========================================== Business Marketing Bulletin ========================================== September 4, 2007, Issue #66 Terri Seymour, Publisher http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com © 2007 All Rights Reserved Worldwide ========================================== In This Issue ========================================== 1. Top Sponsor Ads 2. Privacy Policy 3. What's New? 4. Feedback 5. Freebies & Biz Helpers 6. Feature Ad 7. Article:Writing Sales Copy - Toss Out the Grammar Rules and Watch Your Response Soar! 8. Feature Ad 9. eCommerce Tips & Info 10. This 'n That - Little Bit of Everything! 11. Subscription Management & Contact Info ========================================== Top Sponsor Ads ========================================== ATTENTION READERS: FREE Report, "How to Write A Book On Anything in 14 Days or Less! GUARANTEED! Fiction or Non, get an agent in 36 hours, blueprint your entire book in 2- hours, create 'technologies' no one else has, buy a best-selling plot for 75 cents, create a non-stop client magnet, create demand for your book without ever leaving home, get an editor FREE, and much more! http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=497539 *************************** Start your advertising campaign for the new season. The Bulletin now has top sponsor and solo openings. For more info please visit: http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml ********** ATTENTION ********** What country boasts the southernmost point in continental Europe? mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. As a subscriber you have acknowledged that there will be both in-house and third party advertising as part of our content. This allows BMB to remain free. If you would like to be removed from this list, please see instructions at the end of this newsletter. Seymour Products values your privacy. http://www.seymourproducts.com/privacy.shtml Seymour Products is hosted by ICDSoft Hosting. No set-up fees, 1000 MB of space, $72 per year, plus numerous features! Incredible support system...minutes, not hours! You have a bigger plan option as well. http://www.icdsoft.com/?aff=terriseymour ========================================== What’s New? ========================================== Hello everyone and welcome new subscribers, Just for an FYI, tomorrow is my birthday and I will be the ripe old age of 45! Yikes! ;-) To all those who share a September birthday with me: Happy Birthday to You! Well summer is now unofficially over. All the kids are back in school and it is time to get back to business! Refresh your business with some new goals or a new plan. If your business doesn't seem to be doing what you want it to, here are some ideas for recharging your biz: Reassess your goals - if you have previously written down your goals, go over them to see if how you have done. Have you achieved your goals? If not, you will need to try to figure out why and make some changes. If so, what will your new goals be? Read more here: http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/back-to-business.shtml We will be refreshing our business with a bigger, better brand new store. It will not be officially open for some time yet but I am working on it as fast as I can! This new store will make the ordering process more efficient and reliable for all our customers. And for all of you who like to browse, the browsing will be much easier and less time consuming! Thank you to all of you for making this possible! In the News New Image Scaling Technique Offers Imaging Revolution http://www.dailytech.com/New+Image+Scaling+Technique+Offers+Imaging+Revolution/article8630.htm New Ebooks this Week: Resell Ebooks Just $1.00 Each! How to Build a Toybox on Castors (crafts & hobbies) Simply Christmas (holiday/seasonal) The Last Trail (classics) Blog & Traffic (blogs/ezines) How to Ease Your Allergies (health & fitness) 20 eBook & Int. Marketing PLR Articles (plr articles) The Lazy Man's Guide to Writing Articles (article marketing) Healing Foods (health & fitness) Viral Marketing Values (int. marketing) Squeeze Page Simple ( web design) The Traffic Dictionary (int. marketing) Wedding Etiquette (romance) Genealogy - Uncovering Your Ancestry (home & family) Video Game Systems Uncovered (ent. & leisure) 101 Ways to Raise Emergency Money (money & finances) Make Your Customers Love You (online & home biz) Building Influence with Free Memb. Sites (int. marketing) Promoting Your eBay Shop (eBay) The Influence of the Zodiac Upon Human Life (ent. & leisure) When the Storm Comes...