Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliver ability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

* http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
* http://www.bondedsender.com
* http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Confirmed opt-in as defined by SpamHaus, who is one of the most respected anti spam organizations in the world: Known as “COI” in the legitimate bulk email industry, also known as “Confirmed Opt-in”, “Verified Opt-in” or sometimes “Double Opt-in”.

With Closed-Loop Opt-in the Recipient has verifiably confirmed permission for the address to be included on the specific mailing list, by confirming (responding to) the list subscription request verification. This is the standard practice for all responsible Internet mailing lists, it ensures users are properly subscribed, from a working address, and with the address owner’s consent.

In the event of “spam” accusation:

The Bulk Email Sender is fully and legally protected because the reply to the Subscription Confirmation Request received back from the recipient proves that the recipient did in fact opt-in and grant verifiable consent for the mailings.

Source:Spamhaus Website

Numerous myths have circulated regarding confirmed opt-in and its effects. There are many misconceptions out there, and we’d like to help clear those up.

Myth 1: My List Size Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Some addresses entered into your form will not confirm — that much is true. The percentage of addresses that don’t confirm depends on many factors, including the quality of your traffic and how effective your thank-you page, confirmation message and incentive for confirming are.

Percentages aside, there are compelling reasons that having fewer addresses on your list is a good thing.

Sometimes Less is Better

I know. You may be asking, “How can a decreased list size be a good thing?” Well, let’s consider:
5-20% of all web form submissions are undeliverable right off the bat.

This means that of your total list size you can cut that by 5-20% because these email addresses are simply dead. Remember these are not temporary undeliverable but permanent dead addresses.

Now, add on the bogus and malicious sign ups that undoubtedly will happen. For example, someone comes to your website and decides to put in bob@aol.com. Well, bob@aol.com was once a real email address and because you were not using confirmed opt-in you are now classified as an unintentional spammer. A recent study by MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm found that only 68% of users always enter a valid email address.

So, nearly a third of respondents knowingly enter bogus email addresses.

- Source

ISPs do not differentiate between unintentional spammers or actual spammers. The potential for you to be blocked or even worse, blacklisted, remains the same.

Less Can Be More Too

A study done by AWeber shows that using confirmed opt-in also reduces unsubscribes and complaints. This means that you keep more of your subscribers (the ones that actually want your email).

Myth 2: My Mailing List Is Different! I Don’t Need Confirmed Opt-In.

Let’s be clear, confirmed opt-in is for all businesses, plain and simple. Anyone collecting subscribers and in turn sending email needs to confirm that those people intended to sign up to your mailing list and want to receive your email.

In this age of email regulations and massive volumes of spam email, deliverability can be an issue. Why increase your chances of not getting delivered by putting yourself at risk.

Myth 3: No One Else Uses Confirmed Opt-In. Why Should I?

This is simply not accurate. Our own campaigns here at AWeber use confirmed opt-in for all email marketing activities. When someone signs up for a Test Drive of AWeber, they must confirm.

After setting up an account, if they want to receive our customer training email course, they must confirm. The same goes for our affiliates and their email training. Even when someone subscribes to our blog, they must confirm. Ok, but AWeber must practice what they preach, who else?
If you want to sign up for the mailing lists of these organizations you will need to first confirm:

CNN Microsoft
Oprah, CNet bellagio.com
IRS.gov weather.com
ign.com maxim.com
tgifridays.com olivegarden.com
pbs.org visitpa.com
Whitehouse.gov

The list goes on and on…

Myth 4: Subscribers In My Market Don’t Know How To Confirm.

The simple solution is to tell them. The first page after someone fills in an opt-in form, commonly called a “thank you page” should tell the visitor exactly what to do next. Often this is done most effectively with a picture showing visitors what the confirmation email will look like.

An excellent example is our test drive sign up video on the thank you page showing visitors what to do.
One variation of this myth is:

“Subscribers in my market don’t know how to click an email link.”

