Complaints - A Cause for Concern or Simply Inevitable?

We have automated messaging set up on most of our Twitter accounts, so that new followers get a brief DM about Cinnamon Edge and an invitation to call us. We use Social Oomph which is a free service and it seems that recently some of our long-term followers have been getting the message at random, and sometimes twice.

We've had one complaint about it (out of several thousand followers across all our accounts) but I investigated anyway and saw that the messages have been sent to some people who shouldn't have received them. As a result, I turned off the automated 'Welcome DM' on that account.

Then I stopped to think. The only reasons for us as a marketing company to stop communicating are if it either costs more than it returns directly, or if it indirectly harms the business by damaging our reputation in some way. Of course, a complaint on Twitter is fairly public, so it has to be taken seriously, but one complainant in about five thousand followers is hardly statistically significant.

I can imagine, I think, what top copywriter Jon McCulloch might say about this - if nobody's complaining you're not trying hard enough. He doesn't do Twitter but he does advocate emailing your list every day and asserts once again in today's email that no one who's followed his advice about that has failed to make more sales and profit. Some people hate daily emails, it's true, and will unsubscribe, but more people become customers than would otherwise do so and if you're in business you presumably want to sell something...

Keep communicating. As it happens, I don't think we get a measurable return from our welcome DM so it will be no great loss if we stop it altogether, but not just because one person complained about getting the same message twice in three days (and three times in six months).

Meanwhile, we plan to step up our email marketing. I'll let you know how that goes!

Roy

Saturday - A Good Day for Business

Local businesses will get a timely boost on Saturday when we give away seven of the eight books we've published this year! The other one will cost you less than a pound - but only for one day, Saturday 11 Feb. Here's our news release explaining everything:

Although our part of the country has fared better than most regions during the recession, there are still a lot of anxious business owners who will be grateful for some free help to alleviate their business worries.

That’s why local marketing firm Cinnamon Edge has pulled out all the stops and published not one, but eight business books online in the last few weeks – and why they’re making most of them available for free this Saturday.

The books cover business topics ranging from basic search engine optimisation for your website, to email marketing, how to start a small practice from scratch and even how to run workshops and seminars. All the books have been written by Cinnamon Edge partners Jacqui Carrel and Roy Everitt.

“The books are available from our website now,” says Roy, “and they’re not expensive anyway, but we decided we can reach more people by making them free for a day.”

Only the seminar and workshops one won’t be free – but it will cost less than a pound!

Six of the books are available via Amazon for Kindle (and you don’t even need a Kindle to read them, just a free app that you download easily for your computer or tablet). The other two books are PDFs published by Bookboon, who specialise in free ebooks for businesses and professionals. These can be read on any computer.

You can find links and descriptions for all the books on a special page on Cinnamon Edge’s website, at http://www.CinnamonEdge.co.uk/publications

Remember, they’ll only be free for a day!

Roy adds, “I hope people will take full advantage of the chance to download our books while they can.”

With experts telling us the economy is likely to be sluggish for some time, anything that can help a business do better while saving them money has to be a good idea.

 We're hoping the local press will pick up on our offer and spread the word, but feel free to pass it on yourself - there's a Tweet button on the right of this page!

Roy

Okay, Lesson Learned

Two interesting experiences yesterday as a result of our recent email series about online domination:

First, we had a message via Aweber from someone who had decided to unsubscribe from our list on the basis that they didn't agree with the idea of 'dominating a market' or 'squeezing out the competition'. Cooperation and sharing were the way forward, not competition.

Fair enough, and I can see how cooperation helps many businesses do better and serve their customers better. Although I was disappointed to see someone unsubscribing (I must stop taking this so personally) I knew I would get over it. Anyway, the message was written in a friendly way.

The second interesting experience came later in the evening, at the launch of the Towergate Accumulator Challenge - see our Fifty Quid Challenge website. Two people, totally unprompted, made a point of saying how much they'd enjoyed receiving that very same email series. Not only that, they both said they had saved the emails to read again later.

