Mine did – today (and, yes – it is my birthday).
Delegate David Englin, Virginia’s 45th District [info@davidenglin.org]
Dear Andrea,
This is just quick note to wish you a Happy Birthday! It’s an honor to serve you in the House of Delegates, and if there’s anything I can do to serve you better, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Yours,
David
I’m telling you – this guy is going to make a name for himself. Great marketing!!
One thing I love about Trader Joe’s is the copy on their private label products. Because of the catchy product titles & descriptions, I’m drawn to the private label products above the others. This is a great strategy for TJ’s because these are the products that have the largest profit margin. Ergo, excellent copy equals more moolah for their bottom line.
The side of the box says:
What do you get when you cross fresh apples with a cereal bar?
A delicious anytime treat that’s ideally suited to an active lifestyle: whether you need a quickie breakfast, a fast snack or just something to tide you over to your next meal. The real punchline here is that these bars are made with organic grains and none of those dreaded hydrogenated oils (very un-funny).
Our cereal bars are jammed with delicious fruit fillings and like other popular bars, ours are individually wrapped for convenience. They’re also low fat, low sodium, and contain selenium.
No joke. These bars are really tasty.
Why this works:
#1 – Catchy Tagline – Get it? Apple filling is in the bar. We’ve all heard a joke “a (insert any random object here) walks into a bar” and this clever twist is both metaphorical and literal. This multi-layered tagline makes readers think (and if they’re like me, chuckle in public.)
#2 – Conversational Tone - Doesn’t it sound like the person who is writing this description is speaking specifically to you. Conversational tone is a great way to draw readers in and make them feel connected to your product.
#3 – Continued Metaphor – Notice how the “joke” theme is carried throughout the copy on the side with words like “What do you get when you cross…”, “The real punchline…”, “very un-funny”, “No joke.” Continuing the metaphor makes the copy feel cohesive and complete.
Genius! Trader Joe’s – your copywriter deserves a raise!
Step 1: Change your font from Times New Roman to Trebuchet MS
Step 2: If the name of your product ends in “er” remove the “e” so it looks cool.
Step 3: Have a white background with any of the following colors: baby blue, light orange, spring green, or gray. Change your black text to dark gray.
Step 4: Add the word “beta” to your site to encourage customer feedback.
Step 5: Instead of using pictures of people – change to cute, cuddly cartoon characters.
**Bonus** Sell your product or service on the basis of connecting people or improving productivity.
Welcome to Web 2.0! Compared to the hype – it’s really not all that different.
The southern town I grew up in is so small we actually have a town song that we would get together and sing every year (you think I’m kidding?! – It starts off “Ashland, Ashland, center of the universe. Ashland, VA my hometown.” – you just can’t make that stuff up.)
Now that I live in the “big city” I’ve had to work hard to get rid of my accent. And as this quiz proves – I have! Granted I still throw in an occasional “ya’ll” and “sugar” just to throw people off.
| What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)Midland
(“Midland” is not necessarily the same thing as “Midwest”) The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it’s a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from the Midland.
|
| Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. |
This got me thinking. When I read blogs, I assume everyone talks just like I do. I read in my own voice – but chances are there are some funky accents out there. What if all bloggers added a “welcome to my blog” podcast on their side bar (please don’t have it play every time I visit your blog – that’s just downright annoying). That way, I could play it and imagine your voice while I’m reading instead of my own.
On my daily run between Market Square and Founder’s Park it hit me – the Writer’s Spectrum.
Writers dwell on a plane that lies somewhere between Dragnet’s “Just the facts, Ma’am.” and the insightful, introspective musings of the countless poets, novelists and philosophers we studied in high-school.
This all came about after a conversation with a friend of mine who is a screenwriter. As a copywriter, I am mesmerized at how someone can take a simple plot-line and blow it up with enough plot twists, character flaws, and details that it captures my attention for over two hours.
My job is the exact opposite. I take boundless amounts of information and form it into the most compact and concise sentences possible.
I even created a graph for you to explain my point (horray!):
Maybe you notice the fundamental problem with the spectrum. Bloggers are everywhere. With every other type of writer, our product is narrow and concrete. Copy is copy. A Speech is a speech. A book is a book.
But with blogs – they can be whatever the writer wants it to be. There are blogs that are to the point and dare I say damn near close to journalism. On the other hand, some blogs are nothing more than the dribbling swill of some schizophrenic college student trying to be “deep.”
