Issue # 50, 2-Sep-2003
ISSN 1447-4956
Copyright 2003 Jason Anderson. All rights
reserved worldwide
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/
IN THIS ISSUE
1. From the Editor
2. Interview - Dr.Mani
Sivasubramanian
3. Your Feedback
4. Resources - Blog Basics for
Marketers
5. Final Word
1. From the Editor
Happy birthday to ANP. Happy birthday to ANP.
Happy birthday dear ANP... happy birthday to
ANP!
Wow, I find it hard to believe that its been
a year since I started this newsletter. I always
intended to be in this for the 'long haul', but
even so I have trouble grasping that its been a
year. It sure doesn't seem like it!
In fact, I'm happy to say that its been a lot
of fun. And that's the best thing to have in any
sort of business (and why I'm sure we all hope
to quit the day J.O.B and work in our own
business at home, if we haven't already).
I hope you have taken advantage of the
contest I've organized with several other
publishers. There are great prizes up for grabs,
and also a second chance competition where you
can win prizes by telling others about the
contest. Please take a look.
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/contest/
I actually got the idea for the contest from
the book I mentioned in this newsletter a few
weeks ago - Explosive List Building, by Alex
Sampson. I've modified the idea slightly from
what Alex talks about, but the core is still the
same.
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/elb
Of course, the contest is just one idea from
the book - Alex has several more in there that
are equally as good, and I recommend the book to
you highly.
One thing that's changed several times over
the course of publishing ANP has been the
software I've used to send it out. As you may
know, I was using Ultimate Merchant for several
months, before I switched to hosting the list on
my web site with ListMail Pro last week.
Well, wasn't that changeover an interesting
experience - and it was all Ultimate Merchant's
fault!
It seems that Ultimate Merchant doesn't
bother to do anything with the bounces that
occur when you send out a message to your list.
Some autoresponders will automatically handle
the bounces (removing the bad address from your
list), while others will send you the bounce
message.
Ultimate Merchant just swallowed the bounce
message, so I never saw it.
Imagine my surprise when I sent out last
weeks newsletter, and got over 100 bounces
back!
You may think this is just an inconvenience,
but there is a more serious matter to
consider.
Some ISPs (like AOL) will automatically
filter out ALL mail from you if you send too
many messages repeatedly to bad email addresses
- they figure that since you are constantly
trying to send email to bad addresses, you must
have bought one of those dodgy CDs with millions
of email addresses on it.
Your newsletter could be automatically
filtered out from tens or hundreds of people,
and you would never know!
Needless to say, this has changed my opinion
of Ultimate Merchant from "ok, but not for me",
to "extremely dangerous to use for an online
business".
You CAN'T afford to have bad email addresses
on your list. If any email address on your list
bounces, you should immediately remove it. Or,
better still, your mailing list software should
do it automatically for you.
To be honest, I don't know which packages do
and which don't. I know AWeber automatically
handles bounces. The software I use (ListMail
Pro) can handle it automatically, but for the
moment I've set it to manual (I want to keep an
eye on things).
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/listmailpro/
If you aren't sure how your autoresponder
handles bounces, I strongly urge you to find
out. You might be harming your online business
without realizing it!
Well, enough talk about negative things. Lets
talk about positive things - in this case, this
weeks newsletter!
My interview this week is with Dr.Mani
Sivasubramanian on a topic that has gotten a lot
of attention lately - blogs. You may have heard
how great they are, but not been really sure
what they were, or why you should be
interested.
Hopefully Dr.Mani's interview will answer
that for you, as he talks all about what they
are, how to start one, and (more importantly)
why they can be a huge boost for your
business.
The mini-survey this week comes from a
mistake I made last week - I forgot to wrap the
newsletter to 65 characters a line. I was
expecting several letters of complaint, but
surprisingly I didn't hear a peep. So I'm
curious as to what you think about wrapping
newsletters to a fixed line length.
