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?

Creative Commons Licensephoto credit: Alex Leonard

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.

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?

JVPress is a new wordpress theme that makes Kajabi style launches dead simple.  Many of you asked how I put up this very successful campaign that has earned nearly 100 comments on Facebook, as well as over a thousand video views and countless shares via Twitter and other social networks.  This video case study shows you exactly how JVPress ties it all together.

Best of all, unlike Kajabi, JVPress does not charge a monthly fee.  Plus, you maintain control of your own domain instead of handing over the hosting to an unknown 3rd party.  JVPress is a very affordable theme that will deliver you powerful results.

Full disclosure: I highly recommend JV Press because of the great results it gives me, and therefore participate in their affiliate program which are tied to the links in this post and my rolodex.  Should you think that I’m not deserving of a referral fee, simply search for their website and visit it directly.  Either way, give JVPress strong consideration for your social media promotional strategy.

Get your Google Wonder Wheel Back! What happened to the Google Wonder Wheel? The new “Google Instant” has dispaced it. Not to worry, this video will show you how to get the Wonder Wheel Back.

This is important because subscribers of my newsletter will soon learn of my new product that shows you how to use the Google Wonder Wheel to find the best LSI relevant keywords to drive traffic to your site. Subscribe now in the form at right!

I thought I knew the best Austin restaurants for handmade gourmet burgers, but today I learned a little secret. Your Mom’s Burger Bar blew me away! A friend told me about this tiny little shack at 1701 East Cesar Chavez, Suite B, so I decided to give it a try.

Finding it isn’t easy. In fact, there seems to be another business located at that address. But Your Mom’s is tucked in the back, just off of Cesar Chavez and Chalmers in East Austin (I guess that’s what they mean by “Suite B!”).

The burgers are massive, 1/2 lb. and hand formed. But the secret is… Your Mom’s “Stuffs” many of the ingredients inside the burger, so the flavors cook throughout and explode over your taste buds.

A look at Yelp tells me I’m not the first to find out about this place. They have over 170 reviews and are averaging well over 4 stars. They also were a part of 104.9 The Horn Radio’s Burger Bracket competition and faired pretty well. Put this on my favs list for one of Austin’s Best Burgers.

What’s your favorite Austin Burger?

Austin’s very own Krisstina Wise and The GoodLife Team walked away with top honors, winning Inman News’ prestigious Most Innovative Brokerage Award.

Each year, Inman News announces the launch of the Inman News Innovator Awards process with a call for nominations several months prior to the Real Estate Connect conference.

Nominations are open to all and are submitted online. An Inman News review team considers the nominations and selects a list of finalists, and the finalists are drawn from the nominees and a list of other prospects suggested by the Inman News editorial team. The review team selects the winners from the list of finalists.

Congratulations to Krisstina and The GoodLife Team!

Tellman Knudson is an email marketing master.  He has sent out millions of emails to hundreds of thousands of people.  He recently divulged his secret list of the most powerful email autoresponder words to increase sales.

Use this information along with “Automatic Follow Up Messages That Sell More Stuff” to write engaging business letters that convert more prospects into lifelong raving fans.  (For a limited time, pay only $10 and save 83%)

Here’s what Tellman reveals:

Try including one of these “power words” when writing subject lines in your email responder and see what happens to your open rate:

Most Powerful Email Autoresponder Word #5: “Secret”

Here’s an example of how to use the word “secret” to make a subject line more tantalizing.

Say a subject line in your email autoresponder is, “here’s your information”
Change the subject line to, “your secret information”

See how that makes it that much more tantalizing?
Who wants “information” when they could get some “secret information”?

Most Powerful Email Autoresponder Word #4: “How to”

People love “how to” information. Just look at sites like “Instructables” and you will see what I mean.

Here’s an example of how to use the phrase “how to” to make a subject line more tantalizing.

Say a subject line in your email autoresponder is, “cat shaving instructions”
Change the subject line to, “how to shave your cat”

Notice how inserting “how to” instantly changes the subject of the sentence from a “thing” to an “action.”

Most Powerful Email Autoresponder Word #3: “You” / “your”

Ok, maybe it’s sad, but true: most people would rather hear about themselves than about you, or your product, or basically anything else on the planet.

So, here’s how to take a subject line in an email autoresponder and
instantly make it more interesting to your reader.

Say the subject line is, “bank account.”
Now insert the word “your” and it becomes “your bank account.”

See how that works?…

Most Powerful Email Autoresponder Word #2: “{Firstname}”

Ok, one of the most powerful words you can use in your email autoresponder subject lines is not actually a word, but a function of your email autoresponder that you really need to know how to use.

