Web and Email Marketing Tips

More Email Marketing Resolutions for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:32:00 -0800

1. Each month replace one of your previously planned broadcast emails with a targeted email to a segment of your list. A well-crafted, targeted email can generate as much sales as a broadcast email, while simultaneously increasing engagement and reducing list fatigue. However, a targeted email does take a little extra effort to create.

2. Schedule a review of all your email forms and triggered emails. Sign-up forms, preference centers, welcome emails, triggered emails -- if you haven't done an inventory of these pages and emails and reviewed them to make sure that they're accurate and up to date, do it now. These tend to get set up and then forgotten about - sometimes for years.

3. Speak to the subscriber and not from the point of view of your business. Make sure that your emails and forms address consumers with them in mind. What's in it for them? What's appealing to them? And how does your email program help them?

4. Redesign your email templates with image blocking in mind.

5. Segment out your inactive subscribers. Send them different messaging than your active subscribers and at a lower frequency. Also consider sending them emails with a different template, one that has an unsubscribe link at the top, or offering the choice to opt-down to a lower frequency. After a long period of inactivity, you may also want to send a reactivation campaign, asking them to opt in again in order to continue receiving emails.

Worst Unsubscribe Practices

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:30:00 -0800

I am still unsubscribing from lots of emails in an email account that I no longer wish to use. While doing so, I've come across a couple of practices that make me want to scream. I'll share them with you so that you can make sure not to do this to your subscribers:

don't make me log in to unsubscribe from your email. I usually don't remember my login details and asking for a password reminder results in more email in my inbox.
give me the chance to update my email address. I might still want to receive your newsletter at a different address but am too lazy to look for your newsletter sign-up box on your webpage.
give me an opportunity to cut down on the amount of emails you send me. Some senders send me more than 1 email per day. That's overkill. I do want to hear from you once in a while, just not every day.
give me the chance to say which emails I do and which I don't want to receive. I am not interested in everything that you send me. Give me a chance to choose the content I want.
don't use font size 6 (or 1) for your unsubscribe link. In some emails the footer text is so small that you need a magnifying glass to be able to read it. I wear glasses because I have bad eye sight. Don't remind me of that every time I want to unsubscribe.
don't make the links blend in with the rest of the text. Use some underlining at least so that I can easily recognize the unsubscribe link.
don't get too clever with naming your unsubscribe link. The word "Unsubscribe" is what I'm looking for. I recognize that word instantly. Don't make me read the whole footer. I'm unsubscribing, remember?
don't send me a confirmation of my unsubscribe request. A simple "you've been unsubscribed" on your website will do. Remember: I am trying to reduce, not increase inbox overload by unsubscribing.
use my email address in the To-line, not my name - that way it's easier for me to see which alias I've used to sign up for your newsletter.
don't make the "why do you want to unsubscribe from this list" survey question mandatory. I admit, I didn't see anyone doing this, but just in case you'd be tempted to do this: don't!

Have you seen unsubscribe tactics that make you want to scream? Please share!

14 Ways to Annoy Your Subscribers

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:29:00 -0800

Sending irrelevant email messages
Sending emails too frequently
Expanding permission to other mailings
Sending an offer to customers for a product/service they have already purchased
Not using any of the data you collected from recipients to create targeted messages
Lack of personalization
Bad personalization
Not using a friendly (recognizable) "From" name, especially in "welcome" messages
Using one “From” name/address in the welcome email and then different ones in your regular emails
Poor design or confusing navigation
Making it hard for readers to manage their subscriptions or contact you from email
Using one or two large images to show products or present information.
Using images to present action items
Emails with typos, the wrong date or product photo, broken links or coding errors

A Guide to Switching E-Mail Technologies

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:23:00 -0800

The average length of home ownership is about seven years. We haven't seen similar figures for how long companies stay with one email marketing technology or vendor, but it's reasonable most companies will eventually switch technologies.

At our company, 99 percent of our clients have switched from another technology, whether homegrown software, a purchased software system, use of an agency, or direct use of a hosted email service provider (ESP) solution. Some new clients need more advanced features, while others want to improve their delivery rates.

If you plan to switch email marketing providers in the future, keep this checklist in mind as you make the transition from your old technology to the new one:

Verify IPs. Verify you'll receive either dedicated or shared IPs from your new provider. If your original service had problems managing bounces and unsubscribe requests, a shared IP environment will suit you better in the short term. When moving to a dedicated IP environment, you're more prone to blocking if your mailings generate a spike in user spam complaints.

Run the IPs through a spam checker tool such as http://www.openrbl.org/ orwww.DNSstuff.com. Not all listings may be significant, but you should discuss any potential issues with your ESP.
Confirm authentication. Confirm authentication methods are updated to reflect your new outgoing email IP addresses. If you didn't use authentication (SPF, DomainKeys) before the switch, work with your ESP to set it up.
Define reporting. To compare your current service to the new one, make sure you understand how reporting numbers are compiled and any differences in the service you're moving to. Open rates are sometimes calculated from the total number of users sent, for example, and sometimes from the number of users left after bounces are removed.
Establish benchmarks. Save your historical reporting data. To compare accurately, record your reports' actual numbers rather than the ESP's percentage. This will help you compare and evaluate new services and adjust your program as necessary.
Apply unsubscribe and bounce lists. Don't forget to import unsubscribes and bounces from your old system to the new environment. This may seem like a no-brainer, but we often run into cases where this step hasn't been properly executed. Also, understand how your new ESP processes bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes. Are spam complaints automatically unsubscribed? Are bounces resent? How many times, and for how many days?
Update your content/forms. Ensure all unsubscribe and member update functions are still active when you move mail providers. If you use the update-preferences and send-to-a-friend functions provided by your current ESP, make sure you update the code on your Web site and in the link in the email. If your sender address changes, be sure to update the add-to-address-book instructions with your new address.
Slowly ramp up email. This is particularly important if your bounce processing was less than stellar or you haven't mailed to your lists in over three months. Try your first send over the course of a few days to a week, and break the list up into smaller chunks. You want to avoid a large spike of bounces and spam complaints that could get you blocked.
Test before going live. Run samples of all of your marketing communications through the new program before sending your first campaign, newsletter, or sales offer to see how images and functionality vary and to find any blocking issues. Test mailings in different browsers, email clients, and platforms: PC, Mac, perhaps even on a handheld PDA or your cell phone.
Get your staff on board. Run informal training or get-acquainted sessions with your staff and anyone else in your company, from the CEO to IT and salespeople who will use, fix, or pay for anything you send through your new ESP.
Talk to your account executive. Make sure your account executive or support staff understands what you're trying to accomplish. They know their systems better than you do and may suggest easier or more efficient ways of accomplishing your goal. Some ESPs offer API (define) functions that can help automate certain parts of your process.
Use your ESP's resource center. Most ESPs offer tools and articles on their sites or support packages that help tune your messages. Some tools available include filter checks, HTML code valuators, and subject and sender line character display counters.
Best practices sessions. Take advantage of your new ESP's best practices training sessions, Webinars, and seminars. These sessions will give you further insight into how to improve your deliverability and increase results from your email program.
Newsletters. Most ESPs offer a variety of communications, including a general customer newsletter discussing new features and updates; a best practices and tips newsletter; and emergency/status notifications. Make sure you and your team are added to those lists.

