In this edition of Web Enlightenment we'll be talking about how it takes me one hour to create, produce, and send this E-Newsletter.

This newsletter focuses on giving you practical, interesting insights into how to successfully use technology as a tool to improve the way you do business. Bridging the gap between knowledge and understanding that all entrepreneurs have will help you make money online.

Please hit reply and tell me what you are doing to use time instead of cash in your marketing efforts. I answer every email sent to me.

All the best,

This takes an Hour

Recently I've been chatting with lots of folks about email marketing, which is always good fun. I gave a seminar to the good people at Maine Built Boats and many of my clients have been getting refocused on their email communication efforts.

Folks are excited about email marketing - once again. I love to see that as E-Newsletters are a reliable and proven method of connecting with folks. E-Newsletters have no variable cost, and almost no fixed cost either. They can be forwarded, they make it easy to measure results, they generate great content to keep search engines happy when you archive them, they let your customers and prospects hit reply and interact with you on a two-way basis.

E-Newsletters just rock, they are so super terrific.

So it begs the question - why doesn't every company have an amazing and robust E-Newsletter program?

There are two basic reasons - technical issues and time.

The technical part of the equation is actually pretty easy to solve by using an email service bureau. Theses folks provide you with the ability to manage your list (people can subscribe and unsubscribe automatically), they provide tracking, they make sure you are in compliance with the law, and they have relationships with ISP's to make sure your messages get delivered. I pay $25 a month for my service bureau and that pricing is pretty typical.

So if you have any technical issues you just find a decent email service bureau (there are literally hundreds of good ones) and your problems are solved - right ?

Wrong - this is the spot where many folks get stuck.

They lose good email marketing in their fear - their fear of how long it is going to take to do this work and who on earth is going to actually do it each time.

As many of you know I love weird analogies - a website is like a meal in a fine restaurant, putrid whale vomit is something to keep in mind when looking at design, the traffic of your site is like the circulation of the newspaper your print ad is in - and on and on.

I am used to folks "reacting" to this stuff when I give my presentations, it is one of the things I love.

It has been quite some time since I have seen a full on "across the audience jaw drop" though - I had that recently when I was chatting about email marketing and I said: "It takes me one hour to produce my E-Newsletter every 2 weeks". This means that the totality of Web Enlightenment takes me about 26 hours a year.

Some just figured I was the fastest geek they ever met and while I can type at full speed I must make a confession - the fact it takes me one hour to produce this is a trick, a trick you can learn too.

One hour E-Newsletter production (writing, formatting, setting up to send, the whole ball of wax) only happens because I have a flawless E-Newsletter plan.

A good E-Newsletter plan has a bunch of components but there are only three that are critical - what you are an expert in, what makes you different, and what you are known for.

For this E-Newsletter here are my three critical components, in full on Ross shorthand:

Expert In:
Website Strategic Goals, Website Practical Goals, Website Graphic Design, Usability Design, MDR & SDR, Navigation, Optimized Copy, Effective Copy, Graphic Content, shopping carts, database systems, Search engine Marketing, email marketing, offline marketing (push), web stats & analysis. Making money fall out of the sky.

How different:
Ross speaks English, Geek and Entrepreneur fluently. A real entrepreneur. The actual chops of millions in online sales and thousands of websites built. Don't “graduate” to a consultant that comes from the foreign and strange land of corporations, use one of your own kind. Calls the kettle black and speaks his mind. I'm not trying to sell you any products.

Known For:
Being a pasty geek that can write, complex concepts simplified, connecting people to ideas they can understand, weird analogies.

There is one other thing that is really important to being able to produce this E-Newsletter in 60 minutes - my topic list. It is just a simple text document that I keep on my desktop and every time I have an idea for a newsletter I open it and write it down. That way when the time comes I have a nice list to choose from if I don't already have something in mind.

Here is the bottom line: Trying to author your E-Newsletter without a written plan is like trying to cook a meal without a recipe. It may be fun but we all know it is not an efficient use of your time and certainly not what you'll see happening in any professional kitchen.

Once you have a wonderful E-Newsletter plan I recommend taking a look at it and making an update to it once a year, that's about the same frequency as your overall business plan.