Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Tip Booklets Expert Paulette Ensign Wednesday, June 14

Paulette Ensign is an expert in marketing with Tips Booklets. Don't miss our Conversation with Expert Teleseries this Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. ET, and learn how you can write and publish a tips booklet and boost your business.

Paulette is well known in the marketing arena with tips booklets; she is known as the Booklets Queen, having sold over a million of these clever publications. She wrote an interesting post on her blog this week, called "I Wanna Publish a Book, I Wanna Be On Oprah, I Wanna..."

I agree with Paulette: far too many professionals know they need to get a book published, but never find the time to do it. Truth is, publishing a book is extremely time consuming and not always worth it. Writing a shorter version in the form of a tips booklet may get the job of marketing done without wasting time, money and energy. But you need to learn how to do it right.

Email List Building Tips from Cirque du Soleil? Big Tips from the Big Top

Here's an interesting post from Nancy Schwartz's Getting Attention Blog. Evidently the Cirque du Soleil is harnassing the power of email marketing, getting on the list building band wagon and generating a fan club to boost business. Here's an excerpt from Nancy's blog (which I highly recommend subscribing to, btw).

Take a look at Cirque's email marketing approach -- directly transferable to nonprofit organizations for fundraising, advocacy, membership or volunteer campaigns, or ongoing relationship development. Cirque:

• Promoted the email list development as "Join Our Fan Club", not "Sign Up for Our Email List", and featuring that invite right on the home page. Becoming a member of a club is much more enticing than becoming an email subscriber.

What a great tip! What kind of 'club' can you promote so that people feel proud to join and get the insider tips or information exclusive to club members?

I'm not sure that people would join "The Blog Squad's Fan Club"...although we do have two fans, I think, at last count. But maybe people would feel more inclined to join the "Savvy eBiz Tips Club", and get smart tips for marketing online, instead of a signing up for a newsletter.

What do you think? And what kind of club could you envision for building a list for your business? Any good ideas out there?

French Open, Mexican Style

Hola! Just a note to say I'm down in Ajijic, Mexico playing tennis this week with the Hubby and friends. That's near Guadalajara, on Lake Chapala. 

Lucky for me, my trusty Blog Squad partner, Denise Wakeman is covering biz things, another good reason to have a partner.

With DSL and satelite TV, this is a far cry from an Adobe casa...it's more like the best of both worlds. So I'll be back in a week. Keep connected, be healthy, and share some love today.