I sent this to the people on my email list yesterday.
I think you might find it interesting…
Well yesterday you received a very short and
rather cryptic email from me. The subject line was
“holding spot message”, and the entire body of the
message was a single two-letter word - “ho”.
Over the last 24 hours my email has generated a
mountain of responses into my inbox.
So is this the latest product launch technique?
Some new super-secret marketing trick that I have
come up with?
Ummmm… no, the answer isn’t quite that exciting.
But I do have some very interesting tactics and
data that I will share with you… but first let
me explain the reason for that email…
It was a MISTAKE. An error. A screw-up. Let me
explain..
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that I
love, love, LOVE aweber. Actually, I love
ProFollow.com even better (that’s my private label
version of aweber 
.
And as I have been using aweber over the years, I
have learned a few little tricks - things that not
exactly TAUGHT by the folks at aweber. In fact, I
don’t even know if this stuff is AUTHORIZED - but
it’s completely ethical, and these tactics allow
me to improve my conversions whenever I send
email.
Well, aweber recently came out with a brand-new
interface for their service. It makes everything
easier and faster to use, and it added some
functionality. I really LOVE the new interface.
However, there was one slight change - I don’t
want to really call it a bug, but it was a very
slight change. It used to be that you could set
the interval between your messages to any length
of time up to 999 days.
So if you wanted to save a message and have it on
“hold” for a very long time, then you set the
interval to 999 days. That gave you nearly three
years before that message would go out.
And I did that all the time. (The reason WHY I did
that is one of my little secret tricks.)
And this is where the little aweber change comes
in… right now if you save a message with an
interval of 999 days, the system will actually
save it as 4 days.
Now that I think about it, that actually *IS* a bug.
It shouldn’t do that. But it’s a very minor bug as
long as you know about it.
So THAT is why you received that weird message
from me - I created the message as a holding spot
in my sequence, and I never intended it to go out.
But aweber saved the message with a delay of 4
days instead of 999 days… which meant the
message went out to everyone. 
Oh well, things like this happen.
As I mentioned recently, I have sent over 10,000
different broadcast emails in the last eleven
years… and I have made every mistake possible,
and I’ve made most of them twice.
Along the way, I have learned one critical lesson
- your choice of WHERE you host your list is one
of the most critical decisions you will face. And
I want to make this decision easy for you - you
should use aweber. The service is superior.
(Even given this tiny little bug - I bet they have
it fixed within a day or two now that I told them
about it.)
The MOST important thing for your list is getting
your emails delivered. Take it from me… I used
to publish an update to daytraders every single
day. These people were paying a LOT of money to
get my updates before the market opened each day.
The updates couldn’t be late. The delivery needed
to be rock-solid.
And if it wasn’t, my clients had a direct number
for the phone on my desk. So I heard from a LOT of
unhappy subscribers any time there were delivery
issues. It was NOT fun when there were issues…
and I did my best to avoid delivery issues.
I tested LOTS of list hosting providers… and I
haven’t found anything that comes close to aweber
for deliverability. And their features and support
are top notch as well.
That’s why I invested the big bucks to get a
private label version of aweber. I figured if I
was going to be an evangelist for them, then I
might as well make a few bucks along the way.
So what I’m doing is setting up some bonus videos
that show those extra secrets that I’ve figured
out.
(Actually, I didn’t think these things were THAT
big a deal… but when I showed a couple of
friends recently they got REALLY excited. So I
figured they must be pretty cool. I sure as heck
know that 99.99% of the email publishers out there
DON’T know this stuff.)
In any case, here is the link to my private label
version of aweber… it’s called ProFollow.com
If you sign up, then you will get access to my
bonus training videos that show all my super-secret
ninja aweber tricks.
And if you don’t want to sign up… well now you
know the story behind my weird little email.
best regards,
Jeff
P.S. Here is one other thing. I mentioned that I
received a TON of email from people asking about
my “mistake” email. Guess what I did? I responded
personally to ALL of them.
Many of those individual replies were mostly cut-
and-paste after I wrote the first couple, but
everyone got a direct personal reply. It took me a
bit of time, but I *know* that is exactly the type
of thing that builds relationship.
Do you take the time to do this with your list?
I think you should. I have built HYPER-responsive
lists in many markets… and THAT is the type
of thing that does it. Sure, it’s a little extra
work, but the payoff is HUGE.
P.P.S. If you wrote to me and I did NOT reply,
then your email probably got filtered. Sorry. 
P.P.P.S. Aweber is the BEST list host. Actually,
my private label version of aweber is even BETTER…
check in out now: ProFollow.com