In this fast-paced world we live in today, it can be challenging to take the time to reach out individually to each and every one of your customers and potential customers–at least in the traditional hand-shake-old-fashioned way. That does not mean that you can’t think creatively to connect with your audience regularly by taking advantage of all of this modern technology while still maintaining a bit of the nostalgic personal touch. YOUR 2009 SOLUTION: E-MAIL LISTS!

While some may argue: “how can you be personal with an email that you send out to hundreds if not thousands of recipients at the same time?”, IT IS still possible to utilize this modern technology to reach out to your audience to communicate how much you care and appreciate them (with excellent time-efficiency too!)

The important distinction that will make your email stand out to your audience is sincerity–how much do you really care and understand our customers? Do you know what problems and questions they may have? Can you offer them a simple solution?

As a business, you HAVE value to offer. You just have to find the right words and channel your service/product to your customers’ needs. People primarily care a lot about themselves–so if your email subject title conveys something that pertains to their personal needs, then you’ll get a higher open rate.

I see so many advertisements: “Check Out Our New Products”, “Look at Our New Logo”, “We Opened a New Store”…GREAT? HOW DOES THIS SERVE ME? If you can communicate how your company’s news is your customer’s news, you are on the right track.

So next time you write a promotional email, think beyond the immediate news of “30% off your next purchase”, think more along the lines of “save more money in this economy!”

GET CREATIVE! THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! OR JUST FORGET THE BOX ENTIRELY AND CREATE YOUR OWN MARKETING “SHAPE”.

Just remember…service service service, not advertise, advertise, advertise. *HUGS!*

Read more about how to captivate your readers in 2 seconds!

I hosted a free webcast (free marketing therapy – click below to get advice!) on Relationship ROI. 

The web is the most track-able medium…what business owners fail to measure is the MOST IMPORTANT metric, Relationship ROI (Return on Investment).  Relationship building (from blogs, content, social media, communities, great customer experience and more) pays back.  Your best customers come from maximizing relationships and web marketing is a killer tool to help support you.

I created this webcast in the name of teaching engagement marketing to passionate professionals who want to INVEST in marketing that lasts a lifetime.  

Many thanks to BrightTALK for being so amazing to work with.  Their committment to education and providing companies with stellar technology makes them a total Positive Web Marketing Role Model in my book!

Take the 48 minutes to watch this free webcast and engage in marketing that Matter$ !!!!:)

Caution: the following website homepage image may cause nausea.

I designed the website below as a final project for a HTML class I took in 2005.  I passed the class and left the site up…then forgot it/abandoned it!  While being a neglectful parent to my website, I failed one of our many wild web marketing rules:

“Do what you do best and pay the others to do the rest”

A little branding goes a long way - CLICK to see the site now!

I am not a web designer (yeah, duh!)  But we all have to start somewhere and surprisingly, I actually got a lot of work off this site (that needed a web marketing intervention!) because the copy on the site was strong.  However, the whole enchilada of my web presence was not gelling.   The branding was wrong and the design positioned me poorly.

Web Marketing RX for the day:

Invest in marketing that matters and if you don’t believe me, read this post about web marketing to get it.

Laughter is the BEST medicine, we can’t be too serious, especially when all our old site archives live forever on www.archive.org/index.php.  I still show my first website at conferences, in webinars and to my students to demonstrate that we all don’t always practice what we preach (and that we all start somewhere!)

Make your web marketing matter, count and pay. And don’t settle for crapola when it comes to web work.

Never, ever, ever, discount the power of paying professionals who know what they are doing.  Return on Investment (ROI) is not just about the cash, it’s what you get value-wise in TIME, ENERGY and VALUE.