If Ghengis Kahn Were Alive Today

If Ghengis Kahn Were Alive Today,
Would People Read His E-mail?

My Net Friend,

Thanks to the help of a dear friend of mine, Aed Roberts,

I have used the headline above. I'm no history buff and

he pointed out to me that many consider Ghengis Kahn one

of the greatest strategists and tacticians of all time. With

that in mind, I think you'll enjoy what I have to share

in this article to make your e-mails strategically

stand out and be distinguished.

Have you ever taken time to “study” your e-mail? What I

mean is this: Have you ever considered what it is about a

particular e-mail message that stood out that caused you to

read it more carefully than others? I have heard about so

many different people who have their fingers coiled and

ready to bang quickly down on that delete key, sending your

important message into cyber-never-never-land.

I’ve personally done this studying and finally I just

determined to write down all the different tactics,

strategies and techniques that I’ve seen others use and

share it with you! You’re going to love it and perhaps put

it to use.

If you haven’t already heard of Mark Joyner, it seems you

certainly will before long. While I or others may not

agree with everything this controversial figure does, there

are nonetheless things to be learned from such well-known

individuals. I’ve heard that he’s a master of testing and

I don’t doubt it! It’s that 4-letter word “test” that so

many of us have failed to do to the extent that we should.

Anyhow, as I was traversing back down through the multitude

of messages located in my InBox, a message I’d received

from Mark had one or two spaces of indentation on the

subject line, thus making it stand out from the crowd.

What portion of your e-mails do you get that are like

that? I’d guess less than 1%. Although I don’t know all

the science behind it, my tendency is to think that Mark

Joyner did a study on this one little thing and found it to

make a difference! Wouldn’t it make sense that the little

indentation will cause your eyes to wander over to the

right just enough to look at it at least a tiny bit

longer? Let me tell you that it was noticing this

particular thing that became the catalyst for me to start

writing this article!

Another interesting thing I’ve seen someone do is to use

their phone number in the place of their name to appear on

the “From” section of your message. Now this is another

golden nugget in my estimation! Why? Well, first of all,

how many times do you see it? Just like with the first

example, few do this and so it will substantially stand

out! In fact, there’s ONLY one person that I’ve seen do

this up to this point. Not only does their phone number

show up to you, it sends out a loud and clear message that

this person is not looking to hide behind technology and

that they like to talk to their customers and prospects as

well as e-mail them! Finally, if you use this method of

putting your phone number in the place to show who the

message comes from, then when someone responds to you, it

is likely your number appears at the VERY TOP OF THEIR LIST

in the list of contacts (for example in Outlook Express).

Now if you combine this tactic with the first one mentioned

above where an extra space is used, then you have an even

greater assurance of getting that high or even top listing

inside of others’ email programs.

Certainly one of our goals in conducting business is to get

people to notice us, know us, like us, and trust us. To

put our phone number out there in most plain view is a

very, very powerful thing to do. A little later, I’ll

mention yet another aspect of this.

Another critical element of your e-mails is to send them

with an important, attention grabbing subject line. The

same person that e-mailed me using their phone number also

would send me messages where the only thing they had in the

subject line was my name! WOW! Just think for a moment.

This person that’s just e-mailed me has written to me...

about me! Now, who doesn’t want to read about themselves?

Another business associate has similarly written to me

messages that would say, “Ken, From zzz” where ‘zzz’ is

their name. Just today I was speaking with another

successful internet marketer for the very first time and at

the end of our conversation he told me that, when I e-mail

him, that I put in the subject line, “Hi, From Ken.” The

obvious reason was so that he would be sure to read it,

knowing that it came from me, the person he just met today!

To talk about the headline or subject line requires another

paragraph for this article because it is simply THAT

important. I’ll admit that I haven’t mastered this topic

by any means, but what I’ve learned, I share here. While

you, for whatever reason, may not choose to put any of the

suggested subject lines as were already mentioned, there

are still some things you should consider! Please allow me

to get into this by telling a short account of something

that happened recently...

A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to someone via a support

e-mail address. I was feeling a tiny bit of frustration,

but I wanted to be nice about the whole situation

particularly since I really like the people I’m dealing

with there and I was hoping to get into a better position

of improved communications. Well, I put into the subject

line, “Firstname, can we give you a spanking?” I was

thinking diplomatically by asking permission to give a

spanking with the idea that I wouldn’t actually get

anywhere near doing it. Not long afterwards, I got a

message right back from the support lady that said, “Ken,

you sure know how to get your email opened first in the

morning! LOL I sent this to Firstname.” Immediately

after I saw this response I was rolling with laughter! I

wasn’t really thinking of a way to evoke laughter or

thinking that I would get my message read first, but that’s

what ended up happening!

In any case, the whole key here is establishing and

maintaining a relationship with people, treating them as

people even though high technology is being largely

employed to communicate in the relationship. Joel

Christopher R., the master list-builder, has aptly stated

that one’s success on-line is not solely dependent upon

having a large list, but having a relationship with those

on the list. I whole-heartedly agree! So, no matter what,

you’ve got to let your personality shine through in your

messages...and to start it from your subject line!

In contrast, subject lines that blend right in with a class

of others is bound to get the message tossed before you can

even say “delete.” Not too long ago, I was crazy enough to

try one of those ad blaster programs that sends messages

out to a bunch of FFA sites. I can guarantee you that in

just about all of the messages I got into my InBox to an

address I didn’t intend to use, the messages that had “FFA”

in the subject line were quickly removed! Now, other

messages I got as a result of that same blast, I did a

quick scan to see if they had a phone number because I

determined that I was going to call people and talk with

them about different aspects of internet marketing and to

explore our potential of working together in the future.

While I haven’t exhausted calling all the numbers on my

list, it has been a very refreshing activity to meet a

bunch of positive people running successful on-line

businesses and I’m pleased to say that there have been some

new business relationships established as a result!

With the increased efforts to win the battle against

unsolicited commercial e-mail, many have now turned to the

special emphasis to use spam-checker programs that

will “test” your e-mail against what many spam-filters will

readily discard. Basically what has resulted is, for

example, using “f*ree” or “f^ree” or “fr*e” for the word

that describes getting something for no money in exchange.

Without the special characters injected by you or by these

programs will result in your message not getting through to

the intended recipients in many cases, even if they have

opted-in to your list. My wonder is, when will the spam

filters catch up to this technique and start preventing

even these messages from reaching their destinations?

Since spammers are not getting caught as much as they

might, I wonder if it will only be a short while before

they too are using the same programs to get their junk

e-mail through. Hmmm.

Does this remind you of that story about the Sneetches at

all? Well, anyhow, I will encourage you here to go ahead

and “play the game” of the internet and use these tools to

get your messages through to your subscribers. After all,

you are not one who sends out that unsolicited commercial

e-mail, are you?

NOTE: This article may be reprinted as long as it is left

intact. Kennon Fort is the owner of the website at

http://www.30mins.com - featuring the 30-minute Marketing

Miracle. Mr. Fort is also author of the Instant Software

Profits OnLine Mini-Magazine, which is in cohesion with the

website http://www.Instant-Software-Profits.com. Please

feel free to forward this report to your friends (but

definitely not your competitors) keeping it in its original

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