Honestly, if they can’t click a link then you probably should be marketing your business offline. If someone can find your website online I guarantee they can click a link.

Myth 5: My Sales Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Have you tested this assumption? The answer is always, “No, but I just assume” or “No, my colleague told me it would hurt sales”.

It’s best not to assume anything, but rather to seek out your own answers by testing and observing your own campaigns. We have found from our own testing that while the raw number of email addresses on our list declined when we switched to confirmed opt-in, sales did not.

This means that the people who did confirm were the ones that truly wanted the information that they had to offer and the ones that didn’t were not left to bloat the mailing list.
Grow Your Business Without Risk

Will your results be exactly the same as AWeber or even anyone else? This can only be determined by proper testing and measuring.

Use confirmed opt-in as an opportunity to make sure that your lists are 100% clean and that you know without a doubt that 100% of the people receiving your mail have specifically requested it themselves.

Spend your time and energy building your business with subscribers who want to hear from you rather than dealing with issues created by people who don’t want to hear from you.

Viral Marketing means to give away e-books and e-articles freely so that it spreads like a virus exponentially. In the e-books and e-articles, we give links to our site and a short bio or resource box declaring who we are. It is also known as the Pull Strategy of Marketing. At the bottom in the resource box you can add a backlink to your site to get people to go to your site. Provided the article is good, the reader of that article clicks on our site address and comes to our site. We have, in other words, pulled him/her to our site via our article. We also provide our email address. The reader can click and contact us at any time. The article proclaims that we know the subject and we will be considered experts in our field if we write good articles and ebooks and distribute them. Some people find it difficult to distribute them freely. After all creating an e-article or an e-book is time consuming. So what is the advantage in distributing them free? Well if you want the much needed exposure which is crucial to any online business success, better give it away! “Be an expert with your own booklet “is what the marketing geniuses proclaim.

If you write a booklet about the subject you are dealing using technical terms, people will definitely ask you about the terms and the subject in general. Answer their questions and they will respect your knowledge and expertise. The mantra on the Net is ‘Publish or Perish’. The Net is defined as the Information Encyclopedia. It is a repository of free information and resources. You can write on the subject which deals with your area of expertise. The main ingredients of content creation are Research, knowledge, skill and style. Research Read books on the subject. You can go to search engines and type the subject that deals with your area of expertise. You can subscribe to other rezones which deal with that subject. And thus study more about the subject. All information is available on the Net. All you have to do is to go to the search engines and group lists and find out information about your subject. You have heard the proverb “Knowledge is Power”. There are many types of knowledge. Technical knowledge, marketing knowledge, knowledge of language etc. We have to be accepted by the target audience. For this we should convince our customers that we are experts in our field. Be a specialist first, then be an expert and then be an authority, a self-development expert used to say. If you know more than your competitors, definitely you have a competitive edge over your competition. If you can establish that you are a scholar in your field and are head and shoulders above your competition in knowledge, they will come in droves.

Why should they go to somebody who is less knowledgeable? So it is imperative to develop professional knowledge, to study more and more about the subject we are dealing with, even though it is time-consuming. Remember on the Net, there are so many scholars in various fields, each claiming to be experts in their field. On the Web, the competition is fierce. So our chances of survival are bright if only we are equipped with the latest knowledge in our field. The customers are not fools and they will evaluate us as well as our competition. Writing skill does not come all of a sudden. Writing is basically intuitively inspired and comes from within. But this creative talent is in all of us. We have not tapped this divine resource fully. When you assemble these tiny bits of info and arrange them, you will be surprised to know that you have written an article. Improve on what you have written. Let it take days and after days of improvisation, you will come to know it has become a great article.

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(1) Use Other People’s Resources

If you have the cash for it, purchase an ad in a newsletter or on someone’s blog or website. Search out websites or blogs in your niche and check to see if they have an operational newsletter. If they accept advertising you should find a link labeled “Advertise” or “Sponsor” on the site or in the newsletter itself.