Five Keys to Selecting an Email Delivery Partner_Media Post

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:21:00 -0800

"Over 94% of marketers are using or going to use email marketing by year's end." So says the October 2006 Forrester report, "Email Marketing Landscape." According to the same report, over 58 percent of companies interviewed indicated they deliver email using a variety of email services -- 31 percent through full service agencies and 28 percent through Application Service Providers (ASPs, or more intimately known as ESPs to this space, meaning Email Service Providers). Only 15 percent indicated they use internal technology to service their email marketing needs.

In a former column entitled "How To Evaluate E-Mail Vendors," I suggested several functional capabilities you should look for in a vendor. This really is a hot topic these days. When my company audits email programs, most clients we talk to are questioning the value they are getting in their service relationships both internally and externally. My team has seen five RFPs this year alone for selecting ESPs. The business requirements look unmistakably similar across every company, but when you look underneath the requirements into what they really want, these are quite often not reflected in the RFPs.

Here are five critical questions you need to ask yourself before engaging in this effort.

1. What type of service do you need? While the analysts will categorize the ESPs into full service, self service and a hybrid service, this can be confusing. What if you want to use a full service vendor, where they do everything for you, and then grow a team internally and ultimately do it all yourself? Does that exclude the selection of partners that tout full service only? Does it exclude self-service only companies from solving your "today" problems? I know two ESPs that have been slotted into these arbitrary analyst categories as self service only, when in fact they do provide the classic full service capabilities. Then there is a well-known ESP that is listed as full service only by analysts, and ironically a large part of their business is self-managed by their clients.

I prefer to classify ESPs in the following way: "The Fat and Content", "The Hungry" and "The Starving". What's my rationale? The success of any partnership is in the willingness and flexibility to match needs to solutions, and this is in direct alignment with the availability of resources to priorities. So, the technology might fit, the relevant experience may fit, but they may be too rigid to make you successful. While I love analyst reports and quote them quite often, take them with a grain of salt when selecting your list of potential suppliers. Some of the best sources are industry networks. The Email Experience Council is one that is emerging, and there are several "insider" lists that offer opportunities for clients to discuss experiences and refer good partners, and will likely get you higher level contacts in these potential partners. See my Blog for list details.

2. How much flexibility do you have with budget and contracting? During your selection process, don't wait till the final selection to discuss terms and options available. There may be more flexibility than you think in negotiating contracts, but many companies have done RFPs to only find themselves stuck in a swirl of contract negotiations at a late stage because extra charges popped up or SLA's didn't meet the IT department's requirements. Be sure to disclose any specifics about contracting requirements before hand. The easiest way to mitigate this is to do "pilots" which will give you a basic review of the contracting process and the flexibility of your organization, and select partners in getting this done in a short period of time. It can be difficult for some companies but the success of a pilot program is usually a good "tell" as to their willingness to work with you.

With the consolidation and crowded space we have today, contracting can get hairy with larger companies. Consider this when reviewing partners, as you may not get the SLA you are looking for or an adequate support clause. I know firsthand of five email technologies that have had various levels of failure in the last two years. Are you prepared to handle this? And how much of this can and needs to be in a contract? If there is commercial value to your email, then I'd consider strongly the effect of any system failure and subsequent recourse. This will save you headache and internal embarrassment.

3. How much integration do you really need? Everyone wants a symbiotic relationship between data and syndication and the "perfect storm" for eCRM is out there – I just haven't seen it yet. But understanding what is critical to business success and what is a "nice to have" and the trade-offs is critical. The RFP process can be a great opportunity to validate your requirements by forcing partners to come up with prioritized approaches to helping you solve problems. If you get cookie-cutter approaches that aren't somewhat customized to your issues, you have either not given enough detail to your needs, they haven't done their due diligence or you have reached the RFP machine at the ESP, responding with the same response they give to everybody. You should remember that everyone is asking these same things, so without a good "setup" of the RFP process you are likely to get very generic approaches to pricing and implementation.

4. How do I transition from one vendor to another effectively and efficiently? This is a critical situation. Change management is tough. And yes, that's what is involved. You will likely change some of your processes, train new people and begin to work with new technology and support teams. This shouldn't be taken lightly. In the final analysis, this could be the most expensive aspect of the whole effort. First of all, you have to budget for this transition, don't expect the partner to absorb these costs. If you don't have the budget and intestinal fortitude for this type of effort, it's wise to reconsider why you are switching providers. Secondly, be clear about the details of this change in your RFP and expect your future partner to give you a plan for this transition so it does not affect your operation and delivery performance. There should be a clear ROI for this transition, if not, you'll always think it's too expensive and takes too long.

5. What type of partnership do you want? The number one reason I hear why people are changing ESPs is they don't feel they are getting the value they deserve. Is this the ESP's fault if you are paying $3CPMs, and you scrutinize every service fee associated with email campaigns? The quality of the people working on your account is directly correlated to the budget you've allocated to it. It's different if you are delivering 1B message a year, but if you are a $20K per annum account, don't expect their top consultant to hold your hand. Secondly, watch for the "switch." That's when you buy the person pitching you and you end up with a distant cousin who has less than a year doing email. In the agency world, the client wants to meet the team they will be working with and that is what you are contracting for. Be clear about roles, the value they will add and the relative costs. Be wary of anyone that will throw-in this or that value-added service -- it usually doesn't materialize. But most importantly both the partner and client should be realistic about this relationship and the keys to success. The clearer those success metrics are the easier it is to keep a scorecard as to performance.

