Web Savvy Marketers Ideas, Thoughts & Tips

Watch Your Voice!

April 9, 2009

Watch Your Voice!
by Nancy Simonds

Tweets and IM notwithstanding, sometimes you have to communicate in complete sentences, especially in your marketing materials.

People often fall into the bad habit of using passive voice rather than active voice in their writing. Active voice simply means that the subject of the sentence acts rather than is acted upon.

(Remember those awful grammar lessons back in seventh grade? This is when they have a real-life application.)

In marketing materials, I prefer active voice because it’s more direct and has more authority. Passive voice is often clunky and wordy.

For example~

PASSIVE VOICE:
Your lawn will be affected by the quality of the grass seed you plant.

ACTIVE VOICE:
A beautiful lawn depends on quality grass seed.

See? Active voice is simpler and more to the point, and creates a stronger image. Use active voice in your newsletters, postcards, brochures, and Web content to add spark and interest.

NotMyMothersWedding.com Launched

April 8, 2009 Carolyn Griswold

I launched a new website for the authors of the book Not My Mother’s Wedding last week. The book, written by Maureen Chapdelaine and daughter Kate Chapdelaine Brennan, takes a comical look back on their different perceptions as they went about planning Kate’s wedding. The book will be available this May and can be ordered on the website.

Return To Creativity

April 6, 2009

Admit it. You lose contact with your ability to be creative sometimes. Or, maybe you think you’re not the creative type. Truth is – everyone’s creative. Truth is – everyone sometimes gets stuck regurgitating tired ideas that put even themselves to sleep. Here are some ways to return to the creativity to your business.

Read The Unrelated.

Creativity isn’t discovering something new. It’s making new connections between old things. Pick up that teen magazine and an idea on how to write about that IT seminar may jump into your lap. Read U.S. News & World Report in search of an idea you can connect with your ad for your new hair styling product. I once based an insurance product sales brochure on something from the National Enquirer.
Have Fun.

Loosen up. Life’s too short. Take a break and do something you enjoy. You’ll get a fresh perspective and start new ideas flowing. Remember Archimedes in the bath tub. (I didn’t think you’d remember him. Archimedes, a great ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor, was stumped. His ruler wanted him to devise a way to tell whether a crown was pure gold or alloyed with silver. Solutions avoided him like cockroaches avoid light. Then when he took a break to take a bath he had a brainstorm. As he stepped into the water and watched it rise, Archimedes realized that a given weight of gold would displace less water than an equal weight of silver because it’s not as dense. Legend has it that in his excitement about his discovery he ran home naked shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” (“I have found it!” “I have found it!”))
Look Under The Hood.

Maybe your creative engine is starved for fuel. You may need more information about the project or the audience. Ask your client or source more questions about what you’re trying to accomplish. Set up an informal focus group. Call in your management team. Creativity often requires a sea of research. The writers for John Hancock’s award winning “Real Life” ad campaign got several of their ideas by spending long hours hanging out in a bar listening to people discuss their financial worries. (“No, boss, that’s not a beer, that’s part of my research.”)
Seek Inspiration.

We all have a place or person or book that never fails to inspire. Make contact. Spend some time relaxing with that enthusiastic presence. Good things happen when you’re in a good place or with a good person or in the mind of another creative. Whose brain do you like being around? Who always seems to be working on something wacky? Go see them. I have a few books that always offer me nourishing food for thought whenever I pick them up. Mind Your Own Business! by Murray Raphel and The Wizard of Ads by Roy H. Williams are two.
Create Something Awful
Want to ruin good creative people? Go through their trash. The best creatives create awful Frankenstein-ish things. They realize that’s usually the only way to do their best creative work. First create the monstrosities; then come the beauties. Writers in particular work like sculptors. To develop a great 500 words they may write a terrible 2,500 words. Then, like sculptors, writers begin to chip away and polish, chip away and polish, chip away and polish.
Do the Opposite
Let’s say you want to come up with the five greatest reasons why people should shop in your store or why your product is superior to the competition’s product. Take the opposite point of view. Brainstorm about all the reasons why your store stinks. Write a list of negatives about your cherished product. (This is not for the faint of heart.) Then, just flip the arguments upside down to get your creativity right side up. For example, if you want to promote your one woman interior design business, a nasty negative might be, “no staff, no associates, no backup.” Turn that around and say, “You always deal with the business owner and get immediate decisions.”

