Hello. My name is Dina Giolitto, I’m a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant and the owner of Wordfeeder.com.

I started the Entrepreneur’s Breakfast blog because I was feeling topically-challenged by the niche-specific nature of my other blog, Copywriting on the Fly. After five years of managing a business online, I feel I’m more than qualified to offer advice that goes beyond copywriting and into the areas of outsourcing, online business, customer relations, website marketing and blogging.

That’s the purpose of the Entrepreneur’s Breakfast - a single serving of knowledge to nourish your business and start your day off right.

Allow me to explain “The Entrepreneurs” listed in the sidebar of this blog, in case anyone is confused by that. These are people who I know personally, admire for their entrepreneurial spirit, and would wholeheartedly recommend to trust with your projects and your business. Some of these people function as “online associates,” some have become friends, some I’ve had just a brief brush with but I was nevertheless impressed by them, and some are or have been clients or consultants of Wordfeeder.com.

All are completely scrupulous, high-minded individuals whom I greatly respect and admire for their talent, skill, drive and integrity. I’ve listed them here not to show off how many people I know, but to give you a gentle push in a good direction if you, too, are perpetually in the market for great business contacts.

Of course, not everyone who you come across in the freelance and online business markets will live up to your expectations. I could have created a blog of people to avoid, but what would that get me other than negative attention?

Don’t forget to stop by for your daily Entrepreneur’s Breakfast.

- Dina at Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing

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Dogs and bees, and freelancers, can smell fear. As someone who writes copy and produces marketing materials on a freelance basis, I can tell within five minutes of talking to a potential customer whether their fear of being overcharged will set the tone for our work together. I can also assure you that there are ways to retain quality and get good turnaround time on projects without being run through the wringer.

Some facts and suggestions on how to get the most bang for your outsourced buck:

Know that the freelancer is just as interested in being quick and efficient as you are.

People who are new to outsourcing might view me (the copywriting consultant) as someone who would try to milk them out of their last dime while dragging the project on forever. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Established freelancers typically juggle multiple projects at once. It makes much better business sense for us to complete two projects for two happy clients in two days, then deliver one project for one client in two days and have that client feel uneasy about the amount of time we spent on their work.

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I’m currently in the middle of trying to figure out why my client’s email newsletter looks strange when viewed in some versions of Outlook and in Gmail. So I Googled “sending html emails in gmail” (but I didn’t put it in quotes).

Up came this phenomenal article from MailChimp.com with information so specific they should be charging money to let people read it.

I’m going to paste the beginning here and then let you click to read the rest.

(By the way, their use of “How” and “How to” in the title and subtitle is enough to send this copywriter into convulsive fits… but I’ll let it pass because the rest of the information is just so superb.)

How To Code And Send HTML Email Campaigns and Newsletters
How HTML email works, basic concepts, best practices, tips and tricks

Want to learn how to code your own HTML email campaigns? You’ve probably Googled all kinds of web pages that give you countless “what works, what doesn’t” charts. They tell you which CSS definitions break, how Lotus Notes never renders HTML properly, and how Outlook can’t send email campaigns right.

But instead of focusing on specific tactics, let’s go over some fundamental principles…
Prerequisites

One thing I have to stress is that in order to code your own HTML email, you really, really, really need to know how to code HTML. You should be able to code web pages “from scratch” without the help of any WYSIWYGs (like Front Page, or even DreamWeaver). If you’re that good, then you really don’t need to worry about a million little rules (like what CSS definitions work in this email program, but not in that email program). Just being able to understand “the fundamentals” will save you a lot of time and frustration.

Continue reading this article

This tip courtesy of Dina at Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing

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Admit it: if you’re a freelancer or online business consultant, sometimes you let prospective clients fall through the cracks. Let’s say, for example, that a friend of a friend contacts you with a vague request for your services. You mean to reply and ask them to be clearer on their needs. But time slips away and before you know it their email is at the bottom of the heap along with that Cialis spam that you meant to delete two months ago.

Even if you always manage to snap up the hot prospects… forgetting, procrastinating or blatantly ignoring the less than stellar ones is bad policy. It lets others know that you’re not walking the talk you spout regularly on your blog… and it’s just an un-smart way to do business.

Let’s review some possible reasons why you’re not answering every query that comes your way:

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RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an amazing tool. Through it, people can subscribe to your blog or other feed and get updates from your website, without having to take the extra step of seeking you out.