The RFP process can be simple or very painful depending on your budget, resources and company culture. The transition can be even more painful, but don't be an ostrich; you'd do yourself a disserve if you didn't pull your head up out of the sand and look around every year to see what new technologies and suppliers are doing. Trade shows don't provide enough of a view by themselves, you have to out some effort into this.

Good Sources

Forester Wave Report
This is a good reference, albeit biased as they didn't include all potential vendors in categories. Be wary of reports that exclude partners due to their relationships with the analysts. While I value their "clinical" view of technologies and how they rank and score features, this is difficult to do in this space since the success of the technology, unlike other platforms, is dependant on the service support, so features can be discounted fairly easily.

Jupiter
Typically a good report, with quite a bit of detail about the capabilities and classification of vendors, but be sure to run them through your own tests, I found these reports to miss a few things after closer examination.

20 Questions to Ask When Evaluating an Email Marketing Agency

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:20:00 -0800

Design and Agency

1. What experience do you have in email creative and design for businesses in our industry?Email creative and design is radically different from any other type of marketing. The email designer has less time to capture interest than the web designer, and must do so under heavy restrictions and a completely different and exponentially more complex technical environment than the average website designer. The person designing your emails should be a specialist.

2. What project management process do you follow for campaign management and production?
Not as obvious a question as you might think. You’d be surprised how many agencies are weak in this area.

3. Did your last three email campaigns for clients all deploy on time?
A sure sign of project management problems – a partner without solid production management will have challenges here. So ask this question directly, then ask them to explain why those that didn’t were delayed. A good agency should be able to tell you that 2 out of 3 or better were right on time. And those that are delayed should be because of business reasons, and at the client’s request.

4. How far in advance of deployment will I see a proof?
You should see your first proof between 24 and 72 hours ahead of deployment, depending on how much input the agency has on creative. Any proof sent within 24 hours of deployment should be a confirmation message allowing you to verify that all your changes have been made and to authorize deployment.

5. What experience does your team have in publication management and direct marketing?
It’s been our experience that good email teams are passionate about publishing. They understand the cyclical nature of email marketing, they’re addicted to relevance and they respect deadlines.

Technology

6. What security measures are in place?
The answer should include information about redundant servers, firewalls, physical security of the location where the servers are housed, data management practises and encryption of logins and other shared data. Keep in mind that good security costs a bit of money – and the two things you’re most likely to compromise on when selecting a lower cost provider will be the flexibility of the tools and the security of your customer data.

7. How many messages can be delivered in an hour?
And what is average server uptime? Let’s take these one at a time. Messages/hour is a measure of bandwidth. Keep in mind that even if your list only has 2000 names on it, you’re hardly the agency’s only client. I’ve heard too many stories of companies that send an email campaign and it takes four hours to four days to get it into the hands of customers. When you lose immediacy, you lose some of the most important assets of email. The other big issue – server uptime. A good ESP will ensure uptime of at least 99%. That’s the same kind of uptime you’d expect from your online banking service. If the server is down once every two weeks, then guess what, so is your entire email marketing department. Now – if you don’t mind working on Saturday to make up for the fact that the server was down on Friday afternoon, that might not be an issue. Me, I like to have some options about how to spend my Saturdays.

8. Where are the databases hosted?
Many small agencies with proprietary tools will host data on their own servers. The upside to this solution is that it’s very often extremely affordable. The downside of course is everything we talked about in security and bandwidth. Small, local, server just might mean reduced security, lower bandwidth and less reliable uptime. Most successful small agencies work with an established partner to provide robust solutions to these problems at a pretty reasonable cost.

9. How is customer information captured?
You want to hear an answer that includes key phrases like “secure, hosted web form”, “link from your website” or “host on your website”, “surveys”, “contests”, “inquiries from your website”, “import a csv file” etc. The technology your agency uses should be flexible enough to give you plenty of opportunities to entice your customers to share more information with you, and to keep the information you have up-to-date. You may never need to use them, true. But then again, you may never need a heart surgeon either. It’s still comforting to know that if you do, the one at your local hospital has a medical degree isn’t it?

10. Are bounces and unsubscribes handled automatically?
The only acceptable answer is yes, absolutely. Anything else guarantees you’re wasting valuable human time doing an ineffective job of a boring task better handled by machine.

11. Tell me about some campaigns you’ve run that were more than “batch and blast”
And yes, say “batch and blast”. A good agency will know that you mean an email campaign that sent exactly the same message to everyone on the list. And they’ll see it as an opportunity to showcase the really cool, highly targeted campaigns they’ve run for clients. Beware of anyone who starts off talking about rich media – it’s cool, but if everyone gets the same flash video, it’s really just a fancier “batch and blast campaign”. What you want to hear are keywords like “triggered messages”, “adaptive sequence campaigns”, “conditional content”, “dynamic content insertion”, “forward to a friend”, “advanced personalization”, “multiple language delivery”, ‘a/b split testing”, “distribution groups” and yes, “targeted rich media”. Oh, and a good agency, will be able to explain those terms so that they make sense for your business.

Spam and Deliverability

12. Is email delivery success to all major ISP’s monitored in real time?
Major ISP’s doesn’t mean AOL, or Hotmail. Well it might – but it should also include the local vendors unique to your neighbourhood and those that are likely to serve your customers. If you’ve got customers in Quebec, you want to know what’s happening with Videotron. If you’re in BC, that might mean Telus or Shaw.

13. Is a Spam check tool available? Is it the only anti-spam measure taken?
Spam tools are great – they provide an immediate assessment of common triggers. But they’re hardly foolproof. Your agency partner should back up the results of automated spam check utilities with other processes and tools to ensure your messages are getting through.

14. Does the provider publish an SPF?
If they don’t know what an SPF is, thank them and end the conversation as quickly as possible. If they do, they’ll tell you. And talk about other similar programs, whether they participate and why (or why not).

15. What other deliverability initiatives are in place?
Every agency is unique, and the good ones will have systems in place that are entirely proprietary. They’ll have found unique ways to provide service to their clients that address any holes left in the processes above. Give them a chance to show off. But be prepared, this is one of those questions that’s guaranteed to include words like “proprietary” – which, by the way, is agency code for “something we do really well and we know our competition can’t do. In fact we don’t think they’ve even realized it’s an issue, so the last thing we want is for you to ask them about it!”

