Marquita, you make a very good point. I think that our own personality has to somewhat dictate our marketing methods. Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Blog never directly sells anything in his emails. Other expert bloggers do market via email marketing. It comes down to your own personal decision. And when you were true to your own values, it paid off in terms of the numbers of subscribers. Like Pat Flynn, you will probably do most of your business on your site, while keeping engagement going through your list.
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Dewane, this is an interesting topic. I have heard both sides of the debate. There are those who do not promote anything in their newsletters. Then there are those who aggressively promote, stating that this weeds out customers who are not interested in purchasing. It's probably important for each of us to be clear on the approach we will take. We can 'train' our customers at times to expect either a) to be sold to or b) to receive everything for free.

I want to tailor my approach more to Problogger's version of providing 80% free content, but then 20% of the time presenting affiliate products or running promotions, but in an ethical way, providing only tools that I myself use and/or trust.
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Dewane, this is great information. Darren Rowse from Problogger posted this article that contains some very valuable strategies. If taken together with yours, I'm sure my list will be much more engaged by the end of next year! Here's the link from Problogger: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/10/27/8-w...
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Dr. Erica and Dewane, both of you shared some great insights. I remember speaking with you, Dr. Erica, and finding out that, after meeting offline with a number of supportive and successful women, you have asked them if they would like to be on your list. I imagine they are going to be highly receptive to any information you send them in your newsletter. So I'm keeping that strategy in mind, both online and offline. Get to know people, build relationships for life, and when the trust is there, offer to add them to your list.
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Dewane, I liked your point that you have to appear professional with the offer that you put out there. The challenge can be when our budget does not match the resources we need. Having said that, I believe that it's worth the price to put together a sales landing/squeeze page that is professional and specific, as you said: it makes things a lot easier for the customer and for us.
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The most profound truths are the simplest ones. Being human, I fall prey to the If Only syndrome from time to time: a lot of times it's when I'm tired, or burned out. There is a term from addiction/recovery circles: Accept life on life's terms. When I can live in and be grateful for Now, I will find that If Only goes away. Thanks for the great insights.

Dewane, it's great to see you back in business here on the blog. I've always looked forward to your posts, because marketing is where I need to be. You mentioned over-delivering value to your email list. That's where I want to focus in this coming year. I use AWeber, but have been somewhat intimidated with the ins and outs of tweaking. Looks like another item to put on my goals list for 2012.
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Dewane, I recently listened to the Duct Tape Marketing podcast regarding this very topic. It's very true that it's important to create content that converts your readers from reading to action on behalf of your business. One of the recommendations that podcast had was to work on a case study with one of your satisfied customers or readers, then publish the case study for your readers.

I have a question for you: do you have some suggestions for tools we can use to survey our readers or find out what our readers need?
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I first heard Dereck talk about this very subject on Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast. I'm grateful to you for breaking down this concept even further. Looks like I have some work to do in order to optimize my sites. I'll put this on my high value list of activities for 2012 :) Two sites that do this very well are Copyblogger and Celestinechua.com

Hi, Dewane. One of my online mentors (through digital media only) is Leo Babauta from Zen Habits. I've always admired how he built a massive audience through his high quality writing. He then produced high quality products priced at different amounts, some as low as 3.99, and is apparently doing pretty well for himself. It's going to take me a bit longer than him, but by focusing on the Power of Less (suggestions from his book), I hope to get there in the right amount of time :)