Recap of the NY XPO for Business

One of the things I admire about multi-millionaires like Donny Deutsch, the advertising tycoon turned TV personality, is that they may have pot loads of money in the bank (he sold his advertising company for close to $300 million bucks) but yet they still go to work every day. As host of The Big Idea on CNBC, Donny helps others make millions too. It's "must see TV" for budding Mogulettes.

Donny was keynote speaker at the NY XPO for Business luncheon at the Jacob Javits Center this week and he stood in front of a dining room the size of a football field to give the audience a few golden nuggets of wisdom in his own charming, irreverent way.

One of the first things he said was make failure your friend, which I loved to hear because I have such fear of not doing things perfectly with my business. The biggest growth, he added, comes when we fail - we grow from the stupid things we do - it's a mathematical certainty. If you're afraid to fail you can't be great. You have to know that your product or service may bomb...but if it does, so what? He likened it to dating - if you get shot down once you go on to the next. (This month's Entrepreneur Magazine has two stories on finding success after failure: click here for more)

More of Donny's tips:
Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you are. Many entrepreneurs hire people that maybe have 5% of their own qualities. He suggests finding partners and giving them a portion of your business - as long as you keep 51% of it. Small business owners usually hang on tight to their companies - we need to let go!

About success he says do what you love. If you're passionate about what you do then it's not work. If you're not passionate about your work, then find something else!

Do it differently - if your product or service isn't unique, you can't win.

Put your money where your mouth is - show customers that you believe in yourself. People love underdogs.

Show your employees you care for them, for their success. If you root for them they'll root for you!

And finally, hate is good. You need an enemy. When you pitch to a client, tell them how you hate their competitors!

When he finished his speech I made a b-line to the front of the room to get a chance to introduce myself. Dressed in blue jeans and a sweater, Donny looked like the average (but really cute!) guy next door as he graciously listened to a long line of fans wanting to shake his hand. I literally had about 15 seconds to tell him who I was and what I did in a compelling way, and I think I did an o-k good job but there's definitely room for improvement. That's when I wished I had rehearsed Laura Allen's 15secondpitch a little more.

Laura was also at the conference (check out her batch of pictures here) giving a talk on how you can use her pitching methodology not only to introduce yourself but also when you develop your web copy. The same principles apply there as well: don't give them a laundry list - be short and to the point!

On my way out I bumped into an old colleague from my days at CNNfn, Pat Kiernan. He was making a special appearance for NY1, our local cable all-news station, where he is a familiar face every morning, delivering the morning news in his signature deadpan way. It was a thrill to see him and catch up on what some of our co-workers are doing since CNN's financial network shut down 3 years ago. (That's me next to Pat, and behind us, no - you're not seeing double - it's his life sized replica!)

Laura Allen and the 15 Second Pitch

Inspiration for a business can come from very unusual places. For Laura Allen (that's her below on the right) , co-founder of "The 15secondpitch", it came from a friend looking to meet date-worthy women. She turned her knack for connecting people into a profession. How'd she do it? Read on!

During the dot-com boom Laura worked at Cheetahmail.com, which somehow managed to survive the bust and was acquired by Experian in 2004. She'd been the first hire there so she was given a lot of freedom at the company, but eventually she got bored with the corporate structure and the rules, so in 2000 she left. Just as Laura was figuring out what to do next with her life, 9/11 happened. The internet industry was devastated, leaving behind a trail of laid-off techies. Looking for ideas on what to do next, Laura and her partner, Jim, who is a database programmer, attended a networking event in Los Angeles. It was there that they met their friend David, a good looking, single, MBA grad and fellow job seeker, who asked Laura to give him a hand meeting cute, single women at the conference. He found he got a much better response when Laura introduced him, and Laura had a ball "pitching" him to the ladies.

Jim, on the other hand, was not having much luck at networking and was thinking there had to be a better way to make connections, and when the two exchanged stories, they stumbled upon the idea for a 15-second pitch.

When they got back home they immediately checked the domain name, and finding it still available, they registered it that night.

Another problem with networking events is that you end up with a bunch of business cards, and afterwards you can't remember who most of those people are. So, they thought, why not create a card that contains a pitch which explains what their company is about? They went to work to turn the idea into a business, and spent the first two years building a website where people could create 15secondpitch cards.

