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       ** DEMC ** Volume VIII No. 13 **
          The Truth About Email Marketing!
    Serving the Internet Since November 1995

 
Quote for today:

"Your imagination has much to do with your life ...
It is for you to decide how you want your
imagination to serve you." - Philip Conley

_________________________________

WHAT'S IN THIS ISSUE - FEATURES

1) Editor's Note: "New Strategies for Success"
2) Business Insights: "An eCourse? Why Would I Want One?"
3) Feature Article: "The Holy Grail Revealed"
4) SOHO Help Desk: "Free Exposure In DEMC"
5) DEMC's - Advertising Information

 
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175,000 subscribers for as little as $36.
http://www.demc.com/Advertise/advertise.html

Forward DEMC to your friends and associates.
Anyone can subscribe for Free by emailing:
Subscribe@sendfree.com

 
=============
1.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

"New Strategies for Success"

Ezine publishing is becoming a highly challenging occupation.

Why?

Delivery for your ezine means your email publication has to
find its way through the filter traps. Which is not an easy
task. There are filters for key sp^m words, filters for your
list's percentage of bounced messages, filters for list size,
filters for complaint ratios, filters for message size, and
add to that individual list members' personal mailbox filters.

Every time you publish an ezine you end up wasting hours,
triple checking your messages and your mailings to see if
your ezine was delivered or if you need to try again.

You might begin to ask yourself, should I stop publishing?
Are ezines worth the effort?

Now, before you jump to the conclusion that I'm looking to
hang up my cleats, let me say I have every intention of
continuing to publish DEMC.

In fact, I'll be the first to defend the ezine, as it remains
a terrific marketing tool. Ezines are one of the best way to
build relationships with your prospects and customers.

However, as I see the growing dilemma surrounding ezine
delivery, I want to point out that publishing an ezine is
not the only way to cultivate a relationships with your
in-house list.

There are other email marketing and epublishing strategies
you can use to develop relationships and trust with your
prospects and customers. We will begin to discuss these
techniques in more detail in the coming issues of DEMC,
starting with the articles in today's issue.

You'll find a great article in our "Business Insight"
section on eCourses, written by a new "Featured Writer,"
Denise Ryder. You may have noticed Denise's contributions
To previous issues of DEMC. Well she has agreed to share
her epublishing knowledge with us on a regular basis with
a monthly column in DEMC.

Denise also is the publisher of ProfitSpace Newsletter,
Moderator for Around The Water Cooler a business
discussion group and is Affiliate Manager for an
autoresponder / web hosting company. If that doesn't
keep her busy enough she does marketing consulting
for home and small business owners.

Denise's entrepreneurial spirit can be credited to her
mother who owned a small store in rural Ontario, Canada.
She completed her degree in Marketing from the Canadian
Air Force where she spent 14 years and retired as a
Sergeant. Shortly thereafter she and a business partner
started Micro Grafix Corporation, focusing on graphic
design and publishing magazines.

Over the past decade Denise has been called upon by
Government Agencies, Educational Institutions, Non-Profit
Organizations and Corporations to present workshops and
seminars on a wide variety of marketing topics. Her
passion rests in marketing and providing marketing tactics
and strategies for the home and small business industries.

She hasn't looked back and when asked what words of
advice she has for fellow home and small business owners
today? "Break out of that Bubble from time to time and
take in a seminar, workshop and network with other like-
minded people. It helps clear the mind and helps you stay
focused. AND DON'T GIVE UP...I have seen many, many
people throw in the towel only to realize that they were
this -- close in seeing success. Be persistent and
consistent with your marketing."

You can reach Denise at webmaster@profitspace.biz
Or to participate in Around The Water Cooler email
cooler@a1ebiz.com

After you've enjoyed Denise's contribution, be sure to
scroll down to today's Feature Article. You'll learn
how to develop and use print on demand materials in
marketing your business.

 
Abbie Drew
DEMC Editor
mail@demc2.com

 
=============
2.

EMAIL MARKETING INSIGHTS

* Exclusive *

"An eCourse? Why Would I Want One?"
By: Denise Ryder

It should be no surprise that eCourses are an effective
marketing tool for you. Just follow the lead of some of the
top marketers online today and you will see more and more
of them are developing their own eCourses.

Why...?

eCourses create fantastic results:

1. They are an effective way to bring in more subscribers
to your newsletters.

2. They can be the basis of creating a new permission list.

3. They generate profits.

The thing I like the best about eCourses is the way they
help with three fundamentals in marketing, which are:

Number One...

