With 2009 right around the corner I was reflecting on how things online are changing.

Mainly email marketing.

email marketing is powerful and should be utilized by every business minded bodybuilder, fitness or figure enthusiast.

(of course you need a website/ product/service first)

Simply send out an email to your email list and create cash on demand.

You get instant results, low cost and hopefully high response rates.

But social media (twitter.com, facebook.com, youtube.com, bebo.com, etc) is rapidly growing along with text messaging and cell phone use.

Add all of these things up and you get less effective email marketing campaigns.

People use other avenues now to communicate.

They (17 % according to my latest research) change their email address every 6 months.  This is referred to as “churn”.

As other countries catch up and get savvy to the ability to make money using the internet (not scams), we may have increased competition from our friends in other countries.

How to deal with all of this?

1) Make them fall in love with you and your products.

You’ll have a customer for life.  Follow the golden rule with your email list and treat them with respect.

2) Give something away (and often).

Give something free (tips, special reports, ebooks, water bottle, shirt, dvd, books, etc).  Whatever it is make sure that you give something of quality (not crap).

Crap will backfire.

3) Stay in touch.

Stay in touch with your email prospects and customers regularly or they will forget about you.  They signed up to your email list so send an email 2-3 days a week.  If they don’t like it, they will get off your list.

You don’t want “fence sitters” on your email list anyway.  You want action takers, service and product buyers.

Finally, root for The Longhorns in the Fiesta Bowl on January 5th!

(hey, it can’t hurt - unless of course you’re an Ohio State fan)

Happy Holidays!

Scott

P.S. My buddy Mike Pulcinella just put up a great post on our forum at www.FitnessVideoU.com expaining and showing how to shoot video the right way in your gym.  It’s in the beginners board.

No more shaky video, bad lighting and bad framing!