(2) Use Social Sites

Setup a free blog at WordPress or Blogger, and add new content at least 3-5 times a week, Include a link back to your landing or squeeze page. Blogs are set to “ping” a search engines and directories like Google, Yahoo and Technocratic every time you add new content. This can bring in a steady stream of new subscribers.

(3) Use Co-Registration

Do a search on any search engine for a co-registration service. When someone signs up for a newsletter or product demo at another website, a separate link or page will appear asking them if they would like to be added to your email list. A lot of people click yes. This method can be an affordable way to add hundreds of people a day to your list.

(4) Use Classified Advertising

Use online ads services like Craig list, Spreads or Oodles to post eye catching ads that will lure interested prospects back to your website and email landing page.

(5) Article Writing and Submission

People love to read useful and interesting how-to articles. Writing articles daily and submitting them to directories will help build your backlinks. You can do a search on any search engine for article directories that you can submit to. Make sure you submit your best and most polished articles because you want to people to click on your backlinks in the resource box.

(6) Use Press Releases

If you have a new product to launch or a total overall to a service or just have made improvement, you should write a press release. Detail what you have done in a professional “journalistic” style and then submit it to a publicity service again you can find them on any search engine. Include in the “about” section a backlink to your website or to a special demo of the service or product.

Search engines are another good way to get people to go to your site. Most people however, have no idea how to get there site ranked high enough in the search engines to really start getting any traffic from them. It really isn’t that hard, however it can take a lot of time. The key is to build as many backlinks to your site as you can, making sure to use keyword phrases in your anchor text. For example don’t just build a link that has your websites url. If you are promoting a weight loss program or website, build a link that say’s “Proven Weight Loss Program”, then when people click on that link they are taken to your website. Search engines love this type of link. And the more links you have with that anchor text, the higher the search engines will rank your site when someone does a search for that phrase. It is also very important to submit your site to all the search engines every month, to make sure you stay indexed in there results.

If you don’t have the time to build links yourself you can always hire a service to do it for you. If you do a search on any search engine for “Flight Search Engine Submission Service” you will find a great service that will help you with your search engine submissions and link building.

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In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

* Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)
* Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?
* Stop The Flood to Your Inbox
* Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future
* Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.
* The Final Blow

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses

Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation

Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – howhard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at

“standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”,

“info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”

Web Spiders

Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting

ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea

It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

2. In the introductory slide, the hierarchy of names is very important. Generally have the first name on the slide to be of the person who is going to do the main portion of the presentation. If you are doing the presentation along with your superior, boss or client then it is common etiquette to have their name at the top, even though you may be the person doing the most talking.

3. If you are presenting along with a colleague, remember to give them adequate time to introduce themselves and talk.

4. If you have finished a part, and the other speaker is starting, it is OK for them to say “Thank you” to you for the first time, but it need not be repeated at every change.

5. Divide the total time between you and have a pre agreement on who is going to reduce which portion if time becomes an issue.

6. When the other person is speaking, please don’t typing on your laptop, play with your phone or keep gesturing at your friend in the front row. Focus your attention, just like the audience upon the speaker. If you do otherwise, it shows disregard for the speaker.

7. Also, when the other person is doing a demonstration and forgets a step, don’t jump to his aid and help immediately. Give some time and after that try to communicate the idea as discreetly as you can.

8. Finally there can be only one captain to the ship, so agree beforehand between you that for the duration of the presentation, who is that captain. This basically means who can plot the course, when an emergency like a slideshow not working, embarrassing questions coming in, short of time, etc. Having a captain makes it easy and removes conflicting problem resolving decisions on stage. Remember, in situation like this, you have to be able to think on your feet sometimes it may not be logical or correct and two people can never produce the same quick fix at the same time.

