Write Spot Media LLC

E-Marketing Overload

This comes from e-Marketing Partner out of Greeley, Colorado who believes we all need e-marketing for various reasons:

• Regular contact with your customers - the best way to increase your business.
• Survey your customers - the best way to identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• E-mail is the best way to stay in touch - because it's the most popular online activity.
• You save money - because there is no printing, no postage, no addressing and no waste.
• You save time - because production turnaround for your e-mails is very short.
• Customers can respond immediately - they can react as soon as they read.
• e-Marketing e-mail is trackable - you know exactly who's responding.
• Your database is always clean - undeliverable e-mails are deleted automatically.

Lisa Eaton, S.T.E.P.S. Founder & Facilitator, says she likes e-marketing because it's:

• Cost effective; variety of price ranges
• Do it yourself or hire a consultant; variety of companies and levels of service
• Using templates and or a consultant reduces your learning curve and time committment
• A great marketing tool for informing and inspiring your readers Keeps your name in front of your target audience
• Asks readers to take action Increases your professionalism; a step up from regular email Outsource your writing or proofing to a copywriter if writing isn't your strong suit
• Strategic Reports give you information on your campaign that regular emails don't

Yet Belinda Ellsworth of the Success Express warned in her January audio message that you cannot just rely on e-marketing to grow and maintain your business. She gave the example of one company she signed up with as a Preferred Customer. While it enabled her to get a discount, she was overwhelmed by the emails they sent her, often several a day. Soon she stopped reading them even though it was information she could have used.

Before signing up, she had received occasional phone calls from her salesperson whenever there was a special or a new product introduction. She liked the personal contact and often made a purchase. But once she signed up as a Preferred Customer, the phone calls stopped because the salesperson assumed Belinda was getting all the information in the emails. She was, but she wasn't reading them.

A good professional marketer will help you avoid overloading your customers with information, and help you create a message that is lean, mean and gets the job done. But don't forget about calling your bigger clients as part of your marketing mix. You may want to set up phone calls or meet for a cup of coffee or a meal on a regular basis.

It's all about touching your customers in a way that's effective and convenient for both of you.

Contingency plans

You're the owner of a small company, and you fall ill. How do you handle it?

If it's a minor illness, you pop some OTC remedies and soldier on. For a medium sized virus, you probably work from home (if you don't already) and answer the phone between trips to the bathroom, doctor, and/or pharmacy. You have your business partner or employees cover for you. They screen calls, run meetings, and send you orders of hot chicken soup from a nearby deli.

But what if it's a doozy, and you can barely get out of bed? Or maybe you're hospitalized - what then?

SFGate.com offers some good advice in Can Your Put Your Business "On Hold" Due to Health Reasons? But FlyingSolo.com's post Small business planning: Are you prepared if you fall sick? really nails the day-to-day details like answering emails, invoicing and collecting, and contact lists. Along with marketing and business plans, this kind of contingency planning for small businesses and one-person shops is essential.

Why have I been thinking about this? Well, I've had whooping cough (or so my doctor thinks) for the past three weeks. Before that, my kids were sick, and today my daughter has an upper respiratory illness and needs a nebulizer.

Luckily, I've been feeling well enough during the day to work, and the kids weren't so ill that I had to be at their side every second. (Instead, they camped out in my bedroom, er office, and watched videos.) Also, one of the side "benefits" of taking cough and asthma medicine is that I'm all up night blogging, making to do lists, or catching up on reading. Luckily, I'm on the road to recovery.

This Mama Gets Written Up

Charlie Kondek at Hass MS&L public relations wrote up a pst about my blogging work and being on both sides of the marketing fence over at BlogWorks. Charlie was one of the first publicists to email me about products to review and contests and companies he was promoting. We've worked on everything from Heineken and BestBuy.com to the Swifter and Reynold's Baking Cups.

I've always said that the toughest part about blogging is not the writing, but deciding what to write about. It's coming up with content that takes up most of my time. So when Charlie sends me a product to try out or a press release to blog on, I'm usually happy to oblige. I don't have a problem promoting his clients since there's never any pressure to write about things I don't want to, or to be positive about something I don't like.

I just wish he'd send me more chocolate and booze.

More On How Much Bloggers Make

Last month WNBC-TV, a New York TV station, invited more than 130 of New York's most-read bloggers to come to their station and talk about the digital future. The Blogger Summit was held in Studio 6A at 30 Rockefeller Plaza the home of the Conan O'Brien Show. Unfortunately, big media screwed up the event by alienating the bloggers after begging them to e-mail in scoops.

Nevermind the faux pas. NBC did post some interesting information from their Blogger Survey. They asked the top 130 NYC bloggers how much money their blog makes:

• 17% - over $1,000/month
• 14% - $200-500/month
• 4% - $100/month
• 14% - less that $100/month
• 51% - NOTHING

Remember this is from 130 of NYC's most read bloggers. So much for BlogAd's Henry Copeland telling the Wall St. Journal that "most self-employed bloggers take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales. "

I wish.

(Thanks to 901am for the heads up.)

Wall St. Journal's Blogging for Web Sites

Could that be my blogging business partner, Jim Turner, who's mentioned in the Wall St. Journal's Paygrade - Blogging for Web Sites article?

Some recruiting agencies help bloggers land free-lance work. "We help them get jobs with companies that can't afford a full-time blogger," says Jim Turner, chief managing partner of One by One Media LLC, Firestone, Colo.

Way to go, Jim! But what's this about us bloggers making oodles of money?

Most self-employed bloggers take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales, says Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds.com, a Web advertising concern based in Carrboro, N.C.

On my three personal blogs, I use affiliate programs (mostly Amazon) and run ads from Google Adsense, the BlogHer ad network, and BlogAds. I even have a client who buys ad space directly from me. While I've monetized my blogs fairly well, I know there's more I could do to increase my ad clicks and sales.

So with a minimimum amount of effort, I make about $100 to $150 a month. Not bad. The income covers my ISP and TypePad bills, my newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and maybe a few book purchases. However, it's about 5% of what Henry claims I should make. Maybe he should have said four- to five-figures is what most most top bloggers make?

Anyone want to send an email to the WSJ?

Consider LoudLaunch for Paid Blog Posting

Lately, I've been experimenting with paid posting, mostly through PayPerPost and Review Me. As a blogger, I've found PPP hard to use as their website is very slow. It seems popular with businesses, since there are many advertisers looking for bloggers to post about their products or specials. At PPP, volume wins out and offers more opportunities for bloggers.

Review Me was fine, but it's one of those "don't call us, we'll call you" sites - they only notify you to do a paid post when an advertiser requests your blog. It pays better than PPP, but you don't get much activity.

I signed up with LoudLaunch before their site was up. Now that their site is live, I'm hoping they become a solid contender in the paid post world for two reasons: 1) their site is easier to use and 2) they pay slightly better than PPP.

LoudLaunch allows bloggers to be compensated for helping advertisers distribute their press releases or news. But here's the interesting side for small businesses - advertisers can create campaigns starting at $50. The reach of a campaign is determined by a campaign's budget, so the higher the budget, the more bloggers can distribute your news. LoudLaunch makes it cheap and easy for any size business to create buzz in the blogosphere.

Would you use a paid posting site to have bloggers write about your product, news item, or web site?