1st Turning Point

Posted By Jacquie Rogers on June 16, 2009

Jacquie Rogers, Author & 1st Turning Point Co-Captain

by Jacquie Rogers
1st Turning Point Co-Captain
Copyright © 2009 Jacquie Rogers

As with any other promotional tool, email promotion is most effective when used in the proper venue, at the appropriate time, and in an attention-getting format.

Venue

There are a few private listservs, but most special interest groups have set up email loops on either Yahoo! or GoogleGroups. Yahoo!Groups is by far the most used. Ask your friends which groups they’re on. Expand your horizons.

After you join a group, don’t be shy—introduce yourself. Then kick back and observe the loop’s informal rules, and you’re all set to start participating. One bit of internet advice: don’t do “drive-by postings.” What are drive-by postings, you ask? It’s when you belong to a bazillion lists, post promo to all of them, but never participate in any discussions. The other list subscribers are on to you, Bub (or Bubbette). They know that you have no idea they exist. They’re very aware that you only want them to buy your books, or CDs, or earrings, or whatever. So settle in and chat a little.

Timing

Don’t crash the party. Each email group has its own set of rules about when and what you can post. For instance, I belong to one list on which you can post excerpts only on Mondays, and the book covers can be no larger than thumbnail size. Abide by these rules. Yes, I know it’s confusing, but you do not want to irritate the list subscribers. Their list is set up the way they like it. You can either abide by their wishes and be part of the group; or you can post whatever and whenever you want, and end up having your posts individually moderated (and usually not accepted for publishing to the group). That’s what they do with interlopers.

Format

Don’t think everyone is going to follow the link to your book cover, album cover, or artwork. Yes, your friends and family will, but they already know what your graphics look like. For everyone else, you need to embed your graphics in the body of the email.

If you are sending and receiving in Plain Text, you won’t be able to send messages with embedded graphics. Use HTML. Here’s how to embed graphics in Outlook:

Outlook: Format Options

If you’re using Outlook or Outlook Express, you can embed an image directly from your computer.  With the cursor in the body of the message, click:

1. Insert.
2. Picture.
3. From File.
4. Then browse through your folders to find the graphic and click Insert.

In Outlook, you can also resize.

1. After you’ve inserted the picture into the body of the message, right-click on the picture.
2. On the pop-up menu, click Format Picture
3. Click Size and choose the appropriate size.

If you’re posting to a Yahoo group directly from the Yahoo site, you have to use Rich-Text Editor, then select the box at the lower left that says View HTML Source, and copy the HTML code into it.

How do you get the code? If your graphic is loaded on Photobucket, it’s easy. Just click on the picture, and it will display the HTML code for you to copy.

But there are other ways. I have a cheat sheet for myself and each book.

To insert a HYPERLINK:
<A HREF=”http://completedURL.com/”>Website Name</A>

Just fill in the blanks with your own information. Here’s the link to my website:
<A HREF=”http://www.jacquierogers.com/”>Jacquie Rogers</A>

To insert an IMAGE:
<A HREF=”http://completedURL.com/”>Website Link</A><img src=”http:// imagehosting_spot.com/YourGraphic.jpg”  alt= “Whatever you want it to say when the mouse hovers over the picture” border=”0″ /></a>

<A HREF=” http://www.jacquierogers.com /”>Jacquie Rogers</A><img src=” http://www.jacquierogers.com/images/Mule230×350.jpg”  alt= “Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues” border=”0″ /></a>

See? Easy peasy.

Categories: Advertising Basics, All authors, Email Promotion, Jacquie Rogers, Miscellaneous
Tags: book covers, BSP, email graphics, Listservs, promotion