Questions and answers section

1. If you are new to presentations, don’t overly encourage taking questions during the talk. Announce to audience at the beginning, that you will answer any questions at the end. When you will also furnish your plastic cards. Taking questions in between can interrupt your flow and regaining your position can prove very difficult you can very easily become removed from your main message. You can change this rule once you have built your confidence and become an Ace in presentations. This is because, taking questions in between your speech can create a good atmosphere of ambience, a manner of positive interaction.

2. Never get into an argument or a heated discussion – drop them after 60 seconds and take it on to the next topic.

3. There will be types of people within the audience who ask questions simply to say something they know, or advertise their company brand or to complain to everyone that the food was bad or to insinuate that they know the subject more than you do. If you suspect the question to be along these lines, interrupt this person as soon as possible and request them to ask the Actual question they had in mind.

4. Never let a question be answered by another member of audience. If you do this, then you will totally loose the audience and it will become a discussion, not a presentation. You have to remember that you are the boss during your presentation, so ascertain your presence.

5. If you get a question for which you are unsure of the correct answer, politely say “that is a good question” and that “ you will need to check on the facts before answering”. Ask them to speak to you after your presentation or tell them that you will find out and fax them a response. After the presentation hand out your plastic business cards.

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1. Even if you are carrying your own pc with the presentation preloaded, always have a backup. Always have a copy of your PPT in a USB flash drive and remember to carry it or email it prior to the presentation to the host of the event and request them to have it loaded on an alternate machine.

2. Check and recheck all your hardware, cabling, power supply and software.

3. Always run your laptop from its Power Supply. Even if your laptop can run for more time without power, than the length of the presentation, don’t use battery. Modern day notebooks reduce the speed of CPU if you are running from battery. Slowing your machine down.

4. Keep all the applications that you are demonstrating open before the start of your presentations. Much of the time applications seem to take more time to start when you are on the stage.

5. Increase your font size to about 20 in Notepad/VS.NET/IDE if you are displaying html code.

6. Stick to simpler fonts like Courier or Tahoma, It is my belief that source code looks clearer with these fonts.

7. If this is the first time, you are doing a demonstration with this notebook then connect your notebook to an external monitor and check the output is configured the day before.

8. If you are going to be using a notebook for the first time during the presentation, then practice using a notebook before the presentation. The usage of touchpad pointer is wholly a different method from a mouse. Better still, request or carry a mouse and connect it prior to the presentation.

9. Go 20 or 30 minutes early to the stage before the audience comes in, then rig your laptop and check it works with the projectors. Try to build a team spirit with the A/V assistant there, remember he is the most important person in the entire room during your presentation. Place your plastic business cards in a prominent position where people will notice them and pick them up. plastic cards are preferable to traditional business cards as they are visually striking and more likely to be picked up and retained.

10. If you require an Internet connection, inform the Event Organizers well in advance (A week really helps). I have learned the bad way that the larger the hall, and the more stars if it is a Hotel, the greater the difficulty for them to give you an Internet Connection or Phone Connection. This problem is now relatively negated due to Internet connection through Mobile phones and WIFI. there again, on most halls for some reason, because they tend to be below ground have the worst signal strength near the stage. So always test it before relying on it.

11. Always Remember that the Murphys law works at its best during technical presentations and especially during beta demonstrations.

Sharing the stage:

1. If you are undertaking the presentation with another speaker, remember to get the storyboard discussed well in advance. Apart from doing this, you need to definitely rehearse your presentation at least once or twice. Because the chemistry on stage between you two is very important and it doesn’t come very easily unless you know the other person very well and have worked or spoken with them before.

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Think of banner ads as the spice in your affiliate diet. Sprinkle them around, but for a heartier helping of sales, you’ll need something more solid! Learn to give your visitors longer, more descriptive pre-sales text. Revamp your affiliate advertising using these simple steps:

1. Pull the Reader in
2. Introduce the Product
3. Explain the Product’s Significance
4. Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase

Pull the Reader in

To convince your audience that your text is worth reading, make your first sentence or two very interesting. Make a bold statement, say something seemingly ridiculous, or appeal to your prospect’s emotional side. Then, tie this grabber in with the rest of your copy.