Inside your email autoresponder, you will see the option to “personalize” both on your email body, and on the email subject line. Most people know that you should start your emails with the personalization {firstname}, but did you know that using the personalization option in your subject line can increase open rate?

Again, it’s probably because we love to hear about ourselves…and because you’re trained to respond to your name being called from the time you were just a few months old. It’s a conditioned reaction to respond to your first name.

Most Powerful Email Autoresponder Word #1: Brand names

Now, in this case as well one of the most powerful words you can use in your email autoresponder messages is not a word, exactly, but a type of word. This type of word I will call “brand names” but what I really mean by this is either brand names or celebrity names that everyone recognizes.

Some examples of the types of brand names I have included in subject lines and emails in my email autoresponder that have simply “killed it” for open rates and clickthrough rates:

Google
PayPal
Iron Man

…and so on. One of the things you can do is to take notice of what movies are playing currently, write an email that includes some comments about that movie or ties it into your product in some way, and then use the movie name in your subject line when loading your email autoresponder up.

“Automatic Follow Up Messages That Sell More Stuff” is my brand new multimedia course which will show you exactly how to increase sales with engaging business letters.  It comes loaded with an HD Video presentation, plus optimized video and audio versions for your personal players.  You even get a companion workbook loaded with ready to use email templates that you can use for your own business.  For a limited time, you pay only $10 for this valuable information that will pay you back many times over.  (Sorry if you read this post after the Early Bird promotion expires, Even at the regular price of $47, “Automatic Follow Up Messages That Sell More Stuff” is a very valuable investment in your business.)

Krisstina Wise and The GoodLife Team occupy some rare space amongst Realtors.  Their savvy marketing and mastery of social media help them sell real estate fast in Austin, Texas.

And the rest of the country is paying attention, too!

You, can share the spotlight with The GoodLife Team, and also help them win a big award in 2 ways:

First, HGTV has contacted The GoodLife Team to participate on their hit TV show “My First Place”. The GoodLife Team wants to know:
Are you or someone you know:

• Just beginning your search & looking to purchase by the Fall 2010
• Fun, interesting & excited to be on TV
• Willing to share your experience with viewers

If so, The GoodLife Team would  like to help you find your perfect first home AND help make you a star!!! Please email experience@goodlifeteam.com for more information.
If you know of any first-time homebuyers who would be interested, please share this post with them.

Secondly, The GoodLife Team has been nominated as one of ten finalist’s for Inman News’ prestigious Innovator of the Year award.

The voting is open to the public.  All you have to do to vote is visit Inman and “Click on the Blue Button” to vote for The GoodLife Team (Listed under “Brokerage or Franchise”.

Good Luck to Krisstina Wise and The GoodLife Team!

Tom Bodett’s Motel 6 radio ad campaign is often credited for turning around a struggling California motel’s business and launching them into an international powerhouse.

Can the success of that campaign be duplicated in today’s new media world?  How should businesses use radio?  These were two questions I wanted answered at a radio advertising class I attended Wednesday afternoon.

Border Media, who owns several Austin radio stations, invited me as a guest to learn how businesses should use radio advertising as a part of their overall marketing strategy.

Karen Travis, from Advantage Systems, Inc. delivered a thought provoking presentation with several very interesting facts about radio strengths.  One in particular, really resonated with me:

Radio is the best marketing medium to reinforce a message by combining with other media.

Think about it…  Aren’t you usually doing something else while you’re listening to the radio?  That makes a lot of sense to me.  I often have the radio on while I’m browsing the web, or driving my car.  Wouldn’t a billboard have far more impact if you noticed it at the same time an ad  for the product played on your radio?

How many creative ways can you think of using radio to reinforce your website?

Who is going to leave the light on for you?

Motel 6 capitalized on some of radio’s strongest benefits:

People remember things they hear on the radio.

• Radio has a retention rate of 92%, better than most other forms of advertising.
• Radio plays to the “Theater of the Mind”. Most people have a mental image of Tom Bodett, which helps them remember his name and Motel 6′s name.  If you want to have some fun, look for a picture of Tom Bodett. I bet he looks a lot different than you thought!
• Radio production and airtime is very inexpensive relative to TV and newsprint advertising.  This allows you to broadcast with more frequency and reach to get your message out to a broader audience.

As you know, I am a strong proponent of using all media to reach the broadest audience and to fill your marketing funnel.  The takeaway I got from Karen was that a properly formulated radio campaign is a key component of a successful offline and online marketing strategy for your business.