1. Always have the email come from the same person at your end. It helps to create a sense of rapport and stability.
2. Never use a subject or title line that is misleading; always make it descriptive of what is in the body of the email.
3. On the other hand, keep it snappy. Instead of “Your November Newsletter”, use the title of one of the more important articles in your newsletter.
4. Make it clear that it is okay to forward the email to others, if the subscriber likes. This form of viral marketing can grow your subscriber list over time.
5. Always include links to your product pages in the body of the email.
6. Also include an easy opt-out link at the bottom of the communication.
7. Be sure to solicit responses and comments. People love to share their thoughts.
8. Formatting is especially important in plain text messages. Keep the attention going by using bulleted lists instead of lengthy paragraphs.
9. Stay away from using all capital letters or italicizing words, as they can be harder to view on a computer screen.
10. Watch the use of color in your emails, especially with text; lighter colors tend to be hard to read, especially on a white background.
11. Use fonts that are similar to those used in most email clients; it will make it easier to arrange the text to best advantage, especially for plain text emails.
12. Include some incentive to visit your website, such as promoting a new product or noting a new blog entry.
13. Don’t forget to include a special offer or a discount from time to time.
14. Always thank the subscribers for their time and support.
15. Before you send the emails to clients, send them to an email address of your own, with one in HTML and another in plain text. That way, you know exactly what the subscriber will see.
16. Don’t be afraid to try something different now and then. Vary texts, layouts, and other elements to see what subscribers respond to best.
17. Keep the text of the email focused; rambling will lose your audience, just as wandering text on your website will drive visitors away.
18. Use a reliable program to blast mail to your subscriber list; most allow you to review a report of successful deliveries once the job is complete.
19. Review the reports regularly, and compare them to spikes in your web site traffic, and the responses you get about specifics of the emails.
20. Used software to tabulate and categorize the responses. It will make it much easier to process them and turn them into usable data.
21. Assess the percentage of response you get. The industry standard is between five and fifteen percent. If you are getting less than that, it is time to rethink your approach.
22. If a response serves as the inspiration for an article in the next newsletter, ask the subscriber if it is okay to mention them by first name and initial. This is enough to maintain anonymity, while still recognizing their contribution.
23. Ask subscribers to submit some of their own copy once or twice a year. You may be surprised with the quality of what you receive. Reward the best one with a free ebook or other product.
24. Send out special holiday emails along with your regular weekly communications.
25. Listen to the feedback from your subscribers. It will help you refine the mailings as you go along.

In web design, there is the tendency to sometimes get carried away by all the many fancy techniques and shiny things syndrome. So, I’ve been pondering on my style and how to tweak it so my clients can get their message across concisely and really quickly thus capturing their audience, get great conversions and repeat business.

My first test came today, I had to create a business card size ad for my business that’s going to be placed in the Women Biz Owner’s October 2009 Convention booklet. So I thought…simple, clear and direct. What do you think? Is the design simple and is the message clear?

Activating an Image

Okay, this gets a little fancy.  In a previous blog post, we showed you how to create a hypertext link. What it did was create blue words on your page so someone could click on them and then jump to another page or website. Well, here we’re going to set it up so an image becomes clickable or “active.” The viewer would click on the image, instead of on the hyperlinked words, to make the hypertext link. Here’s the format:

<A HREF=”http://www.aivirtualsolutions.com”><IMG SRC=”homepage.gif” ALT=”Home”></A>

Look at it again. See what happened? I placed an image tag where I would normally have placed words. However, in case the image isn’t visible for any reason I’ve added some alternate text stating where the link goes.

Here’s what you get with that format. Lay your pointer on the image, but don’t click. You’ll see the entire image is active:

There you will see a border around your image, which is what happens when you activate an image. It attempts to turn blue, or whatever color the page is set to, like the wording it’s replacing, so it places what’s known as a “border” around the image.

You’ll truly impress your friends with this one.

Resources:  http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html/article.php/3478181

Social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit, are simple; yet profitable when wanting to drive traffic to your website. These websites will aid you in establishing your brand and encourage traffic to your website. There has been an increased trend with internet based business owners; therefore, implementing a strong marketing platform will improve your website’s traffic and your client base.

Use Blogging. Blogging is another website in the form of social media. A blog combines commentary, images, and/or links to your website. A blog allows you the opportunity to keep an online “diary” of your thoughts, progress, events and articles that pertain to your website and business. Additionally, your blog encourages user participation and allows your readers to comment on the information posted in your blog. Furthermore, several social bookmarking sites will allow you to link your blog to your social bookmarking account; which will increase your targeted audience. READ MORE

*These alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, blogs, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

My alerts keywords are relevant to my industry and market niche for example: virtual assistant, agnes ikotun (Myself). I wonder how many people have their names as alerts, I enjoy seeing my name pop up…I digress. I also have alerts setup for clients that I provide Internet Marketing services for to drive relevant traffic back to their websites. My alerts frequencies are setup for once a week for my needs and once a day for my clients, so I’m notified as new things get posted on the net. Definitely try this resource if you are not already using it and do not hesitate to contact me if you need Internet Marketing assistance.

AI Virtual Solutions is a company providing Virtual Assistant (VA) services to work-at-home professionals throughout North America and the world.

Making use of today’s technology, Virtual Assistants are providing innovative solutions to small businesses, home-based businesses and entrepreneurs worldwide. Virtual Assistance as a fairly new profession has seen a spectacular growth over the past few years. Virtual Assistants are the answer to businesses worldwide that are looking for administrative support but do not want or need in-house support.

AI Virtual Solutions offers a wide variety of professional and affordable administrative and design services. And by utilizing a Virtual Assistant, companies are able to focus on growing their businesses.

All work assignments are received via email and primary requests cover areas such as email management, contact management, bookkeeping, teleclass/webinar coordination, database management, PowerPoint presentations, brochures, e-zine/newsletters, business cards, postcards, logo, website design, real estate support and more.

Agnes Ikotun, owner/operator of AI Virtual Solutions, lives in Newington, Connecticut and specializes in providing support to coaches, speakers, authors and Realtors who live virtually anywhere. The distance, however, is never a problem since the growth of technology has paved the way for superior communication.