When I first started creating, writing and designing companies’ e-newsletters, we simply adapted the format we marketers had used for print newsletters. Now, however, with a huge proliferation of e-mail marketing out there, we have to be more strategic. Here are three quick tips for making your e-mail marketing work:

1. Build your list slowly. The print newsletter model allowed us to mass-mail, but that is heavily frowned on in the e-mail world. Instead, slowly build an opt-in list of people who actually want to hear from you.

2. Avoid graphics. This is hard for me to say, since I love graphics, but with so many handheld devices acting as people’s main form of e-mail retrieval, graphic-heavy e-newsletters can actually work against you. Stick to simple text, and you have a better chance of getting your e-mail read while someone is waiting for their flight or sitting in a doctor’s office.

3. Keep it short and simple. This is also hard for me to say, since I love to write, but there simply isn’t time in the day to read all of the information that passes through our e-mail boxes. Use bolding and bullets so that your readers can quickly skim your e-newsletter.

Virginia Ginsburg is an entrepreneur and business & marketing consultant who delivers strategic, affordable marketing services through her company accordionmarketing. She also writes a blog called Body > Mind > Business, which discuses the connection between business health and personal health, and the struggles she faces in pursuit of work-life balance. Virginia has an MBA from the University of Southern California and is currently (slowly) pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology at UCLA. She has more than 12 years of experience as a senior marketing consultant, and has served as a trusted partner, coach and consultant to more than 100 sole proprietors, partnerships and corporations. 
Virginia lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and daughter. As part of her passion for working with entrepreneurs, Virginia is actively involved in small business development projects in the U.S. and in developing countries.

Here are the three most commonly asked questions about Twitter:

1. What the heck is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social-messaging tool for staying connected in real-time. It is sometimes called a “micro-blogging service” that enables its users to send and read other users’ short (140-character) updates, known as tweets.

2. Why should I use it?
The jury is out on this, but proponents say it’s a great way to begin and maintain a direct dialogue with your customers. This value really depends on your customer base, though and whether they are on Twitter and following you. At the very least, when done correctly, Twitter can increase your search engine visibility, but again, this only matters if your customers are the type of people who are searching for you online.

3. How can I get started?
The best thing to do is to sign up for a Twitter account (it’s free) and start following some other people on Twitter. Start with any friends or colleagues you know who are already on Twitter (I’m @virginiagins), then check out Twellow - the Twitter directory for people in your field or industry to follow. Once you have a feel for how/what people tweet, dive in and give it a try!

Virginia Ginsburg is an entrepreneur and business & marketing consultant who delivers strategic, affordable marketing services through her company accordionmarketing. She also writes a blog called Body > Mind > Business, which discuses the connection between business health and personal health, and the struggles she faces in pursuit of work-life balance. Virginia has an MBA from the University of Southern California and is currently (slowly) pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology at UCLA. She has more than 12 years of experience as a senior marketing consultant, and has served as a trusted partner, coach and consultant to more than 100 sole proprietors, partnerships and corporations. 
Virginia lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and daughter. As part of her passion for working with entrepreneurs, Virginia is actively involved in small business development projects in the U.S. and in developing countries.

Since I just wrote about Starbucks, I thought I should update everyone with the latest business news from the company. Fiscal second-quarter profit dropped 77%. Why? Because the company is going through a major restructuring and closing 123 U.S. stores.

I love Starbucks, but I wonder if this has anything to do with its faster-than-light global expansion. Perhaps even more damaging is the weak economy and McDonald’s latte launch:

“Over the past 18 months, McDonald’s has been steadily introducing lattes, cappuccinos and mochas in individual markets across the country. Some 80% of the company’s 14,000 U.S. stores now sell these drinks, and this week McDonald’s will roll out a national advertising campaign trumpeting the McCafé section of its menu.” Full story: TIME magazine

ATTENTION: You can get rich quick online with no investment and in no time at all!!! I did it and you can, too!

It’s amazing to me how many people I’ve met recently who have been scammed online by the very same type of marketing schemes we saw on TV in the 1980s and 90s. “Get Rich Quick” schemes, wherever they are marketed and whatever they entail, might work .01% of the time, for .001% of the population, but it breaks my heart to see so many desperate people getting scammed and losing their money and their self-confidence when the promises simply don’t come true.

This is like the weight loss industry promising that you can lose 20 lbs in two weeks without diet or exercise. Even if it were physiologically possible, it could not possibly last.

Lasting success is based on behavior, not trickery. No quick scheme in the world, whether for making money or losing weight, will be successful in the long-term unless you learn to incorporate daily behaviors (habits) that will maintain success.

Sometimes ideas come gently, and sometimes they smack you on the side of the head like a tidal wave.

I have been working on an idea recently that is so big and beautiful that it has shaken me up considerably. Usually when this happens, I move as quickly as I can to get the idea implemented. I am always about action, action action. The thrill and adrenaline of action towards a big idea is heady and intense. Sometimes though, it feels as if I’m rushing, always racing towards the next idea as soon as the last one loses its luster.

With this new idea, I’m nurturing it slowly. Letting it percolate and build. Allowing it to gradually develop in my head before committing to any action on its behalf. It’s truly the strangest, most beautiful experience I’ve ever had with an idea!

How do you handle ideas? Do you race to implement them before you can see any obstacles and get disappointed? Do you consider the obstacles and drop the idea out of fear? Do you slowly consider each obstacle and weigh it against the potential opportunity, gradually making steps forwards and backwards until you feel confident that you are ready to run?

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” – Anonymous

This brings up some important questions about marketing and advertising – is it possible to sell without expecting people to ‘lose their heads?’