In marketing terms, this means we bloggers have a pretty serious branding issue. Non-bloggers see us as simply egotistical writers who have nothing better to do than post a journal online (well, maybe they have a point).
I blog because I am a writer.
I blog because it is a way to grow my business and get new clients.
I blog because I feel I have something interesting to say (and since I have dedicated readers who tell me I’m interesting, that gives me motivation to keep posting).
I blog because I’m a dork and have nothing better to do with my time (semi-true. Dork, yes. But I could definitely find other things to do with my time – like sleep).
I blog because it gives me a sense of community. I’ve met some crazy, funny, wonderful, quality people because of this blog and I love it!
I blog because I hate watching my local news. It’s always “So-and-so shot so-and-so at the corner of so-and-so.” That can get depressing – so I get my news from blogs.
But these are just the reasons I blog. Every blogger has a different motive and since the product is so varied it’s difficult to define.
Maybe one day we’ll be able to accurately define where blogging is on the writer’s spectrum. But for now – we’ll just keep blogging and hope somebody someday can make sense of it all.
I don’t know about you – but I feel like I’m a pretty savvy person, yet my capacity for online gadgets and social media tools is starting to reach the breaking point. I think Steve Rubel says it best.
So with all of the tools out there, which ones are worth your valuable time and attention?
Well here’s my brash, unbridled, no-holds-barred opinion on some of the popular sites you may run across:
MySpace.com
I use myspace to keep in touch with all of my friends and family. That’s it – very little business (although I do have a link to my business website). I like myspace because I can send out event invitiations to everyone at once. For example – my birthday is coming up (June 28th in case you’re feeling generous) and I wanted to get a bunch of my friends together. Instead of calling each friend individually, I sent an event invitiaton through myspace (similar to evite.com if you’re familiar with that). Myspace then emailed all of my friends and showed them the invitation. My friends can RSVP and leave comments.
Which businesses can profit from a campaign on myspace? Well, most of what I’ve seen that has worked is restaurants and nightclubs. Check out my friend Dougie at the Element Lounge in Richmond, VA. He posts which bands are going to be on which night – so patrons can properly plan their partying. The other use I’ve seen for myspace is entertainment – book authors/publishers, bands, comedians, etc. So if you’re an accountant do you need a myspace page? Not really, unless you’re going to keep in touch with your friends and family. (P.S. – If you don’t have either – you may want to start at Facebook.com – they’re poised to become the #1 social networking site)
Linked In
This is the one site that I can absolutely say did make me money this year. I’ll get to how in a minute. Let’s first talk about what Linked In is.
The main complaint I hear about Linked In is how it doesn’t DO anything. People say they have a profile and contacts just sit there. Well, it’s kind of like potential vs. kinetic energy. Linked In is a database of your networking contacts and their history. I use LinkedIn as a followup to networking events. Instead of sending an e-mail I send a LinkedIn invitation. It’s all about building the database (potential energy) and using it strategically (kinetic energy).
Here are three ways I use LinkedIn. First, if I have two contacts who need to meet eachother and they’re both in my Linked In network, I forward the LinkedIn profile instead of an e-mail. This way the person who’s receiving the referral can check out the other person’s history & recommendations. They can also e-mail them directly.
Secondly, If I have a question I can send it out to my contacts. For example, I was doing research for an article about websites that make businesses productive. I sent out the question to my contacts and got some great responses. I only had to post once, and the information was sent out to everyone – great time saver.
Finally, the way I made money – when I left corporate and started my own business I updated my LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn automatically sent an e-mail to all of my professional contacts letting them know that I had changed my profile and was now self-employed. Within 24 hours I received 15 phone calls, set 8 appointments and landed my first 3 clients. Granted, this is a one time event – but again – it’s the kinetic energy.
***Update***
If you used Linked In in the past where you had to pay to send e-mails (which was a big fat pain and kickout for many people) check it out again. Linked In changed their business model to generate more users by allowing anyone to e-mail without charge (smart move, I think).
Meetup.com
I started using meetup for personal use, but have to say that I have made some amazing professional contacts through this site, so it’s high up there on my value scale. Basically, meetup is an online tool to help you meet people in real life. You may want to check out my previous post where I discuss in detail how to use meetup for business.
Twitter
I’ve tried it and think that this site is a complete waste of my time. Why do I need to post what I’m doing all the time? Who gives a rip? Plus, I can’t even search to see if my friends are already on the site, which gives twitter a real big thumbs down for me. I know some people swear by it – I just can’t figure out why I should bother.
