And don’t even bother collecting $200, or the $2 million you would have made.

Spammers are now getting jail sentences, which is pretty serious:

(Source) Jeffrey Kilbride, 41, of Venice California, and James Schaffer, also 41, of Paradise Alley, Arizona, were sentenced to 72 months and 63 months in prison, respectively, fined $100,000 and were ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL. They also were ordered to forfeit over $1.1 million in commissions they made spamming inboxes with pornographic emails.

This is pretty wild. It makes me wonder who will go down in history as the biggest cyber criminal - you know, the Al Capone of cyberspace. Instead of bootlegging, it’ll be spam.

Some of the co-conspirators in this case actually turned state evidence against Kilbride and Schaffer in exchange for lighter sentences. Not a bad deal. Break the law, tell me who helped you, and we’ll go easy on you. I guess that makes spam just like any other crime.

The spammers went so far as to set up shell corporations in other countries and send spam from Phoenix, Arizona through a redirect as if it was coming from Amsterdam. I guess they were really serious about sending out those spam notices. And they had to pay AOL for damages.

I can see a day when spam will be prosecuted multiple times for the same crime. Since every nation has its own laws, a spammer or other cyber criminal who breaks laws in more than one nation could potentially face charges in every nation affected by the crime. That would effectively be the end of double jeopardy, a protection for criminals so that they aren’t charged with the same crime twice. But since there is no international government agency or laws in place to protect criminals from being charged with the same crime more than once … well, it’s just a matter of time.

Kind of makes you think twice before breaking the law, huh?

The beginning of October saw the beginning of something new with Brick Marketing as well. As you know, we started with this blog, Search Engine Optimization Journal, last year. Then we began introducing others earlier this year. So far we’ve launched

• Social Marketing Journal
• Blog Marketing Journal and
• Local Advertising Journal

Then, on October 1, 2007, we kicked off the Email Marketing Journal. Topics we’ll be discussing on the daily postings of Email Marketing Journal include:

• Email Content
• Email Design Issues
• Email Marketing
• Email Marketing Basics
• Email Newsletters
• List Rental
• Spam
• Open and Click-Through Rates
• Opt-In Techniques
• Subject Lines

Brick Marketing may add categories in the future as we get feedback from the readers of Email Marketing Journal. Let us know how we do with our new blog and we’re looking forward to rolling out new blogs in the Brick Marketing family in the weeks to come.

I wrote a post yesterday about a Copyblogger blog post and a WebProNews followup that drew a lot of response.

I might have been a little too harsh in my criticisms of Jason Lee Miller, but I still believe in the gravity of my message. What I didn’t realize at the time, because I didn’t follow Clark’s link to the original source, was that the discussion was related to newsletter links, not website links. Now, the obvious question: Why does that matter?

It matters because Clark had positioned his argument as “Click here” versus anchor text, which is a logical argument when dealing with websites. But few people start and manage newsletters because they want to improve their Google juice. Newsletters are for communicating with customers or potential customers, which makes the relationship between you and your prospects more important than any SEO points to be gained.

Of course, some people argue that’s the way it should be with your website as well. But I see legitimate reasons for focusing on SEO more than the customer-relationship benefits on certain types of websites. But newsletters are almost always about the relationship, hardly ever about the SEO.

Keeping that in mind, Marketing Sherpa’s study about wording in your call to action links makes a lot more sense. When you write your newsletter, you really want people to go back to your website, so anything you can do to improve click-throughs from the newsletter to your website is a good thing. I believe that newsletters are best used as lead generation tools and that websites are better closers. That’s why I use my newsletter to promote my website and it gives me the opportunity to communicate with my potential customers on a regular basis. If I can prove my trustworthiness, those “click heres” will have a lot more value.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

When it comes to e-mail marketing, I’m a big fan of newsletters. I think if you really want to promote your blog or website then you should start a weekly newsletter, also called an ezine. Here are a few of the benefits you can enjoy by starting your own newsletter:

• Take opt ins and collect e-mail addresses for future marketing campaigns
• A newsletter keeps your company name in front of your prospects every week
• You can drive traffic to your most important web pages
• Communicate with customers regarding specials you have coming up
• Share your knowledge and increase your credibility
• A newsletter is a very important branding item

No doubt you can think of your own reasons to start a company newsletter. So why haven’t you?