Reporting

16. Is reporting provided in real-time via secure web login?
Hey, there’s nothing more fun than watching your open rate climb and realizing that people are actually reading, and yes, clicking through, to your campaign. Plus, if your boss is as type A as I am, he’ll really appreciate a quick email letting him know how things are progressing. Makes you look especially on the ball and informed too!

17. Is the information displayed graphically?
Face it, most of us don’t get that excited about spreadsheets. Brings back too many haunting memories of Math 12 or worse, Calculus! It’s true what they say, a picture IS worth a thousand words!

18. Can I drill down within an individual mailing to compare responses by list segment?
Wouldn’t you like to know if a particular group of your customers wasn’t all that excited about an offer? Or better, couldn’t wait to respond? This kind of information is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

19. Can I obtain reports on the composition of my list based on both demographics and behavioural profiles?
If you know that 50% of your customers are in Quebec or Ontario and that region is hit with a nasty ice storm that shuts off power to the entire region, you could reduce your mailing costs by 50% simply by not mailing to those segments during the crisis. Of say your ESP advises you that AOL is having server problems and you have a campaign about to deploy. Your next step will depend a great deal on what percentage of your subscribers are AOL email addresses.

20. Is cross campaign analysis possible?
Email is a cyclical activity. One of email campaigns are rare – usually they’re tied to a larger program. And looking at that program from a variety of angles, aggregating data across campaigns and comparing activity between various emails is an important part of determining your long-term success. We like to call them trending reports, but whatever name you use the golden nugget here is that change over time is an important indicator.

Choosing An Email Service Provider: Some Useful Tips

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:12:00 -0800

some excellent tips to help you find the right email service provider:

Go for the larger companies. Their servers are going to be more robust, they’re likely to have more staff, including a big ISP relations or reputation management team and have the ear of companies such as AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo!.
In particular, ask how many people they have working on ISP relations and reputation management. Ask whether their reporting can give you a breakdown by domain so you can see which ISPs are causing you problems.
For those that prefer it, there are some very good European ESPs to choose from, but don’t be afraid to work with an American company as they dominate the email delivery space. This truly is a global business and experienced companies of scale are often US-based.
Establish how familiar they are with your needs. It makes sense to try to find out what percentage of their clients are of a similar industry, size and have similar needs to you. You can then select the provider with the most clients matching your scale and requirements.
Don’t be seduced by functionality.Focus on the functionality you need now or in the very near future. What you’re really looking for is ease of use and interface speed. The delivery service you choose should have a user-friendly, intuitive interface that makes setting up and automating repetitive tasks straightforward.
Support is also very important, particularly if you’re going for a self-service solution. So ask how quickly they turn around queries, whether they offer telephone support or just email.
Email marketing is all about understanding how your customers are interacting with your communications. So the reporting interface is absolutely critical and there are significant differences between products. For example, not all technologies allow you to group your mailings by campaign. In some ways, it’s more important to look at the reporting interface than at deployment functionality. Good email marketing is a constant learning and feedback loop, which requires detailed reports.

How to Halve Your Email Costs: 10 Tips for Signing with a new Service Provider

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:08:00 -0800

I’m just about to sign a new contract with an email service provider. The difference between the highest quote we were given and the final price we’ve agreed is staggering (we’re paying well under half).

This is for the same level of service, the same monthly volume and really similar (if anything, slightly better) functionality. This is not a one-off – the same thing happened last time, and I’ve now been through this several times with web analytics providers, list brokers, online ad suppliers, etc.

Based on all of that, here’s a quick guide to getting what you need from an email service provider, without paying more than you have to. Here we go, 10 tips:

1. Decide What You Want First

The standard way to decide on a platform is to speak to a bunch of providers & let them tell you why you should use them. Then compare what they all offer and go with the best you can afford.

The cheaper, better way to do it will take about an hour of your time up front: Write down a checklist of exactly what you need before you speak to any service providers.

Put your requirements down in Excel. Speak to a few companies & note down how they match up to your list. Fill in costs for each, and you have an easy comparison of your essential needs vs the costs. It’s a subtle difference: “This is what it costs to get what we need” vs “This is what it costs to get what they offer”.

2. Costs: Know what you're buying & how the pricing works.

The basic costs of Email Service Providers are:

Initial Setup & Training.
CPM rate. This is your "cost-per-thousand emails sent". 'M' stands for 'Mille', which is Latin for 'Thousand'. Usually you'll make a minimum commitment (eg "I'm going to send 1.5 million emails a month") and they'll give you a rate for that.
Monthly service charges & support costs.
Standard services. EG, hourly rate for extra development on your behalf.
Strategic services. (consulting)
Hidden extras. Ask to see *all* potential costs. Get it in writing if possible.

Get all of these costs before you think about negotiating rates down. If you push down on CPM before they've told you monthly service costs, they may bump those up to compensate.

3. More on Costs: Ask early & always negotiate down

Ask about costs early on (never say “we’ve got a budget of $100k for year 1). You’ll probably be given 2 costs: A ‘rate card’ (the costs they publish to the world) and ‘your price’ (the cost they’re willing to offer you).

In my experience, these 'your price' quotes can still be negotiated down much further. The prices they’re most likely to budge are CPM and Initial Setup costs. You can often negotiate down further right up to the day you sign.

4. Get your Volume Commitment Right

The more emails you'll commit to send each month, the lower your ESP will go on price. EG, commit to 2-million emails a month and they may offer you $1.50CPM. Commit to 10-million and they may offer you $0.75CPM.

It's important to get this right: If you commit to 2-million and you only send 100,000, they'll charge you for 2-million anyway. If you commit to 2-million and you send 20-million, you probably could have gotten a better rate in the beginning.

The easy way to figure it out is to look at: How big are your email lists? How often do you send email? How much do you want to grow/shrink your lists? How much do you want to increase/decrease frequency?

5. Ditch the Consultancy Services

An in-house consultant will naturally be biased by the limitations of their own tool & their own company. For example, they're never going to say "hey, you're coming up to the end of your contract. I think you've outgrown the functionality our tool offers. You should take your business elsewhere".

