But this isn’t the case.  While most customers have become much more savvy they also still receive, send and request email.  The trick is to do it better – stand out from the crowd – and make a difference in the number of people who then know, like and trust you enough to pull out their wallets and buy from you.

Return on investment has always been important, but in today’s economy it is more important than ever before.  Email marketing, social networking and social marketing are all very cost effective techniques – especially for the small marketer.  However, that isn’t a reason to treat the entire process without concern.

Here are some of the top mistakes that marketers make when they email their customers or potential customers:

1. Keep your emails simple and encourage the reader to click through to your site.  By loading the email with graphics, flash or java script you have a better chance of being filtered by the spam filters so clients never see you.  Or worse, your client is tired of waiting for graphics to load so they just click “delete!”

2. Be sure your customers have a way of getting back with you.  The easiest is to allow them to reply to the email they are reading.  It may be more difficult for you but the idea isn’t to make it easy on you – the idea is to make it easy on your customer.  If this isn’t possible make it very easy for your customer to find the link to your help desk.

3. Be sure that your links are active, correct and your email addresses are correct.  Nothing ticks a customer off faster than sending an email to a non-responding address.  Most people are more forgiving when links don’t work but even this sets you up for lowered expectations from your customers – never a good place to be.

4. DO NOT send an email with missing information.  We all make the occasional mistake with email but most autoresponders give you the opportunity to send your email “later” or “immediately”. Even if you choose a time that is just an hour later – pick later!  This gives you a chance to send a test email to yourself.  Look for errors in the address, content, links and email addresses.  Who hasn’t received an email that says – Hi {firstname_fix}!  If you type in the code yourself make sure it’s typed in correctly!

5. Email gets caught in the spam filters.  What could be worse for a marketer than their customer not receiving the email AT ALL?  Watch your subject lines and content and, if in doubt, send it through Spam Assasin for a good indication of whether or not you pass the test.  Aweber is one of the autoresponder services that includes this ability when you create your message.

Today is different. Today I find it easier to differentiate between the wanna be’s and the actual Be’s.

But it wasn’t always that way.

So how do you determine who is telling it like it is and who is blowing smoke out their proverbial smoke stack?

I use a couple criteria.

1. Longevity. This doesn’t necessarily mean that if someone is new to the market they don’t know what they’re talking about but you can tell from their marketing, blogs and conversations whether they are intent on building a business or just passing through skimming whatever money they can. People who are intent on being around give good information and don’t have shady business practices.

2. Reputation. I know that a reputation can be sullied rather quickly with the immediate communication on the Internet BUT there are ways of figuring out what part of the information is from one disgruntled customer or if the information rings true for many. I look for forum reviews or posts where the individual isn’t selling a product. NOT a blog post that says – Don’t Buy Anything From Russell Brunson Until You Read THIS!  Those are just product reviews. No one who wants to stay in the Internet Marketing field will intentionally bad mouth another marketer – they may bad mouth a technique or tactic but not a marketer.

3. Reputation. Did I already say this? Well, there’s just one more point here. Before I take information from a marketer and incorporate it into my own business I also check out the reviews of their products on forums. I look for problems with returns, customer service issues or comments that the product was over priced.

4. Content. Is the content they send out in their ezines have any validity?  When I was new to the field that was hard to determine. But, today, even if I was new I could use a filter system I developed to determine if the content was accurate and valuable. Basically the filter goes like this: “If sounds too good to be true it is.”   NOT “it probably is” – it just is.  Also, I love to hear from marketers who do two things – send actual information that is helpful – free – and share information about themselves so I can get to know them as a person. I don’t read people who send out two or three promotions a week without any content or tips – even if they are only one or two lines of tips.

4a. Content. (I’m doing it again) When someone is interested in only selling to me then I have to question what they are selling. Because NO ONE can produce one or two products a week for themselves, they must be promoting other products. LET ME CLARIFY: There is nothing wrong with promoting products which deliver quality information or software of teach something of value that the marketer has reviewed (honestly) and can give his/her recommendation. I find it hard to believe that there are actually that many products produced each week that meet this criteria. But that’s just me.

5. Business. And the final criteria I use doesn’t really have to do with whether the marketer is trustworthy, but rather has to do with whether or not the products, services and information will keep me focused or get me distracted. If my basic business model is producing affiliate sites for Adsense, Amazon and Clickbank then someone who specializes in offline marketing isn’t someone I want to read. There are only so many hours/minutes in the day and I just don’t have enough of them to be distracted.