Most people who are writing and/or reading blogs already know about and are using RSS. You may be doing so yourself. But did you know that you don’t have to have a blog to use RSS? And that there are several creative ways to integrate RSS into your business to increase sales, enhance organizational needs and increase productivity? Here’s how:

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The short answer is yes, but only if used properly.

When I began my online writing career the trend with keywords weighed heavily in favor of putting as many relevant keywords into your copy as possible. This was great for search engine rankings, but made for awkward - if not impossible to read- copy.

Thankfully, search engines today don’t favor pages that are stuffed with keywords, and the practice can even get you banned.

So how, and where, do you use keywords so that you get good search results while still retaining copy that people want to read?

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Not everyone in the world has a high-speed internet connection, and even those who do can’t always see web pages where the images are larger than 30KB.

So if you’ve noticed that sometimes it takes longer than you’d like for your site to load; or, if you’ve observed a high bounce rate (you get clicks, but visitors leave quickly), it may be because you need to shrink your image files.

You don’t have to shrink the actual width and height of your images to reduce the size of the files. What you can do instead, is export them to a compressed size - a .jpg or .gif file. I know how to do this in Adobe Fireworks (this is the image editing program that comes with the Dreamweaver suite). If you use other programs such as Photoshop or Gimp, you’ll have to maybe do a Google search on “image compression.”

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It doesn’t matter if you’re a Fortune 500 exec or a one-man freelancing show. There will be times when you look at companies whose services compete with yours, and your stomach will sink into your shoes.

How can you possibly live up to that, you wonder, gawking at what is clearly The Cleverest Ad Ever Written, or enviously scanning hundreds upon hundreds of comments on a blog that isn’t yours.

I’m here to tell you that just because your nemesis appears to be the best thing since sliced bread right now, it does NOT mean that you should throw up your hands and throw in the towel.

What it means is you’ve got to USE those jealous pangs to your creative advantage. Some tips and reminders from a copywriter who refuses to see success as a popularity contest.

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…they’re for careers, too.

Career Coach Hallie Crawford’s Identifying Your Purpose Teleclass kicks off May 7

Moving forward with personal and career goals can be tough if you’re unsure about what you really want. If you…

• Are seeking greater fulfillment in your current career but don’t know how to make it happen
• Have areas of your life where you feel “stuck” (like a hamster on a wheel – running frantically but getting nowhere)?
• Are completely lost about what you want to do in your career or have so many career ideas in your head that you can’t choose just one

…then Hallie’s Identifying Your Purpose Teleclass is for you.

Kicking off May 7, 2008, this sought-after program is a 6-part interactive group teleclass that includes 3 calls per month for 2 months. Participants have unlimited email access to Career Coach Hallie Crawford for extra guidance.

As an added bonus, participants receive a copy of the e-book, Unlocking Your Purpose and audio recordings of Jumpstart Your Career, Achieving Work/Life Balance and Emotional Freedom Technique Teleclass.

With a cost of just $500, this is an unprecedented opportunity to get your career and life on track and running smoothly toward success and fulfillment.

Spots are limited so reserve yours today!

Click here for additional information and registration.

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Sundays come all too soon for busy entrepreneurs like myself. Didn’t I JUST create this blog? Sheesh.

Today’s link buffet lineup, for your reading pleasure:

Copywriting legend Bob Bly, for displaying a bit of un-Bly-like snark on his post, DM Dead? Not by a long shot.

Mark from Productivity 501 posted some tips for getting the most from your Large Sized Monitor.

(Yes, if you work on the internet, size DOES matter. D’oh! I want to say that my monitor is 21 inches but I’m really not sure and I don’t have a tape measure handy. I know it’s big, yet not big enough. And yes, I do shrink my resolution and make windows smaller as Mark suggests. Fact is, I’d be a lot cooler if I were on a Mac.)

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends appeals to the artist that lives inside us all with her story about Wilson Ng, the tech-writer-turned-cartoonist.

Over on Lockergnome.com, a blogger known as “Outsider” gives GoDaddy.com the thumbs down for selling his domain out from under him with no warning.

(I’m inclined to suggest to this fellow that maybe he opened his GoDaddy.com user account with an email address that he doesn’t check very often? Or, perhaps he signed up using an active email address but then MOVED? This is the reason why I open new hosting accounts with a Yahoo email address, even though my host, PowWeb.com, suggests that’s a bad idea. But what do they know?)

That’s all for Sunday. The copywriter is about ready for a nap.

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