A lot of individuals are taken in by the hype surrounding email marketing. The websites look great, the results sound promising. I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again: “if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is”. The Internet is just like your offline life. Never believe the two are different. Just because it’s in writing, doesn’t mean it’s true.

So why would I say buying an email list is bad when so many say it’s so good?

For starters…those saying its so good are frequently after your wallet. Ask yourself: who’s saying its so great? Are they in the business of selling those lists? Or in a business that is in any way related to that? Or maybe they’re a novice touting themselves as experts, just parroting what they’ve read (and believe me, there are a lot of those).

Ok, that doesn’t really answer the question. So why is it BAD? Two good reasons. (more…)

A video was released just a few days ago by musician Dave Carroll about his frustrating encounters with United Airlines policies and customer service. Apparently, United broke an expensive guitar and the airline refused to replace it or reimburse him. In his final encounter with a United employee, Carroll told the airline representative that he would write 3 songs about his bad experience. So he did.

Mr. Carroll became a media sensation and has been overwhelmed with support, with even Oprah’s people calling him.

By the next day, the musician was contacted by United who made an offer to correct the situation.

And what does this have to do with you and your business? Everything.

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I’m going to say something that may surprise a lot of you: just because you are in the retail business does not mean you have to sell your products online.

Sure, you’ll still need a web presence. But selling your products via the web is a whole other animal.

So how do you know if its time for you to start selling your products online?

Ultimately, this is a decision only you can make. However, I can give you the tools to aid in making a good decision.

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Most people begin their adventures in the world of email newsletters by sending out very casual emails. After a while, they start noticing a lot of articles online about email newsletters. Much of that information is confusing and overwhelming. Some if it contains information about the languages used to create the email, such as HTML and CSS. That information isn’t too helpful if you’re just doing the writing and handling other non-technical decisions.

So let’s make this simple…

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Last week I addressed the home page from a written content standpoint. Today I’ll discuss your home page in terms of look and feel and imagery.

When surfing the web, think about the best websites you’ve seen and the worst.

How cluttered were the worst? How busy were the pages? How confusing were they? How long did they take to load? How much animation was there?

Now think about the ones you liked. They probably had information that was easy to find, were uncluttered, loaded quickly, were pleasing to the eye and had little to no animation.

10 Tips for Making Your Home Page Better

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