Ways to Build Email marketing that can be profitable

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you offer. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and, if done right, helps build loyalty and trust with customers. As a result, you generate more sales and more profits!

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, permission-based email list. Marketers call contact lists their 'goldmine' because it can generate much of their sales revenue. If you've built up a list of opt-in subscribers that are qualified and interested in what you have to offer, then you've completed the first step and are on your way. Now it's time to 'mine' for gold!

Below you'll find several list-building and retention ideas that will help you get the best results from all your email marketing activities:

1. Provide useful, relevant content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be of interest or use to them.
2. Add a subscription form to every page on your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If it doesn't look cluttered, you may want to include more than one on some pages. For instance, if your opt-in form always appears in the top-left corner of your site, you may want to add one at the end of your most popular articles.
3. Add subscription forms to your social media pages. Make sure that you don't waste this valuable source of revenue opportunities. Integrate your sign-up forms with Facebook and more!
4. Make it easy for readers to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it's not necessary, don't include it here. You can always survey them once they're customers! We do recommend that you provide a link to your Privacy Policy however.
5. Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form. (Note: If you don't have one, put the words 'privacy policy generator' into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form to use.)
6. Provide samples of your newsletters and Ezines. This lets potential subscribers review your materials before they sign up to determine if it's something they'd be interested in.
7. Archive past newsletters and articles. An online library of past newsletters and articles is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can increase traffic to your website through enhanced search engine positioning.
8. Give gifts subscribers can actually use. Offer an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list! Write an ebook or provide a PDF business report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don't limit yourself to offering gifts to opt-ins. Give them out when your readers fill out a survey, provide a testimonial, success story, or a great product idea. Let them know when they can expect the next gift offer. Everyone likes to get something for free! And if you pass out 'goodies' throughout the year, your subscribers will feel truly appreciated − and that's good for business!
9. Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find your content interesting, amusing or informative, they'll probably share it with their friends. This can be a great source of new customers, so make sure to remind them to 'pass it on'.
10. Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. If you're happy to share your content with the universe, then why not! Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you'll get new subscribers, and more traffic and links pointing to your site.
11. Include a 'Sign Up' button in your newsletter. If you're using plain text instead of HTML, be sure to provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint them online. Make it easy for them to subscribe!
12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to acquire opt-ins and build your list. Think of it as a mini-sales letter to go along with your subscription or opt-in gift. It should feature a strong headline and a couple of powerful benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up! Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and promote your offer using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now that should make a splash!
13. Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put one or two strong testimonials from satisfied customers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video) is more 'believable' and inspires more people to action. To further enhance believability, get permission to use actual customer names, locations and/or urls (Don't use 'Bob K, FL'). Add a note inviting others to participate. After all, it's free publicity!
14. Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with prospects and potential customers, and creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.
15. Post on other blogs. Post thoughtful comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in pages. Also comment on others' blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers, and get your brand out there!

    
    

    http://www.getresponse.com/index/mckez

Why Men Lie

WHY MEN LIE TO WOMEN

Shutterstock

"79.3% of guys mislead girls when it comes to money, jobs and their income." 

For centuries, women have been trying to figure out why men constantly lie -- especially in the courtship phase. A new study by a dating coach/pickup artist website PUA Training has finally got the answer. (Or an answer. It's not exactly a Harvard study.)

Apparently, a staggering amount of men lie about their financial stability in order to appeal to the opposite sex. The figures show that 79.3% of guys mislead girls when it comes to money, jobs and their income.

Even if the numbers are a little bit skewed since that site's demographic is mostly males who need assistance, the reality is that many men think along these lines. Males love to embellish, brag and exaggerate who they are because they believe that material things impress women -- even though bombshells like her, her and her continually state they are looking for more authentic qualities.

The good news is that most of the men in this study admit they don’t like the deceit. 67% would rather tell the truth if they felt it was good enough.

Welcome to reality. Women use makeup to embellish their looks and men use lies to embellish their image. It’s not right, but it’s just the way the game is played.

Early Signs Of Workaholism

Workaholic

It's Saturday night and you're at home… working. This would normally be the time to sip a few cold ones and share some good times with friends, but not anymore. Ever since that big promotion, you've decided that work has to come first. Working at home isn't that bad every now and again, right? Wrong. Once it becomes a regular routine, you might be unknowingly starting a new career as a workaholic.  

