Things are changing. Times are changing. Not in all cases do we recommend to our clients to use email newsletter management software such as Constant Contact or email newsletters in general.
There are times when email newsletters are perfect, just know not in all situations is that the case. At times, RSS-to-email messaging from a category on your blog should be the delivery of choice. But that conversation is for another time.
Here are a few quick tips for creating powerful, attractive electronic newsletters.
Have an agenda. What is the purpose of your newsletter? Are you a thought leader? Is your message for customer retention purposes?
Provide usable, original content. Make sure your message is relevant to your audience.
Grab attention with your subject lines. I talk about this in depth here.
Remember short attentions spans. Design your newsletter for skimmers. Use catchy sub titles for eye-catching sections.
Publish on a schedule. Whatever schedule you create, stick to it so your readers know when to expect your juicy tidbits of info.
Below is the slidedeck from my presentation to the Williamsburg Internet Marketing group yesterday. We had a great couple of hours discussing blogging for business on many different levels.
Sit back, relax, grab your cup o joe and let’s talk about RSS feeds readers and how they can benefit you each day. Of great interest should be the way today’s feeds readers allow you to get all the interesting information that you care about in a very time efficient manner. And best of all, RSS readers do not require you to be a techie!
Benefits of using an RSS reader:
Aggregates all information that I’m interested in into one location.
Can read information from blogs, websites, news sources, forums, etc. in one location.
Accessible from mobile devices.
Resides in the Internet cloud so is accessible from anywhere that I am. If you have a web browser, you can access your feeds / articles.
Can quickly and easily share each article with family, friends or business partners via email within the reader application.
Can tag each article for later search.
Is an immense time saver for retrieving information or news from the Internet. You can scan through many article headlines very quickly.
You don’t have to remember URLs or web addresses for favorite information.
The reader automatically checks for new information so you don’t have to visit each website.
“Sometime real-time is not fast enough.” - Jeremiah Owyang
Translation: We must think about what will happen tomorrow and predict moves, changes, issues, and trends.
“B2B and B2C is dead.” - Ray Wang
Translation: Because of the ‘best of breed’ concept between on-premise information storage and cloud computing, the fundamentals of relationships are changing.
The Social CRM Space is becoming evermore dominant. Mapping out your social graph is what companies are doing today in preparation for tomorrow. Facebook wants to become an identity company, not a social network. Their vision is that wherever you go on the web, your Facebook friends go with you.
“I put that [RSS Reader] away. Most of my traffic is coming from Twitter.” - Jeremiah Owyang
Translation: We cannot afford to not have real-time data today.
iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. Android - “Definitely iPhone because its platform is easier to build on.” - Ray Wang
Translation: A lot of developers will be able to build on the iPhone platform much easier than any other. Simple for the developer means power and more technology for the consumer and enterprise user.
Special Note: This may be the first time any comment has intrigued me about the iPhone. Being a BlackBerry evangelist (!), I’ve always contended that BlackBerry will be tops for a long time. I’m interested now in the iPhone purely because it could solve some of the limitations I have now with mobile technology.
I had a buddy (cousin, actually) that approached me earlier this week wanting a few cigar recommendations. He’s a newbie in the cigar world and wanted to get a fair shake at starting with a decent smoke.
Of course I recommended the A Fuente OpusX and the CAO LX2, which are my favorites, by far.
That got me thinking about sharing with you a few cigar feeds that I have in my Google Reader. I try to keep up with them as much as possible - these guys review some very good smokes.
I get this question quite a bit. Becoming a better blogger assumes you want to blog and you care about the task at hand: blogging - communicating - interacting. I’ve mentioned below a few points that I try to follow when blogging but I can’t say I’m perfect at all of them. I try. But I fail at times. So I keep trying.
The big rule of thumb though to remember when you’re searching for this kind of answer is to remain patient. You won’t turn your blog or your blogging skills or your blog traffic around overnight. Stick with it. And you’ll succeed.
