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A Home-Based Business Online
Practical home business ideas, strategies
and resources for the work-from-home
entrepreneur
Issue 104 : October 15, 2001
Sent to 10,419 Opt-In Subscribers
Editor: Elena Fawkner
Publisher: Fawkner Publishing
http://www.ahbbo.com
Contact By Email
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IN THIS ISSUE
1. Welcome and Update from Elena
2. Home-Based Business Idea of the Week - Indoor Fountains
3. Feature Article - Growing Your List
4. Computer Tips Without the Geek Speak!
5. Motivational Tip for the Day
6. Subscription Management
7. Caveat Emptor
8. Contact Information
1. Welcome and Update from Elena
Hello again and a warm welcome to all the new subscribers who
have joined us since the last issue.
This week's article is in response to an email I received from a
subscriber during the week who wanted to know how to grow
an email list. Having struggled for a couple of weeks, she still
only had a list of 3,500 and wanted to know my "secret". As I
told her there was no secret, just many different strategies, all
of which have a role to play. This week's article is all about those
strategies and how to grow a list of several thousand subscribers
in only a few months.
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this week's
issue.
Remember, this ezine is for YOU! If you have comments or
suggestions for topics you would like to see addressed, or would
just like to share your experiences with other subscribers, I want
to hear from you. Please send comments, questions and stories
to Contact By Email .
Need more income for your retirement years?
Join the crowd! Try out the new "Not Yet Retired"
Web site for ideas about how to develop a happy and
lucrative Not Yet Retired Lifestyle. No obligation, no tricks,
just good information and a free newsletter.
http://www.notyetretired.com/
2. Home-Based Business Idea of the Week - Indoor Fountains
Wow, table top fountains! They're everywhere these days,
in gift stores, garden centers, craft fairs, New Age
bookstores, healthy living catalogs. Do fountain artists
really make money? Can you do it as a home based business?
The answer to the first question is, yes, they do if they
plan for success and know their market. And, yes, you can
do this as a home based business. Indoor fountains are more
than a passing fad.
Pump manufacturers, says my supplier, are gearing up for a
20% market penetration by 2007, from the current penetration
of 4%. That is, by 2007, 20% of the US population will have
a water feature--swimming pool, outdoor pond, aquarium,
container water gardens or indoor fountains. Why this
attraction to moving water? And why now?
Fountains appeal because they meet so many needs, spoken and
unspoken. By bringing the natural sounds of flowing water
indoors, we reconnect with nature and create an oasis of
serenity in our fast paced world. People are instinctively
drawn to water sounds for a refreshing pause and visual
treat.
Fountains have many health benefits:
* they clean the air and humidify dry winter air,
* they help us relax into sleep,
* they release negative ions (when water droplets are
sheared) so we enjoy better moods and concentration,
* they are an avenue for creative play and for personal self
expression.
You can follow several approaches for developing an indoor
fountain business. You can:
* sell finished fountains on consignment or at fairs,
* sell on consignment or on Internet stores a packaged kit
of bowl, stones, centerpiece (or fountainhead as it is
generally called), silk plants and perhaps a small Buddha
or turtle for accents,
* sell fountain supplies on your own web site or at fountain
building classes,
* lead fountain building classes at private parties or at
recreation, community or Adult Education centers,
* develop a book or booklet with fountain projects and tips
on maintenance and finding supplies.
Think about what is most convenient for you, how you'd like
to shape the business, and how much time and money you'd
want to invest at first.
Begin researching what is out there:
1. At the library check out books on how to build indoor
fountains:
* Tabletop Fountains by Dawn Cusick (40 projects)
* Water Gardening in Containers by Nash & Speichert
* Container Water Gardens by Philip Swindells
* Do It Yourself Fountains published by Leisure Arts
(20 projects)
* Create Your Indoor Fountain by Paris Mannion (11
projects plus fountain Feng Shui and history of
fountains).
2. Get your retail seller's license so you can purchase
fountain supplies at a discount. Some suppliers have
a minimum purchase requirement ($50-$400), so you might
want to go in with a friend on an order.
