?Renewal rates are a function of the quality of the editorial? is common advice among specialized information publishers.

It?s the truth. But it?s not the whole truth. There are 5 factors affecting your renewal rates, and the quality of the publication is only one of them ? albeit the most important one.

The 5 factors are, in order of importance (though I admit the priority is debatable):

1?Editorial ? If subscribers enjoy the newsletter and find it valuable, they will renew. If they don?t, they won?t.

And by ?valuable,? we don?t mean just good writing and good content. We mean actionable news, advice, or ideas that generate an ROI equal to many multiples of the subscription price.

2?Price ? Your subscribers want to feel they are getting a substantial discount on their renewal, preferably your lowest available rate.

You can often move some subscribers to renew now instead of later by dropping hints that the low renewal rate is a special one-time offer that may soon expire.

3?Market ? The conditions in your market can have a drastic impact on renewal rates.

Example: b-to-b newsletters earning substantial revenues from corporate site sales suffer when a recession or industry downturn causes major subscriber companies in their market to cancel subscriptions, either from cost-cutting measures or bankruptcy.

4?Acquisition promotion ? Am I saying the acquisition promotion can have a greater effect on renewal rates than the renewal promotions?

Yes. Reason: the acquisition promotion sets up certain expectations in the subscribers.

An acquisition that boosts front-end response through exaggeration or misrepresentation of what the publication actually delivers runs the risk of lowering renewal rates on the back end.

5?Renewal promotion ? Some marketers believe renewal copy makes little or no difference in renewal rates, and for them, it may.

But many other marketers get significant lifts in renewal rates by creating and mailing strong renewal efforts.

Eddie, a service technician from my phone company, was here today fixing my fax line.

“It seems to be working now.” the repairman told me. “Do you have any way of testing it?” he asked, which seems an odd thing for HIM to be asking ME.

“Why don’t you have your office send me a fax?” I asked him, not really understanding why this did not occur to him.

But I soon found out….

“We don’t offer that service,” he replied.

Huh? I beg your pardon — WHAT service?

Is he seriously saying that the PHONE COMPANY, of all companies, does not have the capability or the willingness to send me a ONE PAGE FAX to test their own repair work?

I told him I had never heard anything stupider, and to my surprise and delight, he agreed.

“But here’s my cell,” he said, handing me a number. “If you have a problem, call me anytime. I am almost always in the neighborhood and can be here in a flash.”

My conclusion?

Eddie did a smart thing: going around a stupid policy to make a good customer happy.

As for his employer, the phone company … they wonder why everyone you speak to in my town hates them.

Now maybe they know why….

The other day one of my customers, a 72-year-old man, said to me: “I refuse to deal with anyone who isn’t 40 or older.”

When I asked why, he explained: “The younger generation thinks completely differently than my generation. I can’t understand them or relate to their values.”

I get what he is saying and have applied this principle to my copywriting to some extent: I tend to write only for audiences who are either like me or to whom I can relate.

I write to “grumpy old men” (males age 50 plus) because I am one.

I write to IT professionals because I have been trained as one, though did not actually work in IT.

I write to doctors because, even though I am not one, I share their interest in science and can relate to them.

I write for parents, because I am one.

I do not write for fashion, because I do not care about clothes.

I do not write copy for products aimed primarily at teens, because even though I have two, I am not one.

How about you?

Do you think people in your generation think and behave fundamentally the same as the generations before and after yours?

Or do you think the generation gap is so strong that different generations have entirely different mindsets?

Do you primarily market products for whom the target prospect is YOU?

Or do you enjoy the challenge of selling to buyers of different ages, education, and backgrounds?

Another dozen inviolate rules of business: Are there any you would quibble with, or others you would add?

1?If you are a self-employed service provider, you can only bill for about 50% to 60% of your time. The other hours in your day are spent on non-billable tasks, including running your office, self-education, and marketing.*

2?If you sell through affiliates, 99% of your affiliate sales will come from 1% of your affiliates ? your ?super affiliates.?

3?These ?super-affiliates? should be treated as if they are your best customers ? since in a sense, they are. You should not ignore your other affiliates. But the reality is, those other affiliates will contribute virtually nothing to your revenues.

4?It costs 10X more to acquire a new customer than it does to make another sale to an existing customer. Yet most businesses focus on getting new customers to the exclusion of marketing to existing customers.

5?A customer who is mistreated or receives bad service will tell at least 5 other people.*

6?Instead of increasing your marketing efforts on products that don?t sell, you should increase your marketing on your best-selling products to make them sell even better ? or as David Ogilvy said, ?Back your winners.?

7?Robert Allen is right: your business needs multiple streams of income. If you have a single profit center and that profit center dries up, so does your income.

8?To profitably market a product through direct response, online or offline, the price of that product should be at least 8 times the cost of goods.

9?To make money online, sell lots of different products. In Internet marketing, if your goal is to make $500,000 a year, it is easier to do it with 50 web sites generating $10,000 a year each than with one web site generating half a million dollars a year.

10?Whether your goal is generating leads or orders, always offer a free bonus report or other free gift. Doing so typically increases response rates between 10% and 100%.

11?Set up your business so you can travel if you want to, but you don?t have to — ever. Few things impinge on your personal time and freedom faster than constantly being required to hop on planes at other people?s beck and call.

12?Those who position themselves as thought leaders in their fields through speaking and writing are more in demand and make more money than those who are not perceived as recognized experts in the same discipline.

*=Thanks to David Krehbiel.