The new resource this week ties in well with
Dr.Mani's interview - it is a small book he has
written on the subject of blogs. Combined with
the interview, you should learn everything you
need to know about the subject!
I hope you enjoy this weeks issue. Don't
forget that you can view all the past issues
online at
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/archive/
|
Find The Perfect PROFITABLE Idea
For Your Ebook
Discover 40 different ways to find a
profitable idea for your first ebook.
Get it right the first time! A superb
resource I highly recommend.
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/idea/
|
2. Interview - Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian
Sorry, this interview is no longer available in the archives. It has been moved to the membership site. You can find out more about the membership site (and how to join) by visiting here.
|
Are You Making These 10 Common
Affiliate Mistakes?
Why don't 95% of affiliates earn any
money? Because they are making these 10
basic mistakes. Find out how to become
one of the 5% who are successful with
affiliate programs now!
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/affiliatemistakes
|
3. Your Feedback
As I mentioned above, the new mini-survey
this week is on the format of this
newsletter.
In the past, I have formatted this newsletter
to 65 characters a line. But these days, I
truely wonder if there is really any point?
Every modern email program (as far as I know)
can automatically wrap text. And if you are
viewing your email in a font like Times or
Arial, a fixed number of characters per line can
look very strange (especially when you have
lines of '=' or '_' like I do in this
newsletter).
Please take 30 seconds and give me your
thoughts:
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/survey/
The results of last weeks survey were
interesting. It looks like most people will
visit the members area once or twice a month.
Most people feel that the quality of material is
'good' or 'high' (thankfully, no one thinks that
it is terrible!)
The most interesting thing for me though was
the response on preferred type of addition. The
vast majority prefer ebooks, while a few people
prefer links to useful sites and tools. NO ONE
preferred ecourses (which surprised me).
Although I guess with the growing email deluge,
it isn't too surprising.
Looking at the interview ratings for last
week, Gary's interview had 18 people vot for it
with a final rating 3.89 out of 5.
This score seems to tie in with what a survey
previously said about the newsletter - most
people prefer to read specific interviews on
specific topics, rather than a general
interview.
Please, keep those responses coming. They
help me get a better idea of what you do and
don't want from this newsletter.
(Of course, feel free to email your thoughts
to me if you prefer - I always like to hear from
my readers.)
4. Resources - Blog Basics for
Marketers
Dr.Mani has written a short book on the
whens, hows and why of blogging (which he
mentioned in his interview above). Since its a
book, he's able to go into a bit more detail on
a few things than he has been able to in the
interview above.
For example, in this book he talks about
several options you have for creating your blog,
including software you can install on your own
site.
I feel the book makes the perfect complement
to the interview above, and should answer any
final questions you have about blogging.
This ebook is in PDF, so can be read by most
people. A link to the ebook has been added to
the "members only" section, along with the
existing collection of ebooks, ecourses, and
other useful sites.
http://www.achievenetprofits.com/members/
[Subscribers-only area. The password
was sent out in the annoumcement message for
this issue. If you aren't a Subscriber, the
password is also in the Welcome message when you
subscribe to this newsletter!]
5. Final Word
For the last couple of days my wife has been
having an odd visitor to the house. During the
colder months (we're in Australia, so its only
just hit spring here) we leave the back door
open slightly so our cats can go in and out. For
the last two days though, a local cat has
decided to also take advantage of the
situation!
Marina was in the lounge room with the heater
on yesterday, working away on her computer. She
got up to get a drink, and found that there was
a strange cat curled up in front of the heater.
Not only that, but around that time one of our
cats wondered in and decided to lie down in
front of the heater next to this strange
cat!
The cat didn't get such a nice reception
today though when it decided to visit. The other
three (more 'posessive') cats were inside when
it wandered in, and they all sent it
running.
Cats are strange creatures!
Till next week, I wish you much success in
your online business.
"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream
with a plan and a deadline." -- Harvey
Mackay
