I have to admit that this is a marketing experiment which was triggered by listening to one of my favourite weekly radio shows presented by Danny Baker.  His programme consists to a large extent of people ringing in with anecdotes on certain topics or questions set at the start of the show. 

One guy was describing how, as a kid, he had been given a David Nixon Magic Set (popular magician some 40 - 50 years ago here in UK).  Inside the box he had discovered various paraphernalia of wizardry such as magic wands, bits of string, cards etc.  Most fascinating of all though was a central closed in boxed area which in bold writing had the words 'DO NOT OPEN'.  The caller posed this question - and you have to remember this magic set was very popular and many thousands were sold - "was he the only person in Britain who had NEVER OPENED that closed in secret box?" 

That is incredible behaviour in fact, and I suspect he WAS the only one.  I had one of those sets as a child and I must admit I opened it (I am sorry to say I can't remember what was in it or what the catch or joke was).

Now - Adam and I are in business and we try, like all businesses to establish a rapport with our readers.  One of the important things to us is getting you - dear reader - to open our e-mails and hopefully see all of the wonderful things we get up to here. 

One thing that I check each week is the open rate of this weekly ezine.  We usually hover between 15% and 20%.  That may sound low to you but in fact is a good open rate on the internet for a newsletter. 

There are marketing books that devote whole chapters to how to improve your chances of people opening your messages and of course the key is the wording of the title of the e-mail.   I know I am personally very selective about what messages I open and it is all governed by a glance through the titles.

There are many approaches to improving the open rate - but sorry to say that negative headlines are hard to beat.  Our best open rate to date was an e-mail that we sent out entitled simply 'Bad News!'  That was opened by nearly 40%.  The downside to that though is that the title has to match the content - so there has to be bad news to report or your credibility will be down the pan and another statistic will follow - a huge surge in people unsubscribing from your list.

So - today's title is a test to see what open rate there is for 'Do Not Open!'  Will it beat 40%

I will let you know next week what the stats are today.  

Anyway if you are reading this I thank you for coming in and hope that we will be chatting with you regularly.

Inevitably, as Adam isn't writing this today the focus is completely different and I thought I would give you a behind the scenes - from our perspective type of view - of what we are trying to do here.  One of my daily tasks is to check our Support Desk and it is by looking into what people are asking that we find out what we need to do to meet your needs.

There have been some questions recently that have made me realise that we need to make it clearer all that we do.  We get so immersed in just doing things that we don't always appreciate that the very people that we are trying to communicate with don't know of the existence of the service in the first place.

So what I am putting together here today in Adam Up will in fact be the starting point for a better guide of all the things that we try to do for our clients or potential clients.

Not only will I show you around but I will attempt to explain our rationale and where we are heading with all of this.

TIP  I will also add some tips along the way - there is for example a way to buy any of Adams audios at half price.  It is only people who read our Adam Up ezines carefully that find these things out.

So Let's look around...

At the heart of this business is The Adam Eason School Of Hypnotherapy and this website is designed to help you to get to know Adam, his credentials, philosophy, personality and general outlook on life.

In particular the blog on this website is very revealing about Adam's evidence based, cognitive behavioural approach to hypnosis.  If you are interested in hypnosis and learning more - Is he a good match?  Would you like to learn with him and his school. 

The website has been unchanged for some time now and I have on my 'to do' list a revamp soon but I still think that if fulfills what it sets out to do in it's present form.  Through the site we try to identify and attract people who want to study the subject further and we do that by giving away a couple of audios which is how most people find themselves on our mailing list and receiving these Adam Ups.

You can of course find all the seminars and course information.

Why have I put this next?

This is something that both Adam and myself are really proud of and took an amazing investment in time and effort to put together.  However we are convinced that it is one of the resources that sets us apart as a Diploma and Hypnosis Education Centre. 

Within this Platinum membership area there are over 200 hours of video and audios with more added all the time.  We have recorded complete Diploma Courses (obviously minus the practical sessions) and the evidence based Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy course. There are one off seminars on a variety of topics.  The content is added to and updated all the time.  This is a massive learning resource that helps Adam's students in their course work.  This is for people who want to get seriously geekish about the subject of hypnosis - like Adam.

TIP:  One year membership is offered free to all students of the school and discounted Life Membership at the end of the course..

Here is a totally FREE community forum open to anyone interested in learning more about hypnosis.  The membership is controlled by moderators and no abuse will be tolerated. You will have to wait to be approved when you register an interest and that usually happens within 24 hours.  People joining who offer no profile picture or basic information about themselves will be a member long.  It is a place for genuine people to feel safe to ask questions or comment about hypnosis and we are determined to keep it secure and used by people who identify themselves properly.

We welcome healthy debate about topics as long as the comments are controlled and don't get personal.  We have been known to black list people who didn't keep within the rules.

