, or breaking news. Test these out and see what works best. * Test different formats – Try splitting your list and send half your recipients an HTML newsletter and the other half a "text-looking" email. Make sure that the "text-looking" email really does have HTML in it, or else you won't be able to track the open rates! Keep Your Chin UP All newsletters can experience a blow to their response rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify the problems and fix them before you lose too much of your list to opt-outs and list fatigue. Variety is the spice of life, and it can "wake up" a sleepy list by injecting some excitement. Make sure each communication you send is high value, and provides something new. And keep the lines of communication open so your subscribers can help you improve the quality of your content.

Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You?

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person's need for information quickly! But, after you've delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information? If you are like most Internet marketers, you don't. When you don't follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him. Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn't receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere. Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up? Following up with leads is more than just a process - it's an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don't follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process. Consistent follow up gets results! When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the "List Technique." I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company's latest news as a follow up piece. I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn't a very good follow up method. Why isn't the "List Technique" very effective? The List Technique isn't consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have "big news". List Technique messages don't give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can't make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you've just moved your headquarters? List Technique messages convey a "big list" mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products. What follow up method really works? Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning. First, you'll need to develop your follow up messages. If you've been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn't have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services! Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message. The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect's mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately! Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn't yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn't the right color or doesn't have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it's unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.) The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don't want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up! Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions! Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors'. You will make the sale! Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don't want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart. Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn't have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up - don't you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Building Email Marketing Highly Targeted Opt in List

The following paragraphs summarize the work of Opt in List experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of Opt in List. Heed their advice to avoid any Opt in List surprises.
Are you successful with your Internet business? Better yet, do you think you are successful with your online business? When most online entrepreneurs are asked with these questions, they often brush it off. This is because most of them, who have not yet realize the right way to succeed in Internet Marketing, continue to believe that the mere fact that they have a website is already enough to succeed on the Internet. The truth is, they all end up very upset because they fail to realize the secret behind the success in Internet Marketing.
Having a website is not a guarantee that your online business will succeed. How will you succeed if people will not realize that your business exist online? The key to Internet marketing is to get your business noticed. An effective way to do this is to build an opt-in list. In fact, most of the people who are already experts in Internet marketing will tell you that building a highly targeted opt in list is the most effective and important tool in Internet marketing.
Basically, an opt in list is a list of email addresses of people who have agreed to obtain any kind of information from online businesses like you. The term “opt in” means that you have their permission to send to them whatever newsletters, brochures, or promotions that you have in your online business. It is extremely important that you have their permission first before you send them information because unsolicited emails will be regarded as spam, and spamming is an illegal activity in the Net.
Because of the feasibility of building an opt in list on Internet marketing, most of the online entrepreneurs consider it as the most treasured tool online. They need this list in order to get the consumer’s attention and sustain interest. By creating an opt in list, you will be able to maintain solid contact with your previous buyers at the same time boost your sales because of the fact that you have a sure target market always ready to purchase items from you.
Opt in list is considered to be the most important item in an Internet marketer. In fact, if in case something bad happens like emergencies and catastrophes and they could only save one item, it would be their opt in list saved on a backup disk. Just imagine how these people value their opt in list. If this is the case, then it must be really something, right? So, for people who are not yet aware of the importance of building a highly targeted opt in list and would like to know how to build them, here are some tips that could be very useful.
1. Decide on your niche market or your target market. Is everything making sense so far? If not, I'm sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.
It is extremely important to know your target market in order to focus on something. It would be really confusing and time consuming if you will build an opt in list with no particular market in mind. Moreover, having a niche market would bring more focus on your marketing campaigns and would derive better results because you have direct you emails to people who would most likely be interested in them.
2. Be sure that your selected target market is available in the Internet. The mere acquisition of a niche market is not a guarantee that you can already start building your opt in list. Since, the concept of opt in list is specifically generated to aid in the growth of the Internet market of a particular entrepreneur, it is important to have a niche market that is available through the Internet.
The concept is basically simple, how can you promote your online business if your niche market is not available in the Internet? Hence, it is extremely important to verify if your target market is available online. 3. Verify if your chosen target market is income-generating market.
Building a highly targeted opt in list will just go to waste if your niche market is not generating any income at all. Try to verify their income-generating potential through the search engines, wherein you will find some paid ads related to the keywords you have searched. This would only mean that if somebody is willing to pay to advertise focusing on the same target market that you have in mind, chances are, you will be able to reap positive results on your target market.
4. Generate solutions to the problems of your target market by using Internet forum. Creating this type of forum will initiate the underlying solutions that will answer to most of your target market’s problem.
Through their posts and threads, you will be able to identify your target market’s problem and will be able to come up with a great solution. In turn, it will be very handy when you make your opt in list. Indeed, the success of an online business or Internet marketing greatly depends on the opt in list. It is where the online businesses could come up with newsletters that would allow them to promote their products at the same time create the need for it. In turn, it will generate more income and make more money. As they say, money is in the list that’s why most businesses consider opt in list as valuable as gold.