We often get people saying how much they enjoy our emails, but this was the first time two subscribers had said exactly the same thing about the very same sequence.

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice - although the online domination emails are free, of course! You can get all seven of them, one per day, when you visit the Online Domination Website and leave your name and email address.

And you can choose to act on them, or not, and you can unsubscribe at any time. You'll get lots of other great marketing tips if you stay with us, though.

Roy

A Lesson in Email Marketing

Actually, this lesson applies to any advertising and selling you do, through whatever medium.

It's just that it's so easy to measure it with email marketing (and so inexpensive, not to say effective...)

Anyway, we had a reminder of this principle recently, more or less by accident.

We use email marketing quite a lot. Tracking the results is always fascinating and illuminating. So a 100% click-through rate for a download we gave away gave me quite a kick, I must say.

Especially as the open rate for that email was only about 25%!

So yes, over four times as many people clicked the link as actually opened the email, which I've never seen before.

And the lesson? We 'accidentally' took away the risk, by using the words 'just download' in the subject line.

Meaning, not only did people not have to pay, or even sign up with another list, it seems most people realised they didn't even have to open the email. So maybe we appealed to their lazy side, too...

So, several lessons, actually.

1. Taking away the risk dramatically improves response

2. 100% response IS possible

3. Email marketing really does work

4. When you make things really easy and obvious that makes a big difference

5. We really should emphasise how we ALWAYS remove the risk from buying our products, with our no-quibble guarantees!

Until next time, to prosperity - it IS still possible.

Roy

PS (Always have a PS) here are some of our products, and they're all guaranteed:

http://www.nicheseminarsecrets.com/

http://www.completemarketingmanual.com/

http://www.thelifecoachingmanual.com/

How Do You Price Your Product?

Hello again

One thing we can all find difficult, especially if we're new to business, entering a new niche or launching a totally new product, is how to set the price.

Surprisingly, a low price can reduce sales, because it reduces theperceived value of the product.
So what a lot of people do when they start is to look around for roughly comparable products and set their price a little lower than the average their competitors are asking. What does this do?

It lowers the perceived value of the product to less than most ofthe alternatives. So how many people will choose the new product ahead of one of its rivals, which cost just a little more?

Very few, I'd say.

But when we launched The Complete Marketing Manual there were no direct competitors to compare it with. There were very few offering anything remotely similar. So what could we do to set a realistic price for The Complete Marketing Manual?

We tried to think what we might be prepared to pay. Bad idea. We asked other people what they might pay. Better, but not perfect, becaue they weren't actually going to buy it. All we could actuallydo was set a price and test it. Result: we need to raise the price,and soon.

So, while The Complete Marketing Manual is currently £47 or $97,depending which sales page you go to (that's about the same price, depending on exchange rates), it's going to be more than that in thenear future. Not immediately, because we're also testing something else, but soon.

So now you have advanced warning of the price rise, and the chance to buy it today, for £47 or $97, whichever suits you best.

Go to http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=LqDY8&m=1ee5dfl0vQRg9P&b=RHTNeMW4RohELdARhcropw for the £47 offer, and to http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=LqDY8&m=1ee5dfl0vQRg9P&b=OZfUuvhHkAYSJvIccdhWuw for the $97 one.

That's it for now, but remember the price will rise soon.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

The Complete Marketing Manual, from Cinamon Edge

Is Email Marketing Dead?

Hello again.

Judging by the number of emails we all send and receive every day, email marketing is still very much with us.

But how many of those emails are read and acted upon? Most of us have some kind of spam filter, and then we delete a lot of the mail that gets past that filter, without even opening it.

Still, I'm betting you read at least a few email messages every day, and if most of those are from friends, family and colleagues, there will be a percentage that nonetheless contain a sales message of some kind. And if you think you never read any of those, then they're probably slipping under your radar! Score one to the email marketer.