Creativity is key to business. It’s creativity that helps invent the new killer product. Creativity makes your stand out from the crowd and get noticed. Creativity finds a way to cut production costs by a third. Creativity opens your eyes to new ways to get your customers to buy again. So, get creative. It’s good business.

Chris Amorosino is the president and founder of Amorosino Writing LLC, a communications firm in Unionville. You can reach him at 860-673-0089 or chris@amorosinowriting.com.

Stimulate Your Economy: Give Freely

March 31, 2009 Carolyn Griswold

Yesterday, Katie Couric featured Denny’s on the evening news. Denny’s is more Main Street than Wall Street and the CEO wasn’t showcased for multi-million dollar bonuses but for giving away breakfasts. It made a great “feel good” story.

Denny’s CEO plainly stated that the free breakfasts were a promotion to get more business.”It was just a couple of pancakes, eggs and bacon,” he said.

But amidst the nightly gloom-cast of unemployment and Wall Street bailouts, Denny’s was portrayed as humanitarian for giving back to the unfortunate in their communities. The reality was that it was a successful campaign that has since brought in more than enough customers to cover the costs of the free breakfasts because the promotion expanded it client base.

Free is good. It makes good press and helps develop a client base. It’s one of the building blocks of tremendously successful online and traditional businesses. Google was a free search engine long before it began collecting revenue. Craigslist, Facebook and Twitter are all examples of websites whose successes are not yet matched by revenue.

It may seem counterproductive to give something away–possibly even before you’ve established a steady stream of revenue. But any business owner who is trying to attract new business should consider offering something free.

What can you offer? Three simple ideas:

Information. It may be the most cherished and sought after commodity on the web. Give it freely — on your website, through social media, blogs, etc., and you will develop your market. Develop your market and you will sell products and services.
Free shipping. If you’ve got the goods use free shipping will help close the deal.
Free samples. Turn prospects into customers by letting them try a free sample.

Give freely. It pays.

Random Facts About Twitter

March 26, 2009

I’ve had a Twitter account for over a year now but have truly only been active for about four months.

Here are some things I’ve discovered:

1) There are ways to lengthen the conversation. It’s hard to carry on in-depth conversations with only 140 characters per tweet. Many Twitterers overcome this by posting their messages over multiple tweets.

2) Some people tweet about really stupid things. People who don’t use Twitter scratch up their faces and say, “why on earth would I want to know that my friend is standing in line at the checkout counter or that their dog just pee’d on the carpet?” … And they’re right. Those are inane conversations

3) Some people Tweet about really interesting things. Think of the Twitter-sphere as a worldwide bar or bistro, if you’d like, where the noise level is high, and many people are posturing to make a “score.” Imagine what you might find: two college kids are blathering on at the bar about nothing. But you may also find that there’s a couple in the back booth who are engaged in a fascinating debate about one of your passions. For all the stupid dialogue there are so many other intelligent conversations going on.

Discerning the Inane from the Interesting

The trick is to find the compelling conversations. That’s where search.twitter.com comes in so handy. This simple tool allows you to search for the conversations that matter to you and find the kindred spirits who have your passion who share your passion.

Can LinkedIn Build Your Business?

March 24, 2009

Right up front I will admit that this article will not answer the question the title poses. But you will learn more about this business networking Web site if you keep reading.

I’ve been on LinkedIn for about 15 months but had not been very active. For the next six months I’m conducting an experiment. I want to discover whether feeding LinkedIn lots of attention and good stuff will reward me with what I want (more and better business contacts and visibility.) I believe it’s possible that LinkedIn could help me find vendors, keep up with business education, promote my business and maybe even provide some solid clients.

If you’re interested in this concept, here are eight steps you could take.

Spruce up your LinkedIn profile
I heard one guy complain that LinkedIn only considered him 40 percent of a person. That’s because his profile wasn’t complete. You won’t be taken seriously if you don’t include a professional photograph and complete the rest of the profile. Your profile should have lots of juicy tidbits about your business talents and successes.
Give and get recommendations
Ask your clients to recommend your services on LinkedIn. Their recommendations will appear in your profile and serve as great endorsements. How do you get recommendations? You get by giving. Recommend good, solid people you’ve worked with. It’s fun and rewarding to recommend good people.
Obtain at least 100 connections
I’m told the magic starts happening when you are connected to at least 100 people. So go through your rolodex and invite people to link with you. Visit the profiles of people you’re already linked to and check out their connections to see if they know people you’d like to know. Then ask for a LinkedIn introduction to them.
Ask Questions
I had a client problem and used the LinkedIn question feature. Within two hours I had four good answers to my client problem.
Don’t Sell
Perhaps this should be number one on this list. There’s nothing worse at a cocktail party than the guy running around basically saying to anyone who will listen, “Wanna buy from me? Wanna buy from me?” Please don’t use LinkedIn that way. Find ways to make yourself useful to others. It’s true: Givers gain.
Join Groups
To learn about a topic or get closer (electronically) to a market, search for LinkedIn groups you can join.
Find People
LinkedIn has a feature that lets you search for people by name. You can also search by company name for LinkedIn members. And you can search by job title within a geographic area. These are good ways to find people in your market or people you know but have misplaced along the business way.
Add Applications
You can choose from about ten pretty cool applications. One app lets you share slide shows. Another lets you take online polls. I have added to my profile the application that lets you share book recommendations.

