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Is It Really Possible To Increase Sales By Talking Down To Your Audience?

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As sellers, we always have to walk a fine-line when we are talking to our prospective customers.

If we did not know more about a topic than our customers, most of our customers would not be using our services.

Yet, there is a right way and a wrong way to show your prospects and customers how much more you know than they do.

That is a lesson that is lost on some people.

There is a fellow by the name of Dr. Harlan D. Kilstein Ed.D., who is one such person.

His attitude towards the less informed seem to be just dripping with condescension. Even when he tries to make right with his audience, his words are delivered with an air of superiority. (If you have a few hours to spend, you might want to read this thread in a forum. If you only read the first post, you will miss the point, so if you start reading, I recommend you keep reading.)

While I might be better informed than you are on some topics, that gives me no right to talk to you as if you were a child. And the same principle should apply to Doctor Kilstein.

He is a professional copy writer, so some people have suggested that his attempts in this thread were merely aimed at evoking an emotion in the reader that would lead the reader to hang on his every word.

And while that may have been possible in the beginning, at a certain point in the process, the average reader needs something more than patronization to take something positive from the conversation.

When you have such contempt for your audience as to insult them and their intelligence at every opportunity, you end up burning more bridges than you could ever build. And many of those bridges will be forever burned to the ground.

The challenge is to teach our audience something they do not know, without resorting to making them take offense at your delivery of the information.

You would think that I would not need to demonstrate this idea by talking about a man with a doctorate in education, but the good doctor seems to have let his ego get in front of his mission.

There are only two things to avoid in your writing to avoid coming across as an equal to the arrogant Dr. Kilstein:

• Don’t talk about how wonderful you are; and
• Don’t remind people of how little they actually know.

So, is it really possible to increase your sales by talking down to your audience? I doubt it, because hell will freeze over before I every buy anything from that man. You may see things a bit different than I, and that is fine… You are entitled to decide these things for yourself.

Bill Platt

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10 Newsletter Content Ideas

#1. Make an Ideas List

If you’ve been writing articles for a while, you know your brightest ideas don’t usually come to your mind when you need them. Actually, you usually get the best ideas when you’re doing something else and thinking about another thing.

But everything changes when you decide to sit and write an article… you get the writer’s block. You really need a good idea for your next issue… but your mind doesn’t help a bit.

The solution is creating an idea list. Whenever you get a bright idea, just add it to your list. After a short time, you’ll have a list full of creative ideas for your next 20 issues at least. So whenever you want to write an article, you simply take a look at your list and choose an idea you feel like writing about.

I’ve been using this technique for almost a year and it has really helped me write better articles faster and easier!

#2. Do a Little Keyword Research

Find out which keywords your target market are searching in search engines. Then write an article about it. So not only you will provide your subscribers with the exact information they’re looking for, but you may also get a top ranking for that article in search engines – which will bring you lots of targeted traffic for free.

Wordtracker is an essential keyword research tool that I always use to get many keyword ideas and find out how many times people have searched for them. You can use it at: http://www.wordtracker.com/

#3. Ask Your Readers

To turn your subscribers into loyal readers and win their trust, you should provide them with the exact information they’re looking for.

The easiest way to find out “what” exactly they want to know is simply adding a “Ask the Editor” section to your newsletter. Soon you will receive lot of emails from your readers asking you for advice about various topics.

You can choose the most common questions and problems and write an article about it. So you’ll get lots of great article ideas for your future issues. What’s more, your readers will love your newsletter for providing them with the exact information they need!

#4. Study Forums where Your Target Market Hangs Out

More and more people participate in forums these days. One of the reasons is because you can get professional advice for free. And this is exactly what makes forums a great place for you to get bright ideas for your newsletter content.

You simply need to go to the forums where your target market hangs out. There you will discover many of the most common questions and problems your target market has. So you can write helpful articles about them.

#5. Browse Article Directories

There are many article directories available online. You just need to browse related categories to your newsletter topic and take a look at article titles. They will inspire you and give you awesome content ideas for your newsletter.

Here are some of the largest article directories…

* http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit/ *http://www.ezinearticles.com< /a> * http://www.goarticles.com * http://www.articlefinders.co m * http://www.articlecentral.co m * http://www.article-direct ory.net * http://www.articlesfactory. com * http://www.connectionteam.co m

#6. Review Other People’s Products

You might know many great books, software programs, and services that will benefit your newsletter readers. So why not write an honest review about one of them to help your subscribers make the right decision?

What’s more, you can join their affiliate program and earn a commission from every sale you make via your affiliate link. This can make you a lot of money because if you provide your readers with a honest review about a useful product, many of them will buy the product and you’ll get a commission.