The ones you do notice are also succeeding, of course.

'Succeeding' doesn't have to mean persuading you to buy - marketing isn't just about closing the sale today - it means getting you to 'receive' the marketing message, because all marketing is a process, not an event.

So every message you open is another step towards an eventual sale (or it's another step towards your losing interest and unsubscribing), just as every email you send could be...

Because you don't just have to receive all these emails every day, you can send them, too. It's really quite a simple process and it's amazingly cheap (and therefore cost-effective) if you choose to do it yourself. Even hiring someone to do it for you, using their copywriting skills and experience, needn't cost the earth, and results will usually be even better.

When you target your old and existing customers you'll multiply their lifetime value to you.

You needn't worry about alienating people. We're talking about emailing your customers, not your friends here. If a few do unsubscribe, ask yourself this: do you really need to stay in contact with 'customers' who don't buy anything and don't want to hear from you?

So, is email marketing dead?

No; but maybe, for you, it is sleeping...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS You won't be surprised to learn that email marketing is one of the services we offer at Cinnamon Edge. You can read more about it in The Complete Marketing Manual or by signing up for our newsletter and free reports, using the form on this page.

Internet Marketing - Anyone Can Do It!

Hello again,

The best thing about Internet marketing, and what prompted me to use such a bold headline, is that it can act as your shop window, your shop floor, your sales person, your cashier, your bookkeeper, your production workers, your workshop and your delivery system. All, pretty much, for free.

And the more you sell, the closer to ‘free’ it gets. Digital products cost nothing to deliver via the Internet, so margins are astronomical. Almost regardless of the business you do now, you will be able to create, or have created for you, a digital product – an ebook, a software download, an audio or video recording, a ‘how-to’ manual, or whatever. The recurring income in IM is from products that cost very little to create except for time and imagination but which sell over and over again, with free delivery and zero manufacturing costs. And ‘physical’ products like manuals, DVDs and the like sell for prices far above the cost of reproduction and delivery anyway.

So you haven't missed the boat, even if you haven't started yet. Here's a great resource that will take you all the way from novice to know-it-all, and from zero income to a potential income with lots of zeros. It's from my good friend Terry Telford, and I have to say he's roped in a good few friends of his own - and what circles he moves in!

Terry's 'Business Building Strategies E-course' is the real deal. You might even be intimidated by the sheer amount of wisdom he's collected together, but the great thing is you can follow one 'teacher' at a time or dip in and out to gradually hone your own methods and fill in the blanks in your knowledge-base. If he's left out a thing, I haven't spotted it! Get it HERE.

Another great thing about the Internet is that you can keep things very simple: while it’s delivering your merchandise and collecting and recording payments, the Internet is simultaneously building you a database of clients you can go back to time after time. By integrating an auto responder system like Aweber into your sales and marketing process, you can automatically add every online customer and every enquirer to your database, so you can repeat your sales message as often as you see fit. You can also be more subtle with your email marketing, by providing useful content and information, like our Cinnamon Edge articles and newsletters, building the trust and respect of your potential clients until they feel happy to buy from you. Or they can just keep reading.

Either way, it still costs you next to nothing to stay in touch. If we can do it, so can you!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. You can get the Business Building Strategies E-course here.

PPS. We've also just updated The Complete Marketing Manual and we're so proud of it we want you to have the first chapter, absolutely free, when you go HERE

21 Ways to Promote Your Business

Well, we do like to be generous, but of course we have an ulterior motive...

Meet...

When you go to The Complete Marketing Manual we'll give you 21 easy and effective ways to promote your business, absolutely free, PLUS the first chapter of The Complete Marketing Manual to sample.

Because if you have a business, any business, and you're starting to feel the pinch, you need better promotion and marketing, simple as that.

Get it free at The Complete Marketing Manual from Cinnamon Edge

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

21 Ways to Promote Your Business

Hello again.

If you have a business of any kind, you might be getting a bit twitchy about the economy.