Automating with Autoresponders

Automation is an important part to any business. The less time you devote to doing small redundant tasks the more time you will have to devote to primary business activities, such as: product development, advertising, customer service, and list building. Or, you may want to have more time for enjoying other things in life other than working, so the more you automate your business the more time you will have available to spend on whatever you desire.
Putting an online business on autopilot is not very difficult and much of it can be done by simple using autoresponders to do many simple tasks for you. An autoresponder is a software program that you pay usage fees for, or that you buy and put on your own hosting account’s server. It is a program that responds to email inquiries from other people with whatever you program it to send out. And it can also easily be programmed to send out email messages that you enter into it at whatever time you want. Therefore an autoresponder, abbreviated AR, can be used for many purposes to assist in handling business communication activities.
An AR can be used to promote your products or services and to get people to visit your website. Just type or copy and paste your sales or informational message into your AR and have it sent out to whoever you have entered into the AR. Then, when a person receives your message and visits your web site and makes a purchase you can have your AR setup to deliver another message to them. The message would thank them for their purchase and then deliver their product and receipt to them.
You may also program it to give your customers detailed instructions on how to go about obtaining their products and describing other products you have to offer that they may be also be interested in purchasing. In this way you have the ability to promote more products and possibly make more sales. You can also program your AR to send out follow-up messages a day or two after a purchase to ask customers if they are satisfied with their purchase. This assists in building strong customer relations and also gives you another opportunity to promote more products while saving your time.
It will also allow you to make more “back-end” sales by using follow up messages every few days. It is advisable to always include some meaningful and relevant information in your follow up messages so your messages do not appear to just be blatant sales messages, which most people do not generally like or appreciate. The beauty of all this is that you can be off doing something else while much of your business communication activities are being handled automatically by your AR.
Autoresponders are great for training and teaching purposes. Many college professors who teach correspondence courses set up their lessons in an AR and then send them to their students at specified times throughout the semester. And, because the courses being taught often do not vary much from semester to semester, or from year to year, the lessons can be set up one time and used over and over again with only minor adjustments being needed.
ARs are great for providing training lessons to all types of groups. For example, a 12 week training course can be written in advance and then scheduled for deliver when the time is appropriate. The lessons can even be set up to be delivered to different groups at different time intervals. ARs are great for keeping members of an organization informed of upcoming events, deadlines, and special offers or promotions.
Promoting products for sale is one of the most popular uses of autoresponders in online business. But when using an AR to promote your sales just realize that most potential customers do not like the direct “hard sale” approach and it has been documented that on an average a potential customer must hear from you at least 7 times before a sale is made. It is usually best to contact potential customers in the first 2 to 4 messages with valuable information that is interesting for them to read or use in their lives. It is good to give away something of interest and value and to thank them for subscribing to your email newsletter or ezine.