Then in 2003 they decided Laura would teach a workshop on how to create a 15secondpitch. A friend in New York let her use her conference room, and she advertised her 2-hour course on a forum she found in Fast Company called "Company of Friends", that reached a few thousand people just in NY and NJ.

The event was free and about 15-20 people showed up. They each told their story and one guy shared that he'd been trying to get in touch with a VP of Coca-Cola for the past two years. Then another guy said his uncle worked there, and that he'd connect him. That's when Laura saw the power of what she calls the "third party pitch."

Heather is another of Laura's "third party pitch" success stories. She was a reporter who had perfected her "I'm a journalist" pitch, but there was only one problem - she no longer wanted to be a reporter. Her dream was to become a wedding planner. Laura advised her to keep her day job and start moonlighting on the side. They created a wedding planner pitch that same day, which she later shared with her husband. He in turn started telling his colleagues about her, and one of them had just gotten engaged, so he asked Heather to plan his wedding. Three weeks after creating the 15-second pitch Heather landed her first job through a "third party pitch"!

The other thing that worked for Heather was creating an image when describing her services. She went from saying "I'm a reporter but I want to be a wedding planner", to "I have an eye for detail so I'm starting a wedding planning business." Painting a picture in people's minds helps them understand what you do, especially with tech jobs - it's easier for people to buy into an idea if you make your pitch descriptive, giving examples, telling stories, making it rich with details.

Anyway, back to the workshops. In 2005 Laura decided to start charging for her seminars, but she needed money for marketing, so she went back into the corporate world, saving the money coming in from her day job and from teaching the seminars at night. After about a year she got laid off, with 2 weeks severance pay, plus unemployment benefits. Laura was thrilled. With the money she had put away she started marketing her monthly workshop, and shifted her business model more towards corporate clients like Merrill Lynch and non-profits like Cine Women.

The website has now gone through three major revisions, and they added a pitch wizard a year ago to automate the process of printing the pitch cards. Laura just re-launched her blog last week to focus on how to put together a killer 15secondpitch, and how to use it after you create it. In January they'll be unveiling their latest product (you heard it here first!), an e-learning platform that allows people to sign up for classes and follow at their own pace. Users will be able to create a 15secondpitch plus other related content using a tool that's partly automated and partly customized by Laura.

The 15secondpitch is used by lawyers, VC's , real estate brokers, freelancers - it's especially good for freelancers because their existence hinges on how well they can pitch, and they need to be constantly pitching new business. Marketing consultants, career coaches, college grads, financial planners - they can all benefit from it.

Here are 4 things Laura says an effective 15secondpitch should include:

1. Who you are - Tell then your name AND the name of your company!
   
   
2. What you do - avoid the "kitchen sink" pitch - don't tell your entire career history - focus on one thing and be specific. She's suggests preparing a separate pitch for everything you do.
   
   
3. Why you're the best at what you do.
   
   
4. A call to action - the crown jewel.

Ready to give it a try? Visit www.15secondpitch.com to compose your perfect pitch!

Facebook Basics

This week I finally forced myself to sit down and learn how to use Facebook. For months I've been receiving emails from my friends asking me to join their list, and I had accumulated about 36 contacts but had no idea what to do with them. So after putting it off for forever, I finally to bite the bullet.

Why am I so interested? Well I spend a lot of time networking and making contacts, so anything that lets me do this more efficiently I'll definitely be interested in. What I found is that Facebook is like networking but on steroids.

So the first thing to do when you open an account is to invite your friends, which is easy - you can import your email addresses from whatever email provider you use – they’ll receive an invitation, and once they accept they'll be on your list. Another option is to click on "Find Friends", and enter your email address and password, then you'll get a list of all the contacts you have in Outlook or Yahoo and you can simply checkmark the ones you'd like to invite.

To check on your progress you can click on the "friends" tab and you'll instantly see how many people are connected to you. When you click on your friend's profile – presto! Instant access to all their friends. You'll see where they went to school, where they’re working, where they used to work… etc.

Say you’re looking to target a specific company for business; you can look through all your friend’s and family’s contacts to see if there’s anyone connected to that company, or industry. If you want to get in touch with your friend’s friends, you can ask for an introduction or directly request to be their friend.

Facebook has something called a poke which you can send - and they're intentionally vague on its definition of this so that you can make it whatever you want it to be. Or you can send them a message. By default anyone can message anyone, but depending on your preferences you can adjust your privacy settings so that only your friends can see your profile, or only your family, or both, or you can leave it open to the Facebook universe.

