Email marketing is especially attractive for local businesses with a brick and mortar presence. Most local business owners simply don’t get social media and don’t like tech but they get email. More importantly, their customers get it to even the seniors. It’s something easy to relate to and understand how it can be beneficial. This also makes it the perfect starting point for marketers to introduce local business clients to internet marketing.

However, while email marketing has rebounded in effectiveness recently a lot has changed. What used to work a few years may not return any responses today. So what are the new dos and don’ts of successful email marketing…

1. Don’t Worry About Colorful HTML Templates

HTML is out. Well, at least for the most part, for most businesses. Most email services are just going to strip out everything attractive and leaving it looking worse than plain text. So why not stick to plain text? It’ll cost you less to produce too. One exception is video. People love receiving and viewing videos and this could be just the hook you need for higher open rates.

2. Don’t Give Away Everything in Your Emails

Long scrolling emails and e-newsletters are out. No one wants to read that much, nor has the time to. Plus, isn’t the reach objective to get recipients to visit your website or contact you? This is probably a lot easier if you leave some mystery and give them a reason to progress through your sales funnel.

3. Don’t Overlook Timing

Timing is everything when it comes to successful email marketing. As the economy picks up and more businesses start emailing again it will become even more important. With so much mail, you need to land your messages in prospect’s inbox at just the right moment.

4. Don’t Buy Anymore Email Lists

With few exceptions buying email lists is out. Most lists are so full of junk they aren’t even worth sending to and they aren’t cheap either. Renting lists can be a little better but only if you can 100% trust the person sending out your emails. What’s in? Being resourceful and cross promoting to other strategic partner’s email lists.

5. Do Upgrade Email Signatures

Email signatures are powerful marketing spaces for verbal branding and additional links. This area should include tag lines, toll free numbers and links to social media profiles.

“Independent Executive” Chuck Boyce is an experienced small business coach who can help you get the most out of your business. For more information on how he can help you achieve your business goals, go to www.breakingfreeblog.com

Everyone can benefit from coaching. In fact contrary to the belief systems of many individuals the most successful athletes and business owners throughout history have all invested in a great deal of coaching. So why is it that so many who have attended incredibly inspirational events and have even walked on fire seem to be suffering so terribly in the current economy?

If you have never walked on fire yourself, it is certainly an incredible and empowering experience. So is breaking boards and other acts of bravery (or apparent insanity). Millions have attended life and business coaching events where these feats are used to hype up attendees and help them breakthrough barriers to achieve new levels of success in both their business and personal lives. Unfortunately it seems that for 90% of many of the participants the euphoria and confidence wears off after a week back home and it is back to the old doom and gloom. The CDs they bought are completely forgotten about and it is hard to imagine that this is the same person that you were talking to a few weeks ago that was so pumped up.

It may seem like they wasted their money to you. Though they no doubt learnt some very powerful pieces of information but just decided not to use them. It is an easy trap to fall into. It is not that the coaching that they received was bad. It is that we all need to constantly surround ourselves with positivity and keep our eyes on the end goals. Just going to one seminar can have a dramatic life changing effect for many individuals. Though it is through consistent and ongoing regular coaching that you can continue to maintain your momentum and forward motion. Ask yourself where your money is better spent, on that six pack to help you forget the terrible day you have had or investing in your personal development in order to achieve true and lasting happiness and freedom?

“Independent Executive” Chuck Boyce is an experienced small business coach who can help you get the most out of your business. For more information on how you can achieve your business goals, go to www.breakingfreeblog.com.

It was interesting to see several business ‘gurus’ and individuals that hold themselves out there are Internet marketing specialists this week send out email newsletters saying that the hardest thing to do was to figure out what to do next. As in what actions to take to progress their business ventures. One even admitted that they often wasted hours a day just trying to decide what they should be working on. Another even went so far as to call knowing what to do a ‘superpower’ and perhaps the most prized superpower that you could hope to have.

Yes, knowing what you need to be working on is critical and wasted time is always bad. Though if you have a business and action plan laid out and designed to help you reach your ultimate objectives you really should rarely if ever be sitting around for any period of time trying to figure out what tasks need to be handled or delegated next.

So for anyone out there that has suffered from this roadblock since the new year has begun, what you need to do right now is finish your business plan and lay out your plan of attack. Surely one look at your goals will probably inspire dozens of ideas and tasks that need to be accomplished. So take the time to define your action steps now. Break it up into actionable daily items that need to be handled and while propel you towards your goals.

For most this will no doubt give you at least a year’s worth of clearly identified tasks and actions. Plus as you begin achieving your goals you should be constantly adding new ones. Between your business aspirations and taking time to really enjoy life you should never be stuck on what to do as long as you have a plan.