3. Using the Internet, look at maybe 30 of the 500 or so
fountain sites (more going up every day). Type in
"indoor fountains" or "table top fountains" to eliminate
drinking fountains and large ornamental fountains from
your results. Order 3 or 4 different pump models to see
what you like best.
Or visit an aquarium or hardware store to see what they
carry. I've found the Hagen Aquapump 1, an aquarium
pump, best suits my needs for a quiet, small, durable
pump with water flow regulator and secure positioning in
the bottom of the bowl.
4. Scan the Garden and Lifestyle sections of your paper to
see if someone is holding fountain classes or being
interviewed. If you can during the day, watch HGTV or the
Discovery channel for fountain building projects.
Kitty Bartholomew at HGTV's You're Home says, "You're
seeing a lot of water fountains and natural scents. The
more scents you use while decorating, the more powerful
the experience." JoAnne Liebeler at Discovery's Home
Savvy says, "Fountains are becoming popular both inside
and outside the home."
5. Join the 2 online support groups I know about, a
discussion list at ttfountains@onelist.com (go to
http://www.onelist.com and type in "tabletop fountains"
under interests) and the Yahoo Club at Water Fountain
Central http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/waterfountaincentral .
Some members are hobbyists, some are business people, and
all are willing to share their encouragement and
experience.
6. Think about strategic partners to help promote your
business:
* a massage therapist or chiropractor who might showcase
your work, or
* a garden center that might host your fountain building
demonstration, or
* a hospital that might want a soothing fountain for the
ICU waiting room (positive press release), or
* an interior decorator might want to include your
fountains at a trade show.
Indoor fountains are the Wave of the Future, on the verge
of breaking into mass consciousness. A customer wrote that
she's afraid there will be so many fountain makers that
fountains will be hard to sell. I think the fears are
unfounded.
Most of my 4600 subscribers to Design on Tap, the indoor
fountain monthly Ezine, come from California. Fountain
awareness is gradually spreading across the country. It
will be years before the demand is sated. In fact, my first
teleclass (on a conference line) on How to Lead Fountain
Building Classes just finished. Nine enthusiastic fountain
pioneers are out there now showing others how to build
satisfying, lovely indoor water gardens. Don't miss the
boat!
-----
Article by Paris Mannion, author of Create Your Indoor
Fountain, How to Lead Fountain Building Classes and
publisher of Design on Tap. To subscribe, send a blank
e-mail with the words "subscribe design" as the subject to
mailto:paris@buildfountains.com .
Visit http://www.buildfountains.com for further inspiration!
-----
There are many more ideas like this at the AHBBO Home Business
Ideas page at http://www.ahbbo.com/ideas.html with more being
added all the time.
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3. Feature Article: Growing Your List
© 2001 Elena Fawkner
So, you're ready to launch your own newsletter. You've heard that
a newsletter (or ezine) is a great way to stay in touch with site
visitors and to develop an opt-in list of your own to promote your
products and services.
OK, so far so good. And you have your first issue ready to go.
"Go where?" , I hear you ask. Good question. Who are you going
to send it to?
Which leads us to the topic of this article. Subscriber generation.
We're going to look at how to get the message out that your
newsletter exists and how interested readers can ask to receive it
(how subscribers can subscribe).
Fortunately, there are many ways and places to publicize your
newsletter.
1. ANNOUNCEMENT LISTS
Announcement lists are, in theory at least, email lists that people
subscribe to who want to know about new lists (whether they be
discussion lists or newsletters). Why "in theory"? Quite simply
because a lot of people wanting to generate new subscribers to
THEIR lists subscribe because you have to be a subscriber
yourself in order to announce your list. Nonetheless, you will
still generate a steady trickle of new subscribers from these lists.
You will find these lists will bring in quite a lot of subscribers initially
but gradually the rate of new subscribers from these sources will fall
away so you can't rely on them alone. Most of these lists allow
repeat postings, usually once per week but check the rules for each
list.