6. Ditch the Training Too

Most ESPs insist you have some sort of training at the very beginning. My advice is to take the absolute minimum to get you going at first. There are 3 reasons for this:

You just won’t know how much training you need until you’ve used the application for a few weeks.
If you get all the training on day 1, you’ll have forgotten any advanced stuff by the time you’re comfortable enough to use it.
If you do need extra training later on, you can always get it for the same price (or cheaper) than on day 1.

7. Ask for a longer contract

This sounds like a bad idea: The longer you're tied in, the bigger the risk. If things go wrong 3 months into a 3-year contract, you’re stuck! But, the longer your contract, the more commission your sales rep will get. Because of that, they’ll often offer you a cheaper deal to sign for longer.

There is a win-win: A longer, cheaper contract with break clauses. EG, sign up for 24 months, but agree that at each 3-month point you can give 3 months notice to cancel the contract.

8. Ask "if we sign by the end of the month..."

Your sales rep will have monthly targets. They'll get commission and bonuses if they hit their target, and even more if they over-achieve it. You can often commit to sign up by the end of the month in return for a better deal.

It's also worth remembering that it's really tough for them to go back on a deal. If they're willing to charge you $X to sign before Monday & you don't sign, 9 times out of 10 the deal will still be there on Wednesday.

9. Ask "who do you usually pitch against?"

Ask the question "Who do you usually come up against in pitches?". This achieves 2 things:

You can then speak to their closest competitors & find out if they’re better/cheaper/both.
Companies will often offer special pricing when pitching against their closest rivals.

Sales people are also naturally competitive. If they pitch against ACME corp 7 times and lose, they're more willing to be flexible with price if they can win the 8th.

10. Speak To Other Clients

If a company's system isn't suited to you, their sales people may not tell you. Their clients will give you a far less biased picture. Ask the company to provide references. Ask around your network to see if anyone else is using them. Ask the Email Marketers Club.

If another client says "we're doing the same volume as you and paying half the price," your ESP should either be able to give you a better cost or a really good reason why they can't.

11. Be nice!

Here’s my bonus tip: Be nice! Life’s much more pleasant & it can benefit your budget too. The person on the other end of the phone is far more likely to help you out if they like you. If you make their life really difficult, on the other hand, there is no emotional reason for them to do anything for you.

Any other tips? Experiences? Disagree? Work for an email service provider? Let us know in the comments!

Free Targeted Internet Traffic to webblog Or website

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:55:00 -0700

Let others help with your marketing efforts. You can have strangers pass your site to others and span the globe with viral marketing. Create viral marketing with a free e-book or inviting email, it is powerful and free. To start a viral marketing campaign that grows exponentially and without effort send a witty or clever joke, picture, or poem to people in your address book. If enjoyed the recipient will pass it on to those in their list and so on. You may have received the Bill Gates free offer in your own box. This email has been circulated around the world for over three years and seen by countless. Be sure to include your url with a heading, either near the bottom or in a signature file. Do this once a month and watch your web traffic grow.

Pass on a free e-book with your contact details inside. Encourage others to add it to their websites and offer your branded e-book to everyone. As part of your introduction include your website and a message stating that the e-book is free and is to be passed along, so long as nothing is changed or altered. This includes your bio, contact information and links to your site. Cannot write? No problem. There are thousands of books available for you to co-brand and start your viral trail.

Free Traffic and Joint Ventures

Setting up joint ventures may be the most powerful free method available to increase targeted traffic. Joint ventures are simply colorations or partnerships between two or more people or businesses. It is not essential that the partnerships even be in related businesses, though helpful. Just about any combination will work. Obviously competing businesses are not a wise or practical option for a joint venture. That still leaves plenty of other partners. There is no limit to what can be done with this marketing technique. The venture can be as simple as trading client databases, or it can be an elaborate cross promotions with contests and giveaway. A joint venture is only limited by the creativity of the parties involved. If you have the right partner this will do wonders for your credibility and, the know, like, trust, buy formula for success.

Free Traffic and Meta Tags

Meta tags are very important. I am not an expert on tags so I highly suggest you research Meta tags optimization techniques. To have a Google spider find you and have you listed will do wonders for your traffic. Never pay to have your site listed, there are too many ways to have it listed. Too often these pay sites will not do what is promised or what you could do with a little effort.

Free Traffic and Offline Marketing Techniques

To maximize your online presence you have to go offline and bring foot traffic to the web as targeted web traffic. Here are a few low cost offline marketing techniques that will give you added visibility and translate to a more powerful web presence. Turn your automobile into a mini billboard. Place bumper stickers and magnet signs on your vehicle. Leave a business card wherever possible. One suggestion is to leave it with your tip at a restaurant. Hang flyers on high traffic bulletin boards, be sure to leave a pull tab. Change your body into a walking billboard for your opportunity and products instead of someone else’s. How often do you promote Nike, Polo, Guess, or a professional sports team? Start promoting yourself and get your clothes embroidered. It does not have to be anything fancy, a good descriptive url will work.

Free Traffic and Your URL

One last tip. As I mentioned before, I get traffic from posts that are over a year old. Once something is on the internet it is there for good. The url you promote should be permanent. This is important because anything could happen. What if you are no longer with the same company? All previous links to that business are now useless. If you have one url and it either links or redirects to you business opportunity and products you simply have to change the link or redirect page. You will always get a hit when someone clicks on your link.

I hope you enjoyed the article and wish you all the best with you business venture. I am sure you are well on you way to becoming a successful internet marketing professional.

No matter what opportunity or product you promote via the internet you do not have a business unless you have customers. One way to increase sales is to increase your customer base, this means more visitor traffic. If you are not interested in free web traffic, congratulations, you must have deep pockets or all ready have more than you can handle. For those who are interested in free web traffic, read on.

Just getting large numbers of visitors to websites is not enough. These visits have to turn into sales. A chance or uninterested visitor is little better than no visitor. Every site needs targeted visitors. Your site needs people who have seen your message and have had their interest peeked. With a targeted market approximately 3 visitors for every 100 will make purchases. Without targeted visitors this conversion rate drops significantly.

Throughout this article you will encounter numerous ways to increase your web traffic. This traffic will be well targeted free leads, all through online marketing methods.

Do you like to be sold, or pushed into a sale? Like most the answer is a definitive NO. One of my mentors has instilled in me the importance of building relationships as apposed to selling someone. Once the person gets to know, like, and trust you they will be more willing to join you in your opportunity or buy product from you. Remember, know, like, trust, buy!