"Workaholic" sounds like a buzzword for office overachievers, but in today's competitive workplace, workaholism is an all-too-common problem that is characterized by an addiction to work. Just like any dependency, it's a serious cause for concern for the workaholic, their immediate family and their friends. The boss might think that a workaholic's long hours and superhuman work ethic are great for business, but that's often not the case.  

The greater the workload, the more damage you can do to your social life, your health and your emotional well-being. If you think that being a workaholic is honorable, think again. In the long run, it will hurt your career more than help it.

Are you a workaholic? We decided to take a closer look at the warning signs and what you can do to stop them in their tracks.

Working Outside The Office

Symptoms

When the workday ends for everyone else, yours continues. It might be an evening, a weekend or even a vacation. It doesn't matter, because if you're not doing at least some work, you'll feelbored and unproductive or, worse yet, worried out of your mind that you're not doing more work. Believe it or not, working past quitting time will hurt your productivity and your overall performance. It's also a health risk, as it can trigger numerous ailments (you don't need more headaches), make you tired and evoke a general feeling of isolation.  

Solution

If you're constantly working at home, you need to reclaim your peace and quiet and give your office space the boot. It's easier said than done, but you can start by keeping track of how many work hours are being put in at home. From there, formulate a plan to gradually lower them. Don't rush. Take small steps, such as not working on specific days, but be prepared for some bumps and bruises along the way. Just like kicking the toughest of bad habits, choosing to cut down on work will induce some withdrawal symptoms in the early stages. Depression and anxiety are some of the most common afflictions, but even with short-term setbacks, you and your body will be better off in the long run.
 
While you're dealing with these changes, take a trip to your doctor for a full physical. Ensure that you've got a clean bill of health and then make physical activity, sleep and a healthy diet the staples of your daily routine. When you're planning your next vacation, make sure that it doesn't involve work. Vacations shouldn't be complicated by business. Your relaxation time comes first.

Never Fully Disconnecting From Work

Symptoms

You might not be at your office around the clock, but most of your time is still based around work. Your important clients and coworkers all have your cell number when they need you. Your laptop is never out of sight, in case you need to log in at a moment's notice. It might feel like you're only making yourself available, but work is now taking priority over everything else. When that happens, you won't make the time for extracurricular activities that are important for you to enjoy.    

Solution

If you're maintaining a 24/7 connection with work, it's time to change your subscription and add a few new lifestyle channels. That means making the time for new and satisfying activities that will energize your mind and body -- not just your Blackberry typing skills. Even better are hobbies that will add diversity to your overall lifestyle. If your work keeps you inside and mostly stationary, your new hobbies should take you outside -- taking on jogging or golf as regular activities would certainly do the trick. The key is to pick something that you like, so that you can balance your lifestyle with the right mix of work, relaxation and fun.

To maintain this balance, you might also seek out a counselor or psychologist. Often, fresh ideas and an ear to listen can provide a steady, healthy outlet for healing. Furthermore, if you're feeling less "tuned in" to the office on your off-hours, it's a good thing. Don't feel guilty. Your new disconnection from the office will only serve to strengthen your abilities when you're back on the job.

Know when to pass on the work and switch off...

Refusal to delegate tasks

Symptoms

In your drive to succeed, you start to believe that you are the best person for any task that's sent your way. Because you want as much glory as possible, you will take on an abundance of work, and shun the participation of anyone else. Not only can this make you difficult to work with, but the long-term effects of not delegating will leave you with bad organizational skills and little time away from work. Instead of working with confidence in a positive environment, you could be stuck with an increased fear of failure and numerous sub-par working relationships. Don't expect another promotion.   

Solution

Your refusal to delegate can change if you take a big-picture approach to your choices and communicate properly at work. Don't try to do everything that's pushed your way. Plan your work around your life goals, and not the other way around. Think about where you want to be and how you really want to spend your time. Burning out won't do you any favors, so work within your means. If you're a consistent contributor without trying to steal the spotlight, your professional reputation and long-term value certainly won't suffer. If your goals are attainable, you won't feel the need to overcompensate.

