If someone has signed up as a subscriber, then you know one thing already: they are interested in your niche. Your content, blog posts and other marketing tools have led them to believe that you are worth listening to and  just may have a product worth buying.

If your emails read like a sales letter, you will probably get a lot of unsubscribe notices.  Avoid this with these 5 tips.

1. Use an honest, but catchy headline. Headlines are going to be the first thing that your subscriber sees in their subject line. If you want them to open it, get straight to the point. Tell them exactly what they will find if they open the email. It could be the answer to a question you pose or specific information:”3 Easy Ways to Create a Family Budget.”

2. Address your subscriber by name. General greetings don’t let your reader know that you know them. It’s a sign that you are too busy to actually be “connected” with your readership. Address each person directly in your email series.

3. Provide pertinent content. Begin with the question you posed or the statement you made in your headline. If you are focused your subscribers will be also. Give what you promise in as few words as possible – 300 to 400 words.

4. Ask them to do something. This is not a sales hook. If you are offering a free eBook with more information, this is when you discuss what they will find in it and provide a link to the landing page. If you would like them to opt-in for something else like a monthly newsletter, include that here.

5. Use your real signature. Let them know that you are personally involved in everything that you send out to your subscribers and customers.

What is important to them is what you say and how you say it through well-constructed emails.

To learn more about constructing list building and email marketing campaigns, check out www.ListMarketingFormula.com

HostGator is offering 40% off promo code coupon on all shared hosting packages.  Below is the link to activate the coupon.

Expires 11:59 PM CST Friday, August 31st 2012.

*Both Linux and Windows Hosting are included.  Discount applies to your first invoice and will renew at the normal, non discounted rate. This promotion applies to new HostGator customers only.

Enjoy!

Dave

I gotta admit, I was a Kindle skeptic for a looong time.

I never wanted to be a best selling author, I wanted to be a marketer.  But then, I saw this: http://www.productpay.com/?r=enjgkl

And it hit me…

… Kindle is the PERFECT platform for marketers, but most marketers kinda go about it the wrong way (at least, I did.)

You see, if you’re trying to get traffic – I’m talking QUALITY traffic – then why waste all your time creating landing pages that nobody will ever see…

… or that take a lot of time and money to get in front of people?

Why not just go to where the traffic is already hanging out and buying stuff… and put yourself in front of it?

I mean, think out it…

… right now, we’re all trying to send traffic to a website nobody has heard of (and probably doesn’t trust) and get their name and email by giving away our reports, right?

But on Kindle, you can actually SELL those reports for a few bucks, and get those people back to your website afterwards.

It’s actually the best way I know to get leads, and I wish I’d have jumped on this sooner.

However, it’s not all roses…

… there’s no point in doing this, if you’re only going to publish a few reports/books on Kindle per month.

The key is mass exposure… regular publishing… so you’re seen everywhere by your potential customers, and sucking in those leads all day long (and getting paid for it!)

But that’s where the real problem is…

… creating tons of books on Kindle is like pulling teeth.

The formatting is jacked up and way overcomplicated.  It takes time to get it right, and finally get it uploaded.

That’s why I love this tool so much: http://www.productpay.com/?r=enjgkl

Seriously, if you’re even thinking about Kindle publishing, then this thing will save you hours of frustration, and potentially hundreds in would-be freelancer costs.

Bobby has been fine tuning this neat little Kindle formatting and publishing tool for months, and tons of people are lining up in the forums to buy it, and finally, it’s live: http://www.productpay.com/?r=enjgkl

Don’t delay, there’s a whole world of buyers – and leads – waiting for you out there on Kindle, and the easier it is to mass publish simple little books on there, the more of those people you’ll catch in your net.

Simple

I was looking for an easy user-friendly way to migrate several blogs and did a search on Google and found Warrior Forum listing for Robert Plank’s Backup Creator. I was familiar with Robert and purchased some PHP training from him in the past, so I purchased his Backup Creator on the Warrior Forum on May 30.

I followed the instructions, which were simple, at least for me as I’m a web tech and generally understand these kind of tasks. After installing, I receive numerous “permission denied” errors (among a few others) that would probably take up a few pages.

I copied and pasted these into a support ticket.

I received a reply 24 hours later (which is not great, but an acceptable “max” time period for a response).  A “Jason” replied asking for login information to all WordPress and cPanel applications. I replied same day with this, and later in the day, Jason replied saying, “We believe that we have fixed this issue in the latest version 2.2.4+ Please update your plugin in your WordPress installation or by logging in the members area”.

I deleted WordPress and started all over with a fresh install and with the latest version.  It did not resolve.  It greatly reduced the number of errors I had received the first time, but still produced “permission denied” errors.

