Self Employed Success

Of course, email marketing isn’t new; we’ve been doing it for over 10 years now. But according to some of the latest research into email marketing, over 70 percent of email marketers say the impact of it is increasing, not decreasing.

Anyone who uses email marketing techniques can tell you, getting through spam filters is part of the battle. While text-only emails received the poorest return-on-investment numbers, some ISPs are now blocking HTML emails and only allowing text emails to get through (notably BellSouth).

It’s a quandary: produce newsletters that will get through filters, or produce newsletters that get results? I wish I could tell you otherwise, but truly, there are no easy answers to this question. However, here are some tips that might help you to think differently about your campaigns:

• Instead of a full newsletter or a long email, consider the “postcard” format for an email; email postcards received 75% higher click rates.
• Higher ROI tweaks include testing your email campaign with an A/B split, altering your subject line, having a specific landing page for your campaign (instead of merely sending them to your normal home page); and re-sending the same email message two weeks after sending the first one (especially if your email software can send it to only those people who did not open the first email)
• Consider putting your call to action in your subject line (register for the class, sign up for the discount coupon, call for a free quote)
• While 65 percent of emails now come with suppressed images, a large majority of users will manually turn those images on. This means that you should include images in your email campaigns.
• According to MarketingSherpa.com survey results, once-a-month mailings actually have less impact than shorter, weekly mailings.
• Consider segmenting your email mailing campaigns between customers and prospects, tailoring the message to them based on whether they’ve purchased from you before or not.

See Part 1 of this article series here:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/articles/whats-new-seo.htm

See Part 2 of this article series here:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/articles/whats-new-email-marketing.htm

For the self-employed, keeping our own (and our customer’s) data secure is a necessary requirement to doing business.

Accoring to this article on MSNBC, “…during the last half of 2006, 93 percent of all targeted attacks were aimed at home machines. ID thieves know many of us store sensitive data, such as banking information, on our computers. They also know we often get careless when it comes to security.”

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you store bank or credit card information on your PC (either your own or your clients’)?
2. Do you store login IDs and passwords on your PC?
3. Do you have any software in place to help prevent identity theft?
4. Are you aware of the common identity theft scams?
5. If you store bank or credit card information, or login IDs and passwords, on paper, do you have this paper locked up? How do you dispose of this paper?

I suggest you read the above article, as well as listen to John Gontowicz’s teleclass on identity theft and the self employed:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/teleclass/john-gontowicz.htm

In early March, according to this blog post by Paul Kapustka, and this blog post by Seth Godin, several phone companies are blocking cell phone and landline calls to conference calls through FreeConference.com and FreeConferenceCall.com. These companies include AT&T/Cingular, Sprint and Qwest.

This is a huge, big deal for many small business owners, who use these free conference call services to set up team meeting, group phone calls, mastermind groups, and teleclasses. I know many of my colleagues in the Coaching industry use these services for their teleclasses and group coaching calls.

If you use one of these free conference call services for your conference calls, be aware that some of your participants may not be able to access your conference call.

Note that Passion For Business does not use these free services for our teleconference lines, so this should not affect any of you calling in for our teleclasses or mastermind groups.

As many of you know, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is one of my all-time favorite books. I can remember reading it back in the 1980s and I always re-read it every five years or so.

Written in the 1930s, this book is both a classic AND very modern. But the older version had some dated references to culture, politics, business and life during the Great Depression. Now the best thing has happened: They’ve given the book a face-lift, updating it for today’s reader without losing all the wisdom held within.

If you haven’t read Think and Grow Rich, now is your time! And if you’ve read an older version, I think this updated version will be a welcome addition to your self-development library.

Legend has it that 50 percent of all small businesses fail.

According to an article on MSNBC, two-thirds of small businesses make it past the two-year anniversary. However, only 44% reach their four-year anniversary. Ouch.

The news isn’t all bad. Built into this model are 10 industries that seem to have the highest risk. Failure rates are not consistent across all industries. (See article for this list of 10 industries.)

According to most sources, it seems like the same things bring down a business: lack of business and marketing skill (both planning and implementation of plans), poor cash flow, and heavy debt. Factoring in the risky industries, it may be that some industries are way above that 44% survival rating, while others are drastically below it.