Of all the tools you have in your marketing arsenal, none are more important than your email list.

If you’re really savvy, you maintain multiple lists. For example, for my Voiceover Ninja projects I manage several lists, each pertaining to different geographical areas where I host workshops.

To do this professionally, I need a reliable email marketing service. For a while I was using Constant Contact, and briefly tested iContact, but I’ve settled on VerticalResponse, and am very happy with it.

Spam: The Bane of Online Marketing

When you send emails often to large numbers of people — and especially when your messages contain commercial solicitations — you must protect yourself against accusations of spamming.

Major email marketing companies like VerticalResponse take this issue very seriously, and forbid their customers from using their system to send unwanted messages.

Not to use a service with ironclad anti-spam rules is to court trouble. A colleague of mine who recently started an email newsletter for her business described a nightmarish scenario — someone claimed she had “spammed” them, and as a result her email account was suspended, and she was made to pay a fine!

When you create a new list through VerticalResponse, you’re required to declare that everyone on it has consented to receive communications from you. Each message you send contains a link so a person can instantly be removed from future mailings. These zero-tolerance policies help to ensure that your messages will reach their intended recipients without delay, and you won’t get in trouble.

Ease of Opting In

VerticalResponse makes it incredibly easy for visitors of your website or blog to sign up to receive your emails.

I really like their customizable opt-in box. You set up the form to collect the info you want (name/city/state/zip code), then copy and paste the code into a web page. Readers can register automatically, with no involvement from you.

You can arrange your preferences so that every time someone opts in, you get an email notification. You can also set up autoresponders, so that new subscribers get a welcome email from you, which can contain additional links and info.

Design Visually Impactful Emails

VerticalResponse offers many templates for creating an email newsletter. They even have an online editor so you can create your own designs from scratch, with no knowledge of HTML necessary.

I set up my emails using a separate HTML editor, then I cut and paste the code directly into the box. It’s easy, and you can preview your email with one click.

Powerful Analytics

VerticalResponse allows you to track statistics about the emails you send. What’s your “open rate”? How often are your readers clicking on the links you provide?

This is crucial information that helps you gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns — and plot out your future moves. Thanks to their system of analytics, you can see at a glance what’s working and what isn’t.

Free 30-Day Trial

If you’re not using an email marketing service, try VerticalResponse free for 30 days — I’m certain you’ll never look back! If you’re using a different service, check out VerticalResponse and see how it compares. (You can transfer lists from other services via .csv files with minimal hassle.)

After you sign up, you can become a VerticalResponse affiliate, and earn generous commissions whenever someone joins the service through you.

(When you sign up for their free trial, you put $5 in my pocket. Become a regular customer, and I’ll get $50!)

VerticalResponse’s rates are very reasonable, and totally worth it for the peace of mind and ease of use. Register for your free trial now, and let me know how you like VerticalResponse!

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I’m continually astonished at how many websites commit a very simple error.

If a URL consists of multiple words, capitalize the first letter of each word any time the URL is written or printed.

Which of the following URL’s “pops” and captures your attention more?

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As a professional voiceover artist, you’d think I’d have been more up-to-speed on the audiobook market. I listen to spoken audio all the time — the majority of it coming from an extensive collection of tapes and CDs which I’ve manually converted for listening on my iPod.

I recently discovered Audible.com — and I’ve stepped into the future! Audible is like Amazon.com for audiobooks. The awesome thing is you download titles directly to your computer.

How It Works

Audible runs on a membership system; you select either the Gold or Platinum program, depending on how many titles you consume in a month. (Gold gives you one “credit” each month, which can be redeemed for one audiobook. Platinum gives you two.)

You can opt for a monthly or Annual plan, the latter of which gives you all of your credits for the year at once.

If you’re out of credits, you can always purchase additional titles. Audible’s prices are very reasonable, much less than what you’d pay to buy the same titles on CD.

Remembering the Past

I can’t help but recall how acquiring and listening to audiobooks used to be — particularly unabridged ones, which are the only kind true aficionados would ever bother with.

I used to get a paper catalog from a leading audiobook publisher. At that time, everything they offered was on cassette. Since an average-sized book can easily equal 20 hours of audio, that usually meant large clamshell boxes filled with tapes.

Most people wouldn’t buy a pile of cassettes they’d listen to once, so the company had a rent-by-mail program: You’d keep a set for as long as you needed, then ship it back in a postage-paid box when you were finished. It was cost-effective, but cumbersome and slow.

Of course, you could borrow tapes for free from your local library, though especially with the bigger sets, there was always a good chance that at least one would be missing or damaged.

Welcome to Now

Audible.com has over 75,000 titles, and their vast inventory is easily searchable. When you see a title you want, add it to your cart. When you checkout, Audible deducts the credits and starts the download.

There are currently five options for audio quality/file size. I always go with the “Enhanced” option, which delivers the largest file and the best sound. (It also takes longest to download.)

If you don’t want to wait, or have limited space on your iPod, you might select one of the lower-fi options. You can re-download a title at any time at a higher or lower bitrate.

A Great Deal

Right now, Audible is running a special deal (if you join via my link) that gets you three months of Gold membership (1 credit per month) for $7.49 each month.

After that, you’ll be charged the regular rate of $14.95/month.

Audible also has a generous affiliate program you can join, so once you’re a member you can share your own impressions about the service and earn a 20% commission from anyone who signs up. (Will I receive a commission if you sign up through this article? You betcha!)

Click the box to the right to start enjoying the benefits of an Audible.com membership now!

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(Besides the fact that they’re all known by just one name!)

In this third installment of my interview with marketing expert Laura Ries, we talk about what has made these people not just incredibly popular celebrities, but super-powerful brands.

