Dynamic Copywriting

I wanted to pass along some really interesting advice about using social networking and how powerful it is in today's business world.

First, I found this on the social networking site LinkedIn under a question Michael Stelzner posed for an article he is writing, "What should businesses understand BEFORE using Twitter as a marketing tool?"

Now this, in itself, is an example of how to use Social Networking. When Michael posed this question he received many responses from all sorts of people who use LinkedIn (LinkedIn, I should explain, is a business person's alternative to sites like MySpace and Facebook). So he was getting feedback and, just as importantly, exposure, for this single question.

One of the many really insightful answers he got was from Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad and Build a Better Business Blog. Candidly, I had never heard of Denise before or her two sites, but I am now reading both of them with considerable interest and finding them to be a wealth of top notch information.

I took you down that pathway to show you how Social Networking, whether you are using LinkedIn , Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or regular blogs, can create massive exposure. Michael got exposure (and some really good answers to his question) by posting on LinkedIn, and Denise got a new reader and a reference on my blog today.

The grease that keeps all these mechanisms moving is the willingness of people to offer good advice and ideas to others without expectation of immediate gain. Denise Wakeman's generosity has added one more link to her websites because I found her response to Michael to be so valuable.

Now I don't want to test your patience any further, so here is the advice from Denise Wakeman regarding using Twitter as a marketing tool:

1. Everything you tweet is seachable on the web. Every tweet creates a new page. This can be good and bad. Good if you're strategically using key words for which you want to be found; and bad if you aren't mindful that if you're not nice, it can come back to bite you!

2. Remember that what you tweet is visible to the public and may get retweeted. If you don't want it to be public, don't tweet it.

3. Once you get beyond a few followers, you may not know everyone who is following you. There are no secrets. I guess #1, 2 and 3 are all related.

4. Though twitter can be a time suck, it can also massively increase your exposure to influencers in your niche and be well worth the time you spend cultivating relationships and sharing relevant, useful content.

What is your opinion? Do you have any more ideas about how to use social networking as a marketing tool?

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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I found a very interesting article on Findlaw.com that was posted for lawyers wishing to market their law practices. However, since the article is actually a list of over 100 marketing ideas that were originally posted by the Small Business Administration, I think all business people will find it helpful.

The article can be found at 100+ Marketing Ideas.

Some of the ideas you may find helpful are:

• Get a marketing intern to take you on as a client; it will give the intern experience and you some free marketing help.
  
• Produce separate business cards/sales literature for each of your target market segments (e.g. government and commercial and/or business and consumer).
  
• Photocopy interesting articles and send them to clients and prospects with a hand-written FYI note and your business card.
  
• Join a list-serve (online group) related to your profession. You can find hundreds of such groups on Google groups or Yahoo groups.
  
• Never let a day go past without engaging in at least one marketing activity.
  
• Publish a newsletter for your prospects and customers (the article doesn’t specify, but I would recommend an email newsletter which is free to send out).
  
• Test a new mailing list. If it produces results, add it to your current direct mail lists or consider replacing a list that's not performing up to expectations.
  
• Rather than sending direct mail in plain white envelopes, use colored or oversized envelopes to pique recipients' curiosity.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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One of the things I want to do this year is to pass along some of the most outstanding marketing ideas I am able to find.  One very important idea is to use blogging as a marketing tool. 

Case in point:  Back in December 2006 I wrote about Grant Griffiths, a Kansas Family Lawyer, who had stopped all of his traditional advertising because his marketing efforts using his blog was bringing in all the business he needed.

I was thinking about Mr. Griffiths because I was explaining to an other professional why blogging was such a great way to market just about any business. So today I  did a number of Google searches to see where his blog is ranked by the world’s most popular search engine. Here are the results:

Grant Griffiths dominates almost every keyword or search term I could think of related to "Kansas Family Law." The only term I looked up that listed his blog on the second page was “Kansas Child Visitation.”

All the other searches I did had him on Google’s first page. The results listed below are all for Google’s non-paid listings. (In other words, the paid ads Google sells may be higher, but Mr. Griffiths’ blog outranks all the others on the "organic," or earned, search results.)

