The crash landing of a Boeing aircraft at Heathrow yesterday is the latest in a serious of plane related incidents around the world that has to call into question the safety of air travel, especially in the minds of those who are a little wary of the experience to begin with.  Despite the fact that the plane survived the landing, and only a few passengers were hurt, it’s probably still going to impact the flight industry as people begin to seriously consider whether it’s worth the gamble of something going wrong, or if they should just stay at home and protect the ozone layer instead. 

There needs to be a complete overhaul of the planes that fill our skies nowadays.  Many of them are older than anyone would probably like to admit, and no-one really knows what the lifespan of a plane really is.  The major airlines need to have a couple of replacement planes that they use and systematically ground each plane in turn, strip it down and check for wear and tear damage – starting with the oldest planes in their respective fleet.  Even if air travel isn’t as dangerous as the news reports are showing, there’s still no need for airlines to rest on the laurels of statistics, they need to be proactively ensuring that passenger safety is put above profit margins.

Finally we seem to be progressing with the site.Catherine has completely re-designed the acne prone skin pages

Government is noted for its talent in wasting taxpayers money.  But a recent report at the beginning of the year has shown that up to £2 billion has been wasted by IT projects since the turn of the millennium.  This shocking figure becomes more disgraceful when it is revealed that only a third of IT projects ultimately fulfil their roles, the rest are either rewritten or are shut down altogether.

What is more worrying is that the current administration plans to spend around £5 billion on the National ID card scheme.  With the recent scandals involved with losing a third of the countries tax details, the potential for rising costs and ultimately a disaster of massive proportions lurks ominously.  However, the government seems keen in spite of all the public opposition to carry forward with this scheme.  In many other countries, the shouts of ‘corruption’ would be heralded from the rooftops.  But in Britain, we merely shrug our shoulders and carry on. Finally we seem to be progressing with the site.Mick has finally redesigned the thread veins treatments part

The writer’s strike in Hollywood seems to be an amusing turn of events in Tinsletown for us Brits across the pond.  After all, our view of the LA film system is in summertime a bunch of remakes/action movies and in the winter, films targeted towards children.  With American television also known for its ‘repeat’ factor rather than its output of original programming, many people may think, so what?

But there is something at stake here.  The writers are the base of the creative industry.  No matter how many great actors or super directors there are out there, it is the writer that gets the ball rolling.  That amazing film started off in the mind of someone attached to a computer screen.  It went through countless rejections and then finally got picked up.  Months, even years later it is on the screen.  Usually by now the writer has been factored out of the equation, but everyone else is getting their share of the cake.

I hope the writers win the terms of their strike.  However, as big business has the deeper pockets, I do not hold out much hope for them.

---

This entry was written by Molly Darvall, she is a regular poster to London blog and Pet Haven. Molly is slowly becoming an authority on eyebag surgery . View her blog here.

When you’re using email to market your product or services your content should contain three basic elements:

1.It should be useful and/or informative for the reader

2.It should give something of value in terms of promotional offer on your product/services

3.It should low-sell your product/services

You can create the articles yourself, using themes that match up with the products you sell (without mentioning them), and which deal with issues that the people who buy your products/services are concerned with.  There are also a number of places where you can get free articles that you could use as content for your email marketing campaign.  These aren’t original but often you can use them as long as the writer’s name remains on them.  Read any small print regarding usage of the articles before sending them out in your email so that you know you’re not breaking any copyright laws.  Another idea would be to pay a writer to produce some of these for you.  This is an email newsletter so you could keep them short – perhaps a couple of 100 word tips and a 250 word short article, or one slightly longer article of 400 words and a tip.  By offering this useful information that’s related to your business area, but not selling anything, you are telling your client that you’re not just out to take their money, but you’re interested enough in them to spend the resources compiling a newsletter that they’ll find interesting.  You’re also lowering the possibility that they’re going to unsubscribe from your mailing list! 

%more%

Put all of the tip and some of the article in the email, and link back to your website so that you can get subscribers to visit the site.  You should also put a linked line that says “for more tips click here” and for more articles click here” and have these linked up to the tips and articles pages in your website.  Having an area for these (that’s not linked anywhere from the homepage or it wouldn’t be a subscriber only feature) not only means that you can get your subscribers to visit the site, but also that the search engines will recognize the content exists and that seldom hurts any site!

Each newsletter you send out ought to have some promotion attached to it that’s not given to anyone but your subscribers.  It’s like a loyalty bonus.  The thing about this is that it should only be available for a limited period of time, or be valid for only the first x number of subscribers.  The reason for this is that it creates “shortage” and people are more likely to react earlier if they think it will run out, and also your next newsletter will contain a new subscriber only offer. 

Lastly it shouldn’t be a “Buy me!  Buy me!  Buy me!” publication.  If it is, you aren’t likely to get your subscribers to read it, and any that do are likely to unsubscribe because there’s nothing of value in it.  It’s just junk mail that they signed up for, and they can soon stop that.  Your email is there to promote your products/services, but it must be in a low key way.  It’s a great way to advertising new products and link to where the subscribers can go and find out more information, but don’t use up 1000 words describing it – just give the main features and the link.  Highlight one product as your “product of the month” or product of the week” and write the key features about that product – you could even link a promotion to that buy 2 get 1 free for example.   Keep all self-promotion to a minimum – a “This email is sent to you by the friendly helpful folk at XXX” and a link to your site is enough, especially if you’re also highlighting a specific product within the email.

Email newsletters are a great marketing tool but make sure that they follow the three guidelines above and avoid becoming written infomercials that subscribers will tune out.