You have heard it said numerous times...
"That in order to succeed online, you need a list(s)."

An eCourse provides you with the means of building a
list. For the price of an email address, a prospect gives
their permission for you to send them your course...
BINGO now you have a name and address and you can
start to build upon gaining trust with that person.

Number Two...

People will do business with people they know, like
and trust.

eCourses provide an excellent way to build trust and
create a rapport with people through providing good,
quality information. Information that will peg you as the
"expert" in your given field. When you have the "trust"
of your prospects they are more apt to take your
recommendations into consideration, which of course and
let's be honest here, leads to additional revenue for you.

Number Three...

It takes between 7-10 exposures to your business before a
prospect will register your business in their mind.

eCourses provide you with a medium in order to create that
exposure. Stop and think about that for a second and you
will soon see how that can work to your benefit.

A typical eCourse is about 5-7 days in length...each day
a new "lesson" is sent to your prospect which is an
additional "hit" or "exposure" that they have received. That
is an additional time that you and your business have their
direct attention.

After the completion of the course you follow up with
them on a regular basis and provide more great content
and of course offers.

The benefits of offering your own eCourse don't stop there,
there are many more... however, the two that really "hit
home" are these:

1. Automation
Let's face it...time is NEVER on our side, so with that said
the more "email marketing systems" that we have in place
which will capture email addresses for us and send out the
information that is requested...the Better! That is the
beauty of an eCourse.

You write it, (hey, did I just hear you grasp for breath at
the thought of writing your own course? Don't worry
there is a resource below to help you), plug it into an
autoresponder and BINGO...you are ready to start giving
it away. The system takes care of itself.

2. LEVERAGE (my personal favorite)
Ok, picture this...You have written your 7 day eCourse,
and on the very last day, you include an offer to the
"prospect" saying that they have permission to upload
YOUR eCourse to their autoresponder and offer it to their
networks and downlines.

They of course are biting at the bit to do it, because it is
good quality information and they are now able to use it as
a means of building a list of their own...but it gets even
better.

By offering YOUR eCourse to them, you are now
LEVERAGING yourself through their marketing efforts.
They are going to start giving it away, for the price of an
email address, to people that perhaps you may never have
even reached on your own, which of course leads to...
Exposure. Because your name and contact information is
on each and every autoresponder that your course is
uploaded on.

That is in my terms LEVERAGE...but using online
marketing terms it also is referred to as Viral Marketing.

How powerful is that???

....PRETTY POWERFUL!

John D. Rockefeller once said:
"I would rather earn 1% off of 100 people's efforts than
100% of my own efforts."

Hmmm, I think that pretty much hits it out of the ballpark
for you and you get the idea of just how powerful eCourses
are and why you need one.

The question is, knowing what you know now, are you
going to act on it and put this email marketing tactic to
work for you?

 
Resources:

Automatic Income Streams is a fantastic ebook which will
walk you through the process of developing your own
quality, information driven eCourse. Yes, your OWN...not
someone else's. It all boils down to my person belief...why
rent when you can own ;o)

It will help you from Concept to Delivery, even offers you
with good solid suggestions for resale rights if that is the
way you want to go. You will also receive an eCourse
template that you can use for your own eCourse. It is a
good resource and one that should be in any Marketing
Library.

Autoresponders:

SendFree - offers free and professional autoresponders.
Plus when you join you are entered into an ad exchange
that gives you free advertising to further promote your eCourse.
http://www.sendfree.com

###
Denise Ryder is a Marketing Coach and is owner of
ProfitSpace Newsletter. She also produces a Weekly
Marketing Brief that you can sign up for and use to start
building your own opt in list. For more information
email Denise directly at - webmaster@profitspace.biz

 
=============
3.

FEATURE ARTICLE:

* Exclusive *

"The Holy Grail Revealed"
By Yvonne DiVita

The Web's Full Potential

We are fast approaching the end of the first decade of
doing business on the World Wide Web. In 1994, Tim
Berners-Lee (the inventor of the WWW) helped form the
World Wide Web Consortium "to promote standards for
the evolution of the Web and interoperability between
WWW products by producing specifications and reference
software." Now referred to as the W3C, this non-profit
group is still hard at work on your behalf to "lead the
Web to its full potential."
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~wwwbtb/book/chap1/web_hist.html

To a writer such as myself, the full potential of the WWW
is in its ability to communicate, in real-time, to the more
than 655 million people who log on to it every day. But, to
business professionals such as yourself, the full potential of
the WWW is in its ability to bring you clients and help you
make sales. As this decade of ecommerce comes to a close,
I predict that there is a Holy Grail here. And it's free for
the taking.