“Independent Executive” Chuck Boyce is an experienced small business coach who can help you get the most out of your business. For more information on how you can achieve your business goals, go to www.breakingfreeblog.com.

Yes managing by metrics and statistics can help you hone marketing campaigns and discover the most profitable channels for promoting your business, but you must realize where to draw the line. Keeping an eye on your most popular blog topics and keyword trends can definitely help you maximize your traffic and search engine rankings. Monitoring website analytics is an absolute must for optimizing your website and improving conversion ratios and split testing for direct mail and PPC campaigns is a must.

However where most seem to go off the rails and ignore common sense is when it comes to managing their employees and their performance by metrics alone. In many cases it can be extremely detrimental to operations, not only causing short term dips in results but creating long term damage. For example, some call centers have begun rating employees by the number of calls they make or the number of minutes they speak on the phone. While making at least 200 calls a day or racking up over 300 minutes of talk time may be traits of good agents, demanding these goals be hit everyday will probably lead to reps calling and hanging up on your leads or talking about nonsense in order to hit their daily quota. If this is all you care about then this is a great way to manage. However if you actually want to make sales and turn a profit it may not be.

In other organizations managers have demanded staff send out 500 bids or quotes a week, though if none of those result in deals and sending out 200 better targeted ones could have meant 100 new clients you can see the insanity of it all. The same goes for new time and activity clocking software for remote employees. Employees can trick these systems by timing screen shots and typing garbage when activity is being clocked. If they are told they will only be paid for high activity periods, this is what they will do, which will actually result in you getting less work for your money.

On top of this, managing like you are a correctional facility watching over a jail and insisting on meeting quotas that make do not make sense to employees will lead to demoralized staff and ultimately poor customer service and production. Goals are a must, but actions ought to be in line with the end goals and not just enforced for the sake of having a quota. Isn’t it better to take a little extra time to find exceptional employees and empower them to use their skills and talents to the best of their ability?

In fact when it comes to marketing if ‘everyone else’ is doing it, perhaps you should cut and run in the opposite direction. For a start, if everyone else is really doing it then it dramatically reduces that form of marketing’s effectiveness. It just becomes noise. Yes, even if your product or service is really better than the competition if you look the same and are delivering your message in the same format then your marketing can just become noise like all of your competitors. Just saying you are great or offer excellent customer service doesn’t cut it. If you are perceived as being just like your competitors then the only real reason you can give consumers to choose you is price and we all know price wars are a losing battle for all sides.

Secondly, just because others are doing it, doesn’t mean that they are making a profit from it. Too many business owners and managers try to jump on advertising channels that they see their competitors using or because they are told they need it. Just because others in your industry are sending out a certain type of mail piece or are using a certain system does not mean it will be successful for you or the best use of your marketing budget. If you have inside information on what is really producing results for the competition or what the top companies in your industry are doing then perhaps that is the only exception, yet you still need to find a way to differentiate your organization.

So decide now how you can take the best of what other truly successful entrepreneurs are doing and how you can position yourself differently and make it your own.

However the changes in the business world are creating faster and faster acceleration. New technology and tools are being released faster than ever, consumers are expecting instant answers to their needs and the rate at which businesses are growing or failing is rocketing as well.

Utilizing more cost effective outsourced staffing solutions for research, planning and testing entrepreneurs are now able to get a new venture up and running in just days. This means that if you have a business idea you cannot afford to sit on it. Even if you believe you have a completely unique idea that has no competition in the market, there are so many new businesses being created everyday and executives leaving the corporate world to launch new start ups that putting off your own launch too long will probably mean seeing someone else coming out with it first. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still pursue your goals and that you cannot create a superior business, but it will make it harder and more expensive.

Even if you still have a full time job there are plenty of small actions you can take today to get started and ignite the forward momentum. Even committing an hour a day or one day on the weekend to your new business idea can help you start turning your dreams into reality. You do not wait until you have all the capital or funding you think you need to begin. Start researching, planning, spreading the word and even taking pre-orders right away!

Discovering your real passion is not just finding a way to make money that you can be excited about for now. It is finding something you truly love to do and will for years to come. This is the type of core motivating force that has enabled dozens of teens to launch million dollar enterprises in the last few years and has fueled the ventures of thousands of others to create and grow incredibly fulfilling, profitable and exciting ventures.

Sometimes we become so wrapped up in just looking for the next pay check or have become so busy just trying to keep up with everyday life it can be difficult to even remember what we are really passionate about and what really drives us and makes us happy. So how do you find it?