Hope that helps you weed out the marketers who are only after your money and those who really want to lend you a hand to learn a business model you work successfully.

We are, after all, creatures who enjoy the social aspects of life.  And now that technology has made it possible to virtually never leave your home or desk, we’ve made it even easier to connect with others sitting at our desk.

I can’t imagine that Twitter, Facebook or MySpace would have enjoyed the success they do even 5 years ago, but today, when most of us spend hours in front of the computer screen it seems the only way to stay in touch.

So let’s get some tweet milage out of our blog posts when we aren’t tweeting them ourselves.

There is a nice little plugin for your blog, TweetMeme Button, that gives your reader the option of a quick click to tweet your blog post and get a bit more traction in the social network world.

And the good thing is that it’s easy to install, easy to use and brings a few more readers to your site just when you need it most.  Use these little tools to help you compete in an ever expanding and intensely competive online world for a bit of juice you may have overlooked.

And now that I say that – let’s get the plugin loaded!

I learned how to install and configure a WordPress blog.  Now, mind you, this idea of installing and configuring anything was all a foreign language. And Yoda wasn’t there to guide me.

Several months later I learned about the wonderful ways of permalinks and how they add to your search engine optimization or marketing but giving the engines some keywords to sink their robot teeth into.

But my permalink structure was already set.  And, if I changed it after several months of uploading data and posts I would lose all backlinking, pingback, trackback and any other “BACK” you could name.

Not to mention that while I would be seeking better search engine fodder I would be giving readers instant access to my 404 page – which wasn’t much to look at (and for some of my sites still isn’t!)

So I was stuck, right?

Yes, I was.  Because, remember, that was long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.  Today, when we forget to customize our permalink structure OR better yet, want to update our older blogs that have history with the Google giant we have an option.

Enter the Permalink Redirect Plugin written by Scott Yang.  Although it isn’t as easy as a quick install, the end result is that your links can remain viable.  Using the directions he has on his site to edit the .htaccess file on an Apache server you should be able to update your blog’s permalink structure if needed.

It just seems too easy to move into a market in which we have immersed ourselves.  After all we know there are rabid buyers just searching for ways to make money at home, online, in their pajama’s (REALLY THAT’S another story!) and from their computers.  But are there really people who are searching for information or products about gingerbread?  lamps?   rugs?   swords or family crests?

Of course there are!  But since we don’t share our niches with other marketers for fear of getting our products hacked or pages taken down by Google many newbies want to stay in a market where they can be visible and gain the accolades of other “gurus”.  Our success is judged based on the feelings and comments of other’s who may or may not be successful themselves.

And the other side of the coin is that some people feel that in order to be successful they must be on the front lines of the industry.  Instead, those who are most successful just might be those who are behind them, following their lead and learning from their mistakes.

In the final analysis though, success is measured by your own measuring stick and NEVER by something that someone else thinks about you.  YOU decide how success is measured and then GO GET IT!

Inherent in this process are pitfalls that create problems for people who buy it and try to sell it.  Last week I ranted a bit about those problems.

But, when you find quality workmanship that isn’t sold to hundreds and hundreds of people then you’ve got a gem.  The real gold in Private Label Rights material is in the research behind the article and not necessarily the article or ebook itself.

Here are a few ways to profit from using PLR content in your current business that goes beyond the usual blog post, ezine, ebook, or Special Report.

1. Audio or video record the content for posting to podcast sites or video sites – great backlinks and a good way to get new readers.

2. Use the research behind the articles to post short, concise and targeted comments on other people’s blogs.

3. Use the research to answer a burning question that you put to CD and use as a lead in to a membership site.

4. Content can be used as education material on affiliate sites that sell related products.

5. Publish an offline newsletter for related businesses.  For instance, PLR in the financial field would be helpful in pulling together a financial newsletter which investment brokers can send to their clients.  The same can be said for Health & Wellness PLR to be used in offline newsletters for Chiropracters, massage therapists, alternative medicine practitioners, nurse practitioners or physical/occupational therapists in private practice.

Really – PLR can be used any other way you would normally use content.  The trick is to find high quality, well written work that the owner stands behind.