The majority of members are hypnotherapists at this time but I emphasise that you only have to have an interest to join.  There are some great helpful people on the Hub and you should feel free to join and ask your questions if you have any.

TIP: Hub Members can get a discount code that entitles them to half priced products from our Hypnotic Store.  The discount works even if the product has been discounted already in the store.  So if there is a half price promotion in the store a Hub Member could halve it again.  Good huh!

This website does what it says on the can.  This is a blog site where Adam is able to indulge in writing and talking about his other passion - running.
There are plans afoot to have a podcast shortly which you will be able to listen to while out running.
TIP:  There is now a brand new Hypnosis For Running Seminar timed to be the day before a Marathon event.

This is our online product store (or as Adam would prefer to call it 'hypnosis programme' store). We do have some products produced by other hypnotherapists  who specialise in particular topics.  For example we have a discount offer on this month for sex therapy audios by Dr Janet Hall - see advert lower down page.

We have over 200 titles now covering a very wide range of topics. Some that you naturally expect but the list is really interesting - so take a look.  You can have control of behaviours and addictions and even some physical conditions.

Some people express surprise that some physical conditions can be helped with hypnosis.  I must admit when I first met Adam I was sceptical about this. One of the convincers for me was hearing Adam's story about his own discovery of hypnosis because of a skin condition he was suffering with.  

However if you think about it (pun intended) your thoughts do affect you physically.  What about people who blush, or who are frightened by something.  Probably the most convincing example is just thinking about someone you find sexually attractive - ah there is a physical response from that thought - isn't there?

TIP:  If there was one product that I would urge you, cajole you, plead with you to buy if you would like to find out more about hypnosis and in particular Adam's approach to the whole subject it would be 'Hypnosis Revealed - The Self-Hypnosis Starter Pack' which is a set of videos of the one day seminar 'The Science Of Self-Hypnosis' AND you also get our number one selling hypnosis session bonus 'Ultimate Confidence'.

You may well wonder why we have some of our products for sale in different places.  The simple answer is that we are actively looking for other people to sell our products as affiliates. ClickBank is a site that deals almost exclusively with digital products which can be sold by anyone.  They have all the payment systems already established so that affiliates can be sure that they will be dealt with fairly. 

If you are an experienced affiliate selling info products in the health market we would specially like to hear from you.  You will receive 75% commission for all sales from your referral links.   We want to work with our affiliate resources and provide as many resources as you need to be successful.

Please get in touch with us if you want further information via our Help Desk telling us how you intend to market the products

For some time now we have announced all forthcoming events here in Adam Up. However to book on any of the Seminars it was necessary to get in touch with us and arrange to register and make payment direct with either Adam or myself. 

We have now posted our one day seminar events on Eventbrite.  This means that you can register and pay for attendance directly online.   You will now find that if you click on a link for a Seminar you will be taken to the Eventbrite site where you will find full details of the course.

You can of course still get in touch with us to arrange your payment if you want.
Adam has two very young children now which has confined all our courses and day seminars to being run here in Bournemouth for this last year.  We are now however making plans to put on some events further afield.  If you would like to help us organise an Adam event in your locality and can help organise bums on seats do let us know.  We are open to working out some deal.

TIP: Arrange to attend with friends and save money.  There are discounted amounts for group bookings direct from the Eventbrite site.

Another thing that became apparent from our Help Desk is that we just had to make sure that our products (audios and videos) could be bought and played on small mobile devices such as phones and tablets.  In fact I am increasingly being asked for help because people are buying our products which were meant to be handled on laptops or pcs and downloading the files to their mobiles. It can all be done but now without special plugins to handle zipped files and all that techie stuff.   Mobile technology is a bit different and we have had to take on the gigantic task of setting up the app format to deal with the demand.

We did put together some apps for testing a few months ago but have made some major alterations based on our experience with that research.  I am very happy with our new look and functionality and will announce in Adam Up when the apps are all in place. 

In fact my son Tom (who is actually 23 today) is helping out with this project - so it is likely to be done quicker than I originally thought. As soon as we complete the Google Play files we will move onto the iPhone and iPad versions.

More news soon in Adam Up.

I have already mentioned the Help Desk several times.  It is an important part of our business.  Please do not think that because you have e-mailed us we have necessarily got it and the same goes for us.  I sometimes send messages to people and think that I have dealt with an issue only to find out later that the e-mail never arrived.  This is very frustrating for everyone.
When you buy something from our store you should receive an e-mail containing the download link of a file with your download instructions.  However some people have set up filters to actually prevent e-mails coming in where the sender is not known.  Therefore it is impossible for the product e-mail to get through.

Take my word for it - emails are notoriously unreliable - there are many filters on the web.  The answer - USE THE HELP DESK for important communications

You can use the Help Desk whenever you want to make sure your message has got through.  So whether you are wanting to join a course or complain if you haven't received your product - PLEASE Use the Help Desk