Here's the list of announcement lists AHBBO is regularly
submitted to. Before being able to submit your newsletter to
these lists you'll need to subscribe first. Just go to Yahoo
(http://www.groups.yahoo.com) or Topica (http://www.topica.com)
to sign up for the lists you want to be able to submit to. (Onelist
and Egroups are now under Yahoo):
1_List_Advertise@onelist.com
a1promo@egroups.com
Aannounce@egroups.com
Announce@topica.com
ezine_announce@egroupscom
freelistresources@topica.com
GetMoreSubs@egroups.com
GetMoreSubs@topica.com
ListAdvertise@egroups.com
List_Builder@topica.com
Lits_Of_Lists@egroups.com
Listpromote@egroups.com
List-Your-Lists@egroups.com
List-Your-Lists@topica.com
Mailman@topica.com
Promote_Your_List@topica.com
WritersZines@egroups.com
ZineDirectory@egroups.com
eAnnounce@egroups.com
compu-list@ egroups.com
List_announcements@egroups.com
PromoteList@topica.com
Announce_Lists@egroups.com
Announce-A-List@egroups.com
2. DIRECTORIES
The next place to list your newsletter is in the myriad of
directories devoted to exactly that. These will bring in fewer
subscribers initially but will be important to the longer-term
growth of your subscriber database as they represent a source
for a slow but steady subscriber influx.
First, make sure your newsletter is listed with New-List
(http://scout18.cs.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/lwgate/NEW-LIST/).
This is the famous Internet Scout Project and will commonly
generate a major flood of new subscribers. An initial haul of over
200 is not uncommon for some lists. You may only announce
your list once to this list but your announcement is archived on
the New-List site and you are permitted to announce changes to
your newsletter. Purely "business opportunity" list announcements
are likely to be rejected but the moderator seems to have a
somewhat inconsistent approach to what constitutes a bizopp list
so give it a try anyway.
Next, go to JimWorld's Top 1000 Submission Sites Directory
(http://www.the1000.com) and submit your newsletter to as many
of the places listed there that apply to the subject matter of your
newsletter. Although the site refers to site announcements, most
are also good places to list your newsletter as well. Obviously it
will take you quite a time to get your site listed at all these places
but it will pay off over time in the form of a steady stream of
subscribers in the longer term.
Then, for good measure, make sure you are listed in the following
directories (where applicable). Some of these may already be
included in the Top 1000 Submission Sites Directory but are
mentioned here again for the sake of completeness. Not all of the
sites listed below are "directories" as such. Some are just
outstanding resources that will assist you with subscriber
generation.
http://alabanza.com/kabacoff/Inter-Links/listserv.html
http://new-list.com/
http://tile.net/lists/addlist.html
http://www.escribe.com/internet/-aannounce/
http://www.escribe.com/internet/lbd/
http://www.escribe.com/internet/listbuilder/
http://www.goodstuff.prodigy.com/Lists/main.htm
http://www.liszt.com/
http://www.paml.net
http://www.newsletteraccess.com/
http://www.promotefree.com
http://www.virtualpromote.com
http://www.wcsu.ctstateu.edu/library/rr_electronic_discussion_groups.html
http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html
3. ACCEPTING FREE ADS
An often-overlooked method for initial subscriber generation is
offering a free ads for new subscribers. You will not start accepting
paid advertising until such time as your subscriber numbers support
it (certainly not fewer than 1,000 subscribers). There is no reason
though why your subscribers should not get used to seeing ads in
your newsletter and by offering free ads for new subscribers (for a
limited time), you will find you can generate quite a few subscribers
this way.
My initial batch of subscribers came from those wanting to place
a free ad in AHBBO. I listed my newsletter with Ruth Townsend's
Directory of Ezines (http://www.lifestylespub.com/) and immediately
started receiving free ad requests. By including a free ad reference
in your announcements (see Announcement Lists), you may find this
helps you generate more initial subscribers.
It is NOT recommended that you make any reference to free ads
in the submissions you make to Directories (see Directories)
because these are a more permanent listing of your newsletter and
you don't want people asking for free ads in six months' time after
you have stopped accepting them.