One of these goals should be maintaining solid relationships with your coworkers. If there are a few relationships that need to be mended, it's up to you to make it happen. Strive for social interaction and regular communication with these people. Be willing to work together and be open to new ideas. In addition, if you can take short breaks to relax and collect your thoughts, you'll communicate more effectively and you'll be a lot more approachable. In time, a refusal to delegate will give way to a desire to work practically and an appreciation for working collectively.

constantly talking about work

Symptoms

It might be your friends, it might be your wife; if someone's willing to listen, you're more than happy to talk about work as much as possible. Maybe it's another project or a boss you dislike -- either way, you have to talk about it. While a little bit of work chatter is certainly allowed, you aren't actually paying attention to the people closest to you. Your relationship isn't with them, it's with your work, and the people in your life are turning into accessories. By harming your personal life, you are only encouraging yourself to keep working, especially when you push away the ones who care about you the most.

Solution

The topic of work might matter to you, but it's not necessarily popular with everyone else. Your friends and loved ones want you to be happy, but you need to give them their due attention as well. That starts with recognizing the affect that work is having on your conversations and intimate relationships as a whole. As with other addictions, an honest awareness of your problem goes a long way. Be honest and ask your family and friends for their feelings on how your work issues are affecting them. It won't be an easy conversation, but it will be a step in the right direction.

Giving your loved ones the proper attention isn't just about talking. It's also about spending time together. If you're in a relationship, set aside at the very least 30 minutes every day to talk, listen and enjoy each other. In case you're wondering, work isn't on that list of topics. If you're more inclined to spend time with your friends, do just that and engage in regular social outings. Make a point of surrounding yourself with positive people. It will give you happier thoughts and better things to talk about besides work.

balancing act

A perfect life balance for some might mean steady work, steady relationships and steady health. Certain people are more adept at balancing than others and when it comes to work, it's easy to let your mind and body get lost in the shuffle. The allure of a new job and a challenging workload might sound attractive on paper, but as you climb up the corporate ladder, don't forget to take care of yourself along the way. Otherwise, you could lose everything else in the process.

Breakthrough in HIV

MEDICINE

Breakthrough: A new drug that could cure everything from colds to HIV

Our most powerful antibiotics can kill many different kinds of bacterial infections at once, but we're still searching for a single all-purpose drug that kills viruses. We may have just discovered it.

Technically speaking, any drug that is used to treat a virus is known as an antiviral, and we use them to treat HIV, hepatitis, and certain flu strains. But those antivirals all have to be very specifically designed to take down one particular virus. The situation is even worse for vaccines, which don't exist for some diseases (and aren't practical for others, like the common cold) and need to be constantly redesigned to remain effective against evolving viral strains.

Creating a single antiviral drug that could kill lots of different viruses is a longstanding dream of medical researchers. Beyond all the obvious benefits of such an honest-to-goodness wonder drug, an all-purpose antiviral would give us a much better chance of fighting back against outbreaks of exotic viruses like SARS and swine flu. As a minor but still rather nice bonus, it could also be that long awaited cure for the common cold.

According to MIT research scientist Todd Rider, we're closer to such an antiviral than ever before. He's developed a drug named Draco, which he says has successfully vanquished 15 different viruses in lab trials on mice and human tissue. Those viruses include a quite literal murderer's row: dengue fever, polio, the swine flu, and the particularly nasty Ebola virus. And, yes, the common cold has also been tested, and Draco was able to get rid of it as well.

So how does Draco work? According to Rider, it combines his backgrounds in engineering and biology, wiring together a pair of proteins. The first protein detects that a virus has entered a cell, which triggers the second protein. In turn, that protein acts as a kill switch, destroying the infected cell to cut off the spread of the virus. That sacrifice represents a grimly practical solution, and so far, it seems to be working.

This is a seriously intriguing result, but there's some room for skepticism here. One cautious voice is that of Cambridge researcher Leo James, whose own antiviral research involves supercharging the immune system. He points out that Rider's results are highly unusual, and as such needs to be replicated by scientists elsewhere before we have a really good understanding of what's really going on here.

Either way, even though Rider has already put Draco to work on human tissue, that doesn't mean we're ready for human testing. There's a long road ahead for this drug, which will require tests on multiple rounds of larger animals before it's ready for human trials. Because viruses and human cells become so closely intertwined during an infection, it can be hard to control for all the side effects of an antiviral.

