Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

Email Marketing

How To Attract Even More Visitors To Your Blog

By Joan Stewart   |   May 31, 2011

If you’re blogging, good for you.

Hopefully, the search engines are pulling traffic, including journalists, into your blog and your website.

But there’s something else you could be doing at least every other week to kick your marketing up a notch.  Read More »


7 Email Broadcast Systems Used By Top Internet Marketers

By Charlie Cook   |   December 1, 2010

Which email broadcast system should you use to grow your business?

The answer depends on the volume of email you send. For example Aweber gives you the basic information on open rates and can track clickthroughs and it’s so easy to use that anyone can master it in a few hours. Read More »


How To Supercharge Your Email Marketing With Autoresponders

By Michael Katz   |   October 16, 2010

Why your Autoresponder is your best small business marketing tool
Social media, Facebook, Twitter — what’s the most effective, least expensive way to market your business or service? One of  the easiest and the most effective marketing tools you can use is already right there in your e-mail toolbox. It’s your Autoresponder.
What is an Autoresponder, anyway?
An autoresponder is simply a message sent automatically in response to an e-mail received or a web form filled in.  You’re probably familiar with one already: the autoresponder vacation message. You write it before you leave, and while you’re gone, anyone who sends you an e-mail gets your prewritten message sent back to them.
Here in E-Newsletter Land, the most important autoresponder is the “Welcome Message,” a message sent immediately to anyone who signs up to our e-mail subscriber list. The Welcome Message is one of the most important tools in our autoresponder: It’s an opportunity to welcome new readers as they take that first step onto our list.
Make sure your welcome e-mail includes:
• An explicit thank you for subscribing to your email list
• A recap of what they can look forward to receiving every week
• The name, title and — if you want to get fancy — handwritten signature of an actual human being within your organization
• An invitation to send feedback
• An unsubscribe link (commercial e-mail marketing services, like Constant Contact, require this for legal reasons)
Simply put, the point of a welcome message is to offer a hearty electronic handshake to your new friends.
Whatever you do, don’t simply send the uncustomized, default welcome letter that your e-mail marketing vendor provides. Give this all-important first message the same care in voice, content and design that you give the newsletter itself.
In my case, for example, I’ve now got it set up so that after the initial and immediate welcome letter, new readers receive:
On Day 2, an e-mail that points them to my newsletter archive
On Day 16, an e-mail that points them to my page of additional free resources
On Day 45, an e-mail that demands cash. Ha, ha! I’m kidding. It’s an e-mail that asks how I’m doing and what else they’d like to see in the newsletter.
Bottom Line: New subscribers are like rich acquaintances. When they introduce themselves, welcome them with open arms, show them around, and pay them special attention in that first month or two of the relationship. Your autoresponder keeps in touch for you, so you can turn that first meeting into a profitable long-term business relationship.

Social media, Facebook, Twitter — what’s the most effective, least expensive way to market your business or service? One of  the easiest and the most effective email marketing tools you can use is  your Autoresponder. Read More »


All Apples and No Pie

By Michael Katz   |   October 2, 2010

I don’t know where you live (I don’t even know who you are). If you do, however, reside in Massachusetts, I know one thing: You went apple picking at some point during the last two months.

Unlike other laws which we don’t interpret quite so strictly – stopping at red lights, for example – here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, apple picking is not optional.

Don’t ask, I don’t know why either. But the fact is, come autumn, all permanent residents are obligated to load their children into a vehicle (preferably a minivan) and drive them to a place with the words “Pick Ur Own,” “Orchard” or “Farm” in the name. (Extra credit if it has all three.) Read More »


Return to Sender

By Michael Katz   |   September 16, 2010

You know what word I have trouble spelling? Oppossed.

See what I mean?

Same with curiculum, entreprenur and envionment, although I blame that last one on having lived in Boston for 25 years, a place where the letter “R” has never been welcome.

Happily, I’ve got a spell-checker in Word and a spell-checker associated with my e-mail. And with 98% of my written communications occurring between those two, for the most part, nobody knows about my spelling weakness (Shhh). Read More »


Hanging By a Thread

By Michael Katz   |   September 2, 2010

If you’ve been receiving my posts for even a little while, I’m sure you’ve come to view me as a serious, thoughtful, dare I say… highbrow kind of person.

And while I appreciate your kind words (thank you), it will probably come as a shock when I reveal the following: When the Sunday newspaper arrives each week, the first section I read is the comics. In fact, and as long as we’re telling tales today, I should mention that there are weeks where the only section I read is the comics. Read More »


Unleashing the Kitchen Magician

By Michael Katz   |   August 16, 2010

I hired a financial planner yesterday. I wasn’t exactly looking for one, but as you’ll see shortly, he was hard to resist.

First off, you should know that doing this has been on my mind for some time. Here it is the last half of the year already, and I’ve been talking seriously about hiring a professional for… let’s see… July, June, May… about 14 years. More or less since the birth of my first child.

The truth is, I’d probably put it off for another 14 years had I not met Tim. Tim is a financial planner, and a new E-Newsletter client of mine. Read More »


Give Chance a Chance

By Michael Katz   |   August 2, 2010

I play basketball every Monday night, in my town’s middle school gym. It’s a great bunch of guys, and with the average age hovering around 40 — and with games that typically involve more braces, bandages, pads and miscellaneous prosthetic equipment than would be required to rebuild the Six Million Dollar Man — it’s very relaxed.

We don’t even pick who plays with whom — we just put our names on a big sheet of paper and when your name comes up, it’s your turn to play. Because it’s completely random however, the teams aren’t always evenly balanced, in size or in skill. Read More »


A Lead Is Not A Lead Is Not A Lead

By Michael Katz   |   July 16, 2010

“People are strange, when you’re a stranger,
Faces look ugly, when you’re alone.”

— The Doors

A few weeks ago, I received the following email:

“My wife heard Mr. Katz speak somewhere and thought he was the cat’s meow. Read More »


3 Reasons to Publish NOW

By Michael Katz   |   June 16, 2010

Okay, so you’re busy. There’s a financial crisis going on, there’s a mid-term election going on, there’s school ending just a week away and you still have no idea what to do with your kids.

So I understand, you’ve got to prioritize.

And besides, in these hectic times in particular, it would be wasteful – even frivolous – to burden your clients, prospects and others with one more E-Newsletter that they need to read. So you gather your staff (or dog, if like me, you work alone) one Monday morning and announce: “How about we wait until things settle down a bit? Then we’ll start publishing our newsletter again.” Read More »