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

The question comes up from time to time, “How often is often enough for sending out a company newsletter?”

Well, I send mine out once a week. At the bottom of this post you’ll see a sign up box. I encourage you to sign up. I send out a summary of my blog posts for the week every issue. That way, if you missed any you can catch up.

Now that the shameless plug is out of the way, how often is often enough for a company newsletter? There’s really no good answer. But there is a definite answer to a related question, “How often is not often enough?”

Your newsletter should communicate to your target audience as often as is necessary to convey the information that is helpful to them. Some very useful newsletters are published daily. That may not be the way you want to go, however. Daily newsletters can be time consuming and if you don’t have the time to do it or the money to pay someone to do it for you then you could drop the ball on a few issues and that won’t bode well for your credibility.

Many successful newsletters are published weekly. I like weekly because it keeps my name in front of my target market. They won’t forget me after a week and if they haven’t heard from me all week then I’m right on time to remind them of the things they need to know and out of their hair enough that I’m not a major nuisance (humor me, please!).

There are a couple of more options. You could publish your newsletter every other week or monthly. Nothing wrong with either of those. But you really should put some thought into this how often thing because if you go too long without communicating with your target then they’ll forget about you. Some newsletters come out twice a week, which is cool, but I prefer once a week. That’s good enough for most businesses, I think.

Monthly seems too long to make my customers wait to hear what I have to say. During that time they could find another newsletter and another service provider altogether. If you send out a monthly newsletter, that means you only communicate with customers and prospective customers 12 times a year. Since it takes about 7 hits before a person acts on a message you’ll have to market to a person at least half a year before you turn them into a customer - and that’s a long shot if they’ve found a newsletter they like just as much that comes out more often.

The bottom line on newsletters is that they need to come out often, but not too often. Weekly is best for most, but semi-weekly or bi-weekly is adequate. I think if you go longer than two weeks for most electronic newsletters then you’ll get tossed more often than get read. Another thing you should think about is what day you want your newsletter to hit your prospect’s inbox, but that’s another discussion altogether. For now, have a great day!

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

If you haven’t heard, the following laws of e-mail marketing should never be broken:

1. Thou shalt not spam
2. Thou shalt use teasers in thy headline and subject lines
3. Thou shalt not mislead thy readers and subscribers
4. Thou shalt give your subscribers a clear way to unsubscribe
5. Thou shalt not kill thy prospects with graphics and Flash presentations.
6. Thou shalt include thy e-mail address in every e-mail for easy correspondence.
7. Thou shalt link back to thy website in every e-mail.
8. Thou shalt build trust among thy prospects.
9. Thou shalt not bore they readers.
10. Thou shalt ensure each element of every e-mail has a specific purpose and make sure thy reader knows it.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

There are many ways to go about a viral report. One of my favorites is the small report, usually issued as a .pdf file, and that is a free download. You can put the free report on your company website, but I think an even more effective way is through a mini-site.

1. The Small Report.
Putting together a five to ten page report can be done in no time. The same goes for reading it. We suffer from information overload in this day and age so giving people useful information in smaller quantities makes sense.

Find a hot topic and write several articles on it. Place the articles in a pdf file with your name and contact information branded on the report. Tell readers they are free to distribute your report as long as they do not alter it in any way. Then advertise your report in forums on your website and anywhere else you can think of. People want information fast and utilizing small reports is a good way to give them exactly that. It’s also a good start to making money from your viral campaign.