Email Marketing Changes

We will be seeing changes in email marketing this year.
Sp^m is forcing the issue. Will the government get
involved? Will filters become more efficient? Will your
messages continue to get to your customers, or will email
marketing become so fraught with problems, that we have
to let it go?

Just like the Internet itself, email marketing is here to stay.
Big cheer! Yes, it will involve changes and filtering and
active participation on the part of the sender to keep it
legit, but no one truly disputes that it's here to stay. After
all, as the saying goes, if it isn't broken, why fix it? Email
marketing, double confirmation, works. The industry will be
refining its capabilities, yes, but let us never doubt that it
will still be here in the long haul.

While you're sweating over your newsletter or email
marketing campaign, and worrying about sp^m or filtering
software getting in your way, you may be missing out on a
supercalifragilistic way to make your words do double duty
for you. I'm talking about e-books and edocs.

Ebooks and Edocs

If you don't know already, ebooks and edocs are
documents your clients can download off of the Internet,
from your Web site or from your email marketing message.
The goal of an ebook or an edoc is to provide information.
Every day thousands of eBooks are downloaded. Estimates
by ebook companies predict that 250 million people will be
reading eBooks by 2005.

If you don't have enough material for an ebook-it's not a
book unless it's over 100 pages-develop an edoc. It often
serves the same purpose. Most likely you've downloaded
an edoc, in the form of a PDF, in the last year. The Fortune
500 routinely offer white papers as edocs, some charging
for them, others not.

Why not compile YOUR last 10 email messages into a
PDF that organizes the value of your product or service,
and offers a paragraph or two of additional information?
By offering your expertise in a short, 2-10, page
downloadable document your customers can read at their
leisure (in bed, or, while watching the news) you're giving
the customer an option they can appreciate. The added
benefit to you is that the customer can now pass along your
message without having to worry about the sp^m filters
setting up a block to it. And, they accept you as an expert
in your field.

The Holy Grail

There are advantages to offering your expertise, compiled
from previous email marketing messages or developed
wholly brand new, in an edoc or an ebook.

First, the convenience factor is key. Again, folks like the
feel of paper in their hands. Perhaps some of your clients
already print your messages, just to be able to hold it in
their hands and give it a careful scrutiny. If you offer them
several columns or messages, compiled into one document,
according to usefulness, you offer them a value-added
service that will impress them and probably take less paper
to print.

Second, this is a very cost-effective way to get collective
messages in front of a lot of people. If your email message
gets blocked by filtering software, you may never know it.
To avoid that issue, it's very easy to code your message
with a short note informing the reader that you have put the
last 5 or 10 email newsletters together into a book for
further referencing; all they have to do is visit your Web
site and download the PDF. Or, visit the Web site and
download the ebook, which they may store on their hard
drive or print out, at will. Make sure you offer a link that
lands on the download page.

Third, ebooks will not wear out and they offer information
complete with graphics or links to additional information,
should the reader be interested in pursuing the topic.
Included in this third benefit, is the option of offering the
ebook or edoc for sale. Often, people associate value with
price. If you have given them value in your emails,
compiling those columns into an ebook is added value.
Charge a nominal fee, and your customers may buy. A
popular way of doing this is to give the edoc away for free,
then let the reader know he or she can purchase the
complete ebook for a nominal fee.

If you have a newsletter, if you're sending out qualified,
repeat email marketing messages, you have the fodder to
develop an edoc or an ebook. For more information on
how to make this work for you, visit www.1stbooks.com or
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/index.asp.

To build your columns into a PDF and save money doing so,
visit
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/article.php/1963111%20.
to review some options that are more cost-effective than
handing Adobe the $250 they want for their software.

If Amazon.com does it...

Click on over to Amazon.com and check out their edoc
section. If anyone knows how to do this successfully,
Amazon does. There is money to be made selling your
expertise digitally. And, they will help you every step of
the way.

###
Yvonne DiVita is the owner of Windsor Enterprises,
offering web content writing, editing and marketing.
She is an avid Internet guru specializing in cutting edge
technology, website development and promotion,
and Internet marketing.
Contact her at, divita@windsorenterprises.com

 
=============
4.

~/~ SOHO HELP DESK ~\~
http://www.demc.com

"Free Exposure In DEMC!"

Share a tip or answer a question and you'll get free
exposure in DEMC!

You'll find today's Help desk contains a whole host of
new questions from DEMC readers who need your help. Plus
a subscriber shares his business horror story to caution
you.