On the main section of your personal page you'll find a news feed – and no, it's not world news - it's actually a constantly updating list of updates on your friends' activities on Facebook. So if they've added pictures, or joined a group, or added a new friend, it'll show up. On the right hand side you'll see birthdays, notifications, upcoming events or friend requests.

You can also put up a "wall", which is where people can randomly leave comments…if it’s your birthday your friends can leave you a little note, or if you’re sick they can leave a 'get well soon' message…or, for businesses, you could ask people to leave a testimonial for a product or service you’ve provided. (There’s also a super wall and a fun wall, which allow for added functionalities.)

If you're a small business, freelancer or solo practitioner you'll want to check out their classified section, called “marketplace”, where you can post your services or browse through "for sale" items. On a recent visit I found ads for a jazz piano teacher and a ride to Yankee stadium.

You can post an event or browse events - and check out what events your friends post or are attending.

You can post a Facebook Flyer announcing something special going on with your business. They start at $5 to display your Flyer 2,500 times and go up as you increase the run times. It will appear in your homepage but you can also post it on specific networks.

There's also a tool to create polls, and you can target Facebook users based on gender, age, school, location, or profile keyword. This is especially useful if you need to compile market data/research on a product or service.

You can join groups, or create one if you don’t find what you’re looking for (stay tuned for the Mogulette Facebook group, coming soon!). Members can add videos or pictures to the home page, and easily interact with the whole group through the group discussion forums, where you can ask the group questions and have ongoing dialogues.

For book lovers there's the virtual bookshelf where you can let people know what books you’re reading and find out their favorites.

There’s still a lot more that I need to look into, but at least this will get us started…

Here's some related articles I found on using Facebook:

12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally

How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business or Blog

How to Use Facebook Without Losing Your Job

How To Use Facebook Flyers To Get Amazing Free Demographic Information

How are you using Facebook? Please let us know!

Successful Female Entrepreneur Tells Her Story

How can a company with no business plan, no offices, and no track record become a multi-million dollar business? That's exactly what I asked Rosalind Resnick, who took her company, NetCreations, from a two-person home based startup in 1995 to a public company generating $58 million in sales. She recently addressed a group of internet entrepreneurs at an iBreakfast meeting I attended. After listening to the program director, Alan Brody, give a short introduction about her, I knew I needed to find out more, so I asked her for an interview. She graciously accepted, and I've posted the details below.

Where did you get the idea to start an email marketing company?

NetCreations started out as a Web design firm in 1995. Pretty quickly, we began to see that our clients needed more than just cool Web sites – they needed a way to get people there. We pioneered opt-in email marketing as a way to connect marketers with the consumers and business people who wanted more information about their products and services but didn’t want to waste time surfing the Web trying to find them.

Did you have a business plan?

No. We didn’t have a formal business plan until our company went public.

How much money did you start out with, and where did it come from?

We started with $1,000. My partner and I contributed the capital.

What did you use the money for?

The money was just to open our bank account. My partner was a Web designer and programmer who worked at our local ISP [internet service provider] so he had the technical skills that we needed. I was a journalist who had just written a book about doing business on the Internet so I did the sales and p.r. and brought in the clients.

What happened after that? How did the company get sooo successful in such a short time? Did you ever imagine it would grow as much as it did?

Our big break came when a circulation manager from Ziff-Davis tested our lists in the fall of 1996 and got a response far better than anything he’d ever achieved through postal mail or telemarketing. Once we realized that we were in the direct marketing business and that companies like Ziff-Davis needed to be able to mail to millions of names in thousands of different categories, we started putting together a partner network of high-traffic Web sites to build our database.

What were the most crucial factors that helped your company achieve success?

Building a partner network of Web sites that sent email addresses to our database and partnering with list brokers, ad agencies and resellers to market our lists to Fortune 1000 clients

What mistakes do you see startups making the most?

Failure to plan. While some companies fail because they lack capital, many more startups go under because their founders lack management experience or because their business models don’t add up.

What advice do you give your startup clients?

Don’t be afraid to try new things and make mistakes. As long as you learn from your mistakes, you’ll be all right.

It's interesting to see how by building a partner network you can grow your company faster and larger than just by yourself. That's definitely something that Mogulettes-in-the-making need to think about: who can refer clients to me that isn't in direct competition with me? Pet care providers can team up with pet stores, life coaches with career counselors, children's entertainers with babysitters, I could go on and on.

