Remember when I told you Shalwick was up to something?

I’ve had a sneak peek at what he’s been up to, and it’s astonishing. It involves going viral on YouTube and helping people monetize their video popularity.

Stay tuned. I’ll be offering FREE PRODUCT on August 3rd that will help you get started with Gideon’s Rapid Video Blogging. If you’re not already subscribing to this blog’s RSS feed, do so now, and make sure you get the free report and video on August 3.

I just updated the Resources Page of Girl on the Write to include a link to AWeber, the top email marketing client. AWeber allows you to create multiple email lists for newsletters, marketing, subscriptions and more. Also, they require a double opt-in, to eliminate that spammy feeling some people have about email marketing.

So if you’re thinking about building a list, get AWeber for $1 now, and drop me a note to let me know how it’s working out for you!

Wendy Lowe has a great guest post over on Working Naked about getting started with email marketing.

Making money on the internet is tough enough, but if you don’t have a viable list of people to pitch to, it’s that much tougher. Now, these aren’t random people you’ve collected addresses for. There is a certain ettiquette to email marketing that must be adhered to. Your recipients must opt in to receive your emails, or you could be hit with a complaint for spamming them.

Here’s the thing though: Some marketers just don’t care. I attend a lot of conferences where business cards get passed around. Within days of returning home, I’m suddenly “subscribed” to about 50 new email lists for newsletters and promotions. I had to laugh when I read the same thing from Chris Brogan in his “Stop adding me to your email newsletter” post he put out a few months back.

Most of the time I go through and unsubscribe myself, which takes time out of my day that could be better spent doing other things. There’s one list though – Townhall.com – that is impossible to remove yourself from. Impossible. I have unsubscribed several times, plus sent them emails requesting that they forget my name – to no avail. I will be stuck with Townhall.com until the day Obama shuts off the internet.

Anyway, with those caveats in mind, getting started with email marketing is actually pretty easy. You have to build a list, but AWeber makes that so easy you could cry. Simply pop their opt-in box onto your site, and direct people to it. If you want to give them incentive to sign up, offer a free report or video/podcast. Most people want something free, so they’ll add their email address in order to take advantage.

Says Wendy Lowe:

Start building your opt-in e-mail list. Opt-in means that your customers understand clearly that by signing up they are giving you permission to send them e-mail communications. In addition to name and email address, think about other information that you can collect that will help you target your e-mail campaigns, such as gender or geography.

• Include a check-off box option for your customers to learn more about certain products and services as well as topics, issues and challenges that interest them.
• Use all of the tools at your disposal to gather e-mail and customer information including a quick sign up on your homepage.
• Actively seek people you want to reach by attending relevant trade shows and conferences.  Gather business cards, ask for permission and add them to your list! [My bold- Ed]

Launch your first email campaign! Kick things off by introducing yourself and setting expectations.  Let your audience know the type of information they’ll be receiving and how frequently to expect it.

• In your first campaign, don’t just sell, but also offer valuable information or tips your audience can use.

Encourage feedback to begin an ongoing dialogue with customers, allowing you to continually gather more detailed profile information to improve the targeting of future campaigns.

I subscribe to a few programs that send out regular emails, usually timed. AWeber allows you to schedule emails to certain people at certain times, like for example: You sign up for a 5-day e-course. The teacher certainly isn’t going to sit down and write each student an individual email each time someone enrolls. Instead, the emails are pre-written and once someone subscribes, the emails are sent out in order to that specific person. It’s too easy for words.

Many people don’t want to spend the money on a system like AWeber to manage their email list, so they try to do it themselves or use a free program like the one built into Feedburner. Eventually, almost everyone makes the switch to a paid service for convenience and flexibility, with AWeber being the #1 choice. I tried using iContact a couple of years back, but it just wasn’t enough. AWeber is the way to go, and you can get started for only $1.

Good luck, and happy marketing!

Whether you are launching your own product, wooing investors or promoting a product for a client, it is important to have a marketing plan in hand to refer to.

Unlike a sales pitch, the marketing plan is a back-office document that outlines the following:

• Introduction to your product
• Features and Benefits
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
• Target Demographic
• Market Analysis
• Competition
• Marketing

Introduction

Briefly describe your product. What is it? How does it work? What are the components? If it has a trendy angle, like being “green”, mention it here.