4. OTHER FORMS OF FREE PUBLICITY
In addition to making use of Announcement lists and Directories,
there are a few other forms of free publicity that will help you
generate subscribers both initially and over the longer term.
=> Article submissions
By writing articles and submitting them regularly with a resource
box that refers to your newsletter, you will generate subscribers
when other publishers run your article in their newsletter.
Each article you submit must contain a resource box that tells the
reader who you are, what your newsletter is about and how to
subscribe.
On a number of occasions publishers of newsletters with extremely
high subscriber numbers (over 250,000 in one case) have run my
articles. It is not uncommon to receive over 200 subscribe requests
immediately following an article appearing in one of these
high volume newsletters. So, the point is, writing and submitting
articles for use by other publishers is an excellent way of generating
new subscribers.
There are plenty of places to submit your articles. To find them,
just pretend you're a publisher looking for content for your newsletter.
Use search terms such as "free content" etc. and you'll turn them
up.
=> Signature files
Another way to generate a steady trickle of new subscribers is
to include a blurb about your newsletter and how to subscribe
in your signature file and include it at the end of every email you
send to anyone about anything. These can be particularly useful
if you regularly contribute to discussion lists or newsgroup
discussions provided the lists and newsgroups have some general
relevance to the subject matter of your newsletter.
=> Ad swaps
Swapping newsletter ads with other newsletter publishers is a
good way of generating new subscribers provided your target
audiences are complementary. You can generate ad swaps by
including a notice in your newsletter that you welcome them
or by actively seeking out other publishers who accept ad swaps.
There are a number ad swap lists around specifically for this
purpose.
=> Publicizing Your Newsletter
Once you have an established newsletter with several hundred
subscribers you should publicize your newsletter in as many
places as you can, whenever you get the opportunity.
One way is to try and get your newsletter reviewed. A good place
to get reviewed is at http://www.list-universe.com. There are many
others too so look around. Many of the directories you list your
ezine with have a rating system and if you can get yourself rated
highly you will usually merit a higher ranking in the directory. So,
invite your subscribers to rate your ezine. Another good way to
publicize your newsletter is to submit your original articles to some
of the many websites that collect articles available for reprint by
other publishers. It seems that there is no shortage of publishers
who prefer not to create any original content for their newsletters
so, if you do create original content, there's a ready-made market
for it! By ensuring that your resource box contains a blurb and
subscribe info for your ezine, every time another publisher runs
your articles, they are also running an ad for your newsletter. Do
this consistently and you will become known in your field of
expertise and this in turn will attract subscribers (not to mention
advertisers and website visitors).
=> Joint Ventures/Co-Ops
Joint ventures or co-ops with other publishers are perhaps THE
best way to generate new subscribers over the longer term. The
trick is to team up with another publisher who publishes an ezine
to a target audience complementary to your own.
Under this type of joint venture arrangement, you provide a
mechanism for subscribers to your ezine to subscribe to your joint
venture partner's ezine at the same time. And your joint venture
partner does the same for you.
This is not the only way to run a joint venture though. For example,
you may choose instead to recommend your joint venture partner's
ezine in your welcome message to new subscribers. Or to have a
link to your joint venture partner's sign-up page at your website.
Whatever works for you is fine.
Co-ops can extend beyond a simple reciprocal subscribe arrangement
too. Contests are a great way to generate new subscribers. In
principle, it works like this. Several ezine publishers get together and
put together a package of prizes. One may offer a free copy of an
e-book, another may offer free advertising in their ezine, another may
offer a free web design consultation.
Each participating publisher lets their subscribers know about the
contest in their welcome message as well as publicizing it in their
ezines. Interested subscribers can then go off and register for the
contest at one of the publisher's websites. It is a condition of entering
the contest that the subscriber signs up for the other publishers'
newsletters, the other publishers thereby gaining an additional
subscriber.
Every month (or whatever frequency is specified in the contest rules),
each of the publishers draws one winner. Each subscriber has x
number of chances to win each month with x representing the
number of publishers participating in the contest.