This is an effective strategy. The best way to go about it is to set up a mini-website that is highly optimized for the keywords you want to use. Then market that website with articles. An article a day should get you some buzz in a relatively short time. An engaging video that you upload to YouTube could also prove useful, as would a social marketing campaign using bookmarking sites like Digg, Technorati, and del.icio.us.

Sell that download hard and heavy on your mini-site. When visitors decide they want your free report they fill out a form which requires that they give you their e-mail address. Through an autoresponder, send your prospect an e-mail right away (don’t waste one second) that includes a link to where they can download the free report. The free report download should be on another page of your mini-site that contains a nofollow tag so that the search engines don’t crawl it. That page should have nothing on it but your free download.

Using this method should give you a pretty good size e-mail list if your free report has any real value. That is, if you are providing useful information to your prospects then they will tell their friends and you’ll build up a good, solid list of e-mail addresses that you can use for other marketing efforts.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

(Source) Researchers estimate that US businesses alone spent $400 million on email marketing in 2006. This indicates it’s a pretty decent market, and probably because most businesses now know that email marketing works.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, e-mail marketing is big. Not just because of the volume of e-mails floating around nor because of the dollar amount being spent on it. It’s big because it’s a low-cost way to advertise. Think about it.

If you send out one e-mail blast per week and you do it yourself it costs you no money. You’re already spending money on your Internet service. You’d be spending that money anyway, right? So it really isn’t costing you anything extra to e-mail your customers. Then why aren’t you?

Capture those e-mail addresses and get your newsletter going. I highly recommend Constant Contact. You can start with a 60-day free trial. After that, for $15 a month you can send out as many e-mail messages you want to a limited number of people. You can choose a template and start sending our a weekly e-zine, post cards, e-brochures, and invitations immediately.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

The first rule of e-mail marketing is Send No Spam. That’s not as easy as it sounds.

We have reached a point in time where marketing is most effective when the people we market to give us permission to market to them. The question is, how do you get that permission? If you can’t send them a message to ask, how will you get them to say “Yes?”

That’s a good question, but there are means and methods of obtaining permission that are non-intrusive. Here are a few ideas:

1) On your website, offer a free e-course, e-book download, or some other benefit without charge in exchange for an e-mail address; by giving you an e-mail address, prospects are in essence giving you permission to contact them in the future
2) Exchange ads with other e-zine or newsletter publishers
3) Run a PPC campaign driving people to a landing page where you ask prospects to sign up for a newsletter or other benefit they will receive by e-mail
4) Offer an affiliate program that rewards webmasters and ezine publishers for sending your prospects, sales leads, or other contact information
5) Start a blog; as a way to block spam to your blog you can require people to register to post comments, something that most people interested in your topic are willing to do if they want to promote their own websites and by doing this you have permission to send them a thank you or other such message for reading and commenting on your blog

There are many creative ways to get people to give you permission to market to them by e-mail. You have to have a product that people want. By making yourself marketable you ensure that people will want to do business with you. And remember this number 1 rule for doing business: There is no substitute for a good reputation.

Search Engine Optimization Services
Pay Per Click Services
Affiliate Marketing Services

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal

E-mail marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a Web business. By communicating with your prospects through e-mail you cut costs and make your marketing efforts more efficient. There is an art and a science to effective e-mail marketing, however. You can’t just start sending e-mails and hoping for the best.

For one thing, spam laws could get you into trouble. There are specific guidelines that you must follow in obtaining permission to send marketing messages by e-mail. Failure to comply with these legal requirements could get your website shut down. Going out of business is no way to attract customers.

Other important details to consider in any e-mail marketing campaign is the frequency of your messages, the content of your messages, grabbing attention with powerful titles and subject lines and employment of effective linking strategies within your e-mails. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Get any part of it wrong and you could be shooting yourself in the foot. It could be a costly way to do business - costly in the sense that any results not realized is business lost. Don’t do that to yourself. Hire a professional.

Search Engine Optimization Services
Pay Per Click Services
Affiliate Marketing Services

Receive Updates For The Search Engine Optimization Journal