Just remember your role as an affiliate is NOT to sell. It’s the most common mistake affiliates make. Selling is the duty of the merchant. Your role is PREselling. It means warming up your visitors and putting them in an open-to-buy mindset.

#7. Interview an Expert in Your Field

People like to hear success stories and learn how successful people have reached to where they are now. You can interview successful people in your field by email or phone.

Well-known experts are usually very busy, so they won’t accept long interviews. In general, the more famous an expert is, the shortest your interview must be or they won’t accept it.

The experts you choose to interview should not necessarily be very famous – like multi-millionaires. They hardly accept to let you interview them. You can interview an ordinary person who has been fairly successful in your field.

#8. Write How-To Articles

You can write how-to articles about almost anything. People love how-to articles. Here are some sample titles…

* How to Go to Sleep in 3 Minutes * How to Cure Your Headache in 5 Minutes without any Medicine * How to Look 10 Years Younger.

#9. Give a Certain Number of Tips, Ideas, etc.

People love articles that promise to give a certain number of tips – like this article . These articles are also easy to write. For example you can easily find 3 tips about any topic and turn it to an article. Here are some title examples…

* 5 Tips on How to Deal with an Overbearing Boss * Top 10 Questions to Ask in an Interview * 9 Creative Home Business Ideas to Start with Less than $100

#10. Use Guest Articles

Don’t feel like writing an article or just don’t have the time? No problem. You can publish someone else’s article in your newsletter for free. I’ve introduced some large article directories here in this article in Idea #5.

Since it’s much easier to copy and paste a written article than spending time on writing your own, you may be tempted to use guest articles as your main article in many of your issues. But do yourself a favor and don’t do it too often. Let me explain why…

What’s the goal of your newsletter? Isn’t it to win your prospects’ trust and prove your expertise to sell them your own products or affiliate products? So if you don’t write the majority of your newsletter articles yourself, how can you prove your expertise?

# Final Thoughts

I hope this article helps you get creative article ideas for your newsletter. But if you haven’t found a good idea yet, don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t point a gun to your mind and order it to give you a great idea or you will shoot.

After all, it’s YOUR mind. It’s what has always helped you in your business… and your life. So be kinder to it. Relax and take sometime off. Go outside and let your mind rest for a while. Don’t even think about your newsletter.

Then get back to this article and try to find a good idea. If you get an idea for your next issue, well done! I’m happy for you!

But if you still can’t seem to come up with anything, no problem. Just send a message to your readers and let them know you won’t publish your newsletter this week/month.

And remember… your happiness, your health, and enjoying your life is what matters the most. You don’t have to write your newsletter until next week, next month… or even next year. Your newsletter is just a small part of your business… and your business is only a small part of your life.

Wish you happiness, health and wealth!

Ladan Lashkari

About the author: Ladan Lashkari is a respected Internet marketing expert, and the owner of http://www.FreeNewsletterIdeas.com/ where you’ll find free newsletter templates, creative newsletter ideas, honest reviews, and helpful resources to start your own highly profitable email marketing campaign.

ArticleContentProvider.com provides newsletter content to tons of satisfied customers.

Micro Business Owners and the Annual August Downturn in Online Sales

Historically, August has always been a slow month for online marketers. I look at my own businesses and historically in 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004, my wife was always on edge thinking I need to quit my online business and get a job. But in every year, September is also my bounce back month. By the middle of September, my wife forgets about all of the “job” talk.

In 2007, I learned something that may be of interest to you. All of my businesses took a sales down-turn in March of 2007 and bounced significantly in September of 2007. In October, it was reported that “consumer sales” had dipped from March to September of 2007.

You know I had never thought of my business as a business driven by “consumer demand”. I had always thought of my business as a business-to-business (B2B) provider. Since I sell services that other businesses use to promote themselves, why would my business be “consumer-driven”? But now it all makes sense.

Most of my customers have daytime jobs, and they work their online businesses on a part-time basis. My customers are small business owners, but many are “micro business owners” or one-person, part-time operations.

People who work a business part-time from home, are people who still have jobs and are swayed by factors in the “consumer market”.

2007 was defined as a down-turn, and 2008 is frightful. When gasoline prices passed $3 per gallon and kept on climbing, the writing was on the wall. People currently have less spending money than they did during the 2007 downturn. As a result, “micro business owners” are struggling to figure out how they can pay for the advertising services they need for their business. (Tips for Improving Gas Mileage)

Article Marketing is important for many businesses, as it is a method to provide large numbers of inbound links to the Author’s website. Links are the tools that drive new visitors to websites of interest.

When I first started in my online business, I was also one of the “micro business owners”. I struck on a concept that changed my life and my financial future. I had an online newsletter. I created a new issue on a weekly basis. Many people republished the information contained in my newsletter in other newsletters and on various websites. (It was good information that many people appreciated having access to.) One day I was searching on a search engine to figure out how my website ranked for the keywords important to my newsletter subscribers.