• Kansas Family Law, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Family Lawyer, #1 on  on page onepage one
  
• Kansas Family Attorney, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Law, #6 on page one
  
• Kansas Child Custody Law, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Child Custody Lawyer, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Lawyer, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Attorney, #2 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Mediation, #4 on page one
  
• Kansas Divorce Mediator, #6 on page one
  
• Kansas Fathers Rights, #1 on page one
  
• Kansas Dads rights, #5 on page one

Think about it. Almost anyone who searches for information about Kansas family law or Kansas family lawyers is going to find Mr. Griffiths’ site. And when they get to this site, they will find a wealth of information on the topic.

Do you think he has to convince people that he knows what he is talking about when they have read a site like his? Do you think he gets to be choosy about which clients he wants to work with? (or do you think he has to settle for the lowest paying, most disagreeable clients because he is desperate for business?)  

And my personal favorite, how many clients do you think try to "negotiate" his fee down to rock bottom?

Now also take a look at the length or complexity of his articles. For the most part they are surprisingly short or easy to write.

Some are fairly long, but there is a fair amount of short articles in there as well. Many of his articles simply cite and comment on information he gleans from other sources. Some of his articles are list articles (such as ten ways to cooperatively seek the best interests of your child).

What I am getting at here is that Mr.Griffiths has achieved marketing success with blogging by simply communicating information to his readers on their level. He updates his blog regularly and he uses important keywords that he knows will correspond to the search queries his prospective clients will use when they go into Google.

And he did all this in a relatively short period of time. I wrote my original article in Deccember 2006 and he started his blog sometime in 2005 (I'm not sure exactly when in 2005). That means he started dominating the Google rankings in at least 24 months.

Something else. Griffiths has aparently taken a sabatical because his blog has not been updated since late 2007. Nevertheless, that blog still dominates all those keywords even without additional writing on his part.

How can you or your firm imitate what he is doing? Simply create a blog and update it regularly. Use the keywords the customers you are targeting will also use when they use search engines in both the titles of your articles and repeated in the bodies of the articles themselves.

Within a few months, you should see your site climbing the search engine ranks for the keywords you are focusing on.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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Whether you sell a product or a service, you will put yourself miles ahead of your competition if you include an education element to your marketing process. This is why white papers, case studies, informative web content and ebooks are such popular and powerful marketing tools these days. It is also why many marketers find themselves in front of audiences giving speeches, seminars or workshops.

The fact is that companies or professionals who take the time to educate and share their knowledge can establish a much higher level of credibility in their customers’ eyes than those who simply go after the sale.

But what about educating customers and clients after the sale?

I found myself thinking about this after reading John Jantsch’s recent article Teach Your Way To Referrals in his blog on Duct Tape Marketing. (By the way, if you aren’t reading Duct Tape Marketing yet, you are missing out on a wealth of great ideas and information).

Jantsch makes the excellent point that after sale education efforts pay off big time in referrals, and I would also add repeat business.

This is simply not that hard to do. I am working with a client right now who has asked me to create an ebook and email marketing campaign for sales people who use his products. Without revealing confidential information, his products help a variety of sales people and small businesses generate leads.

The ebook he wants me to write is going to be a free, downloadable educational product that will give his prospects marketing tips and ideas. And once the ebook is downloaded, the prospect will receive regular emails that offer more tips and advice. (I'm sure you will recognize this as a classic "Permission Marketing" campaign).

Similarly, you can easily find a variety of ways to communicate your own knowledge and expertise to your target market and existing customers. It isn't a difficult process, just identify the problems customers want to solve or questions they ask (or better yet, look for the questions they should be asking but don't yet know enough to ask them). Create simple info products or presentations that address these hot buttons and you have an educational marketing campaign.

Jantsch puts it this way:

I know I love it when I get buy a product and the first thing I receive is a getting started guide, followed by a full tutorial, followed by daily “have you tried this” emails. Every business, product or service can do the same.

