Sophie's Success Shortcuts

>>> go to the beginning of the article

As I said in the previous part, we were ready to mail.

We added 2K leads that Diana got from another source, so now we had 17K hungry prospects… right?

I decided to “clean” the list before we start to bombard them with frequent emails.

I imported the data into a database program called Filemaker Pro (I used to be a Mac person… back in my paper publishing days, :-), the Filemaker is a Claris program…)

Anyway, Filemaker can email personalized email through your own email client, like Outlook Express, or in my case, The Bat, and the recipient’s ISP won’t know it is not a hand sent, personal email.

I have 3 gmail accounts, each with 500 sends limit a day, 5 yahoo premium accounts, each with 250 sends limit a day, we’ll get through this mailing in a few weeks, but by then we’ll have, as I hoped, no, strike that, expected 300 buyers, which could be the seed of a great business. Right?

First I was segmenting the data by ISP. Gmail is an ISP. Yahoo is an ISP. Hotmail is and ISP. Aol is an ISP.

I found only 175, circa 10% gmail accounts. 100 of them came from Diana’s 2,000. Hmmm. Interesting. In my experience, any internet marketing list has at least 30% gmail emails… and it is also my experience, that gmail is the most deliverable email address given google’s very good spam filter that does not catch many legitimate emails as spam.

8161 yahoo,
813 hotmail
221 aol

I emailed the yahoo people from my yahoo accounts.

The rest of them I emailed from my gmail accounts.

I am exactly half way through. I have had 2134 undeliverables (about 25%). 90% of the hotmail accounts were returned undeliverable. Verizon: ditto. Bellsouth: ditto.

No gmail was returned.

I have changed the email I sent every day…

As a test, I posted one email as an article on my blog, and it attracted 78 visitors that came to read that article from bookmarking services.

I expect that I’ll chuck the whole 17108 leads… I won’t even bother removing the bad emails… why bother.

I paid $400 for the list. I have wasted more money before…

I have an option to be resentful, to be depressed, to grieve my losses, to demand my money back, or be grateful for the sudden injection of urgency that helped me over some barriers I could never get over before.

I have finally become good at using Dreamweaver. I have finally set up my account correctly with 2checkout. I have seen my way through a funnel system that can and will make money, as soon as I drive real prospects to it.

I have become clear about what I need to get better at:

writing sales copy, both salespages and email.

Crafting an offer

Credibility… why they should buy from me

What’s unique about me. Half of the time I was trying to be someone else, other than myself. I thought modeling meant trying to be that other person, the successful one, because I am not successful because I am me…

I got really clear for myself that no one can be coached who is not in action. I am now sure that the only kind of person I want to coach in the future who is attempting to do something and needs my coaching and teaching.

I am immensely grateful. I spent the best 400 dollars I have ever spent. Including everything. Because it has brought me to a place from where I can see. And I didn’t even know that I was in a deep hole trying to see beyond the walls of the hole. Those 400 bucks brought me up to see out of the hole…

I am looking to spend the next 400 bucks to put me on a mountain… Any suggestions? :-)

Remember the donkey story from Part 1 of this case study?

Be the donkey… indomitable spirit.

PS: I’ll put all the findings in a follow up as soon as I have it. Stay tuned.