You might even be tempted to cut a few corners with your marketing, to shave a few pounds or dollars off the 'cost'.

Well, you should and you shouldn't...

The good news is you can nearly always find a way to get more effective marketing for less. The even better news is we can tell you how, and even that advice is free!

The even better news is we can also show you how to get so much more for your money that you'll soon be proving the ultimate marketing truth: Spending on effective marketing is an investment, not a cost.

So go to http://www.cinnamonedge.com/cmm.html and sign up for the free ebook '21 Easy and Effective Ways to Get You and Your Business Noticed'.

And, while you're there, think about how quickly you could recoup a £47 investment in effective marketing!

The Complete Marketing Manual is on special offer, but we really don't know how long that will last. You probably have until next Monday, at least, since we'll be away and far too busy to update the sales page until then.

But who knows? If it starts flying off the proverbial (and virtual) shelves, we might make time!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS Go to http://www.cinnamonedge.com/cmm.html anyway, and grab your free ebook '21 Easy and Effective Ways to Get You and Your Business Noticed'.

Networking

Hello again

I'm very grateful to Mark Byford for the following article which I've adapted from his blog on MySpace:


I'm going to use the term networking in the loosest possible sense here as I believe if you look at networking the way most people perceive it, you’ll see why most people give up on it.

It always intrigues me how people think it should just happen. Ask yourself this: if you go to work for somebody does the job just happen or do you work at the job to make it happen? The word work means ''to do'' so you might think that if you work you will get results. Well, be assured, if you don't, you will not even be in the running.

I belong to all sorts of networking groups both on and off-line; I attend every possible networking event that is ever put on, and my reckoning is that if you're in it, you can win it.


Let's cover seven basic networking rules before we get ahead of ourselves:


Rule 1) Know your products and your company inside out


Rule 2) Carry enough business cards for the entire event


Rule 3) Don't be ‘Billy no mates’! Get in there and talk to people


Rule 4) Look the part, dress up, smell great. People may like it


Rule 5) Always carry your samples


Rule 6) Listen to what others have to say and then tell them about you


Rule 7) Get their cards


Understand this above all else: everyone attends networking events for one reason – to get more business. Well, the problem with that is that people don’t like passing work on to strangers. That’s a simple fact, so here is what you need to do:

Go to the event, be it Chamber of Commerce, BNI, B4B, BRE, FSB or any other serious professional networking organisation, and just NETWORK! Don't try to sell anybody the idea or product – you can do all that in good time.

Meet them, greet them, talk to them, listen to them but most of all don't push what you have to say down their throats. Have a good time, enjoy the day and work the room, not spending much more than 3 minutes with any one person. Ask each of them if they have a business card in case you need to contact them in the future, and give them two of yours. They will often say ‘Oh, you gave me two cards by mistake’. Just say, ‘It's no mistake; the other is for a friend of yours that you may feel needs to speak to me’, and then just smile.

When you get back from the event the fun starts. Send everybody an email saying how great it was to meet them and how you’d like to get together and find out more about their business, so that when you’re out networking in future you can pass their details on to people you meet.

So you send the emails out. For those that don't reply, call them and ask them ‘Do I have the correct email address for you? Only I note I haven't received a reply from you’. They will then suddenly remember to reply. Now you have a book full of appointments to go and see people – maybe five to ten a week, every week, if not more.

When you meet them tell them how great it is to see them again and how you’re really looking forward to the meeting. Be relaxed, enjoy your time with them and make this a real one to one. Don't be pushy: some of the nicest people I have dealt with in the world are the best salesmen; they’re just not pushy. One of my closest friends now started as a cardboard box salesman who visited me to sort out my packaging requirements, we have been the best of friends ever since that day ten years ago.

The point many people miss is that people ‘buy’ people – the product or service comes second and the price only third...

Enjoy the next netWORKing event you attend – now you know what you’re doing!