Rosalind is now using the valuable knowledge she gained from her experience to help small businesses become successful through her company, Axxess Business Consulting. She's also one the experts "on call" at Entrepreneur.com, where she and a handful of others answer questions related to startups. And as if that weren't enough, on top of that she writes a blog, Vest Pocket Consultant, with more information on small business. Thanks Rosalind!

Springboard Luncheon with Christie Hefner

Did you know that 3 out of 4 companies are started by women, but only 10% of venture capital funding goes to women-owned businesses? That's pretty sad. Here's another one: women own more than 50% of the wealth in the U.S., but only 8% of those funds are allocated to investing in start-up companies. If you're a small business looking for alternative ways to finance your growth, funding from private investors, aka angel investors or venture capitalists, could be an option for you.

Traditionally this segment of the market has been dominated by men, but an organization called Springboard Enterprises is changing that. For eight years this nonprofit, which was founded by Kay Koplovitz, has been helping female entrepreneurs get access to money through the equity markets, while at the same time encouraging women to invest in women-led companies.

I was lucky to have been invited to a recent luncheon sponsored by Springboard, and the key note speaker was Christie Hefner, CEO of Playboy Enterprises (below left), who gave us a fascinating account of how she got started in business. She studied law and journalism in college back in the 60's when it was all about anti-establishment, so the last thing on her mind was going into the corporate world. However, after working as a journalist for some time her dad, Hugh Hefner, urged her to move to Chicago and join his company, where she would start from the ground up. There were a great many high caliber journalists that contributed to Playboy, and the young Ms. Hefner was very much attracted to the intellectual challenges the magazine presented, so she signed on.

A few years later, during the 80's, Playboy went into financial trouble, and after a management shake-up Ms. Hefner, then just 29 years old, suggested she become president and work alongside the CEO, whom she admired greatly. Soon after taking the post, they started dumping losing lines of business and focusing on "managing for cash", keeping track of cash on a weekly basis, as opposed to quarterly as had been done in the past.

Some time later she got a call from Michael Milken, the "junk bond king", who invited her to meet with him in his offices. After asking her a few questions about the magazine, he announced he could raise half a million dollars from her. Ms. Hefner was dubious at first, concerned about taking on a heavy debt load, and not knowing exactly what to do with all that money. Milken's response: "First raise the money, then figure out what to do with it!"

That she did, first of all by seizing an opportunity in cable TV, realizing that channels could become a destination in and of themselves, as opposed to just tuning in to watch a particular show. To this day Playboy TV, which she says is targeted to couples, is in 100 million homes and is their biggest profit center. Ms. Hefner pointed out that magazines need brands and content that live beyond its pages, and they have been one of the few able to successfully take a brand into a whole new medium. Case in point: they have Playboy the magazine and Playboy the channel, unlike Time Magazine and CNN.

In 1992-93 she met Jim Clark, who had created Mosaic, which would later evolve into Netscape. Those were the early days of new media and Ms. Hefner was trying to figure out what the world wide web meant for Playboy, so she asked Jim for help. He suggested she build a site and put Playboy on the web. Playboy.com is now their fastest growing profit center, and where they monetize traffic in a variety of ways: e-commerce, international deals, social networking, etc. The internet, she says, is a transformative technology, and she quoted a few stats: 15% of newlyweds met online, and more text messages are sent and received every day than there are people on the planet.

For the future? She sees a move toward more user-generated content, which is why they've launched PlayboyU, a college-only, no nudity social network.

It was quite insightful to see how Ms. Hefner, by asking experts for help, was able to take her company to places she might not have ever envisioned. That's a big lesson for someone like me, who often thinks I can do everything myself!

That help is what Springboard's founder, Kay Koplovitz (that's me next to her on the right), offers. By putting together a team of investors for female-owned startups, Ms. Koplovitz, along with the company's president Amy Millman, has made many a dream come true for women launching their own businesses. Sounds like a familiar theme - I definitely want to follow in their mogul-ific footsteps!

Startup Camp and UnConference

I just came back from two days of intense information swapping with a couple of hundred other internet startups and I have to say I felt as if instead of New York I was actually somewhere in Silicon Valley. Labeled the "Start-up Camp: An Un-Conference" by its organizers, the event was unique in that the participants decided what topics to cover in many of the break-out sessions, as opposed to having an agenda forced upon you. Those that had a subject they wanted to discuss (me!) went to the front of the room, announced the title of the issue they wanted to cover and posted it on a large board. Anyone interested in joining the discussion would gather around at a designated area. We spent the whole afternoon going from table to table, and conversation to conversation, to chat with other business owners, and figure out solutions together.

