I've skipped here a repeat of the blood-curdling scream I let out when I realized the results my "helper" was getting. Suffice it to say he would've been more on track if I had been sanding.
To get back to marketing tools, I remember when I used to write individual emails to leads and business prospects - how inefficient! If you're gathering names, and have a few people to communicate with you must get an autoresponder!
Probably the best-known (and for good reason) autoresponder service around is Aweber. It's the one used by my primary online business and it offers you the abiity to not only have all your respondents/leads automatically get added to an email list, but it lets you automatically send them an immediate reply, send them scheduled follow up messages, broadcast to a whole list or even send a "newsletter". Leveraging your time is so important to doing volume marketing communications effectively - be sure you use this tool.
Then - regarding your marketing communications, as I've mentioned before - it's not just about the features you offer, but the emotions you need to stir in your readers. Despite my avocation as a songwriter, I've spent so many years as a lawyer writing factual, logical stuff for judges that I have to really concentrate to write good emotional copy. (a topic in itself!)
But - there is a wonderful free tool on the web that rates headlines for you, and considering that your headlines are the most important part of your messages, you owe it to yourself to test them before you publish them. The Advanced Marketing Institute provides a free analyzer of the intellectual and emotional weight of your words, and it is really an amazing jewel of a tool. Make your efforts as effective as possible!