Take a minute to review the questions and feedback below
and then email me with any resources, thoughts, opinions
or answer you may have.

Thanks in advance for sharing you small business expertise.

Send in a response today! helpdesk@demc2.com

=== Help Request ===

From: John Thackway

As a business development strategist, I serve the suppliers
of technology, micro processor based systems to the Oil and
Gas and gas processing industry internationally.

My advertising would seek:

1) Oil and Gas people who are receptive to new process
technology
2) Suppliers of technology to the Oil and Gas industry that
require assistance in marketing.

Where could I find my marketplace?

Regards

John Thackway
FIT - Business Development Processes, Inc.

Send your answer to: helpdesk@demc2.com

=== Help Request ===

From: Jeff White

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could share some insights on
site optimization. I get the basic concept of meta tags and
focusing each page on a different keyword or phrase. Once
I have determined the keywords to optimize for each page,
should I submit each page individually, or just the index?

I don't want to submit my pages until I get them right. And I
definitely don't want to be banned for submitting too often.

Since I'm using a free subdomain, should I even bother?

Thanks for your help,

Jeff White
http://free-satellite-tv-review.port5.com

Send your answer to: helpdesk@demc2.com

=== Help Request ===

From: Arjun Kumar

How can a Paypal International user get cash (check) from his
Paypal account, if he don't have an American Bank account?
Is there any intermediate company which do this service?

Arjun Kumar
"75% OFF! New & Easy Future Prediction Technique! Mega Bonuses!" http://www.AccurateFuturePrediction.com/

Send your answer to: helpdesk@demc2.com

=== Answer For Jerome ===

Jerome's Question:

>I've set up an autoresponder ... There are five messages
>in this responder ... Every message has a note and link
>saying that receiving my follow-ups is not required.
>And to 'discontinue' my messages just use the link.
>
>Can I consider those who do not use this link are giving
>me their permission to receive further messages from me?

From: Valerian Dinca

Hi Jerome,

Before I answer your question I must say that your
message describes a very effective way to use an
autoresponder. I am sure you get good results. For more
ideas on how to use autoresponders and set-up your own
free autoresponders, you and any interested person
should visit http://www.sendfree.com

Coming back to your question, my personal opinion is
that you cannot be accused you are sp^mming people.

Your autoresponder messages include a link that allows
people to unsubscribe from future messages. If the
recipient doesn't use it that means he/she has agreed
to receive your messages.

Valerian Dinca

=== Feedback ===

"How I Destroyed My Business In Two Weeks"
By: Don Muller

I wanted to respond to Jean Beam's article last week, when
he said: "Now, I have no idea why someone would let
his or her domain name expire but it happens." Well it
happened to me! I thought I'd share my story as a word
of caution to other DEMC subscribers.

It all started a few years ago when I created, what I
believed to be a really good domain name. I spent hours
on coming up with this name. It was great and perfect! I
bought it from Network Solutions and I spent the last few
years promoting the name and building my business
around it.

During my ownership of the domain, I decided to switch
registrars. Transferring the domain name to another
registrar, to put it simply, was a nightmare. So I believed,
erroneously, that losing a domain was impossible because
it seemed to me that the registrars don't let them
go easily.

Once I'd succeeded with the transfer, I was relieved.
Relieved that transfers could actually occur, relieved that
I could easily change registrars and relieved that I was
paying really cheap prices for domains. And not
necessarily in that order!

Over the last Christmas season, I accidentally let my
domain expire. Based on passed experiences, I thought,
the domain would be safe, because these registrars never
let go of a domain.

When I did go to pay for it, though, I found it was gone!
The new registrar dumped it after 15 days! They told me
"we have gone by the rules of ICANN, there is nothing we
can do."

So as it turns out, some registrars let names go as soon as
15 days. They don't tell you that. It's not posted on the
website. You have to ask. But by the time you do ask,
it is usually too late.

The moral of my story, if you've built up your domain,
watch that expiration date. Your domain's business
could end up being someone else's goldmine.

Don Muller
http://ismysiteup.com
Domain monitoring services. Free accounts available,
get yours today!

===

 
Please keep sending in your feedback. The help and
resources we've been able to share has been terrific.
Send in your questions, answers and thoughts by
emailing: helpdesk@demc2.com

Be sure to include your SIG and contact URL with your
post as we'll be sharing any viable ideas/information in
an upcoming issue of DEMC E-Magazine.

 
=============
5.

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175,000 subscribers for as little as $36, plus details on
How To Get a FREE Ad in DEMC E-Magazine Visit Our Web Site:
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(c) 2003 DEMC All rights reserved

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