Here are 12 business principles I believe to be inviolate. Are there any you disagree with? Any missing that you would add?

1?The bulk of your profits will be made on the ?back end? (repeat sales to existing customers), not the ?front end? (the first sale to a new customer). Therefore, creating and selling a single product with no back-end is almost never profitable.

2?The Internet is the least effective way to market (i.e., most people don?t respond to online marketing), but it is the most efficient (i.e., because it?s so inexpensive, even a small response rate can make your promotions very profitable).

3?Simple ideas are better than complex ideas.

4?Ideas are a dime a dozen ? everyone has them, all the time.

5?Ideas without action are worthless.

6?Action creates business success, yet 99% of people never act on their ideas.

7?If you create a base of 10,000 loyal fans who each spend a hundred dollars a year with you, you will gross a million dollars a year.

8?You do not need a lot of money to launch a successful business today: the low cost of doing business on the Internet reduces your risk to easily manageable levels.

9?If you do not have a lot of money to launch your business, then you must invest a lot of your time to make it happen. You cannot start and build a successful business with neither time nor money ? you need one or the other.

10?Profitability is determined by the formula: P = S ? E: Profits equal sales minus expenses. Too many businesspeople focus on increasing S (sales), when they could be getting an equal profit boost by reducing E (expenses).

11?The ultimate measure of marketing success is ROMD ? return on marketing dollars. For every $1 spent on marketing, how much did I generate in revenues? (e.g., My e-mail marketing has an ROMD of $75 in revenues per dollar spent).

12?If you cannot accurately measure ROMD, you do not know whether your marketing is worthwhile or not. You may have a strong FEELING that it is worthwhile, and you may be right. But you don?t know.

It?s a small point, I know, but it really irks me.

The other day, I called my doctor to cancel and reschedule an appointment.

?Can you call me back in 10 minutes?? the receptionist asked me.

What she should have said was: ?Can I call YOU back in 10 minutes??

I am the customer. She is the vendor. Her job is to serve me. Not the other way around.

By asking me to call her back, she was in effect taking the responsibility off her shoulders and putting it onto mine ? the exact OPPOSITE of what you should be doing for your clients.

I know I am a crabby old man, but there is a slacker attitude that pervades the American work force today, and what I have described is an all-too-common occurrence.

I won?t lose sleep over it, but I can?t help being irritated.

Does this receptionist need a refresher course in customer service?

Or should I, as my teenage boys frequently advise me, take a ?chill pill??

I was shocked the other day when I responded to an offer from my friend Joe Vitale.

It took me to his web site and a free article he had posted there.

But what shocked me was the copy above it.

It said (and I am paraphrasing): ?If you like my free articles, why not reciprocate by buying Joe his favorite gift, a gift certificate to Amazon.?

I haven?t fully processed this (to me) unsettling and bizarre request, so I can?t tell you yet whether I think it makes sense or is distasteful to me or wildly inappropriate.

I can?t imagine that anyone reading my free blog or newsletter or articles would feel a desire to reciprocate by buying me something ? and I don?t think they should.

But what if I am wrong?

Occasionally I have received gifts from people I have helped with my advice.

One baked me a cake. Several sent me gift certificates for fancy restaurants.

While I obviously like to eat (you?ve seen my photo), I don?t want these things.

If you are irresistibly compelled to do something nice for me, there?s nothing I like more than getting an e-mail or post from a reader telling me that they enjoyed and were helped by something I wrote.

If you feel absolutely compelled to spend money thanking me, I would much rather you make a donation to the American Cancer Society (ACS) in whatever amount you wish.

My father, whom I adored, died of cancer at 70, so the work of the ACS is particularly meaningful to me.

And given that one in three Americans gets cancer, and my wife has it now, our donations help fund research that may save our lives (or the lives of our kids or grandkids) some day.

Thanks!

Here are 12 truths governing (as I see it) the state of the freelance writing profession today. Do you agree? Disagree? Are there any you would add to the list?

1?There is a lot of competition. When there it is a lot of competition in a market, it becomes a buyer?s market, which puts downward pressure on the prices you can charge.

2?A lot of your competitors are amateur writers who just want to get published ? and therefore will happily write for free what you want to get paid for.

3?The Internet has accelerated the decline of many types of freelance writing from a profession into a hobby.

4?The scarcer something is, the more you can charge for it. Therefore, you can make more money by writing about subjects that most other amateur and professional writers avoid.

5?Most writers gravitate toward topics they can write off the top of their heads or from quick online research (e.g., leadership); consequently, the pay scales are low.

6?If you choose a topic that is just a little bit technical or complicated or a little less well known (e.g., managing inventory in retail stores), the number of competitors decreases and your fees increase almost exponentially.

7?Clients will initially pay writers decent fees to provide writing in areas that are hot or trendy (e.g., blogging, social networking), but the pay scales quickly plummet when other writers discover the niche and jump into it.

8??Write what you know? is old advice but can give you a huge advantage as a writer ? providing you know something others will pay to read about.

9?Don?t study creative writing or marketing in college; study a subject you can specialize in and write about (e.g., economics, computer science).

10?Getting some real-world experience in the topic you want to write about can greatly enhance your marketability and increase your fees. For instance, if you want to write about precious metals, become an active investor in gold and silver.

11?Any time the client can make more money from what you write for them than they pay you to write it, you can charge high fees. This is why direct response copywriting is so lucrative.

12?Internet information buyers will pay little or no money for content from a writer, but lots of money for content from a recognized expert. So you should take steps to establish yourself as a guru in the subject you write about.