One of the most effective ways to really break it down and discover what you are most passionate about is to take some time to seriously consider what you enjoy doing the most. Imagine that you were already a multi-billionaire and you never have to worry about making a penny again. If you were completely free to do whatever you wanted at anytime, what would you spend your time doing? Perhaps it is traveling, golfing, diving, exploring new foods and restaurants. Then whatever it may be, find a way to make money at it.

However there are other ways to help you discover what you are so passionate about that you will be motivated and driven to keep going at it. Instead of just thinking about what makes you happy, consider what makes you really unhappy. What sparks that blood boiling sense of injustice in you that makes you really want to take action? What do you feel you must stop or prevent in the world? So many entrepreneurs, famous Hollywood actors and business moguls wait until they have made their billions and are coming to the end of their careers to being working on these things they are so passionate about. You don’t have to wait, if this is something that really drives you, you can find a way to incorporate it into your business or create a new venture that will not only support you, but help many others.

A third way to do some deep soul searching and uncover what really means the most to you is to look at things in reverse. Imagine that you lost everything tomorrow. Envision losing your home, separating from your significant other, being fired from your job, having your car repossessed and being left without a penny. What is the one thing you would want the most or that would give you a reason to keep going? How can you do more of that now, and get paid for it?

Who looks up businesses in the Yellow Pages anymore? Even local businesses must web utilizing online marketing to be found and funnel customers through the door, regardless of how great their location is. Now consumers decide where they are going online before they leave home, program the GPS and zone in. Even foot traffic isn’t an open market anymore. Mobile devices in hand, buyers are being guided by the technology in their palms rather than taking their chances wondering around. Even savvy retailers in malls are now using combinations of mobile and online marketing for steering shoppers through their own doors instead or relying on window displays alone. Unfortunately, it is no longer a level playing field for those who aren’t online. It’s an uphill losing battle.

In the last quarter of 2011 alone almost 1 million users moved from cellphone carrier to the iPhone. Since the December gift giving season more people are armed with tablets than ever from Kindle Fires to iPads. In fact, 2012 will see more mobile devices in use that humans on the planet!

The message for local businesses is clear. Utilize online marketing to your advantage or close up shop. No, heading off to a remote island to open a scooter rental business to avoid the web won’t help either. Unless the local tourism board and resorts are using the web to their advantage there won’ be anyone there to rent from you either.

The bottom line is who you spend time with will directly determine what types of thoughts you put into your mind, what your perception is, how big you make your goals and your level of positivity.

This hasn’t changed in centuries even with the advances in technology. This was recently highlighted once again in a study of 102,000 Twitter users. The study found that analyzing the level of Subjective Well Being in their tweets. It found those that were more upbeat stuck together and those that weren’t so positive also tend to remain in a swirl of negative messages. Where do you want to be?

How do you decide who you should be spending time with and following? Start with where you want to be in 5 years from now. Who is it that has achieved what you want to achieve and who is on the right track to achieve similar goals as you? Affiliating yourself with these types of people will definitely keep you on the right track, keep up your positive outlook and feed your creativity and inspiration.

How to you make the change?

If you realize that perhaps you have been keeping the wrong company perhaps the best plan of attack is to treat this as breaking any other bad habit. Replace the bad with the good. Make a commitment and plan for aligning yourself with a better crowd and start putting it into action.

So maybe instead of hanging out with your same old friends who are not doing so well for themselves and are constantly complaining about how bad things are arrange to do dinner with someone successful each week. It could be another small business owner and entrepreneur who is embracing social media and rocketing their new venture ahead or a head executive of a local firm that would make a great strategic business partner. You could also get out to networking events, put together your own mastermind group for a brainstorming session once a month over dinner or a BBQ. Or lacking access to the above get yourself a coach that can fill that void, keep you constantly moving forward and help you to connect with others moving in the right direction.

The key is to start doing something today to make sure that you are associating with the right type of people that will help build up you and your business.

Businesses that operate on very high profit margins or who have very low variable costs associated with increased production are very scalable. Think about companies like Zynga who sell virtual goods through games like Farmville and Pet Society on Facebook. Craigslist is another perfect example who is able to see revenues around the $100 million mark with fewer than 30 staff members and boasts a 90% operating profit margin.

In order to build a scalable business you need to watch out for labor costs and the access to good labor as well as any potential need to lower prices in order to increase volume and know exactly what you can expect from your marketing budget. Clearly this is where Internet marketing and it’s low cost viral capabilities come in. Though both on and offline channel partner programs can also help you achieve big sales numbers without having to add much to your costs.