Saturday December 27, 2008
Another beautiful, glorious day in subtropical central Florida. Temperatures low in the 60’s last night and high today should be near 80. It dawned clear and sunny, typical Florida day – 320 days of the year anyway. I spent the morning sorting out my AOL address book and creating in it a new category for my advertisers. I just learned I could import them all into my newsletter database within minutes. Too cool!
There is a lot of overlap between advertisers and friends, so some people are on both lists. I never had an official mailing list, and the dozen mailouts I did in maybe ten years to solicit ads all went out through AOL. So when brothermine set up the Horizons newsletter for me and showed me how it worked, new synapses began firing in my brain. I saw the other possibilities to make use of the mailing list.
Each month I have to remind dozens of advertisers to get me their ad revisions in on time. I can use the PHP newsletter mailing list to do that. I can create a list for Existing Advertisers for the reminders.
I have a long list I have been wanting to email to let them know the entire magazine is online now and to direct them to http://horizonsmagazine.com if they wanted to carry the magazine or advertise. I can create a list for Future Advertisers for them.
Already there is a choice on the newsletters for the local drum circle event notifications also. They will get notices of whatever drum circles are upcoming locally. So I am seeing how useful it can be to have different mailing lists.
I’ve never been a fan of the hard sell. I don’t go around asking friends if they want to advertise, because I would rather they not solicit me for business either, especially in social situations. If I go to a networking event, sure, I’m fair game. There’s a fine line between letting someone know what you are available for, and giving them an entire unsolicited sales pitch and putting them on the spot.
That’s what business cards are for, what brochures are for, what websites are for, that’s what emails are for. It’s far less intrusive to hand someone a business card that lists all your contact information on it, and easy for them to keep on hand. Even better if your card has a URL for a website that tells all about who you are and what you are available for. If not, you should get a professionally designed brochure that includes your picture and all relevant info about you. You can hand it to new acquaintances with your card, telling them, “This is what I do, let me know if you are interested.” And immediately stifle any sales talk. Don’t put them on the spot. Of course, if they ask questions, you’re in! Just don’t take advantage, a little goes a long way. And no hype, pullease!
I had to be in Sebastian around noonish, so I went to the Ruby Tuesday there for lunch. I love their salad bar. Fresh greens and chopped veggies, I like a little balsamic dressing on my greens, and I like their pasta salad and apple salad and broccoli salad. I pick the ham out of the pasta salad, the nuts out of the apple salad, and the cheese out of the broccoli salad.
As I drove along US1, alongside the Indian River, I could see a big sail telling me the windsurfers were out. There were half a dozen of them getting into the water. I pulled the car over and sat and watched them about an hour, it was very exciting to watch. Then into the office again to work some more. It was a nice break to the day.