Free Traffic and Message Boards

Relating this principle to free internet marketing, I suggest you visit message boards. These boards are so effective that I still receive requests and referrals from posts made over a year ago. Visit various boards post messages, meet people, ask questions, share your wisdom, and words of encouragement.

Suggested tips to keep in mind when posting to message boards. Remember you are there to build relationships, you want people to know, like and trust you.

Do not spam:

- do not post the same thing over and over

- post something meaningful and relevant to the conversation

- do not advertise unless otherwise specified

- do not participate in negative postings about others (criticize or flame)

To make the most of message boards and insure highly targeted traffic to your website:

- select boards that pertain to your product or opportunity

- get your name out and popularity up, post a response to a question or simply post a question yourself

- include a signature file with your name and URL, no email. This can be placed in the profile page. It is a good idea to set-up a second email because, you will get spam

- spend one or two evenings a week posting on several different message boards

- be genuine, helpful, and try to learn a few things

- HAVE FUN and MAKE FRIENDS

Free Traffic and Traffic Generation Sites

Traffic generation sites can be good and bad. Most are not worth your time, however, there are a few good ones, so choose with care. I recommend Traffic Swarm. This site is better than most because people select a site from a list in topics they have selected to view ads from. An ad is then chosen based on a tag line and a short description you have written. If the visitor wants credit for their selection you have their attention for a minimum of 20 seconds. After that they may click another site without penalty. Again this is that target traffic so necessary to success.

Free Traffic and Viral Marketing

Let others help with your marketing efforts. You can have strangers pass your site to others and span the globe with viral marketing. Create viral marketing with a free e-book or inviting email, it is powerful and free. To start a viral marketing campaign that grows exponentially and without effort send a witty or clever joke, picture, or poem to people in your address book. If enjoyed the recipient will pass it on to those in their list and so on. You may have received the Bill Gates free offer in your own box. This email has been circulated around the world for over three years and seen by countless. Be sure to include your url with a heading, either near the bottom or in a signature file. Do this once a month and watch your web traffic grow.

Pass on a free e-book with you contact details inside. Encourage others to add it to their websites and offer your branded e-book to everyone. As part of your introduction include your website and a message stating that the e-book is free and is to be passed along, so long as nothing is changed or altered. This includes your bio, contact information and links to your site. Cannot write? No problem. There are thousands of books available for you to co-brand and start your viral trail.

Free Traffic and Joint Ventures

Setting up joint ventures may be the most powerful free method available to increase targeted traffic. Joint ventures are simply colorations or partnerships between two or more people or businesses. It is not essential that the partnerships even be in related businesses, though helpful. Just about any combination will work. Obviously competing businesses are not a wise or practical option for a joint venture. That still leaves plenty of other partners. There is no limit to what can be done with this marketing technique. The venture can be as simple as trading client databases, or it can be an elaborate cross promotions with contests and giveaway. A joint venture is only limited by the creativity of the parties involved. If you have the right partner this will do wonders for your credibility and, the know, like, trust, buy formula for success.

Free Traffic and Meta Tags

Meta tags are very important. I am not an expert on tags so I highly suggest you research Meta tags optimization techniques. To have a Google spider find you and have you listed will do wonders for your traffic. Never pay to have your site listed, there are too many ways to have it listed. Too often these pay sites will not do what is promised or what you could do with a little effort.

Free Traffic and Offline Marketing Techniques

To maximize your online presence you have to go offline and bring foot traffic to the web as targeted web traffic. Here are a few low cost offline marketing techniques that will give you added visibility and translate to a more powerful web presence. Turn your automobile into a mini billboard. Place bumper stickers and magnet signs on your vehicle. Leave a business card wherever possible. One suggestion is to leave it with your tip at a restaurant. Hang flyers on high traffic bulletin boards, be sure to leave a pull tab. Change your body into a walking billboard for your opportunity and products instead of someone else’s. How often do you promote Nike, Polo, Guess, or a professional sports team? Start promoting yourself and get your clothes embroidered. It does not have to be anything fancy, a good descriptive url will work.

Free Traffic and Your URL

One last tip. As I mentioned before, I get traffic from posts that are over a year old. Once something is on the internet it is there for good. The url you promote should be permanent. This is important because anything could happen. What if you are no longer with the same company? All previous links to that business are now useless. If you have one url and it either links or redirects to you business opportunity and products you simply have to change the link or redirect page. You will always get a hit when someone clicks on your link.

I hope you enjoyed the article and wish you all the best with you business venture. I am sure you are well on you way to becoming a successful internet marketing professional.

How to get Traffic from Social Bookmarking sites

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:17:00 -0700

Sites like digg.com, reddit.com, stumbleupon.com etc can bring you a LOT of traffic. How about getting 20,000 and more visitors a day when your listing hits the front page?
Getting to the front page of these sites is not as difficult as it seems. I have been successful with digg and del.icio.us (and not so much with Reddit though the same steps should apply to it as well) multiple times and have thus compiled a list of steps that have helped me succeed:

add to del.icio.us

1 Pay attention to your Headlines

Many great articles go unnoticed on social bookmarking sites because their headline is not catchy enough. Your headline is the first (and very often the only) thing users will see from your article, so if you don't make the effort to provide a catchy headline, your chances of getting to the front page are small.
Here are some examples to start with :-

Original headline : The Two Types of Cognition
Modified Headline : Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence

Original headline: Neat way to organize and find anything in your purse instantly!
Modified Headline : How to Instantly Find Anything in Your Purse

Here is a good blog post that should help you with your headlines.

2 Write a meaningful & short description

The headline is very important to draw attention but if you want to keep that attention, a meaningful description is vital. The description must be slightly provocative because this draws more attention but still, never use lies and false facts to provoke interest. For instance, if your write “This article will reveal to you the 10 sure ways to deal with stress once and forever and live like a king from now on.” visitors will hardly think that your story is true and facts-based.

You also might be tempted to use a long tell-it-all paragraph to describe your great masterpiece but have in mind that many users will not bother to read anything over 100-150 characters. Additionally, some of the social bookmarking sites limit descriptions, so you'd better think in advance how to describe your article as briefly as possible.