(religion & spirituality) http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell **Weekly Subscriber Special** Valid from Tuesday September 4 through Friday Sept. 7. Grab Bag Special! Buy ten or more ebooks & get a Grab Bag of 5 free ebooks! When you have completed your order, email me with the categories that interest you and I will send the free ebook links. This special is good for one purchase only. Take advantage of these deals now to add new inventory to your ebook selection! Read more about our value packages at: http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell/categories.php?CategoryID=26 NOTE: New eBooks listed above are not eligible for Weekly Subscriber Specials. Join the Seymour Products Trivia Challenge! Find the hidden trivia question and be the third person to send in the correct answer for a free feature ad in next week's issue of the Business Marketing Bulletin. Send your answer to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer Unfortunately there was no winner for last week's trivia challenge. Hopefully there will be this week! Last week’s Q: What film does Ken Kesey refuse to watch? Last Week’s A: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Join in the fun and try to win a free feature ad. Good luck all! If you know anyone who could benefit from this ezine, please feel free to forward them a copy in its entirety. Thank you. If you would like to advertise in the BMB, please visit: http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml for more information. Advertising prices are as low as $2.00. I am also looking for ad swaps from other ezine publishers. BMB goes out to 620 subscribers. ========================================== Feedback ========================================== Please send in your comments, suggestions, questions, etc to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=feedback We appreciate all feedback, good or bad! Thank you for the quick responses! Wow! You are great! I will subscribe to the mailing list. I am happy to know you add more ebooks weekly :) Kama Sutra is doing pretty well, so I have decided to branch out more and go with a couple of cooking ebooks. Looking forward to it; plus doing more business with you in the future with more purchases. I see more books I am interested in :) * Christine ========================================== Freebies & Biz Helpers ========================================== Grade Your Website - 31 Free Online Tests http://www.avivadirectory.com/free-online-tests/ ****** Check your rankings in Google and other search engines http://www.googlerankings.com/ ****** Free Download: Print Envelope Prints addresses onto envelopes for a more professional, clean mailing. http://public.rkcomputer.cz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11 ****** Write Better Ads - Do It Free! http://www.WriteBetterAds.com ****** HTML Color Chart http://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Are YOUR Ads Making Money? Competition's High but My Prices are Down-To-Earth! Quality, Affordable & Friendly Ad-Writing Services! http://www.freewebs.com/suz1of6/ ========================================== Feature Article ========================================== Writing Sales Copy - Toss Out the Grammar Rules and Watch Your Response Soar! by Clayton Makepeace Remember those rules you learned in elementary school about proper grammar and punctuation? Well I've got good news for you ... ... Just throw the rules away. When you're writing sales copy, you need to speak to prospects in a way that they're used to being spoken to and in the same way that they speak to other people. So depending on who your market is, you have a very broad range of both word choices and punctuation available to you. I use punctuation to try to make my copy sound in the prospect's head the same way it would sound as if I was speaking this to him. What we do is salesmanship in print, right? So I'm writing to my prospect as if I were in the room with him and my word choices, my phraseology, everything is crafted to make him comfortable with me. One of the best things that you can do is to read your sales copy aloud. When you've got a pretty good draft, just sit in a room by yourself and read it out loud. Imagine that you're talking to your ideal prospect as you're reading it. You'll find that there are certain areas where words are lost because of lack of emphasis. Or passages that seem a little jumbled. Or places where you stumble over the phrasing. Or sections that just slow the reader down. Highlight those sections and when you're done, go back to them and work on them. Let's go through some of the ways that I use punctuation -- just some things to think about. Punctuation Non-Rule #1: I use commas in my sentences to create pauses. Again, we're thinking about this printed sales copy as though it were verbal. A conversation we're having with our prospect. Punctuation Non-Rule #2: I use ellipses in a sentence or a paragraph to air out a longer string of thoughts or progression of thoughts. I just did an e-mail blast this morning, for example, on China and about how inflation is heating up in China and the effects that would have. It went something like: "Yesterday the Chinese government announced that inflation will nearly double ... "Two billion Chinese are now looking for ways to hedge their new-found wealth against inflation ... "Is it any wonder gold prices are soaring?" Punctuation Non-Rule #3: I use dashes to