I learned a new word last week: gustnado. It's sort of like a tornado, but doesn't last as long, and doesn't reach up to the cloud base. We had a few blow through Grand Island, knocking down trees and trashing some mobile homes (uninhabited, thankfully) and storage units.

When a friend of mine first heard...
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Once again, it's time to publish the list of which headlines got the best open and click-through rates last month.

The rankings are calculated based on the numbers reported by AWeber for my "blog broadcast" for this blog.

Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the headline in question was at the...
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A few years ago, I had an email that I'd send out through ListDotCom twice a week (if I remembered), and, despite incredibly low response rates, it would make me $20 each time.

Not a fortune, by any stretch of the imagination, but considering that it took me all of about 30 seconds to send,...
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Even if, like me, you think astrology is a bunch of...let's call it "hooey", I'd be willing to bet that you enjoy reading it to see if it fits. In fact, you probably enjoy it whether it does or not. (If it does, it reinforces your self-image. If it doesn't, it gives you a chance...
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Back in 1990, I got a job at a Japanese travel agency to pay my way through college. From the beginning, one of the ladies in the office seemed to think that picking on me was a great way to enhance her life.

Maybe she'd liked the guy I'd replaced, and subconsciously resented me for...
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One of my most popular posts from last month (as you'll see below) was the one where I shared which of my emails from March had been opened most, and which got the most clicks through to my blog.

Here's the report for April.

Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the...
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What message do your website's visitors see immediately after they subscribe to your mailing list. "Please check your mail box for a confirmation email, and click the link"? Good, but incomplete.

What do they see in the confirmation email? A confirmation link? Good, but incomplete.

What do they see after they click the confirmation link?...
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Every time I post to this blog, an announcement goes out automatically to my mailing list, which tracks how many people opened the email and how many clicked through to read the full article.

I thought I'd start a new monthly feature here, listing the headlines that got the most people to open the email,...
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I've been taking a CERT training class at City Hall for the last month or so, learning about how to help in an emergency when the professionals haven't yet arrived or are overwhelmed.

We've learned about emergency preparation, handling small fires (including a live exercise that would have been more fun if the fire had...
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For the longest time, I only sent plain text emails to my mailing lists. Why? More out of personal preference than anything. I didn't like gussied-up HTML emails, so I didn't send them.

Also, it's easier. If you only send plain text, you don't have to bother with fancy formatting.

If you send hybrid plain...
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