Check out his article at Teach Your Way To Referrals, and if you are not already reading his blog, start doing so now. You’ll thank me later.

And one more thing. If you would like to learn more about this educational approach to marketing, be sure to download a free copy of my own ebook, How To Increase Your Sales By Sending Out Emails. You will read about other businesses that have gotten excellent results by educating their customers and prospects.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read a really interesting article by Robert Stover on his blog, Breakthrough Copywriting Ideas, called “The Antidote to 'Howler Monkey' Copy – The Ethos Effect.

“Howler Monkey” means copy that shouts or is full of hype. It sounds phoney or contrived. And it puts a reader's guard up because it lacks believability .. and yet you can't help but trip over examples of over-hyped websites and sales material all over the web.

But the question for most of us who make our livings marketing on the web is how to be persuasive without resorting to extravagant claims.

To answer this, Stover refers us to the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who wrote about persuasion in his work “Rhetoric.” Aristotle said there are three tools used by great persuaders.

The first is “Pathos” from which we get our word, “passion.” Pathos refers to emotion. It excites either the fear of pain or loss, or it promises pleasure or gain. Pathos is key to any persuasive copy and is always the core of any sales material worth its salt.

But the danger with Pathos is it can be overdone, resulting in hype. Once that line is crossed, your credibility is gone and cannot be regained.

The second tool is “Logos” from which we get our word, “Logic.”

Logic is never as persuasive as emotion, but in most cases it must be included in good copy. It seldom persuades, but it is always conspicuous if it is absent.

Finally, Aristotle gives us the tool of “Ethos.”

Ethos is character and credibility. Stover points out that your family doctor usually has high ethos, whereas a used car salesman stereotypically has very low ethos. Unfortunately, ethos is often left out of online copy and websites suffer when this important element is missing.

Stover describes two keys to ethos: The first key is when the seller has expertise. The second is when you perceive that the seller has your best interest at heart.

To illustrate these two keys, he gives two examples of financial counselors. One is your brother who has just started a job as a financial advisor. You would probably trust your brother to have your best interests at heart, but you might not consider him to have much in the way of credibility.

On the other hand, you might know of a millionaire stock broker who obviously knows investments and is an expert in his field, but you may not trust him to put your interests above his own.

I don't want to give away everything in Robert Stover's article, so I encourage you to check out “The Antidote to 'Howler Monkey' Copy – The Ethos Effect to read more about the power of Ethos and how to establish it on your own website or marketing materials.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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Let's talk about Sarah Palin and smart marketing.

I think the GOP campaign has committed a major blunder in the way it has gone about "packaging" Gov. Palin. This blunder was very evident in her interviews with Katy Couric and in her debate with Joe Biden.

It has to do with her lack of top level skills in foreign policy. She is obviously a quick study who has done massive amounts of homework on the subject in the few short weeks she has been on the campaign trail. But whether you like her or not, the fact remains that foreign policy is not her strong point.

In the last three decades, there have been four presidents who were governors before they ran for president. By the very nature of the job, a governor does not have a lot of foreign policy experience. It just isn't part of the job they do.

So what these four men have done when they were elected president, was to assemble teams of foreign polciy gurus on their staffs (no I will not get into a discussion about how good these teams were or what decisions they adviced their presidents to make).

No president comes into office with extensive skills in every area of the job. They have to rely on their staffs to help them and advise them.

But what Palin has done has been to make claims that because Alaska is very close to Russia, she has foreign policy experience. No wonder Tina Fey, David Letterman and Jay Leno have had so much fun at her expence.

What if, instead, she had just admitted that governors come along with other skills. What if she had cited Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush to point out that governors have experience as chief executives but not as foreign policy wonks?

By admitting her lack of foreign policy experience, she could have shifted much of the spotlight to her extensive energy experience and to the fact that she is the only person among these four candidates who has ever been a chief executive.

Dan Kennedy, one of the greatest copywriters alive today, even goes so far as to look for flaws, faults and limitations in the products he sells. When he finds them, he highlights them, shouts about them from the roof tops and makes sure his readers know he is not claiming that his product will be all things to all people.

