Self Employed Success

Donny Deutsch, host of The Big Idea, has a new book out. And on this video clip, he says that NOW is the time start or own a business. You can’t rely upon an employer to take care of you…or even to be around in six months.

Watch the Today Show interview video here.

I saw a great article today called Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves: Ethical SEOs and Search Engineers Narc Out SEO Fraud. It is sooo wonderful to see real-life examples from experts on what devious tactics are out there in the SEO world.

The funniest one has to be from Matt Cutts, a long-time search engineer at Google. He says, “My favorite is always the one where someone emails Google and asks to exchange links, or email-blasts me and says that they can guarantee a No. 1 ranking or wants to buy links on my site.” Imagine emailing Google to say you can get them high SEO rankings! 

Educate yourself so that you know the real deal in SEO when you see it. (Hint: no one can guarantee you No. 1 ranking.)

A woman I met at the NSA Internet Marketing Intensive a few weeks ago posted a nice blog post about me!  Awww, shucks, folks!

Annmarie Kelly was the coordinator for the speakers. She did such a great job in keeping us informed about the event, getting information from us in a timely manner, and answering all sorts of questions. It was a joy to work with her.

When creating an email mailing list, there is a feature you should consider using: the double opt-in.

A double opt-in works like this: First, a person who wants to be on your mailing list either fills out a form on your website or gives you their email address in some other way. That’s the “first opt-in.” Second, the mailing list system sends a confirmation email to them, asking them to click a link to confirm their email address and that they really DO want to subscribe to your mailing list. That’s the second or “double opt-in.”

These are my thoughts and feelings on double opt-in:

1. In the end analysis, it’s a good thing.
2. Yes, some people will subscribe, but not click the confirm link in the opt-in email. It’s the risk of doing business online. (Just like some people move to a new house but don’t tell you their forwarding address and all your marketing brochures get sent back to you.)
3. By using the double opt-in feature from your mailing list system provider, your email will be sent from a “proven clean” mail server, which will decrease the number of bounces and spam rejections you get.
4. It stops spammers from signing up to your mailing list in order to swipe your email address from the newsletters you send them. Spammers rarely will click the confirm link.
5. You can see who has not confirmed yet, and if you want, you can email that entire list once a week and ask them if they want to confirm or not.
6. Most people now understand the double opt-in concept and look in their Inbox for the confirmation email they’ll receive. Not everyone knows to look in their spam or junk folder, so you remind them about that as they are subscribing.
7. By having your mailing list in the same database as your shopping cart, you have a huge benefit of sales and leads data that you wouldn’t have if they were in two separate systems. You also have the benefit of upselling to previous customers, thereby increasing your revenue.

Some people focus on what they’ll lose if they ask people to confirm an opt-in. Don’t focus on what you’ll “lose.” Focus on what you’ll gain: a clean list of motivated subscribers that won’t bounce or be marked as spam.
 
And remember:

• Your list size does not determine your loveability or your business success.
• Your list size does not tell you if you are a good person, or if you are worthy of the best things in life.
• People who don’t opt-in in are not rejecting you personally; they’re probably just getting too much email and want to cut back.
• People who DO optin are saying, “Yes, I like what you have to say and would like more of it.”
• Many business owners making over $100K per year have lists under 3,000 people.
• It’s not the size of your list that matters, it’s what you DO with it that counts. 

There are two problems with marketing plans:

1. People feel marketing planning is too overwhelming (so they avoid doing it altogether)
2. People aren’t getting much success out of the ones they do create (and they can’t figure out why)

In this teleseminar, we’ll discover a step-by-step process to craft a successful marketing plan that will take you just 90 minutes to design.

This one-hour teleseminar is scheduled for

February 5, 2009
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM eastern

Class will be recorded, so if you miss the live class, you will be able to download the audio recording and listen to it at your leisure.

To register for this free teleseminar:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/calendar.htm