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Marketing & Copywriting Ideas for Attraction & Mindset Pros

May 19, 2009 Leave a Comment

For all of you solo professionals and small business owners in the law of attraction, peak performance, feng shui or similar mindset arenas, Learning Strategies is a great place to get ideas for your marketing.  (Copywriters call this building your “swipe” file.) 

Once you make a small purchase, the postman will start bringing you a beautiful mailing each week touting one of their products. (In my opinion, it’s too nice to be called “junk” mail!)

This company is a master at selling their products by direct mail and the language they use is good to model for your own marketing.

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PR Tools to Start Spreading the News

April 17, 2009 Leave a Comment

Think about a CD and DVD. Both are for storing files and blank ones look pretty much alike. But using a DVD to save a couple Word documents would be overkill, and using a CD to save any kind of video file wouldn’t get the job done.

So you need to use the one that best fits the results you’re looking for.

It’s the same with press releases. While the goal is to spread the word about your company, there are two distinct outcomes to shoot for–

  • Real press coverage and media interviews or
  • Driving traffic back to your website

So HOW you should distribute your press release depends on which one you most want.

“Real” Press Coverage

If you’ve really got a hot, newsworthy topic, then PRNewswire is top choice because it’s the first stop for most journalists and your release will go out over the Associated Press newswire to media around the country. But with a high per-release fee and an annual fee (though small businesses can often get that waived) it’s not for the faint of wallet.

A more affordable alternative is PRWeb.com. It starts at $80 a pop and goes up to $360 for their service featuring AP wire distribution. They also tend to crush PRNewswire in getting valuable backlinks to your website.

Search Engine Rankings & Web Traffic

Most of the time though, you won’t have a newsworthy story. Don’t be offended, but the Wall Street Journal just won’t care about your new ebook. So save your money and focus on the lower-cost sites that can drive some quality traffic.

PR.com
Cost: Free (with ads) or starting at $29.99

PR.com has a relatively professional appearance and their releases rank fairly well. Their $29.99 releases are often included in Google News–unlike most of the low cost/free sites. That level also provides an active link within the release back to your website.

24-7 Press Release
Cost: Free (with ads)

If you need free distribution, 24-7 Press Release tends to get you better links than most free sites. Their free option does NOT include a link within the release, but although they will include one in the contact information box on the page.

PitchEngine.com
Cost: Free to use

Pitch Engine lets you create snazzy-looking social media releases and share them via the social networks. It’s not a distribution or newswire site per se, but journalists and bloggers can subscribe to RSS feeds. And Google News will usually pick up the release within in a few hours.

Good for Both

Any time you can send your release directly to a relevant journalist or blogger, you’ll have a better chance of getting coverage. Here are two services to help.

MatchPoint and MyPRGenie

Cost: Free trials or $65/month and $49/session

Enter your topic and brand new MatchPoint will search more than 3 million articles  then list and rank writers based on relevance of articles they’ve written in the last six months. You can either download the list or contact them through the service. It’s $65 a month for the basic service after the free trial.

MyPRGenie will create a list of 25 names for you for $49 ($2 a name for more) and track any release you send them so you’ll know who actually read it. You will have to pay $49 each time you want to use that list though–downloads are not available. But you can also upload your own list of media contacts free of charge and get real-time tracking as well.

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4 Favorite Tools for Online Marketing

March 27, 2009 Leave a Comment

I am always looking for low-cost ways to do things better, faster and easier. So here are four of my favorite tools for online marketing.

Fast, Safe Online Signatures

Adding a signature to your sales and opt-in pages has been shown to increase response because it personalizes the message. I used to do it the old fashioned way–sign a piece of paper, scan it and convert that into an image. But it turned out a little fuzzy and the white block around the signature wouldn’t always blend into tinted backgrounds.

Now I’ve found an easier, better-looking way to add signatures to a web page or any type of digital document–and it’s safer too. Identity thieves are getting so savvy these days that using your real signature may not be a good idea.