Anti-Spammers Need To Develop Better Manners

I sent my e-zine out last week and I received a copy of it back. It had been forwarded to me by a subscriber. In the subject line was a two word sentence; since most publications and websites frown upon vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity, I have spared you the exact wording. Be assured, however, that Miss Manners would definitely not approve. It is understandable the frustration that people feel when they are inundated with unsolicited commercial e-mail. I myself get more than my fair share. Despite my Internet Service Provider (ISP) enabling a spam filter and in spite of configuring my own e-mail program filters, I still get spam. However, the situation with my subscriber is different. He opted in and confirmed his subscription. I use an outside service to handle my mailing lists, in part, to protect myself from false spam complaints. There are a number of possibilities here. Perhaps my dear subscriber forgot that he subscribed and honestly believed that he received spam. Another possibility is that he didn't enjoy the content. The correct response when someone offers you something you don't want is "No, thank you" not "Expletive deleted". If you are offered dessert after dinner by your host and you don't want any, simply say "No, thanks." If you accept one piece of pie and then you're offered another, you may either accept or decline. My subscriber could simply have unsubscribed. Instead, he retaliated (either because he believes I'm spamming him or he doesn't like the newsletter). He said "yes" when he subscribed; he can always say "no" by unsubscribing. Again, "No, thank you" not "Expletive deleted". Related to this rudeness is the ignorance some America Online, Inc. (AOL) subscribers show. By ignorance, I mean that they may not even realize they are doing anything wrong when they report e-mail they don't like as spam. AOL makes it very easy for their subscribers to report spam. I would say they make it too easy. Just click the button "Report Spam". Unfortunately, there is no notation near that button that says "If you subscribed, just unsubscribe." No, simply "Report Spam." And they do. Rather than unsubscribe, some AOL subscribers will report your e-zine as spam. They opted in and subscribed. They confirmed their subscription by e-mail. Their name, e-mail address, IP address, and date and time of subscribing have all been recorded. But, they are reporting you as a spammer. This, to me, goes beyond rude, as it could affect the reputation and livelihood of the one being reported. I wish I could say that receiving obscenities or threats by e-mail is rare. Sadly, this is not the first time for me. Among the many messages I receive are some that say that the e-mail I tried to send (from some strange or nonsensical name at my domain) was undeliverable or blocked and is being returned to me. Of course, I never sent that e-mail in the first place. Occasionally, I receive rude (sometimes threatening) e-mails from people who thought I sent them some of these spoofed e-mails. This is the equivalent of swearing at and threatening someone who you believe allowed his dog to defecate on your lawn. The only problem is that the man doesn't have a dog. Again, I sympathize with those who are irritated by spam. I just wish they would direct their indignation at the spammers instead of me. In fact, Miss Manners would have reminded us all that there is never any excuse for rudeness.

All about Email Marketing

Email marketing and newsletters may be sent with more confidence for less than most of the competition. Emails are priced according to the quantity you purchase, so the more you get, the less they cost. Email marketing solutions when they need to: Make customer communication more efficient and to improve the productivity or their marketing resources Improve email marketing deliver ability—ensuring their communications are delivered to the highest percentage of recipients as possible Accelerate customer acquisition and conversion rates from their email marketing efforts Track the performance of their marketing efforts from communication to transaction—connecting campaigns to tangible return on marketing investment Leverage dynamic content for customized one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many email marketing communications Reduce their marketing costs while improving the performance and productivity of their marketing resources Make it easier and faster for customers to buy their products and services than any other marketing or sales channel Integrate voice, fax and sms text communications channels with their email marketing efforts Maximize Web analytics data to improve customer acquisition, customer retention and customer growth results. Marketing Marketing leaders across all industries—business-to-business and business-to-consumer—are using email marketing as their core channel for acquiring, retaining and growing customers. Bulk Bulk email hosting can be affordable and bulk email can even be free. Bulk email sender for email newsletters, targeted email campaigns and email announcements. Bulk emailer is easy to use mass email software, which is used to send bulk email. Quite apart from these practical considerations, there is also a strong argument which says that long-term successful email marketing relationships with customers and others can only work anyway if they're permission based. It's important to stress that anyone considering email marketing must read up on the subject of permission and spam. By offering value-added services to your existing clients with email marketing software, you can build indestructible customer loyalty, gain a sharp competitive advantage and increase the average order value per client.