Introduce the Product

What is the product you’re advertising? What does it do? Directly after your grabber, give a compact explanation of your product. Keep this explanation short, while still being very clear. This should still be a very short section of your text.
Explain the Product’s Significance

What will it do for me?

By writing your own copy, you can directly target your unique audience. Make the most of this opportunity! Clearly explain how your readers will benefit from this product.

No one knows your audience like you do. Suggest a variety of product uses just for them, and give examples. This is the time for details – make this section long and rich.
Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase

You’ve come so far – you’ve laid out exactly what the product is and how it will help your unique audience. Now, seal the deal – tell your readers to purchase the product! Include your affiliate link in this section.

This step may sound strange, but it’s necessary. Often, people hear about a product and are genuinely interested, but fail to actually make a purchase. A clear call to a simple action cuts down on buyer ambivalence. Don’t be pushy – just change your verb tenses to the imperative. Instead of:

“If you think that you fit this profile, you might want to think about buying this product.”

Say: “Click here to order an account today.”

Drive Sales – Use Long Copy

If you don’t feel ready to write long copy yourself, ask your affiliate program manager for help! Many companies release well-written articles by respected authors that you can reprint free of charge.

The novelty of the Web is wearing off. People online now are busy. Surfers won’t make a purchase unless you make a great case for what they’ll get out of it. And you’re not going to do that with just a banner ad.

Businesses searching for an extremely practical flash drive can do no better than looking at the credit card sized and shaped flash drives. These compact shaped and sized usb drives come with a fold out USB connection and are suitable for carrying in card holder wallets. For people wanting to be seen as working in the high tech end of their market, or those wanting to give out an extremely useful usb drive, then these could be just what you should be using.

For those wishing for a item that looks elegant and stylish, then there are ranges of leather bound usb flash drives. With these the actual flash drives aren’t leather, but they are enclosed in a protective leather case. Another type of elegant usb drive are the pen shaped usb flash drives. Looking exactly like high end pens, these usually pull into two parts, the upper end being the actual usb flash drive whilst the lower end forms the protective cover over the USB connection. These will attract your recipients’ attention and no doubt they will be using them as novelty items fooling their friends for a long time to come.

Finally, for those wanting a more light hearted association, there are a good range of novelty shaped flash drives that can be imprinted or engraved with your Choices to look at include footballs, cars, hearts and football boots to name but a few. Whatever your company’s outlook on business, there should be a usb flash drive for you.

There are a large range of logo flash drives to look at, so they make really good marketing products to give away to your customers, prospective customers and your loyal workforce.

What type of flash drive you might need to choose from will no doubt depend on the type of organisation you represent and the image you are wanting to give out, along with the eventual usage of the USB drives. If you are issuing them to your own work force, then compact space saving USB flash drives might be what is required in these cases would most likely be the standard oblong shape, with loads of printing room. But you might want also to look at the slightly more clever looking retractable flash drives. These can be attached to a lanyard and carried around fixed to a belt.

Also suitable for many internal organizational uses are the range of twister flash drives. These allow the user to twist away the protective cover over the USB port and are not only compact, but this twist feature should also prevent the loss of the protective cap. It also makes them look far more fancy!

The list of important features of USB flash drives that you are issuing to staff will usually start with cost. Most businesses, when issuing such items to their own staff, aren’t wanting to spend too much. It is also useful that the flash drives are neat and compact and if the protective cap can be secured, then even better. These features are all brought together in the twister USB drives, which is what makes them so popular.

Grab crucial hints to how to get a grant – your own knowledge pack.

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.
Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.
Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

* The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
* List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
* List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?