Adapted from an article by Mark Byford
www.myspace.com/lairdmarkbyford

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS You can network like crazy, learn loads and secure your future at the eConfex Buy to Let Summit on 15-16 March. Read more right here!

A 265,719 List - Free

Just a quick article today, to mention an amazing but very real opportunity.

One of the biggest obstacles to many would-be online marketers is building a 'safelist' of opted-in email addresses. Without those, email marketing is dead before it even starts...

And even 24 percent of nothing is still nothing.

Here's the solution: Smart Safelist.com

Roy Everitt, Writing For Smart Results

At Least Something Works!

Hello again.

Frustrating isn't quite the word when you've gone to the trouble of directing people to a website, only to find you can't update the content to give them what you've promised.

The mysteries of Internet Explorer and/or Google conspired to prevent me updating this page yesterday, but I'm here now.

And the plan was to tell you how the death of email marketing has been greatly exaggerated. To point out that any other advertising medium that could deliver a twenty-four percent response would be lauded to the hills. And any that subsequently delivered over sixty percent of those responders to the advertised event would be hailed as revolutionary.

It wasn't lauded (except by me) and there's nothing very revolutionary about email marketing. I guess it depends on three things:

1. How targeted the original list is
2. How good the offer is
3. How well we write the emails

So we can probably say we got three out of three for our last campaign. Fifty attendees from a list of about three hundred people (and from just under eighty opt-ins) has to be good.

So when I finished congratulating myself for that success I could only think I should be doing this kind of thing for a living!

Then I remembered I was, decided to tell a few people about it, and hit the brick wall that either Microsoft or Google temporarily threw up in my path.

Still, I'm here now, I've told you about it and I can only ask one question: how would a twenty-four percent response to your next campaign help YOUR business?

Roy Everitt, Writing for Amazing Results

The Death of What, Exactly?

Hello again.

I'll get back to public speaking next week, I think, when we're all back into the swing of things...

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a couple of lessons I've re-learned during the Christmas lull.

Firstly, when anyone publishes an ebook or white paper titled, 'The Death of....' you'd be very unwise to take it at face value - of course, they just want your attention. But when Michel Fortin publishes a white paper and calls it 'The Death of The Salesletter', you should certainly read it. As one of the world's top copywriters, he certainly knows what he's talking about. Which is why I'll give you 'The Death of The Salesletter', just for signing up to Roy Everitt dotcom...

Secondly, when anyone talks about the death of anything in business, that claim is almost always premature. We've even had 'The Death of The Internet' and yet, here we still are.

The obituary for email marketing has been written several times, despite the fact that emails clearly still work. And they work despite the fact that we're all bombarded with more emails than we can possibly read, with more links to websites than we can possibly follow, and with more downloadable ebooks than we can possibly use. Email marketing still works well in the right niches. And, being more or less free, it still works well enough in some areas where it hardly works at all - a one percent response or less is fine if you can send a million emails at almost no cost.

But when you have a much smaller list to market to, you need a much better response, which means you have to give a lot more thought to your campaign - to your offer and how you present it. That's when you want your response to be in double figures, or better. That's when you need some real expertise on your side.

So, a twenty-four percent response to an email marketing campaign can't help but be pleasing. That was the response we got to our last campaign. So far, about seventy of the roughly two hundred and eighty-odd people we've emailed have signed up for our latest venture. Over thirty of the original two hundred and thirty or so actually attended our first event, despite it being just a week before Christmas. We're almost nervous about inviting any more in case the venue can't cope with the numbers...

What this shows is that we chose the right medium to market our product. Another product might sell better through printed direct mail, yet another by online sales and pay per click. Word of mouth and referrals will almost always work.

But get your offer right, put your message across well and market to the right people, and you can still sell - even in the week before Christmas.

And even by email...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Response.

PS. What you must not do in these circumstances is pay too much attention to the few people who didn't like your marketing method. If it worked, and you got the response you hoped for, that's all the approval you need. Marketing, as someone once said, is a 'numbers business'.