=> Remind Your Subscribers to Recommend You
Once you generate sufficient subscribers, you will find that a lot of
new subscribers sign up as a result of a word of mouth
recommendation from one of your existing subscribers. Although
this kind of traffic will be kind of slow to start with (it's a numbers game,
after all), beyond a certain point, say 2-3,000 subscribers, you will find
that this becomes an increasingly frequent way for new subscribers to
find you. So be sure to remind your existing subscribers to recommend
you to their friends, family and associates!
=> Pay Per Subscriber Services
There are several excellent pay-per-subscriber services available
now. Expect to pay between 10 and 20 cents per subscriber
depending on whether it's single or double opt-in. A good service
is WorldWideLists (http://www.worldwidelists.com).
By implementing these strategies, you will have laid the foundation
for a constant and steady flow of subscribers to your newsletter.
Once you get to that point, all you have to do is concentrate on
keeping them. And that simply means producing a quality
newsletter, week in and week out.
------
** Reprinting of this article is welcome! **
This article may be freely reproduced provided that: (1) you
include the following resource box; and (2) you only mail to a
100% opt-in list.
Here's the resource box to use if reprinting this article:
------
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ...
practical home business ideas for the work-from-home
entrepreneur.
http://www.ahbbo.com/mmp/sub.cgi?AHBBO=!FLM
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4. Computer Tips Without the Geek Speak!
Taking stock of your property holdings.
Windows uses a management system that includes what's
called a 'Property Sheet' for each icon or file you see on
your computer. This is like describing the properties of a
pencil: It's cylindrical, made of wood, has an eraser at one
end, and a graphite writing tip at the other. So what are the
properties of the My Computer icon on your desktop? And how do
you find out?
Easy. Just RIGHT click the icon. In fact, you can RIGHT click
any icon or file on your computer, and a context menu will
appear. At the bottom of that menu will be the 'Properties'
item. A click there and you'll bring up the associated Property
Sheet for that item. Try it. You'll discover a lot of info about
your computer's files this way. Instead of calling it a 'Property
Sheet' you could call it a 'Property Window' if you wanted to.
Whatever. :-)
------
Tips by Tom Glander and Joe Robson of The Newbie
Club. The best Newbie Site ever to hit the Web.
http://newbieclub.com/?start_here
Cut through the Information Overload! I WILL HELP YOU.
http://cc.fastresponse.net/3714/ LEARN to Earn TODAY!!
5. Motivational Tip For The Day
© 2001 Jan Tincher
Your brain works in pictures. See what you want so it can bring it
to you.
Do you *wish* you had a better job?
Do you *wish* you had more money?
Do you *wish* you had more energy?
Your brain works in pictures. *Wishing* is not a picture. *Wishing*
is so far out there, your brain doesn't even recognize it. *Wishing*
is just saying something like, *Oh, I wish I could do, have, be . . .*
Picture having what you want. Then maybe your *wishes* will
come true.
------
Learn unique strategies and techniques for personal success
from Jan Tincher online at http://www.TameYourBrain.com
While you're there, sign up for her free e-zine *Tame Your Brain!*
6. Subscription Management
Please note: email addresses for ALL returned mails are
automatically deleted from the AHBBO subscriber database.
If you have a free email account and want to continue
receiving this ezine, please make sure you clear out your
mailbox on a regular basis!
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If you find this newsletter valuable, please forward it
in its entirety to your friends, family and associates!
7. Caveat Emptor
Although all of the information presented in AHBBO is
published in good faith, neither the publisher nor the
editor accept any responsibility as to the accuracy or
otherwise of the information presented. By making use of the
information contained in AHBBO the reader assumes all risk
that certain information may prove to be incorrect.
All advertisements are accepted in good faith. However,
advertisers are solely responsible for the content and
accuracy of their classified advertisements and no
warranties are given, nor responsibility accepted, by the
editor or the publisher in relation to any classified
advertisement appearing in this publication. ALWAYS carry
out your own due diligence!
8. Contact Information
Elena Fawkner, Editor
A Home-Based Business Online
Contact By Email
http://www.ahbbo.com
All Rights Reserved