I realized that although my website was not on Page One of the search results, information that I had created was in 6 of the Top Ten spots in the search results.

I suddenly realized that it did not matter if my website was in the number one spot or not. What mattered most was if people who linked to me were in the the top spots in the search results. This way, I did not have to spend all of my time trying to optimize my website for the search engines. I could simply provide my content to people who had already been optimized for the search engines, and they could provide a link to me.

For example, if you go to Google and type in the search term “article marketing”, I am not on page one or two of the search results for that keyword phrase. I am actually on page three of the results in spot #24. But the website which firmly holds the #1 spot in Google for “article marketing” is a web page that links to my website!

It is not always important for me to be ranked on page one of the search results, but if the folks on page one link to me, and people continue to see my name in connection with the top results in the search engines, then people will start to notice me and remember my name.

See the trick of article marketing is to get your articles in the top results for relative keywords, when your articles link back to your website. If you are not in page one of the search results on a specific keyword phrase, you can actually accomplish page one results with your articles.

Here is another example. I wrote an interesting article one time that got a lot of publication in high-powered websites. The article was talking about one’s “SEO Linking Portfolio” and was published in SEO-News.com, among other reputable websites. If you do a search in google on the search term “linking portfolio”, you will find that although my website does not rank for that keyword phrase, links to my article hold three spots in the top five search results.

My website does not rank well for “linking portfolio”, but that is okay. It is not a term that will make or break my business, but in the same breath, it is a key term that may be important to the people most likely to buy my services.

That is one of the keys to successful article marketing: write content that may be important to the people most likely to buy your products or services.

While August is typically a down-month for online businesses, it is also an ideal time to develop new content leading into the sales growth cycle of the fall and winter.

Gas prices are still high, so people are not buying much now. But it is also the month people have to buy school supplies for their children. That is the primary reason why August is typically a slow month. Any business that caters to the “consumer market” has to deal with the reduced money availability as parents are spending money on school supplies and school clothes.

But, if you take the opportunity to get ahead of the pack, you can have new content going out onto the internet while other people are starting the content creation process. If you were to make the investment in your content creation in August, you could find yourself light-years ahead of your competition as they begin to think about gearing up for the Christmas season.

Bill Platt – owner of The Phantom Writers

The Content Letter Is Looking
For A Few Good Readers

Get free weekly tips and an inroad to every blog in the Content Provider family. Subscribe to The Content Letter weekly newsletter. Every week we provide three articles from three of our blogs – Article Content Provider’s Article Marketing Blog, Blog Content Provider’s Blog Marketing Blog, and the SEO Service Provider Blog. We also occasionally invite guest author’s to contribute and as we grow we will include articles from other websites in our family. We currently have more than 20 niche sites planned that will be added to the family and most of them will have blogs as well.

To subscribe to The Content Letter, click here and enter your e-mail address in the opt-in box just below the header at the top of the page.

The Content Letter: Why We Use A Double Opt-In Process

Browsing through Constant Contact’s back end for our company newsletter, The Content Letter, I recently discovered that we have 23 unconfirmed e-mail addresses. These are e-mail addresses for people who have attempted to opt-in to our newsletter, but for one reason or another did not click the link in the confirmation e-mail that was sent in order to activate their submission.

There are several reasons why this could have happened. The e-mail could have landed in the person’s junk mail and they haven’t seen it, or they may have just forgotten about it and never clicked the link. I have done this several times myself after signing up for a newsletter that I thought I wanted. Some of them may have changed their minds after signing up for the newsletter. And, of course, some of them are likely spammers.

Spammers sign up for e-mail newsletters hoping to find an easy doorway into becoming a weed in someone’s rose garden. That’s why I like double opt-in lists. The individual has to confirm their subscription and spammers aren’t likely to do that simply because it takes up more of their time than an e-mail address is worth. All they really want to do is to get the e-mail address of the person sending the newsletter so that they can reply to an issue with their own spam. If they sign up for thousands of newsletters a day with that intention and only a handful of them are double opt-in newsletters then they have a low pay out in time commitment. That’s why we have opted to use the double opt-in process. It cuts down on spam.

If you have signed up for The Content Letter any time between mid-December and now and have not received an issue, it may be because you have not confirmed your e-mail address. Please search your junk mail folder and click the confirmation link. Otherwise, we will be cleaning out unconfirmed list and will delete all unconfirmed e-mails. We’ll give you one week. After that, you’ll have to opt in again.

If you are not receiving The Content Letter at this time, I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter by entering your name and e-mail address in the opt-in box in the top right corner of this blog.