Features and Benefits

List the features of your product. If it’s an e-book or course, list the chapters or outline. Now, tell us how each of these areas can benefit a buyer. What do they stand to gain from purchasing your product or service?

USP

What’s so special about your product? Why should a consumer choose yours over any one of the myriad choices out there? For example, if you are teaching a PR course, and you come from a strong PR background, including having won awards or got a candidate elected, mention this here.

Target Demographic

Who are you aiming to sell this to? Will it be yummy mummies or hipsters? Students or established entrepreneurs? Stockbrokers or recent grads? Knowing who your ideal customer really is and how he thinks is key to being able to pitch to him. Get inside his mind. List his hobbies, his income, his leisure spending. Knowing how he speaks is also a great way to know what keywords he will use to search for a product like yours.

Market Analysis

Find out how much money people are spending on products similar to yours. For example, the weight loss industry is worth over $6B every year. If you are pitching a new pill or diet plan, you need to outline how much money is out there for the taking. Then expand: Gym memberships, exercise DVDs, membership sites… these are all related to the weight loss industry in some way. Include this information.

Competition

Direct and indirect. If you are selling a diet, other diets (Atkins, South Beach etc) are direct competition. Membership sites (Biggest Loser, Self.com etc) are indirect competition. List them all in order of popularity.

Marketing

This can be broken up into many subheadings, depending on the scope of your marketing. This is where you list your overall marketing budget, and break it up accordingly (a pie chart can really help). Subheadings might include Online Marketing (website), Social Media, Event Sponsorship, Contests and Give-aways, and Traditional Advertising.

Especially in your initial drafts, be as detailed as possible. Brainstorm. List everything that comes to mind. Nothing is too far fetched or too distantly related in the initial stage. Then use subsequent drafts to narrow down your playing field and target your exact niche.

There’s been a lot of talk on the web in the last couple of months about the “Third Tribe“. To be honest, despite it being plugged by so many of my favorite bloggers, I’ve pretty much ignored a lot of it. Actually, I’m pretty skeptical of ideas and products that get a huge plug from people all at once. It’s like Opus Dei or some other conspiracy is afoot – everybody is in on something, and I’m not. So I gave Third Tribe a pass.

Until yesterday.

Going through my google reader, I came across (yet another) Johnny B. Truant guest post on ProBlogger. And I realized that maybe I’m a Third Triber without ever having noticed.

…my goal isn’t to create customers, but instead to make friends.

If you’re funny, people tend to like you. (I’m not saying you should be funny if you’re not, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it.)

If you write and talk about yourself as a whole person, rather than a one-dimensional business drone, people tend to be interested in you.

If you answer tweets and emails in a somewhat chatty, personal way instead of going for the sale when it’s not obviously warranted, people tend to enjoy talking to you.

And when all of those friends — and friends of those friends — one day have a need that you are able to fill, they won’t go to Google and look for the first search result or for the guy with the cheapest price. It’s human nature that they’ll come to you — their friend — first.

That’s how I operate, too. I don’t bring the hard pitch. The very idea of working that way gives me gas. Believe it or not, I used to work as a “real estate agent for the recently departed” – in other words, I sold graves. I hated it. I mean granted, my office overlooked my parents’ final resting place, so that kinda threw me off my game. But the biggest problem was the way we talked to and about our customers. Sales meetings were like rape. Seriously. Remember, I had been a customer of their business not long prior to working there, and hearing the way they talked about inquiries and grieving families really made me feel violated.

I just couldn’t sit across from a young couple who had just lost their infant daughter and treat them like they were buying a Pontiac.

That was a long time ago. Since then I’ve realized that I have a gift for unrivaled customer service. I’ve won awards for providing customers with what they needed, when they needed it. And that service, customers have returned to the business I represented. They bought more products and services. Whether it was the flower shop I worked at when I was 21, the sportswear place I worked when I was 23, or the HR company I worked at in Scotland in 2002 – 2004.

I always knew that as “good service”. Now it has a new name – Third Tribe.