But you can use My Live Signature’s free online signature wizard to create one that’s close but not identical in 2 minutes flat.

There are hundreds of handwriting styles to choose from, plus you can choose the ink color and even how crooked you want it to be. It then creates a file you can  upload like any other image. Just visit My Live Signature to get your new signature.

Download Multiple Files with Just One Click

How many times have you gone to a download page for a program or giveaway and groaned at the number of PDF, mp3 and video files there are to download? That’s exactly why Down Them All has to be my single most-used Firefox plug-in.

Using Down Them All cuts download times for just a single file almost in half. But even better–if you right click on the screen it will bring up a box listing everything that’s downloadable on the page. Simply check off the ones you want, hit download, and it does them all in one fell swoop. Awesome!

There’s no cost for the program, but it currently only works with the Firefox browser.  Get your download time-saver today!.

Fill Out Forms & Log-Ins with One Click

I was going batty trying to keep track of all my log-ins and passwords before I discovered Roboform.

Now, if I create a new log-in for a website, Roboform automatically asks if I want it to remember the information. When you go back to the page later, the name of the site will appear as a button on your browser toolbar–simply click Fill & Submit and you’re in.

You can also enter all your contact information just once–including credit card numbers–and use a different toolbar button to fill out all those profile or order pages…again, with just one click. And as you see on the site, they are quite serious about security.

I couldn’t live without it. For just $30 a year it saves me a ton of time and frustration. So check out Roboform today!

Shorten & Track Your Clicks

A URL shortener is a handy tool for any kind of online marketing. BudURL though is a shortener plus research tool all in one because it offers extensive tracking of who clicked your link and where both in real-time, and over a period of time.

Say you create a BudURL to a page on your website. You can:

  • Keep using that one short URL as long as you want, and track the results over time
  • Send out links to articles elsewhere on the web and see which topics get the most interest
  • Use it along with two or three possible titles for an important blog post and see which gets the most clicks

And the basic account is free, so there’s no excuse for not using BudURL for your links.

Want more time, money and headache saving tools? Check out Resources that Rock!

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How Are You Going to Finance Your Business in the Days Ahead?

March 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

With personal credit getting harder and harder for self-employed folks to get, you need to start thinking more about building up your business credit so you don’t end up hurting your personal credit score or missing out on a great opportunity because you can’t find the funds to pursue it.

That’s why I’m participating in a launch today for a new book called Unlimited Business Financing. For only $10.35 at Amazon you get a guide that gives you the ins and outs of business credit scores and how to build a reserve of business credit without risking your ability to get mortgages and other personal loans and credit.

Plus, there’s some awesome bonuses worth way more than $10 from Kevin Nations, Donna Fox, Matt Bacak, Warren Whitlock and others (including me!). So check it out at http://UnlimitedBook.com today!

I don’t get any commission or affiliate pay for sending you there–I just think it’s a really important topic we all need to become more savvy about.  And yes, I’ve already ordered a copy!

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Speaking Your Client’s Language for More Sales

January 21, 2009 Leave a Comment

Your WORDS are what ultimately drive a prospect to buy from you. And the wrong words can sink a sale fast. But so many businesses unconsciously use them because we’re never taught otherwise.

The good news is I’ve figured out an easy D.I.Y. way to ensure you’re using the right words in anything and everything you do to market your business or communicate with clients—web pages, emails, newsletters, brochures, videos, elevator speeches…the list goes on and on. Even if you’re not a writer…

So the marketing you do brings you more clients and more sales.

AND there’s a special bonus worth $150 for everyone who acts before January 31, 2009. So don’t wait—act now so you don’t miss out!

Find out more at www.compellingcomm.com/webcopy.html!

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How a Weekly Marketing Review Can Change Your Fortune

December 16, 2008 1 Comment

Forget crystal balls. If you want to predict your future income it’s time to start having a weekly meeting with yourself. I learned this invaluable technique from Elizabeth Potts Weinstein and she explains it in more detail in her new book Grow Up! Strategies: The 7 Legal & Financial Strategies You Need to Up-Level Your Small Business.

The premise is simple—spend about 15 minutes each week checking to see how your marketing is working now and you’ll find out what to expect income-wise over the next couple months. And the best part is you can use the insights to immediately adjust your marketing and CHANGE the future…to prevent a cash crunch or make even more money from a blockbuster marketing campaign.

All you need to do to get started is create a spreadsheet that includes rows for important marketing numbers and columns for each week. While it depends on your business, numbers you may want to look at include:

·         Number of inquiries for your services

·         Number of new clients for your services

·         Number of billable hours worked

·         Number of hours spent on marketing

·         Amount of invoices sent

·         Amount of unpaid invoices

·         Number of ezine subscribers

·         Ezine open rates

·         Click-through rates for links in your ezines

·         Unique visitors to your website

·         Unique pageviews for your ezine sign-up page and any sales pages

·         Number of sales for each key product or service

·         Conversion rates (number of opt-ins or sales divided by number of unique pageviews for that page times 100 to get the percentage)

 It’s also a good idea to take a quick look at all your banking and credit card balances to make sure there are no surprises lurking there.

Overall, keep it simple and focused on the most important numbers for predicting income in your business—after all, this is just supposed to be a 15 minute review. And be flexible, I’ve added and dropped some of the items I look at as I learned what was a  better indicator or added new types of marketing. The point is to just start tracking and reviewing now, so you can start planning better for later!

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Easier Copywriting and Editing with Track Changes

December 12, 2008 1 Comment
  • Not sure if you’re going to like the changes you’re about to make to a document?
  • Do you have someone else reviewing it for edits and other suggestions?

I know it’s much cooler to hate Microsoft, but they actually have some pretty handy features for writing and editing in their software.

Track Changes is one that can make editing a lot easier. Turn it on and edit as you normally would. In the meantime, every word you insert is written in a colored font and underlined. Deletions are marked with the same font color and underlined, plus have strikethrough (or shown in a balloon out to the side). So it’s easy to see what changes have been made (and undo them if need be!).

On top of that, different reviewers are automatically assigned different colors. So if you want to see who messed up the clever phrase you came up with, it’s easy to identify the culprit.

There are several ways to incorporate the changes.

  1. If you like or hate it all, look for the Accept All or Reject All icon on the tool bar that appears when Track Changes is on (in 2003 and before) or click on the down-arrow next to Accept or Reject icons on the (2007).
  2. You can also highlight sections and hit Accept or Reject to do blocks of changes at one time.
  3. Or you can right-click on a single change to accept or reject it separately.

Just make sure you’ve accepted or rejected all changes before you finalize the document or your recipient may see the ones you didn’t!

Here’s how to access Track Changes:

In Word 2003

  • Go to Tools menu, click on Track Changes. A tool bar with check (accept) and “x” (delete) icons will appear in your main tool bar or right below it. Turn off Track Changes by going back to Tools menu and unhighlighting it. (Any tracked changes you haven’t either accepted or rejected may still appear to you or other viewers, however.)
  • Microsoft has free video training on it.

In Word 2007

  • Go to the Review tab on the ribbon and click on the Track Changes icon. To the right are the checkmark and “x” icons, as well as pulldown arrows, for accepting and rejecting changes. Turn off Track Changes by clicking again on the Track Changes icon. (Any tracked changes you haven’t either accepted or rejected may still appear to you or other viewers, however.)
  • And here’s the video training for the 2007 version.
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Who Are You? More Effective Marketing Starts with You!

November 6, 2008 2 Comments

When you’re crystal clear on what you bring to the table for your clients–and how you’re different from all their other options–marketing becomes much easier and more effective. So take some time to really think about and answer the following questions:

1. Who are you? As Carlton said after my first attempt at this exercise, “You are much more than your name and business name.” What did you do before starting your business? When did you start it and how did you arrive at the point you are today? All of that influences where you are today.

2. What do you sell? And who do you sell it to? Pretend you’re explaining what you sell to a sixth grader and you’ll avoid getting that polite glassy-eyed nod while the listener thinks, “What the heck does that mean?” Believe me, we’re all so close to what we do that you’re probably getting that reaction far more than we know.

A perfect example is the AFLAC commercials with the squawking duck. You never hear the phrase “disability insurance.” They say AFLAC sells insurance that protects and pays you when you’re too sick or injured to work. Not only will a sixth grader get what it is they sell, they’ll also get why someone would want it.

3. Why are you in this business? Something led you to go this route, what was it?

This one was actually tough for me because I had other intentions for my business when I first started. So I felt guilty–like this was more of my fall-back plan. I could have “fallen-back” into a lot of things though. But I went this direction because I was tired of seeing the entrepreneurs and solo professionals I was networking with turning off their prospects with bad copy and getting sucked into spending a lot of money on things they didn’t really need to market their business.

4. What do you do for your customers? What pains are you solving for them? What benefits do they get from working with you or buying your product? Why do they care if your product or service is any good?

Even if you’re selling a B2B widget, make sure to tie it back to what it does for the buyer personally. Because no matter what you’re selling, a human is doing the buying. For example, he can rest assured that the widget will integrate into his system perfectly, so he won’t be stuck there all night trying to debug the installation. Or he’ll impress his boss by how much money it saves over the course of a year.

5. What makes you different from others in your business that your customers would care about? Do they get insider info no one else can provide? Do you do it totally different from what conventional wisdom says? Have you done it for more people–or do you work exclusively in their industry?

For example, I’m working on a project right now where several other guides exist in my client’s topic area. A few come from other nurses but none of them tell readers the current research-proven best practices they should be getting.

Once you answer these questions, you’ve got the makings of a powerful new elevator speech or core marketing message. Just keep paring it down to the bare essentials!

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Day 7 — Client Work & Ezine

August 12, 2008 1 Comment

Well, yesterday was a busy day for client work so I didn’t get a lot done marketing wise–except for finishing my e-zine, which will go out today and signing up for a JV deal a friend of mine is offering in September.

But I actually did a couple things different with my e-zine this week. For one, I created a copy of the survey specifically for my e-zine readers so that I will know to weigh those answers differently from general responses. I also focused more on encouraging people to visit the blog. And the biggest news is the debut of my copy review program.

Now my entry-level copy review is actually a 10-Point Copy Critique that will be posted on the blog. So they’ll get ways to improve their copy and a little free promotion as well. And what I once called Laser Copy Reviews are being relaunched as the R-word Copy Revamp–where I essentially edit and polish the copy.

Finally, I did get a new client today–from one of those contacts I received on Friday. But I still ended the day as I began, at 35% of my daily income total.

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Twitterberry vs Tiny Twitter for the Crackberry

June 13, 2008 9 Comments

So when you’re one of the few in the world who don’t text message, what do you use to get your Twitter fix? I tested both Twitterberry and Tiny Twitter this week and my verdict is I wish they would merge. Twitterberry is easier to DM people and it also gives you the character count. It also lets you just get just replies instead of a whole timeline. But I could never get the timeline to update–it’d give me one set of tweets but never a second.

The two downsides to Tiny Twitter are that the DM option is located back on the tweet page instead of the timeline–you type the tweet first and then look for who to send it to. Very odd. And it doesn’t count out the characters for you. But Tiny Twitter shows the entire tweet, instead of making you click to get more than 3 words. And most important, it’s easy to get updates. So until something changes, my vote is for Tiny Twitter.

Looking for more posts on Twitter? Check out…

A Round Up of Twitter Resources

One List is Not Enough Anymore

Using Twitter for Business

More on the Value of Social Media for Entrepreneurs

My Top 10 Reasons for Using Twitter


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