A good example of this is interferon, which was hailed a potential antiviral wonder drug back in the 1950s. Interferon works by detecting infections and sending signals to other cells to build up their defenses in preparation for an attack. The problem is that the drug also sends white blood cells racing to the infection. That's great news for more serious infections like hepatitis, for which interferon is still used today. But for more mild infections, like a cold, the inflammation, fever, and pain caused by the interferon cure is worse than the virus itself.

Draco has some similarities to interferon - they're both protein-based, which means Draco could also provoke an immune response. According to Rider, there's been no immune response so far in the mice who have received the drug. That's good news, but it may not directly correlate to the experience humans would have with the drug.

If Draco or one of the other antivirals works out, it would change the face of global health overnight. The ability to cure minor infections like the common cold could save people from a few days each year of ill health - which across an entire population would add up to a vastly more efficient workforce. And, looking even more broadly, the existence of an all-purpose antiviral would do a lot to reduce the health scares caused by new viral outbreaks, equipping us with a ready-made tool for the next big pandemic.

MEDICINE

Breakthrough: A new drug that could cure everything from colds to HIV

Our most powerful antibiotics can kill many different kinds of bacterial infections at once, but we're still searching for a single all-purpose drug that kills viruses. We may have just discovered it.

Technically speaking, any drug that is used to treat a virus is known as an antiviral, and we use them to treat HIV, hepatitis, and certain flu strains. But those antivirals all have to be very specifically designed to take down one particular virus. The situation is even worse for vaccines, which don't exist for some diseases (and aren't practical for others, like the common cold) and need to be constantly redesigned to remain effective against evolving viral strains.

Creating a single antiviral drug that could kill lots of different viruses is a longstanding dream of medical researchers. Beyond all the obvious benefits of such an honest-to-goodness wonder drug, an all-purpose antiviral would give us a much better chance of fighting back against outbreaks of exotic viruses like SARS and swine flu. As a minor but still rather nice bonus, it could also be that long awaited cure for the common cold.

According to MIT research scientist Todd Rider, we're closer to such an antiviral than ever before. He's developed a drug named Draco, which he says has successfully vanquished 15 different viruses in lab trials on mice and human tissue. Those viruses include a quite literal murderer's row: dengue fever, polio, the swine flu, and the particularly nasty Ebola virus. And, yes, the common cold has also been tested, and Draco was able to get rid of it as well.

So how does Draco work? According to Rider, it combines his backgrounds in engineering and biology, wiring together a pair of proteins. The first protein detects that a virus has entered a cell, which triggers the second protein. In turn, that protein acts as a kill switch, destroying the infected cell to cut off the spread of the virus. That sacrifice represents a grimly practical solution, and so far, it seems to be working.

This is a seriously intriguing result, but there's some room for skepticism here. One cautious voice is that of Cambridge researcher Leo James, whose own antiviral research involves supercharging the immune system. He points out that Rider's results are highly unusual, and as such needs to be replicated by scientists elsewhere before we have a really good understanding of what's really going on here.

Either way, even though Rider has already put Draco to work on human tissue, that doesn't mean we're ready for human testing. There's a long road ahead for this drug, which will require tests on multiple rounds of larger animals before it's ready for human trials. Because viruses and human cells become so closely intertwined during an infection, it can be hard to control for all the side effects of an antiviral.

A good example of this is interferon, which was hailed a potential antiviral wonder drug back in the 1950s. Interferon works by detecting infections and sending signals to other cells to build up their defenses in preparation for an attack. The problem is that the drug also sends white blood cells racing to the infection. That's great news for more serious infections like hepatitis, for which interferon is still used today. But for more mild infections, like a cold, the inflammation, fever, and pain caused by the interferon cure is worse than the virus itself.

Draco has some similarities to interferon - they're both protein-based, which means Draco could also provoke an immune response. According to Rider, there's been no immune response so far in the mice who have received the drug. That's good news, but it may not directly correlate to the experience humans would have with the drug.

If Draco or one of the other antivirals works out, it would change the face of global health overnight. The ability to cure minor infections like the common cold could save people from a few days each year of ill health - which across an entire population would add up to a vastly more efficient workforce. And, looking even more broadly, the existence of an all-purpose antiviral would do a lot to reduce the health scares caused by new viral outbreaks, equipping us with a ready-made tool for the next big pandemic.