Your best bet is to go to LinkedIn and experiment. See whether you think there are tools there to help your business. Give the site a fair chance by putting in your time to create a good profile and build connections. I heard one LinkedIn expert say you need to devote about 30 minutes a day to the site when you first join if you want to maximize the site’s effectiveness. Try to add value for other people you run into on LinkedIn.

May your business prosper as a result. See you out there.

Submitted by:

Chris John Amorosino
Amorosino Writing, LLC
Writing Business Stories That Live Profitably Ever After
860.673.0089

What is Twitter?

March 12, 2009

For social media junkies, they already know the answer to this question, but for many, they know that they should know the answer, but they don’t know.

So here’s my twitter 101 discussion, just to get you started. The concept of Twitter was originally that participants answer, in 140 characters or less, one question: what are you doing right now? Your answer (called a “tweet”) is intended to spark short messaging conversations and deeper engagements with those who share your interests.

It’s a fledgling media, one that is changing and growing day by day. However, I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon, so I suggest you get to know it. Now, that doesn’t mean that you may be somebody who spends their life on Twitter. As a matter of fact, most people don’t. The only people that I know that do are those who are engaged in the social media world. However, I have found it to be useful.

In May, I am giving a talk to the financial services industry on New Media Marketing. I wanted to research who was engaged in new media marketing in the insurance world. I put a tweet out on Twitter and Facebook, asking for ideas and information. Many people got back to me, giving reference material, lists of those engaged in social media, as well as connecting me to people relevant to the topic. As a matter of fact, I got hooked up with a director of social media at one of the major insurance companies and was able to get enough information for a case study. If you need to do some research or find the right person, chances are you’ll find it by crashing around on Twitter.

Now most people don’t actually answer the question posed, “What are you doing right now?” They simply comment on interesting things that they found around the worldwide web. Twitter becomes, then, a type of human search engine, pointing out interesting or relevant information to a particular group of people that you have decided to associate with or “follow. “

In addition search.twitter.com can help you find the conversations and the people engaged in activities that are of interest to you. I suggest you spend a little time getting on Twitter and trying it now. Just listen. That’s what everyone else is doing too. If you’re old enough to be puzzled by Twitter, you may be old enough to remember life before e-mail or voice mail, and look how helpful those tools are. This is just another technological tool to be used to communicate and engage with your clients and your customers, your friends, your family and your neighbors.

Happy tweeting!

Bold is not bold when it’s all bold!

March 10, 2009 Carolyn Griswold

5 quick style tips for website managers and blog newbies:

Use bold only to accent selected words or phrases
Use italics for publication titles, quotes and other phrases as determined but be consistent
Stick to left justification in most cases – avoid overuse of center, right or full justified text
Don’t be afraid of white space – it’s beautiful and makes reading easy on the eyes
Resize photos appropriately for screen viewing and make sure they’re not stretched or fuzzy. It’s good practice to size images in a photo editing program before uploading to your site.

Keep It Clear and Simple

March 10, 2009

Sometimes when I read promotional copy in a brochure on or a Web site, I say to myself, “What the heck is this business all about, anyway?” If you’re trying to educate a potential customer about your product or service, it’s a good idea to avoid big words, industry jargon, or market-y language that doesn’t really make clear sense. Just be yourself and use a friendly, conversational tone.

For example~

Instead of saying this:

“Our innovative approach combined with operational flexibility has fostered customer-oriented service and state-of-the-art product offerings unmatched in the home construction industry.”

Say this:

“We build customized kitchens for homeowners based on their particular needs, and we can do the same for you.”

Honest, simple, and to the point.

So, leave out the gobbledygook, okay?

Nancy Simonds, copy writer