3 Have a great first paragraph

This is a rule that is always true but for successful social bookmarking it is even more important. If you have successfully passed Level 1 (headlines) and Level 2 (description) in the Catch the User's Attraction game, don't let a bad first paragraph make them leave your site.

4 Content is king

However, the first paragraph is not everything. Going further along the chain of drawing (and retaining) users' attention, we reach the Content is King Level. If your articles are just trash, bookmarking them is useless. You might cheat users once but don't count on repetitive visits. What is more, you can get your site banned from social bookmarking sites, when you persistently post junk.

5 Make it easy for others to vote / bookmark your site

It is best when other people, not you, bookmark your site. Therefore, you must make your best to make it easier for them to do it. You can put a bookmarking button at the end of the article, so if users like your content, they can easily post it. If you are using a CMS, check if there is an extension that allows to add Digg, Del.icio.us, and other buttons but if you are using static HTML, you can always go to the social bookmarking site and copy the code that will add their button to your pages.
Here is a link that should help you add Links for Del.icio.us, Digg, and More to your pages.

6 Know when to submit

The time when you submit can be crucial for your attempts to get to the front page. On most social bookmarking sites you have only 24 hours to get to the front page and stay there. So, if you post when most users (and especially your supporters) are still sleeping, you are wasting valuable time. By the time they get up, you might have gone to the tenth page. You'd better try it for yourself and see if it works for you but generally posting earlier than 10 a.m. US Central Time is not good. Many people say that they get more traffic around 3 p.m. US Central Time. Also, workdays are generally better in terms of traffic but the downside is that you have more competitors for the front page than on weekends.

7 Submit to the right category

Sometimes a site might not work for you because there is no right category for you. Or because you don't submit to the right category – technology, health, whatever – but to categories like General, Miscellaneous, etc. where all unclassified stuff goes. And since these categories fill very fast, your chance to get noticed decreases.

8 Build a top-profile

Not all users are equal on social bookmarking sites. If you are an old and respected user who has posted tons of interesting stuff, this increases the probability that what you submit will get noticed. Posting links to interesting articles on other sites is vital for building a top-profile. Additionally, it is suspicious, when your profile has links to only one site. Many social bookmarking sites frown when users submit their own content because this feels like self-promotion.

9 Cooperate with other social bookmarkers

The Lonely Wolf is a suicidal strategy on sites like StubleUpon, Digg, Netscape. Many stories make it to the front page not only because they are great but because they are backed up by your network of friends. If in the first hours after your submittal you get at least 15 votes from your friends and supporters, it is more likely that other users will vote for you. 50 votes can get you to the top page of Digg.

10 Submit in English

Linguistic diversity is great but the majority of users are from English-speaking countries and they don't understand exotic languages. So, for most of the social bookmarking sites submitting anything in a language different from English is not recommendable. The languages that are at an especial disadvantage are Chinese, Arabic, Slavic languages and all the other that use non-latin alphabet. German, Spanish, French are more understandable but still they are not English. If you really must submit your story (i.e. because you need the backlink), include an English translation at least of the title. But the best way to proceed with non-English stories is to post them on where they belong. Check this link for a list of non-English sites.

11 Never submit old news

Submitting old news will not help you in becoming a respected user. Yesterday's news is history. But if you still need to submit old stuff, consider feature articles, howtos and similar pieces that are up-to-date for a long time.

12 Check your facts

You must be flattered that users read your postings but you will hardly be flattered when users prove that you haven't got the facts right. In addition to sarcastic comments, you might also receive negative votes for your story, so if you want to avoid this, check you facts - or your readers will do it.

13 Check you spelling

Some sites do not allow to edit your posts later, so if you misspell the title, the URL, or a keyword, it will stay this way forever.

14 Not all topics do well

But sometimes even great content and submitting to the right category do not push you to the top. One possible reason could be that your stories are about unpopular topics. Many sites have topics that their users love and topics that don't sell that well. For instance, Apple sells well on Digg and The War in Iraq on Netscape. Negative stories - about George Bush, Microsoft, evil multinational companies, corruption and crime also have a chance to make it to the front page. You can't know these things in advance but some research on how many stories tagged with keywords like yours have made the front page in the last year or so can give you a clue.

15 Have Related Articles / Popular Articles

Traffic gurus joke that traffic from social bookmarking sites is like an invasion – the crowds pour in and in a day or two they are gone. Unfortunately this is true – after your listing rolls from the front page (provided that you reached the front page), the drop in traffic is considerable. Besides, many users come just following the link to your article, have a look at it and then they are gone. One of the ways to keep them longer on your site is to have links to Related Articles / Popular Articles or something similar that can draw their attention to other stuff on the site and make them read more than one article.

16 RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing

RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing are all areas in which the traffic from social bookmarking sites can help you a lot. Many people who come to your site and like it, will subscribe to RSS feeds and/or your newsletter. So, you need to put these in visible places and then you will be astonished at the number of new subscriptions you got on the day when you were on the front page of a major social bookmarking site.

17 Do not use automated submitters

After some time of active social bookmarking, you will discover that you are spending hours on end posting links. Yes, this is a lot of time and using automated submitters might look like the solution but it isn't. Automated submitters often have malware in them or are used for stealing passwords, so unless you don't care about the fate of your profile and don't mind being banned, automated submitters are not the way to go.

18 Respond to comments on your stories

Social bookmarking sites are not a newsgroup but interesting articles can trigger a pretty heated discussion with hundreds of comments. If your article gets comments, you must be proud. Always respond to commends on your stories and even better – post comments on other stories you find interesting. This is a way to make friends and to create a top-profile.

19 Prepare your server for the expected traffic

This is hardly a point of minor importance but we take for granted that you are hosting your site on a reliable server that does not crash twice a day. But have in mind that your presence on the front page of a major social bookmarking site can drive you a lot traffic, which can cause your server to crash – literally!
I remember one of the times I was on the front page on Digg, I kept restarting Apache on my dedicated server because it was unable to cope with the massive traffic. I have many tools on my site and when the visitors tried them, this loaded the server additionally.
Well, for an articles site getting so much traffic is not so devastating but if you are hosting on a so-so server, you'd better migrate your site to a machine that can handle a lot of simultaneous hits. Also, check if your monthly traffic allowance is enough to handle 200-500,000 or even more visitors. It is very amateurish to attract a lot of visitors and not be able to serve them because your server crashed or you have exceeded your bandwidth!