I like this format because, in launching their own businesses, entrepreneurs usually accumulate a ton of information on various topics, so in a sense we become experts ourselves, and that allows for a very useful - and lively - exchange.

My big question was how to use online social networks (blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn or others) to market our businesses. I found out that companies online are coming up with applications, or software, they can customize to attract potential clients. One startup called 8 Coupons is looking to devise a widget that people will place on their Facebook page to let their friends and contacts know what discount coupons they're using in their neighborhood, and in that way drive traffic to their site, which offers the coupons themselves. (For more on how to use Facebook for business see Marci Alboher's recent post, and check out the November issue of Inc. Magazine to see how 5 companies are using widgets as a marketing tool - unfortunately the article isn't available online as of yet.)

Another way to use social networks is to have people leave testimonials about you on LinkedIn, or, you can respond to questions that people pose in the "Answers" section - you'll get top billing as an "expert" if you reply to enough of them. This is one subject that's evolving as we speak and it's definitely peaked my interest, so stayed tuned for updates.

From there we went on to something called "speed-geeking", which is similar to speed-dating but instead of potential partners showcasing their romantic talents, entrepreneurs tried to get 3-4 participants to "fall in love" with their business ideas for 7 minutes, at which point a horn would blow and the crew would move on to the next startup-in-waiting. I was able to see first hand which pitches worked and which didn't, and to realize that I have some work to do with regards to my own pitch...(yikes!).

There were almost two dozen hopefuls vying for the Best Startup prize, with some very innovative ideas. The winner? A company called UpNext.com (that's the creator on the left) who offers 3-D mapping of Manhattan with a social networking component. The 2nd place prize went to BricaBox.com, makers of website building software, and a company called BeenVerified, which verifies that you are who you say you are online, won 3rd place.

As I walked out I stopped by to chat for a few minutes with John Havens from BlogTalkRadio and gave him my quick thoughts on the event (click here if you'd like to listen to the 7-min. podcast).

I got home exhausted but with my head full of ideas. Get ready for Mogulette Camp!

Using blogging software to build a website

I've had a great experience using Blogger to create my blog, so when I found out I could also use this type of software to build a website, my ears pricked up. Nowadays it seems like everyone has to have their own site, so companies are scrambling to come up with ways to make programming more user-friendly, and that's good news for solopreneurs, freelancers and small business startups like us.

One of the companies my business counselor, Karen-Michelle Mirko, from the Lower Manhattan Business Solutions Center suggested I check out is SquareSpace. They have various packages to choose from but the basic one starts at 7$/month and you get a wide variety of layouts, hosting, visitor stats, and the ability to place ads with Google Adsense, so you can make money. The business packages start at $25 and also include domain mapping (that way your url will show your own domain name), polls, and a FAQ page, among other things. The only problem is tech support...they're only accessible through email - no live assistance - which might become a problem in an emergency, if people can't download your site for some reason.

Another blogging software company to consider is WordPress. It's very similar to Blogger except that they allow you to add additional pages, which Blogger doesn't at the moment. You can get your site started for free but in order to use your own domain name it's $10/ year, which is nothing. Unfortunately they too only offer email support, and they don't allow you to place ads, although they're apparently working on a premium upgrade to bypass this.

Other companies to look into: TypePad, SiteRubix and Microsoft Office Live. One caveat is that this type of software is best for service firms that are interested in generating leads. If what you want is to sell products you'll need e-commerce functionality, which is more complicated. For that you can try GoDaddy, Kingdom 247, Template Monster, or 1&1.com.

So here's a list of things I look for when deciding which programming software to choose from:

• do I like the templates they offer? can they be customized? can I change the color on their fonts and backgrounds, etc.?
  
  
• how many pages can I add?
  
  
• how many email addresses will I get? (you'll want to set up different ones to target different types of clients)
  
  
• can I place ads with Google Adsense?
  
  
• what kind of customer support do they have?
  
  
• can I use my own domain name?
  
  
• what plugins/widgets are available?
  
  
• do they offer down-loadable file backup so that I have copies of all my files?

Do you have any experience - good or bad - using website development software? Please chime in!

