 |
||
 |
 |
|
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
by Charles Beach |
|||||||||||||||
Do you understand how to use E-Mail and get the most out of its capabilities? If you are honest friend, you will have to admit that you
don't. Please don't allow your lack of expertise to cause you to feel inadequate. Most people using on line services have a very limited understanding of their Email programs. Once you have completed these discourses,
you will possess the tools necessary to exhibit professionalism. I assume everyone reading this desires to market something on the Internet. Going from this assumption, allow me to continu with the meat of this subject.
First, do you desire to make real money in your activities? By that I mean, have you layed out your plans of attack? Do you know who your potential customers are? More importantly, do you know how to reach these
prospective customers? If you are just starting your quest, you probably have more questions than answers. I know that when I was starting out, just thinking about the net and its many facets, scared me to death.
Knowing that I could find the answers to anything I needed was one thing, but finding these answers was something else entirely. Where do I begin my quest. In my case, I started by posing questions to some new groups I
joined. I discovered in the beginning, that people on the net are more than happy to assist others in learning what they need. What I'm saying here is, the people who use the Internet in general, are the friendliest
individuals I have ever had the privilege to know. In reference to any research you do in the future, expect others to be very helpful. By the way my friend, this is the reason I'm providing you FREE of charge the
information about email you are now reading. I can make you an unconditional guarantee! If your overall attitude is one of giving to others first, you can expect to receive an abundance in return. LET'S GET RIGHT TO THE FACTS Using email as a major marketing tool offers unlimited potential. All of us have heard the hype regarding the necessity of building a web site, right? Let me be the first to tell you, this is indeed hype. This is not the most powerful marketing tool available to us. E-Mail is. Before I complete this discourse, you will understand just what I mean. THE BASICS, PROPER US OF YOUR E-MAIL TOOLS!
So you want to learn how to use your email program to its fullest capabilities. Well first you need to fully comprehend the basics of your email program. That's what I
will cover first. By now, you have been sending and receiving email messages on a regular basis. Consequently, its safe for me to assume that you have mastered this capability. An important point I want to outline
here in the beginning is, there are literally hundreds of different email programs out there being used. Some of them are good, but others leave much to be desired. Example: Every on-line services such as Prodigy,
A.O.L, Compuserve and others, have their own email programs. Incidentally, each and every program is configured differently. No two programs work the same. Not only are the programs different, they are extremely limited
in reference to what anyone can do with them. For the person who wants to gain maximum capability from their email program, they have no other choice than to buy something else. I got around this problem by obtaining an
ISP (Internet Service Provider) locally here in Las Vegas. When I joined Wizard.com, they provided me with all the necessary tools I'd need. Such as a copy of EUDORA LIGHT. This was the email program of choice for most
netters. An important question. Is your service provider a local ISP, or are you using one of the on-line services? It makes a profound difference you know. My advice is, if you are unfortunate and have hooked up with
AOL or any of the other on-line services, cancel your account. Do this as soon as possible. Find yourself a local service provider like Ihave. It's not only going to save you a great deal of money, but it will also
allow you to do so much more with your marketing activities. I recently befriended a gal in Calif., who was using prodigy. After sending her a few messages via email, she admitted to me that her normal monthly bill to
prodigy was exceeding $100.00. I told her to cancel her account as soon as possible. When she questioned why, I told her that a local service provider would allow her to do much more and at a much cheaper cost. She made
the move and was thankfulshe did. If necessary, you should do the same. LET'S BEGIN OUR STUDY You are undoubtedly using your email program on a daily basis, right? Ok, assuming this is the case, how much time do you spend with your program? Probably more than you can
spare. I'll be offering you some techniques that will help you accomplish your goals in probably half the time you are spending right now. Let's continue. There are two ways to use your email program. One way, takes
far too much time. My way simplifies your response time to less than half. When you receive a new message, do you read it right away? If so, do you try to respond before going on to the next message? If you are like
most people I know, you usually handle one at a time. My next question is important, heed it well. What is your procedure foranswering an email inquiry? Do you print out the message before attempting to respond? Or by
chance is your memory good enough to remember all important aspects of the message sent? If there are specific questions being raised, can you remember the points and always respond to them? Let's be honest with each
other, trying to remember everything is a chore even for the sharpest person. There is a better way. When you receive an important message, do the following. Go into your message menu. Assuming your program offers the
REPLY command, click on reply now. By the way, my Eudora program has two separate functions. One is called REPLY, the other is called REPLY TO. For our illustrative purposes, you will only use Reply. The reply
function simplifies the procedure of answering any message you receive. What happens is this. The message sent to you is on screen. You have read it and decided to reply immediately. Go to the message menu and click on
Reply. This automatically bring up a new message screen. You will notice that all the important information is already in place, ready to be sent back to the recipient. Hold on a minute, you're not ready to send just
yet. Your personal comments have yet to be included. In your message box will be the information the sender sent to you, right? Let's assume there were questions the writer wanted answered. After reading the first
question, you know what your answer should be. Do this. At the end of the question hit your ENTER key to bring down the rest of the message. Hit your enter key again to drop the line down one more space. Now move your
cursor up to the empty line and answer that question. Follow the above mentioned procedure for all questions. This allows you to make exact responses to everything in your message. What follows is a way of doing most
of the same things I have been speaking of above. This information might prove to come in handy one day. My advice now as always, practice these techniques until they become second nature. HIGHLIGHT the entire
message. Go into the EDIT mode and click on COPY. This puts this message in storage for future use. Now, let's bring up the new message menu. The first thing you need to do is type in the address of the recipient. Once
this is done, you will go down to the SUBJECT line. If the message is important, State this on this line. From here, bring your cursor down into your message box. This is where you will bring in the message you saved
earlier. Go back to the EDIT menu and click on your PASTE command. The information saved will instantaneously reappear. There is even a quicker way to accomplish the above. Do this. Once you have highlighted your
text, Press "CTRL" plus C. This automatically saves the information you have highlighted. Now is the time to place this saved info into a new message. Press "CTRL" plus V. This brings everything
you have high- lighted back into your new message box. Presto, like magic, everything is done. The above mentioned procedure should be followed throughout the whole message. This technique allows you to respond to any
message in a very professional manner. It also shows the recipient that you are a caring person. Someone worth doing business with. Let's move on. E-ZINES AND MAILING LISTS Allow me to assume that many of you reading this are doing similar things to what I'm
doing. I have joined numerous E-ZINES for the purpose of gaining insights into what is available in the market place. I have also joined a few MAILING LISTS as well. These activities have brought to me a glut of email
on a daily basis. For informational purposes, I'd like to recommend two e-zines you might want to check out. THE BIZWEB E-GAZETTE: >>subscribe@jdd-publishing.com<< A very interesting publication run by a
good friend of mine. BUSINESS ONLINE: >>landry@premier.net<< A great e-zine for anyone doing business on the net. These represent a very small number of the many e-zines available. If you are looking for
informative information, you should check out these e-zines soon. If you have the time available, joining the two above mentioned would benefit your business efforts. For those of you who would like to check out
other E-zines, do this. Go to your favorite search engine and key in E-Zines or Newsletters. You will be shown an extensive listing of possibilities to be checked out. Let me get back to what I started earlier. The
recommendations that follow will speed up your activities with e-mail too. Let's assume you have joined one of the above mentioned e-zines like Landrys. You receive your first newsletter and start reading through it.