20 The snowball effect

But despite the differences in the likes of the different social bookmarking communities, there are striking similarities. You will soon discover that if a post is popular on one of the major sites, this usually drives it up on the other big and smaller sites. Usually it is Digg posts that become popular on StumbleUpon and Reddit but there are many other examples. To use this fact to your best advantage, you may want to concentrate your efforts on getting to the front page of the major players only and bet on the snowball effect to drive you to the top on other sites.
An additional benefit of the snowball effect is that if your posting is interesting and people start blogging about it, you can get tons of backlinks from their blogs. This happened to me and the result was that my PR jumped to 6 on the next update.

How To Set Up Your Site To Receive Payments.

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:26:00 -0700

One of the many challenges that most new internet entrepreneurs face is receiving payments via their site. When starting out most of us don't have a bottomless sack of money. How can you cheaply and securely receive payments? There are many payment processors on the internet. Some are cheaper than others. I'm going to highlight just one today. This one is free.

We're going to look at:

Where to get free reliable and safe credit card processor.

How to place the payment button into the web page.

A free, secure and reliable payment processor is PayPal. The only cost with PayPal is a small charge for each sale that is made. You only pay out of your profit when a sale is made. Go to PayPal.com and open an account. You will be required to verify this account. PayPal will tell you how. You will be expected to supply your credit card details. This is quite safe with PayPal.

Before you begin to think about creating your payment buttons, there is one thing you will need.This is the URL of the download page. You will need this information as this is where PayPal sends your customer after payment has been completed.

After opening an account and verifying it you will now be able to set up your payment buttons. Log into your PayPal Account and click on "merchant Tools" You now have a choice of "Shopping Cart", "Buy Now Buttons" and "Subscriptions and recurring Payments"

You would choose the shopping cart if your site had a number of products available. The customer can pick and choose as you would in a super market. After choosing the items wanted the customer finalizes their sale by going to checkout and paying for the items in the cart.

The Buy Now Buttons are for a single product on a sales page. This is the only product that is being sold on the page so the button sends the purchaser directly to PayPal for payment.

As is the case with buy now button, the subscription and recurring payments button is for just one item. Payments continue to be made at intervals specified by you. These can be weekly, monthly, yearly or any period you specify. This payment system also allows for a trial period and then the payments at the specified intervals.

Once the details are filled in PayPal provides you with an encrypted script that you need to install on your sales page. You will need to position it where you want the payment button to appear.

Using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editor, scroll down the page to where you want the button to appear. Now click your mouse here so that the cursor is blinking where the button is to appear. Create a table. Click your mouse inside the table, and change the view to code view. You should now see the cursor blinking in the code. Make sure you have copied the PayPal code to the clipboard of the computer. Click on "Edit" and then "Paste". This will insert the PayPal code into your page. If you need to center it just use center as you would text.

You can test it by switching to browser view and see how your page will display on the internet.

That's it! You are now able to receive payments on your site.

How to get more traffic to your weblog

noreply@blogger.com (hunterz85) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:21:00 -0700

I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from a guy who wanted to know how to increase traffic to his weblog - god only knows why he chose to ask me, but there you go. I'm not entirely sure that my advice was quite what he was looking for, because I didn't give him any revolutionary tips about secret search engine strategies or ways to control and influence the minds of young, hip and trendy scene-setters. In fact I can summarise what I said to him in just a few points:

Search Engines: You can get traffic off search engines, but is it the kind of traffic that really interests you? The people who seek your site by running a search about "Sex with lubricated badgers" are going to be disappointed with your thoughts on identifying the gender of the black and white animals. And if you're hoping to catch people who are just looking for a good weblog, remember that there are hundreds of thousands of other weblogs which are just as likely to appear in their search results. My opinion? Don't bother.
Site of the month/day/week etc Again - why bother. Most of the sites that give out awards do so to get traffic, not to give it to other people. And if they're easy to win, they're essentially useless, and will clutter up your site with badges and logos and buttons. If they're not easy to get mentioned on - such as Blogger's "Blogs of note", then your chances of getting a link are almost ridiculously small - and frankly would be enhanced by paying attention to the only really important parts of the weblog process... Which are...
Good quality design and content It may be dull, but it remains true - if you write good stuff and present it elegantly, then you'll be well read in no time at all. Case in point - Trabaca is a site that I stumbled upon fairly recently. I've got quite entrenched in my weblog reads of late, and don't tend to wander that much. But this site had an immediate visual impact for me - and it stuck in my head because of that. And then I discovered that it was a delight to read. So now it's a regular destination for me. That's the best model for encouraging regular visitors to your site - give them something worth coming to.

And even though I told myself I wouldn't do this - here are a few ways in which you can up the quality of your design and content:

What's your site about? You don't have to define yourself too closely, but if you can identify a spirit or a set of subjects that matter to you or that you have opinions about then you're one step towards developing a weblog that people will be able to relate to.
Branding It sounds really corporate, but just think about it for a minute - if you were building a site about hamsters, then you might do something kind of cutesy. If you were building a site about body-building, then you'd probably go for something really macho-looking. If it's about the things you care about then it should have an appropriate look - one that is right for the discussion of the things you care about. Identify colours, images, themes and a name that works for you and is easily memorable. Make the name short!
Opinions There are a thousand sites on the net which duplicate the popular links of the moment. Since the appearance of Blogdex, this has started to happen even more regularly. But this is not necessarily a problem unless those links are all you have to offer. What's your opinion of the link? What's your opinion on the story? These are the only things that people can't get on any other site but yours. You may as well play to your strengths!
Story-selection You went to the shop. That's nice. You had a cookie. Great. You picked your arse. Excellent. Why are you writing this down? A hundred thousand things may happen to you in a day, or maybe nothing will have happened at all, but there will always be something worth talking about. And for everything worth talking about, there will be dozens of things that you did during the day that no one gives a damn about! Today I went to the loo, took two painkillers for my toothache and drank pink grapefruit juice. Do you give a damn? No.
Good quality writing This one's a bit tedious - check your grammar, check your spelling, feel comfortable going back and re-editing posts that don't make immediate sense to your when you re-read them.

I'm not going to pretend that I do all these things all the time, or that I do them very well. Still - that's my two-penneth. Hopefully you'll find something useful in it.