Branding Strategies for Your Business

Here's a question every inquiring Mogulette mind wants to know: How do I make my product or service stand out? Well, according to branding expert Romana Mirza, it all begins with you (that's her in the pictures, giving the Mogulettes a presentation). She says that a company's image is a reflection of it's owner, so one way to start is by asking yourself, what words describe me, and my business?

Take a look at Target, for example. Webster's definition of the word is "something aimed or fired at" or, "a desired goal". Brilliant! When I go shopping, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for, or "target" the products I want. The metaphor of the red bull's eye is also pretty effective, and quite unforgettable. I guess that's what branding is to me, having my product or service leave a lasting impression. Remember the old Blackglama fur ads? Glamorous women like Liz Taylor, Jane Fonda, and Carol Channing - naked, except for the black mink coat - with a caption that read "What makes a legend most?". Sexy, and fabulous. In the same way, the "Got milk" ads made drinking milk sexy, and Nike's "Just do it" made sweating sexy, and definitely unforgettable.

But for our brands to become this memorable, it takes some deep soul searching along with a heavy dose of investigative work. That's what Romana does at her recently launched brand strategy firm, Studio Pinpoint - help clients bring out what's unique about their company. She suggests focusing on three areas:

First, your work. Ask yourself: What do you do differently? What do you offer that others don't? What is your personal and unique contribution to your work? What do you want your company to stand for?

Then, your clients. Ask them: What do you think I'm about? What special qualities do I bring to the process/outcome? What did you like about our experience together?

And finally, research your competition: What's their brand positioning? Key messages? Product presentation?

Armed with this information you can then pass it along to those helping you with your marketing: logo designer, copywriter, web designer, so they can come up with a message that clearly and accurately portrays you and your product/service - to make it....memorable!

Digital Resources for Entrepreneurs

Need a little hand-holding to narrow down your target market? Are you finding it difficult to get information on your competition? You can now book a half-hour one-on-one session with a librarian at the Science Industry and Business library (remember "SIBL"? see related post), for free of course, and they'll help you with the above plus: business leads, industry research, marketing strategies, potential client lists, vendor lists, etc., etc., etc. I've already set my appointment for next week!

Also new at the library (or at least new to me!): business eBooks and audiobooks which you can download from their website and read from your computer or iPod. Here's some I found interesting:

Basic Black, The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and In Life!) (audiotape), by Cathie Black, who, as current president of Hearst Magazines, persuaded Oprah to launch a magazine.

Avon, Building the World's Premier Company for Women (eBook), about how this direct sales company, which you never seem to see anywhere, just keeps growing and growing.

The Big Book of Small Business, You Don't Have to Run Your Business By The Seat of Your Pants

Blog Marketing (eBook), by Jeremy Wright

And I only got through the "B's"!

Moving on to video, Cornell University has compiled an extensive list of video clips with entrepreneurs which is available to the public on a wide variety of topics. There's 1310 clips just on startup business planning! What's also great is they have it listed by business name and category, so you can actually choose a company in your industry and hear how they got their start, or what resources they used to get off the ground.

I read the print version of these two fascinating articles by NY Sun writer Liz Peek about women entrepreneurs but they are also happily available digitally:

Natori Celebrates 30 years at Breakneck Speed profiles Josie Natori, who started trading stocks at 22 and went on to build a fashion empire that generates $150 million in retail sales a year (one day that could be us!!)

Lulu Wang Throttles Back is a about a self made millionairess who went from rags to riches and is now cutting back on her corporate duties to follow her passion for vintage race driving.

That's it for this digital tour. 'Til soon!

Mogulette blog lands in the NY Times, again!

A big "thanks" to journalist/speaker/writing coach Marci Alboher who recently mentioned my post about Email Newsletters in her NY Times blog/column, Shifting Careers for a second time. I also received a comment from a reader on that same topic which I found useful so I'm including it here:

Another good tip for email marketing is to shorten your email to a reasonable size by including the first paragraph of a block of text, then providing a link that says "read more" which brings users to your site [you can program your software to do this by going to the "settings" section]. Not only will you keep your campaign email from turning into a monster, you can also check your hits data on your site and see how effective you mailing list campaign is. I've used hits data to fine tune my layout and announcements so that they are interesting to everyone. Multiple announcements have multiple links, so I can see which events/news were the most popular.

Do you have experience using email newsletters? Please share it!