And in so doing, he positions the product so he can talk about its strengths. When a marketer freely admits that her product has a flaw, don't we then "listen up" to find out what the good points about it are?

No one will ever believe a marketer who claims his or her product does everything better than any other product anyway. But a curious thing happens when we admit a flaw. Buyers start paying close attention to the message to find out what the good things are.

Admitting limitations puts more of a focus on the benefits you do claim. And doing this gives you much more credibility in the process.

If you refuse to do this, you may - just may - find yourself being paradied on Saturday Night Live.



COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Heather Margolis, Director of Marketing, and Yoshi Watanabe, Principle Software Engineer, of Kadient, Inc. Kadient has already been the topic of two previous blog posts I've written, but I was so impressed by how they go about doing business that I asked if I could interview them by telephone.

Kadient makes sales coaching and enablement software that makes the lives of salespeople easier by giving them the content they need, when they need it, depending upon the situation they are in.

One of the constant problems sales executives experience is that their sales people often don't actually use sales support software provided by their companies. If they perceive that the program is too awkward, too hard to learn or gets in the way of actually making sales, most employees will stop using software and go back to doing things the old way.

Mr. Watanabe spoke about how the company in general, and the development teams in particular, underwent a paradigm shift that is unique among technical companies. Traditionally the emphasis is on product excellence. The thinking is that if a company makes the very best, most technically advanced product, the market will come to them.

He said, "It is not uncommon for developers to create products with no idea of how it is used and who is using it and what problems they are having."

This, of course, made me think of the old expression, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Perhaps this is a great idea in principle, but it ignores the reality of marketing and the necessity to open up two-way communications with customers. It also begs the question of whether the mousetrap is better in just its creators' eyes or in the eyes of those people who are intended to use it.

Mr. Watanabe describes how Kadient's paradigm shift began. "We asked ourselves: Ok we've built our software (the first version). Does it really help the users solve their problems? And after getting feedback from users, we had to admit that the answer was no. It was confusing and cumbersome to the users and didn’t solve some of their major painpoints."

The system, they realized, was the center of their focus – not the end users' needs.

So Kadient shifted their thinking from just product development to "User Stories." They brought together people who had daily contact with actual customers and users, product managers, developers and the marketing team for a two and a half day session.

Everyone who represented users and had contact with them were given index cards to describe what users wanted, not just when it came to the product, but also in day to day life. For instance, a sales rep is working with 20 prospects at a time and may not remember every status. They may also be a young professional always on the go and needs things to be quick and easy.. At the end of the session they had produced 100s of index cards with statements about what their users wanted.

These wants, of course, were then shown to actual customers, users and buyers within the companies they serviced for further refinement.

This led to an understanding that some users wanted some things while other users wanted different things. With this understanding, Kadient created several different "buyer personas" to help them make each of these buyer needs more personal.

For example, one of their buyer personas is a sales rep named "Anya." Anya is a successful sales person for a financial services company who has been in the top 10% for the last five quarters. Her goal is to do less of her own administrative tasks and free herself to spend more face time with actual customers.

"Luke" on the other hand is a 25 year old with sales talent but is not achieving the company's expectations for him. He needs a system that will help him build a better pipeline of prospects and needs help understanding these prospects' needs.

Obviously, Kadient has many other buyer personas, but Anya and Luke illustrate how they have put effort into personalizing the needs and goals of two types of end users. But it is what Kadient does next that really seems to set them apart.

Ms. Margolis said, "We segment a market, but then we go a step further above and beyond."

In company meetings it is not uncommon to hear conversations that begin with, "What would Anya do?" or "What would Luke do?"

In other words, they don't think of their buyer personas as mere segments of their marketplace, they think of them as actual people. Composites of many similar users, but people nevertheless.

They have created life-sized cardboard cutouts of Anya and Luke that get moved around within Kadient's building. One day they can be in a conference room, another day in the lunch room, and another in someone's cubicle. The idea is to get to "know" Anya and Luke as if they were real people.

