9 Easy Tips And Newsletter Ideas To Build Your Following

A carefully crafted newsletter strategy will build trust in your customers and prospects and make them want to do business with you.  Here are 9 easy tips and newsletter ideas to make your newsletters more interesting, and easier to assemble and send out.

1. Build Your List – Everybody you meet should be given the option to join your newsletter.  Several of my clients just finished the Austin Home and Garden show.  They took in hundreds of contacts.  I hope they don’t  make the mistake of thinking all these people are ready to be their customer, RIGHT NOW.  But there’s a good chance that many of them are looking for valuable information that will help them make their buying decision when they are ready.  If you do these types of shows, make your first post show contact an invitation to receive your newsletter… with no obligation.  Also send out a Free Case Study featuring a customer testimonial and interview.  They will appreciate the valuable information.

2. Keep On Schedule – Give yourself deadlines and stick to them.  Schedule time to do your research and write your articles.  Develop a reserve of content so that you can easily find womething to include instead of having to constantly write under the pressure of a deadline.

3. Use Digg and Google Reader – These are great services for finding content.  Mark your favorite articles so that you can always come back to them.  You can include links in your articles to those articles or you can use the information to write your own. Here’s a great article: “How To: Use Google Reader Like A Rockstar”

4. Summarize Your Blog Posts- Keep your newsletters short.  Post your long articles, with details, pictures and links on your blog for everybody to see, and summarize those posts in your newsletter.  Use trackable links in your newsletter so that you can see which posts are most popular.

5. Automate – I use Aweber to manage my newsletters because they have automated the entire process and made it a no-brainer for me.  You can choose whatever look and feel you want from their templates.  They create the summary posts from your blog entries, and they provide the subscription forms for you to capture contact information.  Plus they have all the trackable links and reporting that I need to analyze each mailing.  There are many services out there to choose from, but Aweber is a recognized industry leader.  That’s why I have used them for the past 5 years.

6. Write Case Studies about your Customers – Talk about a Win. Win, Win!  Your readers love success stories.  They want to know how others have solved the problems they are facing.  Who better to tell the story than your satisfied customers?  Third party testimonials are very powerful… when they are authentic.  Your readers will love the stories.  Your customers will appreciate the recognition, and you will get the benefit of the great press!

7.  Sell by Teaching – People don’t like to be sold.  But they do like to be educated, and they will buy from the experts they trust.  Make at least 75% of your content informational and educational, and no more than 25% of your content should be “Salesy”.

8.  Include Resourceful Links – People love to find good new resources, articles and videos.  Share your favorite places with you list.  They will appreciate you for it.  By the way, have you bookmarked my $1,000,000 Rolodex”? There’s tons of goodies for you here!

9.  Pay Attention to Your Numbers – You want to keep track of each mailing and track its performance.  Pay attention to how many were sent, how many bounced, how many were opened, which links were clicked, what time of day and what day of week the mailing was sent.  Track different subject lines and content.  You will soon learn what is most effective for your readers.  Once again, Aweber is a great service that makes this easy for you.

Remember, building trust is a function of time, frequency and quality.  Use your newsletter to keep in front of your audience on a consistent basis, and they will turn to you to solve their problems and do business with you.

Case Study: Actual Sales Automation Internet Campaign Results

You’ve got to see this… Here are the exact steps for an internet campaign that immediately got my client’s instant results and leads from data they had been sitting on for a long time.

You probably have information like this in your system, too.  What could you do if you could drill down and find the needles in the haystack?

Rudy’s BBQ Gets It! Using Social Media to Improve the Customer Experience

Rudy’s Gets It! Great Food, Great Service and Social Media

Rudy’s Country Store and Texas Bar-B-Q is legendary in these parts. They do an unbelievable business. People line up out the door at all of their locations for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Yes, breakfast… they have the my absolute favorite breakfast taco’s!, and they sell them by the bushel load!).

Why is it that other restaurants and businesses struggle so much, while every Rudy’s is busting at the seams?

I can only speak for myself, but what I’ll tell you is very simple:

Rudy’s Gets It!!!

The food is very good (but there are lot’s of excellent BBQ places here). But Rudy’s sets themselves apart with outstanding customer service. Those lines move quickly. There is a manager greeting people and making sure they are happy.

And now I’ve come to find that Rudy’s uses Social Media to take that customer experience to a new level.

A couple of days ago, I stopped into Rudy’s for a breakfast taco and to do some quick computer work. I checked in using Foursquare. Later, I had a pleasant Twitter direct message from Rudy’s thanking me for coming in.

I replied: “Are you a bot or a person?”

Quick Response: “No bots here… thank you for being a fan, couldn’t do it without y’all”

Wow! How cool is that?

So, I checked their @Rudysbbq twitter stream, and found dozens of such examples. I even found Rudy’s helping somebody figure out a recipe for hamburgers using their special Rudy’s Sauce!

The owners of the local Rudy’s are now applying their success formula to the new Mighty Fine Burger chain. They have boomed from 1 to 3 locations and are even busier than the Rudy’s stores.

My advice to business owners trying to get their arms around how to use Social Media to improve their business:

Watch Rudy’s. They Get It!

New Video: How to Write A Follow Up Campaign

What are the keys to a successful follow up campaign?  First of all, you need to know when and how to contact your customers.  But most importantly, you absolutely must make sure to engage the customer and make them want what you have.

This video outlines the key steps you must take to make your messages irresistible.  Keep following… more SMYBE Follow Up Videos coming soon!

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“Show Me Your Back End” CRM Sales Automation Webinar Replay

I’ve gotten a lot of requests for replay of my CRM sales automation webinar “Show Me Your Back End”

Before watching it, you may want to download the study guide and use it to take notes of important tips, techniques and links.

In the next few days, I’ll put together some more follow up videos.  Comment below and tell me what CRM you use, and what techniques you use to help your business with it.

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The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp2 Community Recap

VREBC Highlights

Ok, today we all learned about social media and community. Let’s build a recap to pool notes and favorite moments. What were your favorite moments, favorite links, etc… Comment Below.

Here are some of the presentation Links:

• Jay Thompson
• Darin Persinger
• Rob Hahn

Grow Your Own… Show Me Your Back End Video #3

Automating your follow up campaign requires organizing and segmenting your leads.  Build a decision tree to introduce “logic” into your back end.

This is the third of the “Show Me Your Back End” videos tying into my presentation Monday at Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. (Register now for VREBC if you have not done so already).

Make sure to also subscribe to this blog using the form at right or below, because on Sunday, I am going to send out a study guide to help you tie it all together.  Only subscribers will get the study guide, plus they will be the first to know about each new video.

What do you think of my back end?  Please share your comments and questions below?

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Download The Show Me Your Back End Study Guide

My presentation Monday, Show Me Your Back End, is going to be jam packed with information that will improve your web marketing.  I want to make if easy for you to follow along, and… most of all, remember and implement these valuable tips and secrets.

That’s why I put created this SMYBE Study Guide.  It’s a 17 page pdf file that you want to download and print right now so that you have it ready at the presentation.  All you will have to do is show up Monday at 3:15 PST in Room 4 and fill in the blanks.  (Register now for VREBC if you have not done so already).

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The Master of Persuasion: Show Me Your Back End Video #2

Learn powerful persuasion techniques that will help you get your visitors to take the action you want.  Caution: this video exposes powerful psychological techniques that can really mess with people’s minds.  Please use them responsibly.

This is the second of the “Show Me Your Back End” videos tying into my presentation Monday at Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. (Register now for VREBC if you have not done so already).

Make sure to also subscribe to this blog using the form at right or below, because I am going to send out a study guide and announce all follow up videos to help you tie it all together.  Only subscribers  will be the first to know about each new video.

Please share your comments and questions below?

Name:
Email:

Show Me Your Back End Video #1

Here is the first of the “Show Me Your Back End” videos tying into my presentation Monday at Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. (Register now for VREBC if you have not done so already).

Make sure to also subscribe to this blog using the form at right or below, because on Sunday, I am going to send out a study guide to help you tie it all together.  Only subscribers will get the study guide, plus they will be the first to know about each new video.

What do you think of my back end?  Please share your comments and questions below?

Name:
Email:

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