You come across an ad that interests you. I'm assuming you want to respond to this advertisement, right? There are two ways to accomplish these ends. You can HIGHLIGHT the senders address and put it into memory. Once
this is done, bring up your new message window. Go to your EDIT screen and click on PASTE. This automatically puts the address into you new message. Go to the SUBJECT line and put in what the sender requests, if
anything. Likewise with the main message box, if the sender requests something here, put it in. Then send it. Quick, simple and clean. There is another way to handle this. I've used both Incidentally. You are
scrolling through your newsletter, you come across something worth answering. Try this. Using your arrow keys bring the message you are interested in, down to the very bottom of your screen. You want this message to
remain on screen to be seen while you are composing your new message. Now go to the message menu and bring up a new message screen. Your screen will probably cover up the info you want. Do this. Using your mouse, go to
the bottom of the screen. highlight the bottom line and keeping your left mouse button down, drag the line upwards far enough to be able to see the information hidden. Now compose your message as recommended earlier. I
use this technique when the demands are critical. The sender has requested exact info in either the subject box of the message box. Remember what I recommended earlier in regards to using CTRL + C and CTRL + V. These
are short cuts that save time. The cut and paste capabilities as illustrated above, are probably the most important tools you will ever use. Learn how to use these tools to their fullest capabilities. Once you have
mastered cut and past, you will wonder how you ever got along without them. Experiment constantly, you'll be amazed at what you can do. I use an E-MAIL program called Eudora Pro. There is in my estimation, only two
really good email programs out there. Eudora and Pegasus. The problem is, that to be able to use either of these programs most people have to have an ISP (Internet service provider.) On-line services like AOL, Prodigy,
Compuserve, Etc., have their own programs built in. I've said this before and it warrants repeating, using any of the major on-line services is a waste of time and money. By the way, Both Eudora and Pegasus are
available for down loading. By going to the sites as listed below, you can obtain these programs. Eudora can be found at: Pegasus can be found at: http://www.pegasus.usa.com/ ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
If you are like myself and get a lot of email, you should make special efforts to get organized. If your email program allows, set up separate boxes for the different
subjects you receive. Another word of advice, don't just allow your email to accumulate. Sort out your messages on a regular basis. If you receive anything that you don't need, or is of no interest, dispose of it
immediately. I dispose of probably 80 plus percent of my messages daily. If you can't use the information, why hold on to it. Remember, hard drive space is more important than useless email messages. SIGNATURE FILE! DO YOU USE YOURS? Did you know that within most good email
programs, is the capability of setting up a signature file. What is a sig file? This is a short blurb tacked on to the end of your email message. This can be configured anyway you like. Some people use it to make a
statement, like have a good day. Other people like myself, use it to promote something. An example: I have more recently made the statement that I have composed a FREE email report. This invites recipients to send me
inquires on how they can obtain a copy. By the way, since I started using the above mentioned, I have had numerous requests for copies. Learning how to use email is something that almost everyone wants to learn how to
do. This allows me to get me foot in the door. I'll be honest with you, I am a marketeer. I have developed numerous informational products I am now marketing on the net. I have learned through a lot of trial and
error, that people everywhere appreciate receiving important information, particularly when it "FREE." This is as I said before, the way I get my foot in the door. Let's face facts, most everyone is leery of
the people who advertise. There have been so many scams over the years and many people have been hurt deeply because of them. These same people are always hesitant to respond to anything of an advertising nature. Just
take a look at what is called junk mail. Everyone receives numerous letters almost daily that fall into this category. If you are like myself, you probably just glance at one of these letters and toss it, right? This is
why direct mail is so expensive for anyone to use for marketing purposes. I have used direct mail, and spent lots of money foolishly believing that every one at least read my offer. The facts were that over 70% of my
mailing was never even opened. The point I'm trying to make here is, if you are inclined to market anything, offer something of value going in. Like this free report you are reading. Endear your potential customers to
you. Make them salivate with anticipation on receiving anything from you in the future. About the Author Add your comments about this article to our feedback section.
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||
