Email Marketing - The best & the Greenest way for us all

We´d take a look at a very green marketing option, email marketing. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your readers, but it is also a great ecologically friendly marketing method.

No Paper: Well, obviously, since you are sending everything electronically, no paper is needed. And, if someone does want to print your email out, it will only be done for a good reason.

Endless recycling: While email doesn´t really NEED to be recycled, it certainly can be and often is. When someone reads your email and really appreciates it, you will find that they often pass it on.

Communicate with millions: You save a lot of energy by simply sending out one email to a huge list. Whether you have 50 or 50,000 people on your email marketing list, you can communicate with them quickly and efficiently.

Why not give email marketing a shot and make your business a bit more environmentally friendly? Let’s make Earth Day, Every Day

Make Email exciting
Email marketing, if you aren´t careful, can be pretty dull. If you find yourself slaving over a few paragraphs to send off to potential clients, or just copying and pasting sales letters . . . it´s probably time to take things up a notch.

You can make your email marketing a lot more interesting, both for you and your readers, if you just make a few adjustments.

Ask a question. Rather than simply state what´s in the newsletter, try asking a question in the subject line. Humans love to answer questions, so many of them will do so mentally and then open the email.
Tell a story. Starting your email off with an anecdote, or short story will catch people´s attention and draw them into your writing. Then transition into what you really wanted to say.

Use humor. Humor is never unwelcome in an email . . . but if you aren´t good at it, consider using a funny quote or joke instead. Making people laugh is a sure way to get them coming back.

Call to Action
With email marketing, it´s not enough to just put out great content. People may enjoy reading your emails and open up every single one, but never click on your links for one very simple reason. If you haven´t included a call to action, your clickthroughs will be far lower than they should be.

What is a call to action? It´s pretty easy, basically, you´re just telling people what to do! That´s it. Whatever you want them to do, you are giving them the action and telling them to do it. This may sound bossy, but it´s actually extremely effective, thanks to human psychology.

How often have you seen a banner or a button on a website that says, “Click Here”? It automatically makes you want to click, doesn´t it? That´s what you want to do within your email marketing, to help people make the decision to go ahead and buy your ebook or hire you or even just to check out a new website.

Your call to action doesn´t have to be anything complicated. You might even just have a link with a short, “Click here to find out more” or “Check it out”. Simple is good in this case. Try to keep your email marketing simple whenever possible and don´t have different calls to action in the same email, which will confuse people.

Email marketing can be a great way to connect with potential clients, but it will be far more effective if you are sure to include a call to action.

The Power of ACTION

“Have you read all the books in the world about achieving success in life and till now you are getting zero results?

How and when will you see significant changes in your life?
Are you brave enough to keep going and never quitting?
If yes then, let me share with you the important factor that is tightly connected to success. No body can ever succeed without this factor.

Here it is:

"Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." - Conrad Hilton

It is all about taking action!

Have you applied what you've read? Have you taken bold actions? Are you persistent
enough?

The common characteristics of highly successful people are that they never quit and they always keep moving.

They are not afraid of making mistakes. They believe that mistakes are their vehicle to massive success. Therefore, they simply learn the lessons and keep moving.

If you are in a journey and discovered that you lost your way, stopping will not take you anywhere. You have to choose another direction and keep moving.

Being in motion is the only way that will allow you to reach your destination. You can take shortcuts, you can take a faster vehicle, or you can get a map to identify the shortest path. Whatever you choose to do, the most important thing is to keep moving and take action.

Successful people are action-oriented. They work very hard, they are determined,
and they are focused.

To rise above mediocrity, learn from your mistakes, keep moving and never quit. This
is your secret formula to taking powerful actions that will lead you to achieve massive success in your life.”

Source: Self Enrichment

Positioning Your Self - Learnings and key takaways from Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout

This is a submission from a close friend of mine and a marketing professional for the last 12 years. At present he is working with ESPN. Thank you Dips!

"Back in the innocent days" when I was doing my MBA I got hold of a book named "Positioning: The Battle for your mind" by Al Ries and Jack Trout.It was one of the best books I had ever read and got glued to it for hours.

Years after when I wrote my book www.itsdifferent.beshi I completely and solely used leranings from the same book.Let me put some numbers on board.On an average a poetry book written by an established poet is plus minus 500 whereas a poetry book by a newcomer is on an average less than 100.On the contrary the first edition of my book is almost exhausted (1000 plus) and is going for the second edition.Let me tell you it has not happend due to the literary qualty of my book.I strongly believe that in Kolkata only there are 1000 poets who pen down better works than me and believe me I am not being humble.

What did the trick, was quite simple.I just executed my learnings from this great book which I want to share with each one of you.Please remember that the takeaways can be applied in both personal as well as professional life whatever be your profession.(home-maker,doc,corporate,software professional and not only advertising and Marketing people).

Following are my applications which I have executed in the marketing of my book as well as in my professional life.

1. I never wanted my product to be a "me-too" one.That is why I named it www.its.different .beshi and positioned my work as a Convergence of poetry and photography and thus tried to create a hole in the mind of the prospect.If it was just another poetry book I am sure it would have been caught in a traffic-jam in the book-lover's (prospect) mental highway.

2. I tried to connect with prospect.This is because I felt that poetry (especially in Bengali) is much less popular compared to Music and prose as most of the prospects think one basic thing "Kobita or poetry is just not my cup of tea".I next did a why-why analysis and the answer was simple.Most of the poetries are so difficult to understand that it hardly connects with the prospect.That is why I tried to communicate an over-simplfied message using my over-simplified mind in our over-communicated society to the best of my limited ability.

3.Target-segment: I have tried to increase the size of target-segment just by connecting.It is true that my work may not appeal to the so-called intellectual crowd.But the fact remains that they were never my target segment.

4. Since it was my first book I had to use "Positioning of a Follower".Here if I had taken it head-on with the leader (Joy Goswami in this case) I would have made a cardinal mistake.

5.I used my name as Dips using the concept of "Phonetic Shorthand".

6. In my professional world my boss and I share the same name.I changed my name to Dips to clearly avoid the line-extention trap.

7.Have tried to ensure all my horses are right(Company,Boss,Idea,Friend,Faith).I am not quite sure of the sixth horse though which is myself.

This book has changed my way looking at a Game called Life both professionally and personally.I would humbly request you to buy this book .It is a Tata McGraw Hill publication and go for the 20th Anniversary Edition with comments by the authors."