The most obvious execution of this style of marketing is the infomercial (TV) and squeeze page (online). You know – those slick direct marketing campaigns that appeal to our animal instincts. They overwhelm us with clever copywriting, amazing testimonials and questionable statistics combined with a 100% guarantee to spur us into desperately needing something that only a few minutes ago we would never consider.

These campaigns are designed to suspend human intelligence and instead appeal to our animal intelligence – those deep-seated desires of needing to be part of the group, wanting bright, shiny objects, and making decisions from your gut, not your brain. These are decision-making skills that do have great value in our lives, especially when we are in danger, but they can also be easily exploited.

I have recently had some direct experiences in which intelligent, smart products and services that appeal directly to the working intelligence have failed miserably, while those that have almost no real value but appeal to the animal intelligence have flourished.

As marketers and as consumers, we must wonder sometimes who is really in charge: the sophisticated human, or the tribal animal.

Do you have a life plan?

Although I’m very goal-oriented, I have always had a really hard time setting long-term goals. They feel so fantastical and even a little silly sometimes. It also seems to me like setting firm goals can put you stubbornly on the wrong path sometimes.

I heard someone talking about goals (again!) last week, and it finally sunk in that my goals don’t have to be concrete. They also don’t have to be perfectly clear. I also realized that I do have long-term goals, it’s just that because they are a little fuzzy I wasn’t really calling them goals, but ideas.

Here was his analogy: it’s like you’re in a room with a big door. You’re standing at one end of the room, and outside the door you can see an even larger room. From where you are, you can see a few details of the larger room, but not many. As you walk closer and closer towards to the door, your view of what is in the next room gets bigger and more detailed. Your view does, in fact, change, but the core elements are probably still there. Thus, your long-term goals are constantly growing in detail and size.

I tried the concept on for size and, lo and behold – recognized the long-term goals that have been with me all along.

Let me know if it works for you!

Sometimes the process of getting things done is so overwhelming. It is especially hard for me when I have a lot of little things to do. It just feels all to easy to procrastinate on them since they are each individually so small.

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you consider that the best way for me to tackle big projects is to break them down into a lot of little steps. I think the difference must lie in the perceived payoff. A large job simply has a higher perceived value than a little one. This is why when you’re tackling something large, you break it down into manageable pieces so that you don’t become overly anxious about the end goal.

But what do you do when you have lots of little things to do that don’t individually have a large payoff? How do you maintain motivation when there is no clear glory upon completion of your mini-tasks?

The psychology of delayed gratification is pretty clear: it’s much harder to achieve long-term goals than it is to achieve short-term goals that have an immediate benefit. Health is the most obvious example. That hour that I spent in the gym yesterday is just part of the daily health activities that I need to undertake to maintain a healthy body. But it’s not as if I come home and my cholesterol levels and pant size have instantly dropped. In fact, with health, most of the time the small steps that we need to take can be a little painful at the time and/or immediately afterward.

So – back to reality. Today I have a lot of little projects that simply must get done. None of them have an immediate payoff, and they aren’t particularly enjoyable. To handle this, I’m going to plan a mini celebration when I have completed them. I’ll go outside and sit in the sun and remember how grateful I am for the life that I have and the opportunities I face.

Let me know if you have any other ideas!

Women entrepreneurs follow a common path in terms of self-care: they tend to take care of everyone else before themselves. Such an approach is fine for a few weeks or even a few months, but we usually start to see some negative results after 6-12 months. We may start getting sick more often, or suddenly realize that we are 10 lbs heavier and have lost all of our muscle tone. Or maybe we’re just walking around angry, sad or depressed.

Such a physical and mental state is simply not good for business. We start to forget important client projects, yell at our employees, and generally perform at a lower level. That is why I’m planning the next Body > Mind > Business retreat for women entrepreneurs. It’s a chance to take time out from everyday stress and focus on the three critical elements of our success.

I firmly believe that our business health begins with our personal health. My quest for personal health is a constant up-and-down journey (as you know!). I honestly don’t know if there are any women (or humans!) out there who are always in the perfect state of balance. That would make us inhuman!

Please check out the details of our coming event – I would love to see you there!

The expression “a journey starts with a single step” is never more appropriate than when we are trying to change our selves. In fact, taking small steps is the key to making truly large changes in life. Here is a system I’ve developed based on several psychological studies on how to effect change:

1. Think of a few big goals that you want to accomplish in life; write them down.
2. Now write down mini-goals that will help you reach your big goals over the next 5, 3, 2 and 1 years.
3. Put your list away. You can revisit it in 6 months.
4. Now think of three habits that will help you reach your goals. When adding habits, I find it helpful to shoot for 10-minute increments. Usually I end up exceeding them, but I don’t have to. If one of your goals is to start exercising, don’t start by running five miles per day. Instead, start with a 10-minute walk each day. If you want to write a novel, set a goal to write for 10 minutes per day. If you want to wake up at 5 a.m., begin by setting your alarm clock back just 10 minutes from the time you currently wake up. You want to set yourself up for raging success here, so don’t get crazy.
5. Create a chart that lists the three small habits you want to add to your life. Now label days 1-30.
6. Each day, aim to “check off” all three habits.
7. At the end of 30 days, your three items will be a habit. Now pick three more and repeat the cycle.
8. At the end of 6 cycles, check in with your mini-goals and big goals. All of those small steps that you took mean that you are now well on your way to accomplishing them. Update your goals as necessary, then put them away for another six months.
9. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Based on the research I have read, there is simply no better way to consistently make progress towards your goals. Let me know if you have any additions or suggestions to this method!