emphasize a thought within a thought in a sentence. Punctuation Non-Rule #4: I use colons when I want to really point to the following text in a strong way - like before headlines in my eyebrow or pre-head copy. Punctuation Non-Rule #5: I use caps and italics in text to create emphasis for certain words. In print, you use underlines quite often, but on the web, underline means, "This is a link." And so most people avoid using them on the web. But all cap words and italics serve the same purpose. Punctuation Non-Rule #6: I make sure that my use of exclamation points is judicious. I'll go through my final draft and make sure that I don't end two or three paragraphs in a row with exclamation points. When everything is emphasized, nothing is emphasized. In the end, you want your sales copy to go through variations in pacing and amplitude -- where it goes from more intense to less intense so that the next peak can be more dramatic. Punctuation Non-Rule #7: The comma test. When I see a lot of commas, I take a hard look at the sentence because commas are quite often used to try to repair sentences that were really written upside down. For example, I could write, "With great bravado, Clayton gave his example." Well, that sentence is upside down and that's why it needed the comma. It should have said, "Clayton gave his example with great bravado." So that's a clue that there's work to be done to make that sentence read more quickly and efficiently. I hope this helps! About the Author Clayton Makepeace is a working direct response marketing consultant and copywriter who has helped his clients attract more than 3 million new customers ... quadruple their profits ... and rake in more than $1 billion in direct mail and internet sales. His daily e-letter, The Total Package, shares his proven response-boosting techniques with younger writers, business owners, and marketing pros. Find out more at http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- If you would be interested in any of my articles for reprint or reference you can see the complete list at http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/index.shtml Feel free to use any of the articles you feel are appropriate. Also, if you would like to be added to my personal mailing list for articles only, terri@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Tracy's Cakes of Soap. Homemade Soaps , Great for everyone Lots of different Scents, I have for all Occasions. I also Make soap Baskets And Made to order . mailto:Schmitl2006@verizon.net ========================================== eCommerce Tips & Info ========================================== Use free tutorials on autoresponder to increase sales http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/tutorials.shtml Be up front with all your pricing, fees, shipping, etc. If you try to hide your prices/shipping until the last minute you will end up losing customers. Treat your customers with respect by telling them everything they need/want to know. Give people a reason to want to stay on your site for longer than 3 seconds. They probably won't buy the first visit but offer free content, a free ezine, free resources, a community, well designed, user-friendly site navigation. There are hundreds of thousands of sites out there so people do need a reason to stay on yours and come back for more visits! ========================================== This ‘n That - A Little Bit of Everything! ========================================== Extraordinary stories from everyday people! http://storycorps.net/ Holidays are enticing only for the first week or so. After that, it is no longer such a novelty to rise late and have little to do. * Margaret Laurence Fun and Games Galore http://www.comedycentral.com/games/index.jhtml This week's riddle: What Am I? A wee wee man in a red coat. Staff in my hand, stone in my throat. What am I? Answer at the end of the ezine. ========================================== Subscription Management ========================================== Subscriptions to this weekly ezine are free. To receive this newsletter: Send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@seymourproducts.com To not receive this newsletter: Send blank email to: mailto:unsubscribe@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Contact Info ========================================== Terri & Terry Seymour Publishers, Business Marketing Bulletin Owners, Seymour Products http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Legal Disclaimer The Business Marketing Bulletin doe not make any warranties, express or implied, regarding the use of the links that we provide in our advertising. We don't guarantee the accuracy, completion, usefulness or legality of any advertisements, resources, information, products, services, income processes or programs. We disclaim any responsibility and/or all liability arising out of, or relating to, any item listed in this ezine, and/or websites. ========================================== Answer to riddle: What Am I? A Cherry