So, how do we become better bloggers? Read on -
Define the pupose of your blog. Even if your topics are varied. Define them and stick to the scope of the definition(s).
Create visual appeal. Use graphics, photos or art in your posts.
Stay in one place. Once you establish a place (e.g., blog.keithparnell.com) on the Internet, stay there. Don’t make people hunt you down. They won’t.
Engage and involve your readers. If your posts are not of interest to your readers they won’t stay around or come back. Get them involved in commenting on your blog. Even if you keep most of them hidden (like I do) conversations on your posts are crucial.
Establish a blog schedule. I’m not real good at this but I try to get up a post at least 3 or 4 times per week. I blog on several blogs so sometimes it’s hard; it doesn’t matter. You must be consistent to keep interest.
Proofread your work before hitting the airwaves. Please! If you have this inadequacy and you know it, have someone proofread for you.
Syndicate yourself. Use RSS feeds extensively. A lot of blog readers use feeds to scan many blogs quickly just like the morning newspaper. Personally, I have about 350 blogs that I check daily. I could not and would do this without using RSS feeds.
Make sure you have an “about me” page or a home page link. People want to know that you’re a real person.
Get involved in the blogosphere. Getting involved means post comments on other blogs. Get involved in conversations and when possible link back to your blog.
Submit your posts to other social web 2.0 communities. Reddit, Digg, Delicious, Netscape, and Stumble Upon are a good start.
Interview industry experts. This sometimes bring in a new audience to your blog from which you may pick up new loyal readers.
Interact with your readers. Just as I’ve done with this new post, its origin is a comment from a client on another post. Interaction and conversation is always good.
Write about something you love. This is the only way to keep your own interest. Believe me, if you don’t love what you’re talking about people will notice.
Include lists in your posts. Use bullets or numbers. Readers scanning your blog will be attracted to lists more than thousands of words on a page.
Have fun. Blogging doesn’t have to be work. Feel free to make your posts fun and entertaining without wondering what people are thinking of you.
Give lots of link love! Link to many different web pages and websites. Link to competitors. It’s okay, there’s plenty of traffic on the Internet for everyone.
Hopefully this list didn’t bore you too much and maybe even struck some interest and other questions. Do you have other suggestions?
As I said, have fun with your blogging. Talk soon.
I’ve talked with 3 or 4 clients in the last month or so that had apprehensions about blogging. Each of them had their own legitimate reasons for questioning whether they should blog or not. After we talked through their reasoning and a few case studies I was able to relay to them, each proceeded with their blogging venture.
The bottom line is that you need to get content out of your head and onto a platform so the search engines can help work for you. Content, content, content is a process that I preach constantly as one of, if not the, most important aspects of inbound marketing.
Okay, so. How can you get past the demons? Let’s list a few ways.
Keep a notepad handy. When a thought pops into your head, scratch it down. Complete it now or come back to visit the thought later. Doesn’t matter. Just get it down.
Read your thoughts aloud. Sometimes it helps to ‘hear’ your thoughts to make sense of them.
Read other blogs and RSS feeds. You will get many thought pearls from other folks.
Don’t procrastinate. Just do it.
Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Two-way blog commenting communication is valuable on many levels.
Stay tuned for the excitement! New Media Conventions is coming to Virginia Beach this fall. Check the New Media Conventionswebsite for more details. Make sure to sign up for the email list to get details as they are unveiled.
Things are changing. Times are changing. Not in all cases do we recommend to our clients to use email newsletter management software such as Constant Contact or email newsletters in general.
I get this question quite a bit. Becoming a better blogger assumes you want to blog and you care about the task at hand: blogging - communicating - interacting. I’ve mentioned below a few points that I try to follow when blogging but I can’t say I’m perfect at all of them. I try. But I fail at times. So I keep trying.
Did you happen to see the amazing 
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