I seemed that no one actually took time to login to any of the sites, in my opinion, but rather passed on the info and an update was created.  I replied to the ticket the next day, June 2, and pasted the new errors explaining it did not resolve.

By June 7, I had still have not received a reply.  I also went into the Warrior Forum and replied to the forum thread where Backup Creator was sold (where Robert was seen replying to others, with the last reply to anyone on May 27).

I even sent him a private message, that all Warriors check, even if they miss the thread replies.

Robert was offline (not logged in) when I first posted a reply asking for his help, and minutes later I saw his status turn to online.   I thought that he may have received an email notification of a reply to his thread (which is common) and thought I might get a response very soon.

No reply.  24 hours later, no reply.  48 hours, no reply.

Absolutely poor customer service and not worth the hassle… afterall, customer service is everything and defines your business and character.

After re-visiting the thread, I discovered that 2 others before me had the same “no response” issues with support, so this confirms that it’s not just me.

Bottom line… I asked for a refund.  It took 4 days to get the refund and a reply!  And that reply didn’t address the continued errors; they didn’t even make an attempt to resolve or reply to those.  Oh, and Robert chose to completely ignore the private message and my post in his sales thread asking for his help (accurate at the time of writing this review).

Recommend? I think you know the answer.  It’s clear the customer is not a priority.

So what DO I recommend?

I haven’t chosen an alternative yet, but after much research (reading reviews, comparing features, and posing questions to Customer Service at the respective sites), I’ve narrowed down my possible choices to 3:

1. WP Twin
2. Backup Buddy
3. Manage WP

Click here to see a comparison of these 3 resources.

In my search for WordPress backup and cloning resources, I’ve compiled my notes in the form of a comparison between 3 top tools:

1. WP Twin

Pro: Appears super easy to use and has a 30 day refund.  To my disappointment, there is no demo video on the sales page, so I had to do a search on YouTube to find a video that shows how WP Twin works.  However, a big “plus” listed on the sales page is that they  claim to be very responsive with customer support, with average reponse time being a “hours” instead of days and that support is available around the clock and on weekends.

Awesome.

So I put that to the test by creating a support ticket with a few pre-sales questions.  It took about 8 hours for a response.  That’s above average

Cons:  with WP Twin, you need to be able to install WordPress on your own prior to using it.  But this isn’t an issue/con if you’re comfortable doing this.  I can install WP quickly using Fantastico and it takes under a minute.  Additional “con” is the limited support. The less you pay, the less support time you receive (see below):

Pricing:

$97 for 10-site license. (3 months support)
$147 for 25 (6 months support)
$297 for unlimited (12 months support)

*What defines a site within the license?

Per customer service, “One license is used when you clone a wordpress site on a domain”

Side note – If you find that you need a license with more sites, then you can’t just pay the difference from the lower package… you’ll have to pay full price.  This is where Backup Buddy differs…

Click here to learn more

2. Backup Buddy

Pro: no need to pre-install WordPress. It installs everything for you.  If you discover that you need to upgrade your license to unlimited sites or a developers license, you can upgrade and pay the difference instead of having to upgrade at full price. Nice.

Cons: after watching a video on their site, it appears that if migrating to another server, you need to manually create a mySQL database beforehand.  I know how to do this, but I don’t like having to take this step.

Biggest con/negative is: No refund policy!  Their reasoning is it’s a digital (non tangible) product.  I asked customer service about this in a chat session and I’m told  that… if after checking the hosting/server requirements and after seeking help in the support forum, my issue(s) cannot be resolved, then they would refund the purchase within 5 days of purchase…

Not encouraging. It doesn’t say much for their confidence in their product… plus, I’m not a huge fan of “forum support”.

Pricing:

$75 for 2 site license.
$100 for 10-site license
$150 for unlimited (WP Twin charges this for only 25 sites)
$197 developer license.

TIP: If you signup to their newsletter, you’ll get a code to save 25% on any purchase.

Click here to learn more

3. Manage WP

This one is a monthly fee and looks awesome for managing all of your blogs with ONE login and updating, posting, etc all blogs from one location – including cloning and migrating.

Pricing:

It’s about $21 per month (if you choose the month-to-month option), otherwise it’s less if you pay for a year up front.  However, in the long run it costs more, but you have the huge time-saving benefit of managing all your blogs in one place and one login.

The cloning/migration tool looks ultra simple and only a couple of steps.  But again, to enjoy the quick method, the pre-requisite (like WP Twin) is to install WordPress prior to using it.

Click here to learn more

*Side note: You can get a free account to manage 5 sites, but you’ll have to upgrade to PRO (paid version) to be able to use some features like the clone and migrate feature.

[ To see which tool I do NOT recommend, click here]