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.

Congratulations to Sylvia Seabolt and Gale Dunn on their new blog Lake Ray Hubbard Living.  The ladies asked me how to start a blog for their real estate business.  So I provided them with a complete turnkey solution.   It took less than 24 hours to deliver a fully functioning wordpress blog package.   In addition, the site is fully linked to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The ladies have been doing a great job posting!  The best part… the site’s been up about 1 week and  Google has already indexed more than 20 pages!

If you’re not blogging, you need to start.  I can help you set up your blog, customized to your tastes.  In addition, I provide personal training, plus, give you access to over 1000 world-class internet marketing training videos that show you how to drive tons of traffic to your site.

Contact me via email at Steve@SteveRosenbaum.com and let me know how I can help you.

Looking for some great places for free downloads and other great resources on the web?

When you ‘ve been doing internet marketing successfully as long as I have, you build up quite a list of vital contacts and resources.

Remember, you can access my premium link directory, $1,000,000 Rolodex… filled with the tools that have helped me and that I feel every online marketer should have.

I just updated it yesterday with several new fantastic royalty free image sites that will find you the perfect picture for your new blog post.

Got any favorite places for me to add to my rolodex?  Leave me the info in the comment box, and I’ll take a look!

Rudy's BBQ

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!

Steve Rosenbaum interviews Jonathan Rivera of Real-TechGuy.com.  Jonathan discusses how Social Media has changed the rules of marketing forever, and the 7 reasons why everybody needs to use it in their business.

The preview call is for registered guests only of Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.

So register NOW, and I will IMMEDIATELY email you the link for this, plus all other preview calls.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to check your email inbox for the confirmation email, and private member access link to VREBC Preview Calls.

Don’t Miss the Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. 27 Social Media Real Estate Experts – LIVE – ONE DAY ONLY!!!

Steve Rosenbaum interviews Darin Persinger of ProductivityJunkies.com.  Darin discusses the “7 A’s” to building your business and why you must intermingle your online and offline worlds.

The preview call is for registered guests only of Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.

So register NOW, and I will IMMEDIATELY email you the link for this, plus all other preview calls.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to check your email inbox for the confirmation email, and private member access link to VREBC Preview Calls.

Don’t Miss the Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. 27 Social Media Real Estate Experts – LIVE – ONE DAY ONLY!!!

Steve Rosenbaum interviews Brad Andersohn of ActiveRain.

The preview call is for registered guests only of Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.

So register NOW, and I will IMMEDIATELY email you the link for this, plus all other preview calls.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to check your email inbox for the confirmation email, and private member access link to VREBC Preview Calls.

Don’t Miss the Virtual Real Estate BarCamp. 27 Social Media Real Estate Experts – LIVE – ONE DAY ONLY!!!

Mark your calendars for January 4th, because I’m going to kick off Virtual Real Estate BarCamp with my raucous, no-holds barred, assault on why 99% of the web marketing efforts go wrong.

It’s all about the Back End, Baby!

You’ve SEO’d your site, you’ve spent beaucoup bucks on advertising, and you’ve “organic’d” yourself all the way to page 1!

NOW WHAT??

Most people spend all their money up front. Not me. I’m a back end kind of guy. After all, that’s where all the action is… and I will show you why January 4 during my Virtual Real Estate BarCamp presentation: “Show Me Your Back End: 10 ways to lift, tuck and firm up your contact follow up so your front end takes care of itself.”

Even if you’re not a Real Estate professional, there’s plenty of great information for you to learn about using technology and social media to improve your business.

(Just make sure you start at the Back End! 9:15AM PST)

Here’s what VREBC is all about:

Educating Real Estate Agents On How To Use Modern Technologies To Better Their Business Will Never Be The Same!

On January 4th, 2010 dozens of the most respected educators in the real estate industry converge to host most exciting event of its kind, the Virtual Real Estate BarCamp.

Virtual Real Estate BarCamp is a 1-Day Learning Extravaganza.

From 9am until 4pm PST, three concurrent webinar “rooms” will each host 7 different sessions, for a total of 28 different presentations.

There is something for everyone and everything for someone, and best of all, IT IS FREE and attendance is unlimited!

Click below to:

Register.

Learn more.

See who is coming.

Check out the Session Calendar.

Get sponsorship info.

Attendance is projected to be upwords of 1000 people, nationwide.

Do not miss out on being part of this ground-breaking event.

And if that wasn\’t cool enough, individuals from around the country are volunteering to host In-Real-Life MeetUps for after the event.

Learn all day, and then meet to have a beer with local participants. This is going to be a blast!

We hope to see you there!

UPDATE: I’ve had a lot of requests to postpone this webinar until later in the week because of everybody is just getting back from the long weekend.  I’m going to push it back to Friday, but make sure you come because you’re going to love how we show you how to automate that workload!

Mark your calendar for this Friday, December 4 at 11:00AM CST for my Free Webinar -” CRM Software: Your Constant Contact Cash Machine”.

I will have a special guest demonstrating the best use for CRM, also known as contact management software, showing you how to close more sales, and automate your sales and marketing processes.

I’m a huge fan of CRM’s and started using Act! in 1986 on my Mac.  I attribute much of my sales and management success to my mastery of CRM’s (and I’ve used most of them!).  Whether or not you currently use CRM software to stay in constant contact with your customers and prospects, you are not going to want to miss this presentation.

Additional information will be sent only to members of my mailing list, so make sure to give me your contact information below.

Photo: End of Level Boss

Welcome back! I trust everybody had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving with their family.  This is a great time of year for education and training.  Many of us have a little bit more time off of work, and we spend some times sharpening our skills and preparing for the upcoming year.

Here is some important information you need to know about my upcoming  free webinar CRM Software: Your Constant Contact Cash Machine and also about my mastermind groups for blogging, audio/video and CRM.

The CRM webinar will be held this Tuesday, December 1 at 3:00 CST.  Watch your email inbox this Monday for login instructions (if you are not subscribed to this blog, you must register below to get the webinar instructions Monday).  I have a special guest from my favorite CRM company scheduled to meet with us to share with you successful contact management and sales automation techniques.

The mastermind groups are a big hit! I’m getting scores of emails about them, and I’m going through them and trying to respond personally to each one.  I’ve also teamed up with Kathy Goughgenour, President and Founder of LeadBoosterClub.com to help run the Blogging master mind group.  Kathy is an expert trainer and has designed her entire company around helping blogger create content for their websites.  I’m thrilled to have Kathy on board!

Make sure you are subscribed to Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.  If not, fill in the box below to “Follow Me”.  Watch your email inboxes for more important news from me about the free CRM webinar and the mastermind groups.