Oprah Winfrey, Elvis Presley, Madonna

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Sleazy Business Tip: When attempting to trick people into thinking that your junk mail advertisement is a check, it’s best not to address it to “occupant.”

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In an interview with British tabloid The Daily Mirror, music icon Prince says he believes the Web is dead, and digital music distribution is a thing of the past.

Prince

“The Internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

In 2006, Prince shut down his official website and hasn’t re-opened it.

Apparently The Artist isn’t opposed to all digital gadgetry: his new album is being released as a CD giveaway with the Saturday edition of the Mirror. (I assume the disk is intended to be played?)

“The Internet is completely over,” says Prince. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.”

An article in the London Telegraph reports that in 2007, Prince announced that he would sue eBay, YouTube and the Pirate Bay for the unauthorized use of his music. “Ever since, he has banned such sites from using his music in any fashion and refused to work with legal paid-for options like iTunes, 7Digital or eMusic.”

In other news, corsets and spittoons might be making a comeback.

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Do you think of yourself as a brand? You are one, whether you realize it or not!

Laura Ries and her father Al Ries help individuals and companies to think like brands. In their books and on Laura’s blog, the Rieses lay out strategies for thinking different, and how to create a strong identity for your product in the marketplace.

In the first installment of my interview with Laura, we talked about the essence of branding, and what it means to stand out in the marketplace. In this segment, Laura talks about some of her favorite “people brands.”

More installments from this informative interview are coming soon! (5 minutes)

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In this day and age, romance is virtually dead.

Fortunately, even though our culture might be clueless about the finer aspects of love and relationships, we can choose not to be.

One of my all-time favorite books on this topic is How to Make Your Wife Your Mistress by Lois Bird. Published in 1972, it’s long out of print (though you can buy used copies of it on Amazon).

I’m sure it wasn’t a giant bestseller — in fact, I’m impressed that the book was published at all. It’s a virtual axiom among editors that men don’t buy self-help books, particularly ones that purport to teach them how to be more sensitive and intelligent lovers.

Mrs. Bird’s basic thesis is that there are too many wives and not enough mistresses, and that these two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Here are some of my favorite quotations from the book. I’m especially interested to hear women’s opinions about Mrs. Bird’s statements:

“I am a woman, and that no doubt means a lot of things. It means I’m similar to all other women in many respects and probably different in many, but most important, it means I am not a man. I don’t think like a man, feel like a man, or, in many respects, act like a man.”

“Perhaps the biggest secret to keeping a mistress where you want her is memory building. No woman who has a thick mental scrapbook of memories of great nights and beautiful mornings is going to start daydreaming of another man. . . . A skilled lover is an expert in building memories. He doesn’t just hope things will turn out all right; he schemes.”

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Yesterday, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.

I took a clutter laxative and evacuated from my life some objects that have been occupying valuable real estate, both in my living quarters and my field of mental concern.

Useless junk that has been weighing me down and holding me back.

Stuff — irrelevant things that I’ve been dilly-dallying about getting rid of.

In part, I was motivated to finally flush it from my life by a neighbor who told me he just relinquished over thirty years worth of accumulated items. I recalled George Carlin’s routine — “a place for my stuff” — about the things we collect that serve little purpose to us, that we nonetheless force ourselves to contend with.

Why do we do it? Because it’s our “stuff”!

That, plus the fact that we just can’t endure the agony of parting with it.

The core of the “stuff” I got rid of was a large set of LP records that I purchased online several years ago — boxed sets of philosophy lectures. It seemed like a good buy at the time, and in fact it was, but now I own the recordings in digital format, and have zero use for the records.

I often feel a sense of responsibility with old objects; I like to think of myself as a curator who is charged with preserving items for future generations. At least that’s the way I rationalize it. The fact is, I live in a very small area (a deliberate choice — it forces me to be ruthless about what I bring into my life). I have virtually no space for anything that isn’t fairly drastically contributing to my happiness and well-being.

The records were bulky and heavy. I carried them out to my car in three trips. When I got to Goodwill, I took the entire stack in my arms and brought them in at once. Struggling to open the store’s door, I marveled at how this entire pile of recorded material can now be easily held on a small iPod, with plenty of room left over for other things.

I’d thought about selling the records on eBay, but I knew it wouldn’t be worth it. I’d seen them for sale there in recent years, and they generally didn’t go for much. Even if I could find a buyer, did I really feel like going through the trouble of packing and shipping them?

When I appeared in the store with the stack of records, several employees looked at me oddly. “What are these?” one of them asked. At one point, the manager eyed my donation with apprehension and said (in an accent I couldn’t quite place), “Someone will buy them?”

I dunno, but that’s not my problem now. The Goodwill folks accepted my castoffs, and gave me a receipt to commemorate the occasion. Now my life is slightly lighter, slightly freer now that I’ve liberated myself from obsolete “stuff” that’s doing me no good!

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What is a brand? Why do some brands succeed, while others never get off the ground?

I recently chatted with author & marketing expert Laura Ries on the essence of branding, particularly personal branding. The conversation was phenomenal — fortunately, I had the foresight to record it!

Laura and her father Al Ries have written several books that should be on every entrepreneur’s shelf. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is an excellent starting-point, filled with many fascinating examples of big-time business success stories, and dismal, even laughable failures.

I credit Laura & Al with making marketing interesting and fun. In this first segment, Laura explains what makes a brand, and why branding has to be approached as a long-range proposition.

She also tells us about some of the difficulty she’s had trying to persuade officials of her home city of Atlanta to adopt an obvious slogan, rather than concocting a new & unmemorable one. (7 minutes)

Laura’s video on how to become a movie star can be found here.

Be sure to check out Laura’s blog, Ries’ Pieces.

More segments from our interview are coming soon. . . .

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