And it is not just the marketing people who are tuned in with these personas. "The thing that I am the most impressed with is how the engineering and product development people have embraced the concept of buyer personas and user personas. It makes our sales, marketing and development teams much more in-tuned with each other," said Ms. Margolis.

So what kinds of results have these ideas delivered? The day before our conversation, Ms. Margolis was interviewing a buyer with one of their customer companies. This customer will save $500,000 that couldn't have been realized if the product wasn't actually being used.

The feedback she gave Ms. Margolis was that, "They employees keep talking about how easy Kadient's software is to use."

Perhaps that is the greatest testament Kadient could have had.



COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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Several years ago, I lived in Atlanta during the last big economic downturn (the dot com bust may ring a bell).

I decided to use my marketing skills for a local job networking group and I volunteered to teach a job search class for a group of managers and professionals who were out of work and very, very scared.

Many of these people had lost six-figure jobs and had mortgage payments to match their previous incomes. Did I mention that they were scared?

The one lesson I taught them was that they were all solutions to some problem.

Employers do not hire in order to give someone a job. They hire people in order to solve problems. So what someone in search of a job must do is understand and articulate what problems they were very good at solving.

That became our class mantra: "What problem(s) are you VERY good at solving?"

It took a while for most of these folks to break free of their corporate jargon or to articulate this beyond their previous company or industry cultures. What I urged them to do was to see themselves not as job applicants but as walking, talking, breathing solutions.

These solution statements had to be slightly generic enough to be transferrable across industries, but specific enough to position the person as unique and valuable.
Only when they made this mental shift could they convince employers that they could solve certain problems if this individual was hired.

Think about your product or service. What problem is your company very good at solving? Don't make this bland and generic (Case in point: is a Dallas law firm that claims they are the firm to hire "when the results really matter." Who hires a law firm when the results don't matter?).

Right now, two political candidates are running for President and they are both busy articulating how they are both solutions to problems. In a very real sense, they are running for the office of "Solution in Chief."

Can you afford to do any less?

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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Every week I look forward to getting my Wednesday email from Marcia Yudkin when she sends out her Marketing Minute.

I'm not sure if it is accurate to call Marketing Minute a newsletter since, as the name implies, it is a very short, one page marketing idea.

These pithy little ideas have really been helpful to me over time. Not everything applies to what I do, but they almost always stimulate my thoughts and send me off on some tangent of creativity. Many of my articles and blog posts grew out of ideas I have learned from Marcia.

So I really endorse and recommend that you subscribe to Marcia Yudkin's Marketing Minute and give yourself a reason to look forward to your Wednesday email.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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For anyone looking for a wealth of information on social media and marketing online, Chris Brogan has compiled a list of 20 Free ebooks About Social Media (I'm thrilled to see my own ebook, The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers, is listed among such great company).

As one person commented on his blog, "This is a treasure chest." Many of these ebooks are just outstanding and really give some rock solid information.

Check them out.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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What is Pico Marketing?

I'm writing this in response to a very interesting article Peter Jakob wrote called Are You Pico Marketer?, on his blog, B2B Marketing - Open For Business, which was itself a response to an article he read from Velocity.

To use a baseball analogy (Peter Jakob and the folks over at Velocity are British, so baseball analogies probably aren't the first things that come to mind for them), Pico Marketing means concentrating on hitting a lot of singles and doubles rather than always trying to hit a home run at every at bat. A team that gets more men on base with small hits generally wins more often than a team that lives or dies by the long ball.

Another analogy used by Velocity, and quoted by Mr. Jakob, is the Monopoly metaphor. The player who owns Boardwalk and Park Place will probably not do nearly as well as the player who owns a lot of little properties all over the board.

So back to Pico Marketing. Since I finished writing my ebook, The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers, I have been trying to promote it by contacting bloggers I respect, emailing various individuals who I regard as thought leaders, and issuing online press releases.

I've also mentioned it on my Linkedin profile, written one article so far on ezinearticles.com, commented on blogs, and set up a Squidoo lens called Case Study Writer, and on and on.

