Jul 28, 2010 by Lindsay Gower
Your marketing writing doesn’t need to be all sell, sell, sell. Your writing can speak to your customers pre-sale and then post-sale.
I’ve mentioned before the differences between marketing writing and technical writing. You can use both on your web site, in your newsletters, and in various communications to customers and potential customers.
Think “Post-Sale”
After you sell your product or service to a customer—the work was performed and paid for—he still needs to hear from you.
Depending on your business, your customer needs instructions or opinion. If you sell garage door openers, provide installation and how-to-use instructions. If you sell mortgages or cosmetic …
Jul 14, 2010 by Lindsay Gower
If you use the Web to market yourself, you probably think in terms of marketing writing. But there are ways in which technical writing has its place within your Web presence.
Today, let’s consider the definitions of, and differences between, marketing writing and technical writing.
Pre-Sale and Post Sale
Marketing writing helps you communicate pre-sale to potential customers, to get their business.
Technical writing helps you communicate post-sale to existing customers, to reduce training time, customer support time (and avoid lawsuits).
Of course, an existing customer—let’s say she hired you to renovate her kitchen– is also a potential …
Apr 8, 2010 by Aaron Rubman
Even in an online world increasingly influenced by social networking sites e-mail continues to play an integral part in marketing and promotion.
Like social networks, e-mail allows you to speak simultaneously and directly to clients, vendors, fans, or any other interested online parties, and unlike most social network presences, you get to define the avenue for direct feedback.
As with any marketing you want to generate interest in your company, strengthen your brand identity, and increase sales. In addition, e-mail communications, especially bulk e-mail communications are frequently viewed as invasive, so it is important that recipients want you to stay in touch …
Mar 15, 2010 by Aaron Rubman
Let’s face it, even if the economy is currently pulling out of the worst recession in 70 years, money remains tight and the independent entrepreneur needs to consider ways to reduce costs while retaining their brand image and placement.
So, what can a company do on a $2500 budget?
Invest in a custom blog
For $2500 you could have a fully functional and branded blog with custom features.
What does this price buy you?
- A persistent platform you can use again and again, whenever you have an announcement or other content.
- Custom blogs can build up traffic for your own domain, giving it ready-made …
Feb 17, 2010 by Lindsay Gower
Last week, I introduced a business man – let’s call him Pierre – and the two reasons he gave me for not having a web site:
Web sites cost too much.
He gets his business by word of mouth.
I responded to his mistake #1 last week. Here are my thoughts about Reason #2.
OK: Pierre gets business from word-of-mouth advertising. So he has a Marketing Plan and it’s called Referrals. Great! Referrals are fantastic, and are the …
Jan 5, 2010 by Aaron Rubman
Augmented reality refers to any technology driven display or device that provides you with information on a scene beyond what you could experience with your five senses.
You can find examples of AR in many televised sporting events.
- In baseball, a pop up display will show you a batter’s statistics.
- In football, the line of scrimmage and first down lines are highlighted to make them easier to view.
- In racing, a moving line or overlaid image of previous footage lets you track the current field against an earlier time.
Imagine What You Could Do If You Could Take That Ability With You
Mobile AR combines several …
Nov 24, 2009 by Aaron Rubman
As Twitter continues its meteoric rise towards becoming the largest, easiest vehicle for mass personal communication, advertisers and marketers continue to experiment with how the social media tool can be monetized and/or integrated into their campaigns.
Three concerns in particular have driven these experiments: Cost, Impact, and Disclosure.
Cost
As anyone with a Twitter account can tell you, Twitter is a free service. It costs you nothing to set up an account, and there is no charge for posting to Twitter.
However, there is another price associated with marketing through Twitter, and its coin is time.
If you wish to grow a successful Twitter presence …
Nov 17, 2009 by Aaron Rubman
“Stop selling your professional services, you are killing your sales.” That was the message from Jim Horan (known for The One Page Business Plan) in a teleseminar of the same name.
Why Selling Hurts Sales
It’s not selling …
Oct 26, 2009 by Aaron Rubman
Excuse me. I couldn’t help noticing that strange and interesting plant.
Unfortunately, we do not all work at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists.
Putting a strange and interesting plant in your window (or on your website) will not drive web traffic all on its own.
If nobody passes your window, then no one can see what’s there, nor can they tell their friends and acquaintances.
What you need is an integrated strategy that both uses your website as an asset and uses your other assets to draw attention to your website. Here are some things to consider before working on your strategy:
Oct 20, 2009 by Marissa Berger
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… once only visited for personal use, these sites are now being used for business purposes. We all hear about them and see their icons everywhere. And, we feel out of touch or like we are dropping the ball if we don’t have profiles on all of them.
It is true that social media sites help business. But how? Most of the case studies we read about are about big business and their bigger than life social media campaigns. How can small business benefit?
The truth is—at least our opinion of it—that there are no step-by-step rules to follow …
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