SpinThicket
A listing of PR/Marketing/Advertising news stories. Thanks to Geoff for turning me on to this great site.
MyRagan
Kind of like Myspace.com but for MarCom professionals. I like it because it’s easy to use and has a lot of rich content. Granted, if you’re not in the marketing/advertising/PR field, you probably won’t find it as interesting as I do. I wrote a longer review that you can check out.
Squidoo
Ok, I kind of get the concept and I started my own lens. It’s kind of like a website meets a blog and you get paid based on the number of visitors who come to your page. Frankly, the cutesy names are a little much – it’s not as intuitive as I’d like. Looking at the top lenses (my favorite one is about tofu) I noticed that the content isn’t really all that rich – I mean, I could definitely post a bunch of stuff there. I just feel overwhelmed and don’t have the time. I guess one bonus is that once your page is created you don’t have to bother with it too much after that. Unlike a blog, the work is definitely on the front end – which is why I just haven’t taken the time.
Blogs
The biggest mistake I made when I started my blog was going to wordpress.com (they host and it’s free) and not wordpress.org (I host, it’s still free but I can use a blog promote my links). About 2 months ago I got a slap on the wrist because I was including a link to my website at the bottom of each post. Now it’s difficult to switch because I have dedicated readers and I’m not sure if they would follow me to a different site. I tried downloading the software and uploading my previous posts, but it came out all wrong. The frustrating part is that WordPress.org has importing shortcuts for a Typepad or Blogger blog – but not a wordpress.com blog. Argh.
But enough about wordpress (who I really do like – it’s open source). Who should use a blog and how often should you post? Well, it’s kind of like a gym membership. Any business can benefit from a blog – but if you’re not using it it’s pointless. Keeping with the metaphor, I advise my clients to start slow when beginning their blogs. Have you ever joined a gym January 2nd, told yourself you were going to go 4 times a week and then that eventually turned into basically twice a year because you burnt yourself out? Same thing with blogging. Start slow – once a week. Once you have that under your belt go to twice a week. Then you’ll eventually become addicted and be posting all the time. It’s better to be consistent than to push yourself towards unrealistic expectations.
Del.icio.us, Reddit & Stumble Upon
All these sites basically do the same thing – they allow you to bookmark your favorite webpages so you can refer back to them later. It’s good to include links at the bottom of each blog post so your readers can easily “tag” your posts and improve readership. It’s a habit I’m trying to get into – the blog I’ve set up is a template and I can’t seem to do it automatically. Argh again.
My favorite of these is Stumble Upon because it allows you to “channel surf” the web. I highly recommend downloading the toolbar – it makes surfing & tagging ridiculously easy. Basically, you enter the categories you are interested and every time you press the “stumble” button on the toolbar a new page will come up. You can also rate sites to refer to them later. The more people that positively rate the site, the more often the page comes up. I found how useful this is first-hand when stumble upon readers sent over 800 visitors to my post Put Your Mind In the Gutter in just hours of posting.
Bloglines, Google Reader, My Yahoo! & Newsgator
All RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers so you can read all your favorite blogs in one place – BIG time saver! If you don’t know what RSS is, click here for a brilliant video – RSS in Plain English. I switched from My Yahoo! to Bloglines and I’ve been really happy.
I know there’s a bunch of new sites up too – so if there’s one that you love (or hate) post it in the comments section below. I’d love to check it out.
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Andrea Morris is the Chief Idea Officer of Write Ideas Marketing and specializes in helping visionaries, entrepreneurs, consultants and small businesses use high-ROI strategies to get the right message to the right people. For more information, please visit writeideasmarketing.com
Browsing through Reddit today and ran across this post of Worst Business Name Ever with this photo:
Hopefully you see the obvious problem here.
It reminds me of when one of my friends was pregnant. She and her husband were considering names for the baby and this was the conversation:
Wife: What about Regina? It’s my grandmother’s name.
Husband: Nope. She’ll get teased and get called “Vagina” in school.
Every name my friend threw out had to pass her husband’s “what will kids call her” test. Brilliant! Way to think ahead and catch a potential problem early.
Business owners should apply the same test when naming their business. What will clients call you? And put your mind in the gutter before you spend all the time and money on a name that only gets plastered all over the blogosphere as the worst business name ever.
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Andrea Morris is the Chief Idea Officer of Write Ideas Marketing and specializes in helping visionaries, entrepreneurs, consultants and small businesses use high-ROI strategies to get the right message to the right people. For more information, please visit writeideasmarketing.com
In the marketing world, everyone has their own personal definitions for the various terms we run into – and I’m no different.
Here are my interpretations of various words you may run across:
Advertising – Any activity that either 1) introduces your product/service to people who have no idea who you are, or 2) reminds people who know who you are that you still exist. Also known as the Pick-Up Line.
Branding – The art and science of making an impression.
Customer – A purchaser who you try to get to 1) purchase from you again, and 2) tell their friends to purchase from you.
Dissatisfaction - The result of not meeting expectations because you either 1) overpromised during the sale and couldn’t deliver or 2) you didn’t listen to the client’s needs or 3) a situational snafu occurred and you didn’t make up for it.
Experience – The perception the customer forms while purchasing or using your product/service. Remember: Your customer’s perception is your reality.
Focus Group – A potentially unreliable way to gather information about your product/service that is better than having no data at all. Due to group psychology it’s difficult to get objective feedback. Instead, listen to and reward your clients who complain.
Guerrilla Marketing - A term originally coined by Jay Conrad Levinson that has come to mean a cheap, generally unconventional marketing technique that yields a high return on your investment (so, duh – this should be part of your campaign too!)
Headline – A pithy phrase whose purpose is to call attention to the rest of the article and have people keep reading. In reality – we are all so busy nowadays that your headline may be the only thing that is actually read.
Idea – A solution to a problem. Although they may be wacky, quirky, outrageous, abnormal or otherwise off-the-wall the goal is to be effective, not cute or crazy.
Jargon – Words specific to an industry that ignorant people use to try to make themselves seem smarter. Little do they know that using jargon in their marketing copy is a sure-fire way to confuse the heck out of their customers.
Knowledge – Complete understanding of a subject which results in the belief that everyone knows/feels what you do. Smart companies try not to be too knowledgable.
Logo – A graphic image that represents your company. Note: a logo alone is not a brand (see branding)
Marketing – A series of activities executed on a continuing basis whose goal is turning people who have no idea who you are into people who may consider purchasing from you when the time is right.
New Media – The latest craze that “all the cool marketers are doing.” Come on – there’s no pressure. Just try a blog. I swear you’ll like it. Not your style, maybe a social networking site? Uploaded video? Podcast? RSS? We’ve got a ton of new ways to get your message out now that high-speed internet is available to the masses.
Opinion – The way someone looks at the world based on their individual experiences and belief systems. Like bellybuttons (or other parts of the human anatomy) everyone’s got one and we seldom think about how it got there. In terms of marketing – it’s a good practice to listen to opinions so you can continue to improve and exceed your customer’s expectations.
Prospect – Someone who is vaguely familiar with your product or service and you are engaging in the marketing process. Also known as your date.
Quality – One way to compete – the other is price. To be effective – you can’t do both.
Referral – A sale that occurs as a result of word of mouth. Due to the high conversion rate (chance of becoming a client) it’s a smart strategy to get clients to spread the good word.
Sales – The process of turning a prospect into a paying client. First you must propose by asking for the sale, then you enter into a formal agreement where you are partners – for better or worse. Also known as the marriage.
Tactics – Techniques for turning strangers into paying clients.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) - A statement that showcases how you stand out from your competitors. A critical component to a successful marketing strategy.
Value - The ratio between price and quality. Different for every individual at every single transaction. Sometimes, people are willing to pay more for higher quality. Other times, price is what matters.
Word of Mouth (WOM) – Exceeding customer’s expectations to the point where they run and tell all of their friends how wonderful you are.
Xenophobia – Fear of strangers. Probably a fear that marketers don’t have. (Come on, it’s an “X” – I’m scrounging here.)
You – The prominent pronoun in marketing copy. If you see “I” – it’s time for a re-write.
Zealot - A customer who is so enthused about your product or service that they voluntarily sell it to everyone they can. Smart companies work hard to keep zealots zealous.
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Andrea Morris is the Chief Idea Officer of Write Ideas Marketing and specializes in helping visionaries, entrepreneurs, consultants and small businesses use high-ROI strategies to get the right message to the right people. For more information, please visit writeideasmarketing.com
Andrea Goulet is a Senior Copywriter at Capital One. This is her personal blog and the opinions expressed here may not necessarily reflect those of her employer.
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