In other words, I am taking a lot of little actions to get the word out about The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers (I'm buying up the little properties on the Monopoly board and hitting singles). I am finding that promoting the ebook is as much work as writing it was (sigh).

I really can't afford to conduct an expensive paid advertising campaign for an ebook I am giving away to promote my case study writing services (in other words, I can't buy Boardwalk and Park Place).

But this is what it takes these days. I am already at the top of Google for the keyword, "marketing with case studies," (don't be too impressed, it is not a phrase that gets a lot of hits). But "marketing with case studies" is one of the long tail search terms I'm going after.

Having said that, search engine rankings come as a result of a lot of little things done all over the internet. From Facebook to MySpace to YouTube to Digg, little mentions from a lot of places get Google's love.

So will all this effort succeed? I sure hope so!

I guess you could say I am conducting my own case study on Pico Marketing. I'll keep you informed of my progress. Watch this blog to see how I do.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

I am guessing that if I were to ask you to name some of the most successful companies you've ever done business with, both McDonalds and Amazon would be on your list. Now this post is not going to sum up all the reasons both companies are enormously successful, but one thing they both do very well is the add-on sale.

In the old days, I still remember when McDonalds' employees asked if you wanted fries with your hamburger and soft drink order. But now they sell them all together in a Value Meal. It is a package of products that go together and essentialy speeds up the decision-making process for customers.

Amazon also is a top notch add-on seller. On your first visit, when you look at different products they offer, they present you with an array of related products that they suggest. Their system has identified these other products as products other customers, who have an interest in the same product you are looking at, have also bought.

On your second visit, Amazon is already building a database on you and your tastes based upon what products you look at (even if you have not yet bought anything from them). With each visit, they learn more and more about you, not in a sinister Big Brother sort of way, but in a way designed to serve you better AND produce more sales for them.

So here is something to think about. What other products or services can you bundle together for your customers? What else do you offer that solve the same problems or serve the needs of the same customers?

For example, many lawyers offer related services when clients need their wills updated. They may offer living wills, powers of attorney, and other related documents to those clients seeking estate planning.

This is the ultimate win-win. The customer benefits because you are looking after more needs than the obvious ones they came to you about. You benefit because this simple approache generates more revenue for your business.

Think through all of your products or services. What else can you offer with them that will benefit the customer? Can you "bundle" them together in such a way that saves the customer money, but still produces more revenue for you?

I'm guessing it is as easy as asking if they want fries with their order.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Hopefully I have been preching to the choir in all my many articles urging marketers and site owners to use their websites as “lead-generation machines,” to gather email addresses and build your lists of prospective and existing clients. I hope as well you have been doing just that for a long enough time that you get a little irritated with me when I harp on the subject again and again.

But have you been subdividing your list into specialized lists that allow you to target your market more and more precisely?

For example, have you subdivided you prospects from those who have actually bought from you at least one time in the past?

Also, have you subdivided your prospects based on what types of products or services they are most likely to buy from you in the future?

Other ways to subdivide your list is to distinguish geographic areas, b2b prospects vs. consumers, industry fields, income levels, business sizes, and on and on. Some of these distintions will make sense to your business and others will not, but always be on the lookout for ways you can present highly specialized offerings to your customers and prospects.

A very easy way to do this is to continually offer new opt in opportunities to the people who are on your list. To do that, you must create new enticements that will appeal only to certain subscribers on your list. In other words, let your subscribers self select themselves and tell you what sub categories they are on based upon what interests them.

If your list consists of small businesses and large corporations (but you have something to offer both), create free information reports or CDs that will appeal only to the executives of large organizations on your list. At the same time, create another product that will appeal to the small business executive.

You then create additional autoresponder campaigns for both groups (I am personally very happy with Traffic Wave, which allows me to create an unlimited number of campaigns with an unlimited number of letters, for a monthly price of $17.95).

These multiple lists then enable you to make offers that are attractive to the small company executive that would just elicit a yawn from the large company executive (and visa versa). Moreover, the more precisely you target your customers, the more effective your sales messages will inevitably be.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown