Group: http://groups.google.com/group/publish-these-articles/topics
- Why Introverts Hate Hype [1 Update]
- Copywriting Challenge: How to Build Your Credibility as a Self-made Expert [1 Update]
- In Names, Tag Lines and Company Personas, Why Bold Branding Wins [1 Update]
- Teleseminar Marketing: 10 Ways to Run Profitable Teleseminars Without Your Own List [1 Update]
- Employee to Entrepreneur: Replacing Your Salary With Infomarketing Income Within Six Months [1 Update]
- Two Public Speaking Models For Marketers – Educating Vs. Selling From the Stage [1 Update]
- Lessons From Napoleon Hill For a Million-Dollar Book Title [1 Update]
- Marketing Copy With Conscience: How to Write a Winning Sales Page, Ethically [1 Update]
- How to Choose a Niche For Your Information Marketing Business [1 Update]
- Passive Income Streams: Are There Truly Lazy Ways to Online Income? [1 Update]
- Biblical Business Names: Company and Product Names Inspired by the Bible [1 Update]
- Publicity Tips: Concoct Tasty Sound Bites to Become Quotable and Quoted [1 Update]
- From Word Manuscript to Kindle Ebook in Three Easy Steps [1 Update]
- The Six Essential Ingredients of a B-to-B Copywriter's Web Site [1 Update]
- The Four Best Ways to Launch Your B-to-B Copywriting Business [1 Update]
- Eight Criteria to Consider When Working on Your Book Title [1 Update]
- How to Find an Endless Supply of Best-selling Ideas For Your Nonfiction Book Title [1 Update]
- Online Presentation Tips: Six Keys to Dynamic Webinars or Webcasts [1 Update]
- Great Tag Lines Don't Get Misquoted [1 Update]
- B-to-B Copywriting: How it Differs From Copywriting For Internet Marketers [1 Update]
- Introverts: How and Why You Can Uncover Your Hidden Talents [1 Update]
- How to Create Bolder, Jazzier, More Intriguing Email Subject Lines [1 Update]
- Information Product Development: Four Types of Home Study Courses [1 Update]
- Personal Branding, Authenticity and Truth For Introverts [1 Update]
- Power-Packed Word Blends: How to Evaluate Portmanteau Names For Companies or Products [1 Update]
- "Marcia Yudkin" <submissions@isnare.net> Apr 24 04:50AM +0800
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Article Title: Why Introverts Hate Hype
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 537
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Almost always when I am talking to someone who wrinkles their nose at online sales pages with outlandish, bold red headlines and breathless paragraphs of hot air, I later learn (or already knew) that this person is an introvert – someone who prefers to hang back in social situations, enjoys spending time alone and is not a natural showoff.
In the last few days, I've given some thought to why introverts recoil from techniques that are commonly labeled "hype."
First, the tone of voice that goes with hype is just way too loud and obnoxious. As an introvert, you are never the loudest person in the room and rarely the best friend of the loudest person in the room. Someone who uses a lot of capital letters, attention-getting adjectives like "killer" or "hot" and multiple exclamation points doesn't come across as someone who likes you the way you are or someone who understands you.
The cadence of these sales pitches is also far too fast. They're designed to sweep you up into a tide that keeps relentlessly coming, without giving you a rest to think. Introverts prefer giving purchases careful thought and don't enjoy being swept up into that kind of momentum.
Hype-filled pitches often exaggerate – another no-no for introverts – and make questionable assumptions and generalizations, such as "Everyone loves fast cars" or "The next time you have 20 people over for dinner." Supersized promises fall into this category, too, like "Finish your book in less time than most people spend mowing the lawn!"
In their heart of hearts, introverts know they're not like everyone else and don't like being treated as if they were. More congenial is a quiet reference to your individuality and a matter-of-fact explanation of why something might be right for you. Introverts appreciate the feeling of being treated as an intelligent, thoughtful buyer.
Introverts also are less susceptible to trumped-up fear and marketing that throws out threats, such as "Without this program, competitors are going to be left in the dust" or "What will you do when your husband walks out to be with a prettier woman?" If you run your life by an inner guidance system rather than by others' expectations and opinions, then such appeals are either embarrassing or offensive.
One marketer in particular has been barraging me lately with emails laced with shame, envy, fear and greed instead of holding up a vision of what he can help me attain. I decided to shut him out by unsubscribing to his list, even though I think he's extremely smart and means well.
In short, the style, pace and psychology of hype probably feel wrong for you if you're an introvert, and hype's showmanship without substance doesn't match how you prefer to make decisions. Don't get sucked into the hypester's claim that selling requires techniques that leave you cold. Creativity, richness of detail, humor, evidence, samples, honest drama and suspense – these are all elements of a non-hyped approach to persuasion that sits better with those whose personalities fall on the quieter side of the spectrum.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to become the author of more than a dozen books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity and Persuading People to Buy. To learn more about the strengths of introverts, download her free Marketing for Introverts manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Copywriting Challenge: How to Build Your Credibility as a Self-made Expert
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 882
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Some people achieve the status of expert through degrees, licenses, prestigious job appointments or awards. A few people without those advantages have the mantle of expertise thrust on them without their going after it, through word of mouth and a reputation among a close-knit circle of customers. However, most people without conventional professional credentials need to anoint themselves as experts, and this effort may or may not succeed.
Earn the respect of your target market and take the uncertainty out of the process of becoming viewed as an expert by using as many of the following nine self-made credibility factors as you can.
1. Media coverage. When a large metropolitan newspaper or a well-known magazine writes positively about you, acclaims you as a trailblazer or even simply quotes your opinion, you acquire the beginnings of a public halo that adds a golden sheen to whatever you are doing. It's much easier to orchestrate this than most people assume. Pick up a copy of a book on publicity, such as my own 6 Steps to Free Publicity, and implement the recommended tactics. When you do achieve media coverage, be sure to quote it prominently on your web site and elsewhere.
2. Carefully documented research. Your research can consist of surveys, observations, experiments or in-the-field tests. A couple of scuba divers with no scientific credentials who fell in love with giant sea turtles during their annual trips to Maui became regarded as experts on the honu (the Hawaiian name for this lovable sea creature) by keeping diligent written and photographic records of more than 750 individual sea turtles they encountered during their dives. When they attended a marine biology conference, they discovered they had learned more about honu habits than nearly all of the university-affiliated researchers there.
3. Collaborations with recognized, respected organizations. A British man without any medical qualifications cured himself of a serious psychological ailment and built up a business teaching his therapy method to others like him. One factor that elevated his reputation far above the level of a "quack" was the fact that England's National Health Service sent their most intractable cases to him for treatment. Having any sort of official relationship with a government entity or prominent company, from supplying Microsoft or the Pentagon to being on call for your community ambulance service, boosts credibility.
4. A hype-free, professional tone. To earn respectability without credentials, you have to stay away from the kind of over-excited marketing pitch that's characteristic of late-night infomercials. Go easy on exclamation points, exaggerated claims or promises, long stretches of capital letters, ungrounded superlatives and "buy now or else" demands. Fairly or unfairly, most people regard such sales techniques as unworthy of legitimate experts.
5. Publications. A hardcover book from an established publisher gives you the most credibility credits, with a paperback book from anyone other than a company you own clocking a close second. Not helping you much at all would be a self-published book that came out only in ebook format or a paperback that looked amateurly produced. Articles by you in journals, magazines or online publications that prospective customers respect count significantly as well.
6. Endorsements from individuals with reputations. A Baltimore-based alternative healer presented herself as a pioneer in a certain type of medical hypnosis. What she needed most to cement her expert reputation was quotes from people connected with the internationally well-known medical school in her city – Johns Hopkins. She and I brainstormed a list of seven different ways she could make her work known to health-care professionals with the right prestigious affiliations for possible testimonials or endorsements.
7. A well-reasoned, consistent and distinctive point of view. True experts rarely have same-old, boring opinions. Therefore it's easier to be perceived as an expert when you have a website, blog, newsletter or advertising campaign that takes some kind of stand and backs up the position with facts and arguments. Don't be bland or generic. If other experts begin to disagree with you respectfully, you are definitely on the right track.
8. Impressive, objective track record. If you're a pest control company with a 96 percent success rate in getting rid of bedbugs without harsh or harmful chemicals, you can certainly claim expertise in organic or natural pest control. Precise numbers are key in this arena. Your relevant achievement might be anything from owning a collection of 457 Barbie dolls dating back to 1959, having coached three successful American Idol contestants or having homeschooled 11 children, including four with special needs.
9. Elimination of typos, errors and outdated information. Even people who are not highly educated or personally fussy take note and hold back their trust when supposed experts display sloppiness or get things wrong that they should know. According to the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab, "Typographical errors have roughly the same negative impact on a web site's credibility as a company's legal or financial troubles." The same goes for would-be experts.
Some of the above strategies require long-term effort. Even so, the payoff for perceived expertise in additional sales, more referrals and higher fees is huge. From conversations I've had with self-made experts who have implemented these tips, the effort is definitely worth it.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading People to Buy, Meatier Marketing Copy, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and 13 other books. Her mentoring program trains copywriters and marketing consultants in no-hype marketing writing: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: In Names, Tag Lines and Company Personas, Why Bold Branding Wins
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 531
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Yesterday I read an article about initiatives on the part of some airlines to facilitate passengers sitting next to someone they'd find interesting, while other airlines are making it easier to increase the odds of having a quiet flight by having no one sit in the next seat.
Most people probably have a preference on this. Either they would like to talk to someone interesting on a long flight or would prefer to zone out in solitude. The feelings of those who don't care one way or the other undoubtedly have a lower intensity than the feelings of those who like or hate one of these options.
Indifference isn't motivating. Attraction and repulsion are.
And that's why blandness and similarity to competitors have such little power when it comes to publicity, word of mouth and customer loyalty. By not standing out, by trying to appeal to everyone and their uncle, companies have little or no energy charge. They earn little notice and fade into the background.
Bolder branding works, however, because it doesn't try to please everyone. It aims to please those it has defined as ideal customers. When it's intelligently implemented, those who like the bolder branding really, really like it. Those who dislike it don't count. They aren't a loss because the likers are more likely to stick around, tell their like-minded friends and colleagues about the company and promote the company and what it sells through articles, tweets, blog posts and media coverage.
You can certainly take bold branding too far – for example, by making it offensive in ways that cast shame on the company and its fans. Short of that, however, bold branding aligned with the desired customer base is very smart.
Branding elements include the company name, its tag line and the personality a company takes on, as well as dozens of other items.
Get started on bold branding by becoming clear about who the name or other branding element needs to appeal to, along with whose opinions don't matter at all. Warm up creatively by identifying other companies and advertising campaigns that you see being aimed at the same target population. Also identify their polar opposites – companies and campaigns that would make your target market shudder or turn away.
Then throughout your brainstorming for new ideas, post those desirable and undesirable images on the wall to remind you that you're not trying to please the world at large or yourselves in coming up with ideas. You're trying to reach a certain set of people who have particular knowledge, attitudes, values and preferences. Above all, do not take a vote among the general public on branding elements or let the opinions of random people count in any way. Instead, create a set of criteria you can use to distinguish ideas that match the right profile from those that do not.
If you can keep your eye on the goal, you'll reject boring, me-too branding elements and select bold names, tag lines, personas and more with exactly the right kind of magnetic charge.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms creative business names, product names and tag lines for clients. Download her free manual, "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line," at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
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- "Marcia Yudkin" <submissions@isnare.net> Apr 24 04:10AM +0800
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Article Title: Teleseminar Marketing: 10 Ways to Run Profitable Teleseminars Without Your Own List
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 812
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"I've contacted several teleseminar experts," someone wrote me to ask, "and they all said it would be difficult to run teleseminars if you don't already have a large list. I don't have any list yet, not even a small one. Does that mean I have to give up on teleseminars?"
"Not at all" was my answer. Teleseminars can actually help you build a list, whether you are offering them at no charge or collecting an admission fee for attendance. Without a list of your own, you simply have to reach for marketing methods that get your teleseminar announcement in front of likely participants in a tempting and cost-effective way.
Here are 10 such methods for promoting teleseminars without a list.
1)Associations/organizations. Offer your teleseminar to a relevant professional organization, a business group or a hobby club, and you don't have to worry about signups. They will do the necessary marketing to their members for you. If it's a free teleseminar, they might do this as a service to their members. If it's a paid teleseminar, they might expect a percentage of the proceeds.
2)Joint ventures. Likewise, you can interest individuals with a following in announcing your teleseminar to their list in exchange for a commission on resulting sales. Keep in mind that those with large lists and wide reputations are often besieged with these kinds of requests. Someone with a mid-sized list might therefore be more receptive to a mutually favorable deal.
3)Teleseminar listing sites. Look up "free teleseminar listings" in your favorite search engine, and you'll find sites that welcome announcements of free or paid teleseminars. Although you can't count on these kinds of listings to fill your event, in conjunction with the other methods here they will make a difference.
4)Postings on forums and discussion lists. One of my favorite methods, this involves finding online forums and email discussion lists where your ideal participants already hang out, and letting members know about your upcoming event. Sometimes as a member of such a forum or list you are entitled to announce your event without any problem. Other times you may do so only on a certain day of the week or the month. And in other venues you may include promotional material only through a link in your "signature" (a mini-ad following your discussion posts). Carefully investigate the ground rules of each group before going ahead with this method.
5)Press releases. This too has yielded results for me. Write a news-style announcement about your teleseminar and distribute it through inexpensive press release distribution services, such as PRWeb or Emailwire.
6)Twitter, Facebook, Linked In. Even if you don't yet have a following, you can generate interest by creating a presence on various social networks and posting about your upcoming event using shrewdly chosen keywords.
7)Pay per click ads. Using keywords that people in your target market search for, you can easily promote your event through Google Adwords and similar ads, which appear alongside search results or on other people's content sites. These networks allow you to control your spending, so you need not fear the risk of huge losses. You pay only for people seeing your ad who click through to the detailed description of your teleseminar on your site.
8)Postcards. If you know precise demographic or occupational details for your ideal teleseminar participants, you can buy a list of names and addresses for people fitting that description. Online postcard companies then enable you to design and send these strangers an eye-catching postcard without your ever needing to lick a stamp or visit the post office to drop off a mailing. If your eventual customer will be spending a considerable amount with you, postcard marketing can be quite cost-effective.
9)Giveaway events. In certain niches, people organize periodic giveaway fests, where a gaggle of experts each contribute free access to an event, a free report, a free video or something similar when interested people opt-in. I'm not aware of any good systematic way of finding these arrangements, since they tend to pop up and remain active for just a month or less and then disappear. However, if you do run across a giveaway event, be aware that it could offer a legitimate and powerful way to fill your teleseminar.
10)Telephone. Finally, you can call people and invite them to your teleseminar. This works best when you have either a local focus or a very narrow professional niche, so you can be fairly sure that those you are calling fall into the category of participant you are looking for. In a 2009 RainToday survey, 21 percent of business-to-business professionals said they heard about webinars (which are similar to teleseminars) by telephone.
About The Author: Discover how to plan, promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an entrepreneur, professional, nonprofit organization or corporate marketer. Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin provides more how-to's in her "Teleteach for Profit" course: http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm
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Article Title: Employee to Entrepreneur: Replacing Your Salary With Infomarketing Income Within Six Months
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 707
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What if you have no following, no fans, no list but want to create an information marketing business that supports you so you can retire or quit your job? And suppose you're eager to say sayonara to your paycheck within the next six months. Are there business models to follow that boost your chances or reaching that goal?
After giving this question a lot of thought, I've come up with five realistic strategies to generate a full-time income from selling information products and related services within six months.
1. Become an impresario. Remember Max Detweiler, the show producer who schemed to get the von Trapp family singing on stage in The Sound of Music? An impresario today orchestrates events, which in the information marketing realm might be conferences, bootcamps, telesummits, web conferences or virtual trade shows. To do this, you need a strong sense of what a definable, reachable audience wants to learn or experience along with an ingratiating personality that can persuade well-known experts with drawing power to participate in the events.
2. Become a product developer for others. Approach one or more people or companies that already have a hefty following but few things for fans to buy. Offer to create their product empire in exchange for a percentage of the income. Start with merchandising ideas that can be implement quickly, such as branded mugs, T-shirts and stickers and then proceed to the more expensive offerings, like group coaching programs, retreats, themed tours and access to celebrities. You need both a high-flying imagination and down-to-earth marketing skills for this strategy.
3. Collect others' offerings in an online store. Identify a constituency that can't easily find a one-stop information hub with products to buy – such as left-handed musicians, parents of physically handicapped children, nerdy women or aspiring crime scene analysts. Find courses, reports, consulting programs, etc. for this constituency that pay you a commission for each sale. Persuade additional people with general information products to create versions for your niche, with a commission for you. Use pay-per-click ads, media publicity and joint ventures to create traffic to your online store and resell buyers on related products and services after they become customers.
4. Aggressively develop your own product line. To start with, select a niche and concentrate on product types for that niche that can be developed quickly, such as audio expert interviews or PDF compilations of advice. Within the first month, complete a free item, a low-cost item, a medium-priced offering and a high-priced item and arrange them in a classic marketing funnel, where buyers at each level are encouraged to continue to the next level. Then use the traffic building techniques mentioned in strategy #3 to attract customers. And finally, continue to add to the product line as quickly as you can while maintaining product quality.
5. Use outsourcing to develop an assembly line of loosely related ebooks or DVDs. Here you are aiming at an existing marketplace that gathers millions of prospective buyers for you, such as Amazon's Kindle store (for ebooks) or Amazon and eBay (for DVDs). Select a topic in which you have an avid interest and some knowledge. Use keyword research to identify product titles that are often searched for, and develop a cadre of trusted workers from sites like Fiverr, Guru or eLance who can create original work at low rates for which you purchase all rights. You serve the mastermind of this empire, with freelancers performing the content creation, quality control, cover creation and marketing copy – unless you are already good at one or more of those tasks.
The above business models all aim at speed of implementation for fast results. None is a lazy way to riches. Before getting started, calculate how much income you need to be clearing per month from your business to replace your salary, and when you have built to that level, you're ready to say goodbye to employment.
With an intelligent choice of topic and target market and a good measure of hard work, you should be able to accomplish your goal of exchanging the dependability of your job income for the freedom of the entrepreneurial life.
About The Author: The author of 16 books and nine multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information since 1981. Download her FREE recording answering the most commonly asked questions about information marketing at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm .
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Article Title: Two Public Speaking Models For Marketers – Educating Vs. Selling From the Stage
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 741
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You may have heard that speaking – on stage, in teleseminars, via webinars – is a terrific way to build your list and get those in your target market excited about doing business with you. What you probably have not heard is that there are two vastly different paradigms for using speaking to generate leads and grow your customer base.
Depending on your goals and your vision of how you prefer to relate to clients, you'll surely gravitate to one model or the other. This is important, because mixing elements from the two models leads to frustration and confusion, both on your part and among your audience. Once you understand your preferences, you'll know which marketers to emulate and which to ignore – and why. And because you'll be more consistent in how you speak, you'll see results from your speaking efforts gradually improving.
Model #1: Speaking to Sell
Here the overall goal is to maximize sales to those in the audience, both now and in the future. Whatever accomplishes that goal is considered appropriate. Any education that comes about through the event is incidental and not a high priority.
Model #2: Speaking to Educate
Here the overall goal is to provide a service to the audience by informing them about a topic area. Those who find this education helpful are invited in a low-key way to become clients, either by simply signing on to a list where they will be further educated and sold to over time, by contacting the speaker after the talk or by making a small introductory purchase now. In this model, selling takes place but it is essential for each educational event to be complete and self-contained rather than a come-on for something else.
Advice from proponents of Model #1:
* Speak fast, which creates an environment conducive to buying. It doesn't matter whether or not the audience can follow.
* Tell your personal story so the audience will feel comfortable buying from you.
* Include testimonials and success stories, which prime people to buy.
* Ignore program evaluations. All that counts is how much you sold from each event.
* Provide an order form, not handouts.
* If using informative slides, keep them up only for a short time. Their function is to serve as teasers for a paid product, not to teach anything.
* Don't charge a speaking fee. Your compensation is your sales. It's customary to split event sales 50/50 with the sponsor of the event.
* End with an explicit offer and tell the audience where to go immediately with their credit card or cash in hand.
Advice from proponents of Model #2:
* Master the art of speaking, so listeners have the best possible educational experience when in your audience.
* Have someone else introduce you so you can concentrate on subject matter during your talk. Stay away from personal anecdotes unless they drive home an educational point.
* Include examples only to the extent that they make your educational points more vivid.
* Always scrutinize program evaluations for ways you can improve.
* Provide handouts that include your short bio and where audience members can learn more from you.
* When using slides, orchestrate them so participants can absorb the information more easily.
* If an audience includes perfect prospects, you may agree to speak for free, but given the valuable educational information you provide, speaking fees are welcome and appropriate. Sales at or immediately after an event are a nice bonus, not the main goal. Event sponsors do not receive a cut of sales.
* Conclude with a strong close that reinforces the overall theme of your talk and the audience's perception of you as the expert.
Both of these models can build a large, thriving business. Sticking to the model is important so that those in the audience receive consistent signals and know what to expect from you in the future. My own passionate preference is for Model #2 because I find it more respectful of audiences and it better fits my values and personality. When I encounter gurus using Model #1, I can't stand to follow them for long because I come to feel all they care about is money. Your preference may be the opposite!
About The Author: Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high-ticket, high-value teleteaching courses, including webinars. To learn more about your teleteaching options, download a complimentary copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business," go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm
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Article Title: Lessons From Napoleon Hill For a Million-Dollar Book Title
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 570
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Long ago, pioneering self-help author Napoleon Hill was struggling to name his forthcoming book. Neither he nor the publisher were satisfied with their tentative title, The Thirteen Steps to Riches. Although Hill had thought up more than 500 other titles, they simply didn't have a title worthy of the book.
Finally the publisher got impatient and called up Hill. "If you can't think of anything better by tomorrow, we're going to go with 'Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle,'" he said. When he went to bed that night, Napoleon Hill was determined to have a better title by the next day.
In the wee hours of the morning, Hill awakened certain that he had a winner: Think and Grow Rich. He woke up the publisher with a phone call, and the publisher too agreed that this was the million-dollar title they had been aiming for. Since its first publication in 1937, Hill's masterpiece has sold more than 60 million copies around the world. Who knows how many copies Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle might have sold!
I'd like to pull four important points about book titles from this story.
First, it often takes lots of effort before you arrive at the ideal book title you are seeking. Inexperienced brainstormers usually stop too soon, before the best ideas come out. When you are working on a book title, be sure to write down each idea and each fragment of an idea. Keep going, in several different sessions if need be, until you have at least a hundred possible titles in your notes.
Second, bring other people into the process if you can, because every mind has a different set of associations and connections. Hill would probably never have thought up Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle, himself. Sometimes authors get perfect title ideas from children, teens, friends and colleagues who don't even know much about their topic.
Third, dreadful ideas may lead to wonderful ones. Did you notice the strong resemblance between the publisher's terrible book title and Hill's eventual terrific one? Don't edit your ideas while you are brainstorming. Jot down even ideas that are completely inappropriate. Consider whether options that make everyone cringe might have some creativity in them that you can capitalize on and improve.
And last, it's essential to know how to recognize the title that is precisely what you are looking for. Hill was searching for something simple and catchy, yet dignified. His winning title put together four ordinary, one-syllable words in a resonant phrase that people still love to repeat today. When I teach the process of generating company names, tag lines and book titles, I emphasize the importance of identifying goals, audiences and preferences so as to draw up a list of specific criteria for the naming project at hand. Without a list of criteria, you are in the position of waiting for a lightning bolt from heaven and may have a hard time recognizing it when it flashes in your consciousness.
Use these tips to produce a wealth of options, then select the book title that gets the job done best.
Here's hoping you go on to think up a one-in-a-million name – and like Napoleon Hill, you see it make you a millionaire many times over.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy company names, product names and book titles according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name, Title or Tag Line" at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
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Article Title: Marketing Copy With Conscience: How to Write a Winning Sales Page, Ethically
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 1097
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You've finally completed your product, and now it's time to sell it. But let's say you arrive at the copywriting task with a host of concerns about how to present your offering honestly, without deceptive tricks and without distasteful hype. Use this checklist to understand the ingredients of an effective sales page as well as how to get comfortable with each element so you can implement it in a way that feels good both to you and to your ideal customers.
Before you write a word, spend several minutes focusing on your audience, your potential buyers. What kinds of people or companies do you hope and expect to be your customers? Get clear as well on why you believe they'll be interested in what you're selling. What advantages will they experience from having your product? These points are the essence that you'll be communicating in your marketing copy.
Keeping your audience and those benefits in your mind, sit down and explain to readers in plain language why they should buy your product, how they will be better off with it – and more so than with any competing products. If you truly write your marketing copy draft imagining that you are speaking to your audience, it usually comes out sounding sincerely persuasive. Next it's time to reshape, improve and add to your draft, using the checklist below.
What's Needed for a Sales Page that Sells
1. Headline. Your headline must serve as an attention getter, but it doesn't need to scream, scold, scare or blare an outlandish promise in bold red letters. One strong type of headline simply highlights the #1 benefit of the product. For example:
- Improve Your Productivity: No More Writer's Block or Procrastination
- Turn What You Know (or What Others Know) into a 24/7 Income Stream
- Master the Ultimate Low-Cost, High-Results Marketing Medium: The Postcard
2. Tone. Consider how you would like to come across to customers– as friendly, authoritative, skeptical, precise, unsophisticated or whatever – then adjust the wording of your page so you convey that impression consistently. Someone else's favorite tone probably won't work for you. Cultivate a tone that is authentic and conscious, rather than imitative. Just as you can ace a job interview by being your best self, your written pitch can sound like you dressed up for company you respect.
3. Details. You must offer clear, unambiguous descriptions of your product and what it includes. Explicitly catalog the product's characteristics, from the fundamentals, such as whether it's a CD or a book, whether it's sent by mail, downloadable or viewable only online, etc., to the finer points, like the number of pages or minutes, and how it differs from similar products. Add anything else a buyer might need to feel clear on whether or not it suits their needs and interests. You'll appreciate the importance of such detail when you put yourself in the shoes of the person considering shelling out money for your product without being able to examine it before buying. Almost all the time, more detail works better than less.
4. Price. Never force shoppers to click to another page or put something into their shopping cart to discover how much your item costs. That's inconsiderate – and visitors to your site get annoyed if they have to hunt hard for the price. If your sales copy is lengthy, make sure someone skimming it can locate the price without having to read every paragraph, word by word. Be equally explicit and considerate you're your description of shipping policies and fees.
5. Trust boosters. Why should readers believe what you're promising? Provide third-party endorsements, media mentions, credentials, examples, photos, independent studies on your item's effectiveness, and other credibility indicators. People who want to buy but hesitate because they've been scammed or had a fear of scams drummed into them deserve these kinds of reassurances to go ahead and act.
6. Reasoning. Do your best to think your way into the reader's head and head off the most probable "But"s and "What If"s. You can anticipate and counteract such doubts and objections in a section of questions and answers or in plain old paragraphs. Also provide a way for readers with additional questions to get them answered. Again, put this in the category of offering the fullest possible description of your sales offering so potential buyers understand what your product or service is and isn't.
7. Guarantee. Sometimes an unconditional money-back guarantee proves the clincher, giving people the confidence to buy, knowing that they can reverse the purchase if they change their minds. Remember that most people feel disappointed, not triumphant, when they decide to return something for a refund. The guarantee may neutralize the unhappiness and even make them willing to try you again on another offer. Researchers tell us that a 60-day guarantee is more reassuring and effective than a 30-day guarantee, a 90-day guarantee more powerful than a 60-day one, and a year-long guarantee better than any of those. So don't let your fears set an unnecessarily restricted guarantee.
8. Call to action. Whereas sales copy always begins with a headline, it always needs to end with an unequivocal statement of the next step for the reader to take. Usually that's "Buy now." Like the price, the order link or button should stand out visually so an eager buyer readily finds it. Normally this belongs at the end of your sales presentation. If your sales copy is very long, a second link not far below the opening makes sense for people reading through the page a second time.
Notice that I didn't suggest you add a gazillion bonuses, which often end up devaluing the original product. I also didn't recommend you refer to an inflated "original" price so your actual price appears to be marked down. If you never actually sold it at the "original" price, that would be a dishonest and possibly even illegal move.
Once you've included all the ingredients above, go through the copy again with an editor's eye, cutting or clarifying anything that's confusing, correcting grammar and spelling and formatting the page in readable paragraphs of eight lines or fewer.
Finally you're finished. Shoppers will thank you for the care you took to make their decision-making easier!
About The Author: The author of Meatier Marketing Copy, Persuading on Paper and 14 other books, Marcia Yudkin specializes in no-hype copywriting. Find out more about her one-on-one copywriting training program at http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm .
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Article Title: How to Choose a Niche For Your Information Marketing Business
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 775
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You'd like to start an information marketing business that brings you sales while you sleep. But you're wavering between doing so in Niche A, where you worked for 22 years but now feel bored about the topic and doing so in Niche B, your non-workplace passion, the hobby on which you lavish tons of time, money and affection. Or you have one particular niche in mind and want reassurance that doing the work to build your information empire has good odds of paying off.
Use this checklist to make your decision easier. I've started with the more objective factors and then moved to the more subjective ones. Both are relevant and important.
1. Advertisers. Can you easily find companies advertising to the niche? Look both online and offline for this. Online, perform 10 searches related to the niche in question and give yourself a score of 5 if at least five pay-per-click ads come up with most or all of your search results. Give yourself a score of 0 if hardly any or no pay-per-click ads appear with your search results.
To gauge offline advertisers, look for subscription magazines related to your niche, which can only exist when supported by related ads. Rate yourself a 5 if you find at least one print magazine in your niche, 3 if there are more broadly focused magazines that include ads for your niche and 0 if you can't find any print advertising vehicles at all for your niche.
2. Existing information products. Search Clickbank, Amazon and eBay for information products for your niche. Finding these indicates that others have turned a profit serving your niche, which in turn shows promise for you, too. If you find at least five such products on these marketplaces, you rate a 5. If you find none, that's a 0.
3. Higher-end offerings. Try to find coaches, marketing consultants or for-fee associations that specialize in serving your niche, and events for the niche that cost more than $500, such as retreats, conferences, telesummits or other paid gatherings. If you find at least three of these, add 5 to your tally, a 0 if you find none.
4. Breadth. How wide or narrow is your niche? In most cases it's far easier to attract and serve a narrower audience. Examples of broad niches include stay-at-home moms, retirees, car lovers, work supervisors, athletes and dancers. Examples of narrow niches include biodynamic gardeners, Shaolin martial arts enthusiasts, BMW bike owners, forensic accountants and foreign nannies working in the US (or those who want to). Give yourself 5 points for a narrow niche, 0 for a broad niche.
5. Timeliness. Here we start getting to matters of personal preference. How up-to-date does information need to be for this niche, and how well does that fit with your intentions and capabilities? For example, anything in the realm of technology needs constant updates, corrections, news bulletins and revisions. If you enjoy keeping up with such constant change, write down a 5 for this category.
At the other extreme, if you focus on business strategy, poker playing tips or tourism in Maine, these topics change relatively slowly, and if that's a match for your druthers, you can likewise write down a 5. Give yourself a lower score for a mismatch between the niche's need for timeliness or timelessness and your preferences.
6. Knowledge. How much do you already know about the niche? Get 5 points for deep familiarity with the subject matter and 0 for little to no knowledge as yet.
7. Enthusiasm. Occasionally this element becomes a prime mover when knowledge is absent. Rate yourself 5 if you love, breathe and sleep the topic or wish you could, zero if you're deathly tired of it and 1, 2, 3 or 4 for degrees of excitement in between those two poles.
8. Longevity of interest. You may need to take an educated guess here. How likely is it, you reckon, that you'll still be interested in and excited about the topic in eight to ten years? Your best information marketing prospects accompany topics with personal staying power. Even if your interests tend to change every so often, some topics probably linger longer with you than others, so rate this factor from 0 for poor stickiness to 5 for highly likely to remain interesting for you.
Now add up your score. If you're comparing two niches to each other, the winner should be obvious now. If you're assessing the suitability of just one niche, consider anything above 35 a clear green light, a score from 25 to 35 a yellow light and anything less than 25 a signal to reconsider.
About The Author: The author of 16 books and nine multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information since 1981. Download her FREE recording answering the most commonly asked questions about information marketing at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm .
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Article Title: Passive Income Streams: Are There Truly Lazy Ways to Online Income?
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 730
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Someone asked me what kinds of online businesses I'd recommend for someone who wanted to do any necessary work up front, then sit back and enjoy passive income for a number of years. I thought about what I'd heard about and seen and asked for additional input from Internet marketers. Six realistic options cropped up.
1. Affiliate programs. If you know how to get traffic to a web site through either pay-per-click advertising or search engine optimized content, then you can match that traffic with products and services that earn you commissions when your visitors buy. You're best off featuring high-quality memberships or programs that have recurring fees, such as web hosting, dating services, insurance, etc., so that every time your visitor gets charged for another month or year, you earn an additional commission.
2. Adsense sites. If you understand how to identify in-demand keywords, you can purchase domains, set up sites with timeless content on them and then enroll in Google's Adsense advertising program for publishers. This automatically populates your site with ads related to your content and pays you a commission every time a visitor clicks on one of those little ads on your site. An information marketing veteran I know told me he earns $1000 a month from such Adsense ads, with expenses totaling $70 a year and no work on his part after he set up the sites. Others claim to earn far more than that in passive income from Adsense.
3. Kindle ebooks. Like to write? Research relatively specific topics that are in demand but not oversaturated, then write a series of substantive 30-page ebooks that you publish for Amazon's Kindle store, Barnes & Noble's Nook and Apple's iBookstore. Because those online retailers attract the customers, you can get away with little or no marketing after posting the ebooks for sale there. I recommend the ebooks be related to one another in some way so that someone who buys one and likes it is likely to buy another one. I'm a couple of months into this strategy and see that it is going to add up to passive income of thousands of dollars a year for me.
4. PDF ebooks. Whereas ebooks for Kindle, Nook and the iBookstore generally get priced from $.99 to $9.99 and you're hoping to cash in with regular volume, there's still a market for specialized, short, practical information reports in PDF format in the range of $19.95 to $99.00. Choose problem-oriented topics whose solutions won't go out of date quickly for these. Write a long, persuasive sales letter and either recruit affiliates through a network like Clickbank or buy pay-per-click traffic to your sales letter page. You may need a period of trial and error until you see decent conversion rates, but beyond that point it's possible to receive sales like clockwork month after month after month.
5. Software. When you belong to an industry and share its day-to-day routines, you often observe an unmet need for automation of a specialized, yet not that complicated task. Commission web-based software to perform that task and then sell it for a low monthly fee. This can cost as little as a few hundred dollars through various programmer marketplaces like Scriptlance, and you don't need to understand programming yourself to set this up. Once buyers get accustomed to using your service, they tend to stick with you for quite a long time, and this becomes a mounting stream of passive income for you.
6. Stock stuff. This was mentioned at one of the places I inquired for ideas online, and it involves creating saleable images, video clips, sound effects, ringtones or other such small pieces of intellectual property that can be sold repeatedly and over the long run through online marketplaces for each of those items. To avoid having your creations go out of date quickly, choose subject matter that doesn't involve quickly changing fashions – for example, landscapes instead of people shots, where hair styles become telltale signs of when the work was created.
These six ideas barely begin to represent your options, of course, and perhaps they'll inspire you to create possibilities of your own for online income that you can set up once and sit back and collect income from, year after year after year.
About The Author: The author of 15 books and nine multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information in one form or another since 1981. Download a free recording of her answers to the most commonly asked questions about information marketing by entering your information into the privacy-assured request box at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm
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Article Title: Biblical Business Names: Company and Product Names Inspired by the Bible
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 626
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Not long ago novelist Marilynne Robinson published an article in the New York Times about Biblical references in literature, which got me thinking about Bible-inspired company names and product names.
Surprisingly, there aren't that many.
Robinson pointed out in her article, "Biblical allusions can suggest a degree of seriousness or significance." They have gravity and resonance and indicate a complexity of experience, she noted.
I believe these points can apply also when Biblical allusions appear in business names. Because of widespread education in religious faith, Bible-inspired names often draw on a well of familiarity. They have more potential for long-term relevance and recognition than references from movies, songs and other elements of popular culture.
If you are running a secular business, you might want to avoid a religious flavor. However, as you'll see in most of the examples below, Biblical references don't necessarily come across as either sectarian or devout.
Biblically derived names fall into these categories:
1. Characters from the Bible. For example:
* Samsonite - After Samson, the Old Testament's legendary strong man.
* Lot's Wife Gourmet Sea Salt - A reference to the woman married to Abraham's nephew, who was warned not to look back as they fled the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah. She did, though, and was turned into a pillar of salt.
* Bezalel Coins - In the Book of Exodus, Bezalel was a master artisan chosen to craft the Ark of the Covenant and other sacred objects.
2. Words, phrases or concepts from the Bible, especially from the Book of Proverbs, but also from other parts of the Bible.
* Iron Men - A two-man construction company in Michigan named for Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
* Apples of Gold - An online jewelry company that explicitly notes a reference to Proverbs 25:11, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold, in settings of silver."
* Forbidden Fruit - A store in Austin, Texas that sells (ahem) adult toys, named after the scene in the Garden of Eden where naughty Eve persuades Adam to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, which God forbade them to consume.
* Mannatech - A multilevel marketing company selling supplements and skin-care products, referring to manna, the substance that fell from the heavens every night and sustained the Israelites as they wandered in the desert for 40 years.
3. Chapter or verse numbers. This kind of Biblical reference surprised me, as most people can't cite chapter and verse by memory for familiar Bible passages. However, when explained, these allusions have resonance.
* Fitness 9:27 - A personal training company whose name points to I Corinthians 9:27: "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."
* Thirty-One - A direct sales company offering purses, tote bags and organizational products, whose mission of celebrating, encouraging and rewarding women parallels the evocation of the Woman of Valor in Proverbs 31.
In North America, Biblical references - especially those from the Old Testament - tend to have an ecumenical flavor and don't necessarily identify you with a particular religion. However, internationally that may be less true.
While discussing company names with a man intending to set up headquarters in Dubai with a company name in English, I asked him about using the name Solomon to evoke wisdom. "No, that would be perceived as Jewish. Islam has the same figure but refers to him as Suleiman." And naturally, in India or Indonesia King Solomon may not evoke any associations at all.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms creative business names, product names and tag lines for clients. Download a copy of her free report, "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line," at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
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Article Title: Publicity Tips: Concoct Tasty Sound Bites to Become Quotable and Quoted
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 729
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When you're being interviewed, whether that's on camera, on the phone or in person, sound bites make the difference between getting quoted in the news story and being left out. Unless you're unusually witty, you should think up your tasty verbal morsels ahead of time and toss them into your interview at the appropriate moment.
A terrific sound bite grabs the ear and the mind. It sticks in people's memory because it contains compressed meaning along with a smidgeon of surprise. A great sound bite is fun for the media and the general public to repeat. It spices up the news story or feature with delightful, unexpected flavor.
Here are seven techniques for constructing memorable sound bites.
1. Triples. Remember "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") from high school Latin? Or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence? Many people do. That's because the human mind likes threes. Make a list of keywords for your subject matter and look for catchy triplet combinations. For instance, if you're a business startup guru, you could tell a reporter that you "help ordinary people get rich without working on Wall Street, inheriting wealth or marrying a millionaire."
2. Tweaked clichés. Everyone loves an unexpected version of a familiar saying. Look up your keywords at www.westegg.com/cliche or www.clichesite.com and then start twisting what you find. For example, if you're an advocate of biofuels for automobiles, you could opine that "the new clean air regulations for cars are as clear as sludge."
3. Clever mnemonic. Some schoolkids remember the structure of our solar system with a little ditty in which the first letter of each word corresponds to a planet: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles." Make up an interesting pattern like this for a well-known set of initials, such as "We tell our clients that in our firm, 'CPA' stands for 'Court Prosperity Avidly.'"
4. Unexpected metaphors. Compare your quest, cause or issue to something familiar, using words that relate the abstraction to a specific, wry situation in real life. On NPR's Marketplace show recently, I heard Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center say, "It's as if Republicans and Democrats are planning a trip but they disagree over whether you should start the trip from Buenos Aires or from Greenland." That's much more luscious than simply "…start the trip from Point A or Point B" because the geographical disparity of Buenos Aires and Greenland takes a moment to register, then explodes pleasurably in the mind.
5. Contrast, conflict or paradox. Advertising tag lines often combine opposites or near-opposites in ironic, attention-getting ways, as in "Our food is fresh. Our customers are spoiled" (online grocer FreshDirect) or "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands" (M&M candy). You can do the same by brainstorming words and ideas for your theme, then looking for contraries like local/national, full/empty, funny/serious, up/down, etc., and building something catchy out of it.
6. Details. Review your case studies, client advice, bio and blog for details that can take on iconic significance. For you, the key detail might be your percentage of repeat customers, your documented accuracy rate, your carbon-neutral score – or something other than a number, like "The only thing left after the tornado destroyed our office was a teddy bear we used to keep in the waiting room to comfort our young patients."
7. Rhymes. We normally associate corny verses with greeting cards or jump-rope chants. But Muhammed Ali is one public figure who used rhyming to get quoted, explaining his boxing strategy as "I outwit them and then I out-hit them." You may need to grin as you deliver a rhymed sound bite, and the reporter or talk-show host may groan, yet chances are it'll get passed along.
As Mark Twain (one of the most quoted authors ever) wrote, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." The effort to tweak a rough idea into a tight, bright arrangement of words is worthwhile, turning a so-so sound bite into a sensational one. Then enjoy your minutes in the limelight!
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last (http://www.namedatlast.com) as well as the author of Publicity Tactics, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and the new Kindle ebook, The Sound Bite Workbook, which provides a step-by-step approach to creating sound bites: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NCLN8I.
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Article Title: From Word Manuscript to Kindle Ebook in Three Easy Steps
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 832
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If you've self-published a short report that you're selling in PDF format, consider converting it to Kindle format and selling it in Amazon's digital downloads store. Prices you can realistically charge there range from $.99 to $9.99, with your share of purchases either 35 or 70 percent. But perhaps the greater benefit than the income is the opportunity through the Amazon Kindle store to get your material in front of customers from around the world who wouldn't otherwise ever run across your ideas and talents.
About a year ago, I struggled to take a paperback book I had nicely designed using the powerhouse publishing program InDesign and convert it so I could sell it on Kindle. I tried three different conversion tools, and all of them produced grossly unacceptable results. Frustrated, yet not ready to shell out the cash to hire someone else to reformat the book, I put this project on the back burner.
More recently, tempted by tales of colleagues experiencing results with short ebooks on Kindle, I decided to test the waters with a collection of articles that I'd compiled into an ebook. After sifting through many how-to articles and videos on Kindle conversions, here are the steps I followed that worked out perfectly not only for my experimental 30-page ebook but for several other short works and then the more complex paperback that had earlier stumped me.
Step One: Setting Up Styles in Your Word Document
One key to success is keeping your Microsoft Word formatting as simple as possible. Don't worry about selecting fonts or defining fancy formatting. Instead, define and use what Word calls "styles."
To do this, click on "Styles" from Word's "Format" menu, then one by one define the following three basic styles:
1) Body Text: Times New Roman 12, single spacing, no other special effects
2) Heading 1: Based on no style, Times New Roman 16 points, bold, page break before
3) Heading 2: Based on no style, Times New Roman 14 points, bold, no page break before
Then code all regular paragraphs in your manuscript as Body Text by highlighting them and clicking on "Body Text" for them in the "Styles" menu. Code your chapter titles as "Heading 1" and any subheads as "Heading 2."
If you need additional formatting styles, define a new style for it in the "Styles" menu instead of manually clicking buttons on your computer keyboard to make the text look the way you think it should. Unless everything in your Word document is coded consistently in such styles, you'll see chaos in the Kindle version.
Step Two: Save Your Word File as RTF
When you have finishing coding everything in your Word manuscript, save the file first as a ".doc" file, then as a rich text file – ".rtf." The RTF file is what you need for Step Three.
Step Three: Convert to Mobi Format using Calibre
Calibre is a free ebook conversion program you can download at www.calibre-ebook.com. Open the program and click on the "plus" icon in the upper left to load the RTF version of your ebook into Calibre. Then click the "i" icon" in the upper left to fill in such information as your name and the title of the ebook.
With your book title highlighted on the main screen of the program, click on the next icon, with two curved arrows, which gets you to the conversion function. There are a lot of options that come up, but you only need to concern yourself with two of them. In the upper right corner, where it says "Output Format," select "MOBI." Then in the left column, click on "Page Setup" and then under "Output Profile," select "Kindle."
Click "OK," and the program converts your file to something you can upload to Kindle. When the rotating circle in the lower right corner stops spinning, double-click on your title on Calibre's main screen to see how your file will look in the Kindle e-reader.
If the e-reader shows formatting that looks wildly wrong, then you didn't define and code your styles in Word carefully enough. Go back to the ".doc" file that you saved at the beginning of Step Two and check your styles, then repeat Steps Two and Three. You may need to do some trial and error in redefining the styles to get things like bulleted lists looking right in Kindle.
When your text looks fine in Calibre's Kindle simulator, you are ready to upload the .mobi version of your ebook to Amazon. You can get that process started by going to http://kdp.amazon.com/. In just a day or so after you've uploaded your ebook, you and the rest of the online universe will see it available for sale in the Kindle store. Happy ebook sales!
About The Author: The author of 15 books and 9 multimedia home-study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information since 1981. Download her free recording of answers to commonly asked questions about information marketing by going to http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm .
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Article Title: The Six Essential Ingredients of a B-to-B Copywriter's Web Site
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 685
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When you set up shop as a business-to-business copywriter, you can get started through referrals, word-of-mouth recommendations and face-to-face meetings with potential clients. Soon you'll need a web site, though. The web site serves as a credibility booster, buttressing your claims to competence and functioning as a 24/7 checkpoint for those who have heard something about you and want to know more.
At a minimum, your b-to-b copywriting web site must have these six elements to perform its job for you.
1. Home page. If someone arrived at your home page accidentally, would they understand in less than five seconds who you are and what sort of work you do? They should. Your home page needs to provide an overview of how you help which kinds of businesses and the advantages of hiring you. You win extra points with readers if your prose has an explicit or implicit "you" in it rather than "I, I, I" or "we, we, we." At the end of the home page copy, tell the visitor what they should do next – download a free report, call you for a free get-to-know-you session or email the details for an upcoming project.
2. Services page. The services page details which services you provide. Don't merely provide a list. For each service, describe in enticing terms how it helps the client reach an important business objective. To maximize the odds that you and potential clients will come to agreement on your fees, list a fee range for each service.
3. About page. Here, post a business bio describing your background, experience and credentials. Most potential clients appreciate seeing a photo so they can imagine who they'd be dealing with, as well as just enough personal information (hobbies, family, pets) so you don't come across as a robot.
4. Portfolio page. Not all, but a good number of potential clients will expect to see samples of your work. Most of them simply want to make sure that your abilities fit the sort of writing they're looking to hire you to perform and don't care how much you were paid for those portfolio pieces. Therefore it's fine to post samples that you created specifically for your online portfolio. Replace those with paid sample pieces, though, when you can. Three is a good minimum number of samples for the portfolio.
5. Testimonials. You should have at least two client testimonials, though three make for a much better starting point. Each testimonial should be signed with the full name and company of the person who wrote it. Since fake client quotes can be construed as false advertising, these must be actual quotes from real people you performed work for.
6. How to reach you. Some interested clients prefer to call, while others want to inquire by email, so provide both means of contact. Don't hide behind an impersonal contact form. I've provided my actual email address and business phone number on my web site for more than a decade without any problems from doing so.
If you are writing a blog, my advice is to create a website with a blog integrated into it rather than a blog that contorts itself to present the elements I've just named as your minimum elements. Don't write only a blog thinking that that's going to lead to people hiring you. Clients need to be able to read about your services, your bio, your portfolio and your contact information with one easy, obvious click for each, and all too often that's not the case for blogs.
I strongly recommend you also offer some kind of free report or resource for potential clients, in exchange for people's email address. This provides a way for you to build a list of interested prospects.
Remember that visitors to your site will be gauging your writing ability as they read through your web pages. So make sure you've performed thorough proofreading and created an inviting, consistent tone.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. She runs a one-on-one mentoring program that teaches no-hype marketing writing skills and business savvy. For more information: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: The Four Best Ways to Launch Your B-to-B Copywriting Business
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 643
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B-to-b means business-to-business – selling specifically to businesses rather than to individuals or the general public. If you're writing copy for b-to-b clients, then they might be selling web technology, niche-specific insurance, just about any kind of consulting, training or research; doing catalog design and mailing, environmental assessments, product photography, trucking, specialty office supplies, legal services, forensic weather reports and on and on.
While unglamorous, b-to-b copywriting can be lucrative. With just a moderate amount of talent, discipline and initiative, you can make a decent six-figure living at it, with many of your clients coming back to you with additional projects year after year. Here are the four best ways I currently know of to launch your practice.
Best starting method #1 is sending a piece of direct mail to carefully chosen members of your niche, with a specific offer that has high appeal and low risk for the client. A postcard is my favorite kind of direct mail piece, but it can also be a sales letter. The offer should provide value to the client even if they never hire you to do anything else, but it should also serve as a get-acquainted project that can readily lead to further work. The offer might be free or paid. If paid, it should be low-cost.
Best starting method #2 is cold calling with the goal of getting a meeting with someone in the position to hire you. For this method, I suggest you devour Peter Bowerman's book, The Wellfed Writer, because this is exactly how he got started, and he explains the strategy in great and convincing detail in his book. Peter found that for every three meetings with potential clients he was able to set up, he walked out with one project. Those are terrific odds, if you are comfortable cold calling.
Best starting method #3 is an industry survey with personal followup. In a nutshell, you think of a question that will have great appeal for the niche you are targeting, that relates to the kind of help you want to be offering your clients and that might very well yield surprising or at least interesting results. Set it up using something like SurveyMonkey. Then using email, Linked In, a press release, Twitter, industry forums or listservs, ask people to take your confidential survey and promise to send them the results if they provide their contact information.
When you tally up the results, you then do another round of publicity and contact the survey takers who asked for the results with a personal message that invites them to continue the relationship, which will lead in some cases to a client engagement because they now regard you ask an expert.
Best starting method #4 is to join the trade association of your target market and network with them locally, regionally and nationally, become involved in the organization in some highly visible role, speak to their meetings, publish articles in their publications and so on. Within a year, you typically become the go-to person for marketing writing for members of the organization. Years ago, a friend of mine launched her writing business this way by volunteering to be the publicity chair for her local Chamber of Commerce, north of Boston. Within a matter of months, this made her the reigning queen of publicity within that organization and she never looked back.
There are many other good ways to get your b-to-b copywriting career off to a roaring start, including creating a blog on topics of interest to your target market, creating a content-rich website with tips, advice and resources for potential clients, using Linked In, Twitter, and more. But if you want to start with the best possible payoff from your time and effort, use one of the four methods described here.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. Find out about her one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Eight Criteria to Consider When Working on Your Book Title
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 753
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It's a huge and common mistake to fiddle around with possible book titles and expect a bolt of lightning to hit when you finally spot "the one." Often the one you fall in love with is the title no one else understands – or worse, gives entirely the wrong impression of the book. On the other hand, sometimes a million-dollar title needs to grow on you.
For those reasons, before you start brainstorming for your book title I strongly recommend you set aside some time to create a list of criteria, the qualities the best title for this particular book needs to have. Use the following rundown and commentary to create your own unique list of what you want and need in a title.
Factor #1: Audience
Is the wording of your title going to click with the intended audience of the book? I've seen instances where an expert overestimated his/her audience's familiarity with a key term and used a title that had great appeal for specialists but not for folks in his actual customer base. If in doubt, find out whether or not folks in your target market understand the words in your title that you assume they will.
Factor #2: Tone
Is the tone of a possible title light-hearted where it should be serious or vice versa? Does it sound like a popular book where it should sound academic or vice versa? Might it sound to some people like you are advocating something that you're actually against? Does the tone of the title make it sound like the book is for young readers when it's for adults, or vice versa? Wherever the tone is wrong, eliminate those options from your list or change them so the tone is right.
Factor #3: Differentiation
You can't always know the titles of similar books that are in the publishing pipeline, but you can research books that are already published or officially announced for publication. Is there an existing book whose title could be easily confused with yours or worse, is identical? Book titles can't be copyright protected, but it's neither to your advantage nor to theirs for such confusion to take place.
Factor #4: Legal
Eliminate any title options that might get you into legal trouble. Are you making any kind of promise that you can't thoroughly back up? For example, if created a title like The Rheumatoid Arthritis Cure, you open yourself to much more stringent legal scrutiny than if you called the book Overcome Rheumatoid Arthritis or RA: Natural Relief. Beware also about infringing on trademarks. For example, American Express holds a trademark on the phrase "Don't Leave Home Without It," so you could count on legal action if you used that as your book title.
Factor #5: Fits a Series
Is there even the slightest chance you might end up writing a series of related books, not just one? If so, then you are better off choosing a title that lends itself to a series. For example, the title Locavore Adventures could easily be followed up by More Locavore Adventures, and if needed by Further Locavore Adventures, Even More Locavore Adventures and a few more titles in that vein. It's harder to see how to do that with the title Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet, which is on pretty much the same topic.
Factor #6: Connotations
Unless you're deliberately hoping to cause offense, think carefully about whether your top titles might have any unwanted connotations or double meanings or provoke protests because of ethnic, gender, disability or other slurs. If so, cut those from the running.
Factor #7: Keywords for SEO
Don't forget to give some thought to keywords that would be helpful to have in the title from a search engine optimization point of view. These may be in the subtitle rather than in the main part of the title. Including keywords in the title or subtitle will definitely help your book come up in search engine searches and help strangers discover your book.
Factor #8: Brevity
Finally, examine your surviving titles and make sure they are as concise and clear as possible. Eliminate any extra verbiage and tighten it up as if you have to pay for every letter on the cover. Chances are, you then have a winner!
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names, product names and book titles according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of her "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name, Book Title or Tag Line": http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: How to Find an Endless Supply of Best-selling Ideas For Your Nonfiction Book Title
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 573
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Feel stumped when it's time to create your book title? There's no need to stare helplessly at a blank page or blank screen. Instead, jump-start your creation of a title by looking at successful books on today's best-seller lists and using the patterns you can identify in those titles to spark your own ideas, tailored for your own book's content and focus.
For example, you might look at the book title "Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption," and analyze it as three emotional words using alliteration, then "A Story of…" two qualities, one of them modified in a curiosity-provoking way.
Likewise, you could look at "Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything" and analyze it as a weird, provocative question, followed by a simple one-word summary of the topic and a grand philosophical phrase.
Among business books, you might find yourself lingering at "The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich" by Tim Ferris and break it down as four promises, the first one as a way-out-of-reach dream and three more compelling promises starting with a verb.
As in that example, you'll also see many numbers, particularly in strongly selling business books and self-help titles, such as "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene or "Goal Setting: 13 Secrets of World Class Achievers" by Vic Johnson.
Another attention-getting pattern is a reversal of expectations. For example, "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker makes us curious because we normally consider fear a curse rather than a gift.
Among cookbooks, you'll find grandiosity, as with "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman. (Surely that's a huge exaggeration!)
In the science section, where many of us would expect dry, academic titles, you might smile at "Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World" by Lisa Randall. The pattern there consists of an opening phrase that quotes a popular song with a double meaning and a subtitle that defines the topic literally, completely ignoring the song reference.
Something you'll notice in many titles is alliteration – repeated initial sounds. For instance, as I write this, the nonfiction best seller list includes "Suicide of a Superpower" by Patrick Buchanan and "Living Large in Lean Times" by Clark Howard – where the repeated s's or l's make the title phrase much more memorable.
You'll also see titles that bring together opposites or contrasts to create tension in a phrase, as with "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis or "Forks over Knives," a book version of a documentary film on plant-based eating.
Undoubtedly you'll spot examples of one of the most popular title patterns today, a one-word main title followed by a much longer, clarifying subtitle, such as "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks" by Ken Jennings or "Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil" by Ben Mezrich.
Remember to use the patterns you see in your research for inspiration. Do not copy them. When you've done it right, you'll have a resonance of success that people feel without knowing why that makes them want to explore your book and buy it.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company or product names and book titles according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of her "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name, Book Title or Tag Line" at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
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Article Title: Online Presentation Tips: Six Keys to Dynamic Webinars or Webcasts
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 560
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A webinar is a seminar that people listen to and watch on the web, via their computer, while a teleseminar involves listening only, via the telephone or computer. A webinar is also sometimes called a webcast. When numerous presenters are involved in the same program, it may be called a web conference instead of a webinar or webcast. Many cost nothing to attend, as they are designed to funnel leads into a sales process. Others are pure educational events, with attendance fees.
Whatever you call it and whether free or for-fee, this is a multimedia format that involves simultaneous seeing and listening. Because visuals normally need to be created in advance and arranged in order, it requires more preparation than a teleseminar. Add in more preparation time because of the need to familiarize yourself with the technology.
On the plus side, however, you have the potential to engage and inform listeners not merely with words but also with images. So let's look at how to take full advantage of the strengths of this communication medium. What can you do to keep participants involved from the beginning to the end of your webinar program?
Six Keys to Livelier Web Presentations
1. Interactivity. Make the most of the webinar interface by planning at least two audience polls during your talk. Have a confederate logged in who checks on the poll numbers for you and announces them to both you and the group. This keeps the communication two-way, to a certain extent, and the atmosphere spontaneous rather than canned.
2. Enough slides to keep things moving. A good rule of thumb is one slide per minute. If you have a series of points to make on one topic, present slides portraying one point at a time instead of keeping one slide containing all the points up for many minutes.
3. Minimal bullet points. A lecture that's a succession of bullet points takes on a dull, predictable rhythm. Instead of filling slide after slide with bullets, consider questions, charts, graphs, photos or images that either encapsulate your theme or suggest your point without summarizing it outright.
4. Suspense. Since people attend webinars on their computer, participants always have many temptations for multitasking or drifting away altogether during your presentation. At least once during your talk, mention something enticing you'll be talking about later to help keep them tuned in.
5. Questions in reserve. Participants appreciate it when you give them the opportunity to ask questions. But they don't always jump in when invited. Have several questions in reserve, to avoid long silences and to help shy people gather the gumption to speak up. Introduce your dummy questions by saying (truthfully) "I'm often asked about..." or "Here's a question..."
6. Unexpected beginning, strong ending. Start with a bold claim, a surprising statistic, an eye-opening incident, or something else with impact. When time is up, don't simply trail off but end with a punchy summary of your advice or your bold claim. Plan your ending to follow the Q&A period.
By using these tips to create a lively online presentation, your webinar has a much better chance of accomplishing its aims: Participants have learned as planned or moved closer to becoming your paying customers.
About The Author: Veteran teleseminar and webinar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high-ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about teleteaching options, download a free copy of "66 Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause," at http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm .
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Article Title: Great Tag Lines Don't Get Misquoted
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 656
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"Elementary, my dear Watson." - Sherlock Holmes
"Discretion is the better part of valor." - Shakespeare
"There's a sucker born every minute." - PT Barnum
According to Ralph Keyes' entertaining book "Nice Guys Finish Seventh," all the above well-known quotes (and hundreds of others) are spurious.
Nowhere in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's volumes of Sherlock Holmes novels does the great detective say "Elementary, my dear Watson." In one of the books, Holmes does reply to Watson with the retort, "Elementary." And in a 1929 Sherlock Holmes film, that riposte was embellished into "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary." People assume the phrase came from Conan Doyle, but it did not, not in that form.
Shakespeare did relate discretion and valor in his play Henry IV, but the actual wording there was in inverse order: "The better part of valor is discretion."
And as for the quote from PT Barnum, the closest thing the legendary showman actually said was "The people like to be humbugged."
Keyes spends nearly 200 pages tracking down, documenting and attempting to explain popular misquotes and misattributions of quotes. Let's leave aside the instances where something was actually said about someone rather than by the person, such as "Any man who hates dogs and children can't be all bad," stated about comedian WC Fields by Leo Rosten when introducing him at a Los Angeles banquet, as well as those attributed to a more famous contemporary, like "You can't trust anyone over thirty," often attributed to Abbie Hoffman but actually voiced by another sixties activist, Jack Weinberg. Instead, let's look at quotes whose wording got rearranged or revised during a grand game of "Telephone" played by the public over time.
For example:
* The stronger, more striking version wins out. On camera, Mae West actually said to Cary Grant, "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" This morphed in collective memory to "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Important words, like "sometime" here, belong either at the beginning or the end of a line.
* The more conversational word order sticks. Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Most people quote it as "There's method in his madness."
* Complications get ironed out. Henry Ford, for example, said, "History is more or less bunk," which is remembered simply as "History is bunk." Many people quote the Bible as saying, "Money is the root of all evil," when in fact I Timothy 6:10 says, "The love of money is the root of all evil."
* The self-contained version prevails. As most film buffs know, the movie "Casablanca" does not include the line, "Play it again, Sam." Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, says, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" A bit later Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, tells Sam, "Play it!" People quote the line as "Play it again, Sam" because that version includes more context and encapsulates the meaning of the scene.
If you're hoping to craft a tag line that lasts the way you wrote it, then make sure you've chosen the catchiest word order, eliminated complications and included relevant context. Test it out on people and have them repeat it back to you from memory. If everyone mangles it or gets it wrong, the tag line may need further polishing. If it comes back as you wrote it, it may be ready for posterity.
Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with a compelling new tag line, download "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line" free at www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, which brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with a compelling new tag line, download "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name or Tag Line" free at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm
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Article Title: B-to-B Copywriting: How it Differs From Copywriting For Internet Marketers
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 622
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If you study most of the copywriting courses promoted online, you'll get the impression that what works – and what copywriting clients want – is weird, shocking headlines, hype upon hype, exaggerated promises and a carnival-barker tone. For example, one course holds up these headlines as models to emulate:
* Heads Up! Your fate is in the hands of drunks, drug addicts, blackmailers, and imbeciles.
* Profit With the Insiders Without Breaking a Single Law
* A Rare Opportunity to Turn $5,000 into $3.52 Million
* Medically Proven Miracles of Healing – Let me tell you about the stunning, no-side-effects cures that greedy drug companies and FDA bureaucrats don't want you to have.
For business-to-business (b-to-b) copywriting clients, however, this in-your-face style of writing does not succeed. It does not appeal to them, and it is not what they want their copywriters to write for them. You may argue all you like that response numbers prove it's more effective, but most don't care about your numbers in the least.
Instead, b-to-b clients want something punchy, clear, attention-getting and direct. Most of all, they want you to be able to come at their business with the clear-eyed perception and skill to uncover the true value they offer their clients and to present that effectively and persuasively.
Business-to-business companies are often steeped in jargon, and you'll need to be able to decipher their jargon so you can explain what they're up to, why it matters and how they differ from competitors apart from their jargon. Sometimes they cling to their jargon as if it's a safety blanket, but they rarely object when you keep the jargon in for those in the know and provide wording that clues in those who may not be as hip to the jargon as your client thinks they are.
It's also helpful if you are really skilled in figuring out the benefits of features. B-to-b clients are often stuck in pitching only features and aren't using the power of combining features and benefits. Features, as you probably know, are the "what" of offerings and benefits are the "so what."
In b-to-b copywriting, tone is crucial. B-to-b clients expect and are most comfortable with a professional tone. If you get really creative in a way that includes a sarcastic, bombastic, hysterical, insulting, scapegoating, accusatory or heavy-handed tone, you'll most likely have an uphill battle getting the client to approve your copy. If you get really creative in a way that's consistent with a business-like tone, they may think you're a genius and most likely will have no problem with it.
For example, here are some email subject lines created for b-to-b clients:
* Whoever Heard of 7,701 Phone Calls From a Single Jingle?
* Take Command of Your Email Inbox.
* Can Your Latest Release Pass the Trampoline Test?
* Pssst, Your Signage Is Outdated.
Again, tone is crucial. These subject lines are dramatic and unexpected, but they're not outrageous, over-the-top or offensive in any way. They're quite different from the headlines I quoted at the outset. They are not embarrassingly outside the pale of mainstream business culture.
In the b-to-b world, a client's comfort zone is extremely relevant. They need to feel that your copy represents them well, and they may be delighted and use your services again and again for the sole reason that they are so pleased with how well you've captured what they're all about. Have that as your aim, and you'll easily attract b-to-b clients and receive repeat assignments from many of them for years.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. Find out about her one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Introverts: How and Why You Can Uncover Your Hidden Talents
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 727
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In 1928, a Russian newspaper editor reprimanded a new reporter who had been sitting through morning meetings of the editorial staff without taking any notes. After listening to his editor's scolding that he'd have no future in journalism without paying attention, the young reporter matter-of-factly repeated every sentence from that morning's meeting, word for word.
Astonished, the editor sent the reporter to be tested by psychologist Aleksandr Luria. The reporter retained everything that ever happened to him in memory – and he had had no idea this ability distinguished him from others. He assumed everyone could remember everything the way he could. Luria studied the man's gift for remembering for decades and eventually wrote up the case in his book, The Mind of a Mnemonist.
Like "S.," Luria's code name for the Russian journalist, you may be oblivious to a talent that sets you apart from others. If you're an introvert in business for yourself, it's especially helpful to identify and describe your unique talents so perfect clients can choose you for the personality and skills you offer that others don't.
How do you put your finger on what, like S., you might be taking for granted, though?
Top 7 Ways to Identify Hidden Talents
1. "Doesn't everyone?" A real estate attorney once told me she felt uncomfortable charging people for the information she gave out at consultations. "It's just common sense," she said. No, it certainly wasn't, I explained – it was what she knew from her long years of experience with real estate transactions. When you think or say that anyone can do what you do, that's usually a sign of a hidden talent or uncommon knowledge.
2. What gets you into trouble? Something you do that annoys family members or those in authority often indicates a talent that can be turned to positive effect in business. My siblings couldn't stand it when I corrected their spoken English – but that corresponded to a love of the details of language that enables me to write well for clients. Likewise, kids who were constantly getting into trouble for clowning around in school often grow up to have a sense of humor that smooths the way with customers.
3. Study your testimonials. Written and verbal praise about how people felt you helped them may reveal common themes, such as your empathy for heartbreak, your passion for getting the numbers right or your intuitive grasp of color.
4. "You should…" You may pooh-pooh or laugh at suggestions from others like "You should sell your recipes!" or "We should hire YOU as the condo fix-it person," but they indicate ways in which you stand out above others to those around you.
5. What about your hobbies? In many instances, what you most enjoy in your hobby also shows up in how you do your work. For example, your dogged curiosity when you're out hiking correlates to relentless detective work on consulting assignments.
6. What can't you stand? Something that you just can't bear to put up with, that's vital for you to fix or correct, may indicate a valuable business asset. Maybe this is your strong sense of justice about exposing wrongdoers or determination to solve a stubborn computer glitch even if it takes all night.
7. Go for the flow. What are you doing when you lose track of time? What do you hate being interrupted at? Your sense of being lost in the moment strongly indicates what comes naturally to you.
After taking inventory in the above ways, you have a solid basis for portraying what you are uniquely good at, how you habitually execute tasks and what clients can expect when working with you. You can outline these straightforwardly on your web site on a "What to Expect," "How We Work With Clients" or "How We're Different" page, or you can incorporate the relevant points into your bio. You can also work them into bold branding devices that dramatize your personality and talents in the very name, graphics or headline for your offerings.
Always keep in mind that perfect clients are out there, dissatisfied with your competitors and searching for the strengths you provide!
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a surprising talent for creative marketing. She's the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity and 14 other books. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: How to Create Bolder, Jazzier, More Intriguing Email Subject Lines
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 563
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Many of my b-to-b clients feel stuck in the mud when it comes to gaining the attention of as many as possible of the subscribers on their email list. They use the same very limited number of techniques, strategies and angles time and time again. They realize recipients on their lists probably feel uninterested in hearing from them, which is but one step short of losing them when they unsubscribe.
If this describes you, try these bolder approaches that arouse curiosity, freshen up your emails and improve both open rates and response – without getting downright silly or harming your business image. Along with each idea, I've provided an example illustrating how you might implement the technique and put it to work.
1. Ask a surprising or provocative question.
Whoever Heard of a 78% Response to a One-Paragraph Email Blast?
2. Highlight an emotion.
Take Command of Your Meeting Expenses.
3. Refer to current events.
Avoid Going Into a Business Slump From Severe Weather.
4. Issue a challenge.
Would Your Top Salesperson Pass the Gorgonzola Test?
5. Use a line of dialogue.
Pssst, Your Customer Database Is Full of Holes.
6. Provide a specific number (or two).
Ten Reasons Why 51,794 Government Employees Trust Us.
7. Confess something.
Most People Don't Realize That We Used to…
8. Present a quiz.
Take the Disaster Resilience Quiz.
9. Highlight case study results.
How Cassingham Coffee Won Five New Contract Bids Last Month.
10. Quote a client.
"Tasty. Tempting. Tropical. Tidy."
11. Say what the reader is probably thinking.
Why Won't They Just Tell Me What's What!
12. Guarantee something.
Tougher Exteriors – Guaranteed.
13. Relate to social trends.
Cut Your Carbon Emissions in Half.
14. Promise to alleviate a hassle.
The End of Credit Crises.
15. Compare before to after.
Before: 17.5 Compliance Failures. After: None.
16. Name the exact type of person you're targeting.
For the Supervisor Who Hates Annual Performance Review Time.
17. Create suspense.
What Will Happen to Your Expense Account With Fareware?
18. Evoke imagination.
Imagine Every Lead Turning Into Revenue.
19. Use un-businesslike language.
Computerwise, They're Casing Your Joint.
20. Make a vivid comparison.
Some Days Your To-do List Feels Like Grand Failure Station.
21. Tell a story.
Last Year, Disaster Loomed Three Days Before Christmas.
Want to turn the hunt for livelier subject lines into group fun? Order lunch for everyone in the conference room, divide into teams and see which bunch can create the largest number of subject lines using the list above. Offer a prize for the most ridiculous and the most promising ideas. Then collect all the suggestions and separate them into usable and not usable. Have another lunch meeting to turn the seemingly unpromising ideas into better, more appropriate ideas. Sometimes that prize-winner of a ridiculous idea ends up triggering a brilliant marketing campaign!
Remember, the goal is to surprise and interest the customer who is wearily going through their in-box. What you'll probably find is that your effort to excite that email recipient ends up re-energizing you about the delights of what you sell.
About The Author: Veteran copywriter/marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. Learn about her one-on-one, no-hype mentoring program that aspiring copywriters into accomplished marketing consultants in 10 weeks: http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm
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Article Title: Information Product Development: Four Types of Home Study Courses
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 639
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When you teach a class live, students are gathered together either in a physical classroom or a virtual one, and a teacher lectures or leads the students in a discussion around a sequence of topics. Unless your course concerns a sensitive issue, where students need to feel comfortable to speak their minds only to those in the group, you're smart to record your sessions and turn them into a home study course. That way, you've multiplied your earnings from the preparation you've done.
However, what type of home study course should you choose? There actually are numerous kinds.
Four Types of Home Study Courses
1. The semi-live course. When you taught a course previously and recorded it, the next time you teach it to a group, you can have the students listen to (or watch) one of the previous recordings prior to each class meeting. Then during your live sessions you can review the material, answer questions and assist participants in applying the content to their challenges. This is a hybrid of a live course and a home study course, using some canned material in conjunction with teacher-student interaction. Generally you'd run the semi-live course for the same number of weeks as for the previous live version and charge the same amount as for the live course.
Advantages for participants: Plenty of time for support and feedback during the class sessions; the class schedule provides a structure for moving through the course that's missing with the other options below
Advantages for you: Little preparation needed; a low-stress way to provide the benefits of a live course repeatedly; very high perceived value
2. Canned course with one-on-one feedback or coaching. Here you offer a course recorded on audio or video or via a step-by-step text manual. Besides consuming the lessons, your students can submit homework assignments to you for feedback or have their questions and concerns addressed via personal emails or telephone coaching calls. Many instructors report that most enrollees do not take full advantage of the feedback or coaching option.
Advantages for participants: Can be sure they're on track in mastering the material and applying it to their goals
Advantages for you: High perceived value and the ability to charge much more for this kind of course than for types 3 or 4 below; small time commitment needed to supply the coaching or feedback promised
3. Canned course with interactive exercises. Participants in this kind of course go through it on their own but also have the opportunity to check their progress and mastery, through quizzes with answers provided or homework assignments that they can compare to typical or ideal answers.
Advantages for participants: Opportunities to determine whether or not they're truly mastering the ideas and skills in the course
Advantages for you: No time of yours needed beyond selling the course
4. Canned course with no feedback or interaction. You provide the learning materials that buyers go through completely on their own. They need the greatest amount of self-discipline to complete this kind of course, and it lacks the engagement factor of types 1, 2 and 3 above.
Advantages for participants: For some, a familiar, straightforward learning opportunity
Advantages for you: Easiest to prepare; sell it and you're done
Based on my experiences teaching live courses and selling all the home study permutations above, I can tell you that the semi-live course generates by far the greatest level of customer satisfaction and the lowest refund rate. On the other hand, if you'd like to sell the most number of courses at the most reasonable price, the completely canned course wins, while offering students a reasonably good learning experience.
About The Author: The author of 15 books and 9 multimedia home study courses, Marcia Yudkin has been selling information in one form or another since 1981. Download a free recording of her answers to the most commonly asked questions about information marketing at http://www.yudkin.com/infomarketing.htm .
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Article Title: Personal Branding, Authenticity and Truth For Introverts
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 724
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Not far from my home in rural Western Massachusetts, you can enjoy brunch on weekends at a farmhouse cafe constructed of straw bales. On one wall, Strawbale Cafe sports what it calls a "truth window": Pull open the window shutters to see for yourself that the walls of the building truly are constructed of highly compressed, nearly airtight, stacked bundles of straw.
When it comes to branding, some introverts shy away because they think it involves putting on an act or creating a big fuss over something ordinary. (Introverts are those who enjoy spending time alone, can't be bothered with small talk and prefer to keep their personal life private.) Like Strawbale Cafe, however, you can be both unusual and honest in your self-presentation and, like them, even build in a "truth window."
Your "truth window" will be unique, of course – as you are. Here, though, are some ideas:
* A narrative that explains convincingly how you got from there to here. You did not spring out into the world fully formed and able to do what you now do. Tell the story of how you discovered your talent, invented your item or developed your following. Even without documentary backup, the turns and twists in your tale substantiate your journey.
* Piles of testimonials. Skeptical people might wonder whether one or two testimonials were faked. But when they read quote after quote about you, each expressed differently and shining a light on you or your product from different angles, you come across as undeniably real.
* A video taking people behind the scenes. I'm thinking of those restaurants that do all the cooking where interested diners can watch. Their equivalent might be a video demonstrating the steps in what you do or showing a revealing snippet of you at work. I did a copywriting project earlier this year for a client featuring a video of a coaching session where in just minutes the coach led the client to surprising insights about herself. That video had the power of a hundred testimonials.
* An event. Artists and craftspeople hold "open studios," which curious art lovers attend to get a sense of the process of creating artworks in the setting where they are made. Can you similarly invite people informally to your den of creativity? If your work is intangible, the equivalent might be an unscripted Q&A session where attendees get a sampling of how you think through a problem.
* Third-party commentary. Authorities like university professors, medical doctors, government officials or journalists who attest that you can indeed do what you say you can carry a lot of weight. Most people believe such figures are not easily fooled by charlatans. Quoting them provides a kind of "truth window" from the outside looking in.
* Photos, videos or documents that show you practice what you preach. If you're, let's say, a live-lightly-on-the-earth consultant, you could display how you calculated your carbon footprint. You could post photos of how much trash you send to the landfill every week or offer a video tour of the green energy retrofitting of your office.
* Sharing of what you did on a typical day. This helps transform the abstraction of your work into a well-rounded reality. Pink magazine used to publish a two-page spread in each issue featuring the waking-up-through-bedding-down schedule of a highly successful woman. It created a fascinatingly full picture of the day-to-day reality of someone who was indubitably busy and productive.
For sizzlingly authentic personal branding, select one or more of the "truth window" ideas above as the final touch for your distinctive angle on life and work.
Jimmy Buffet fans generally believe he lives somewhere in the Florida Keys or the Caribbean, sipping Margaritas on the beach all day and partying every night. Although he did once revel in that lifestyle, Jimmy Buffet now spends most of his time in his office on Long Island in New York, running his entertainment and product empire around that hedonistic ambiance.
If you feel Buffet's image stretches the truth, you don't need to go that route. Attract attention for who you really are and what you stand for, then use your "truth windows" to turn interested customers into long-term clients.
About The Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin grew up to discover she had a surprising talent for creative marketing. She's the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity and 14 other books. Download her free Marketing for Introverts audio manifesto: http://www.yudkin.com/introverts.htm
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Article Title: Power-Packed Word Blends: How to Evaluate Portmanteau Names For Companies or Products
Author: Marcia Yudkin
Word Count: 616
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=949981&ca=Marketing
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"Why snackrifice?"
This headline appears on the back of a box of Triscuits (textured wheat crackers). Although it uses a word that isn't in the dictionary, the instant you say the word to yourself, you understand its meaning. A "snackrifice" would involve forgoing the delicious snacks you enjoy, because of health, cost or other concerns.
This kind of word blend shows up occasionally in product, company and event names, as well as in labels for political groupings and demographic trends.
In the winter of 2011, people in the US mid-Atlantic states were talking about a massive blizzard as Snowmageddon – also called a "snowtastrophe" and "snowpocalypse."
This type of verbal invention goes back at least to Lewis Carroll, whose character Humpty Dumpty explains a poem called "Jabberwocky" to Alice in Chapter 6 of "Through the Looking Glass."
"Well, 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy,' " Humpty Dumpty expounds. "You see, it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word."
Some more recent, relatively established examples of blended words are Bollywood (Bombay + Hollywood), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog) and prequel (pre + sequel).
What makes an invention like this effective? Here is a five-point scoring system that separates the winners from the weaklings.
Points 1 and 2 signify whether or not the two words being combined are recognizable out of context. If both are, give the name two points; if only one is, give it one point. I'd give "prequel" two points, since no other word besides "sequel" ends in "-equel," and the intention of the "pre" twist is crystal clear.
I'd give "Bollywood" only one of two possible points here, because while "-ollywood" can evoke only "Hollywood," what the "B" stands for has to be learned. Indeed, the "B" reference is even more obscure than it once was, now that Bombay is known in the West as Mumbai. And I'd give "slithy" zero points, as its derivation from "slimy" and "lithe" is quite unguessable.
For corporate word-blend names, I'd give Verizon one of the two possible points, for its obvious resemblance to "horizon" and obscure reference to "veritas," the Latin word for "truth." Ditto for Accenture, where it's easy to recognize the initial meaning element "accent," but difficult to figure out that "ture " comes from "future." The product name Fruitsations gets two points here, because you most likely know immediately that the name implies "fruit" plus "sensations."
Point 3 signifies how neatly the two words fit together. "Snackrifice" wins this point too, because "snack" rhymes perfectly with the "sac" syllable it replaces. All three snow disaster words bandied about last month lose this point, however, because "snow" does not rhyme with the "Ar" in Armageddon, the "ca" in "catastrophe" or the "a" in "apocalypse." "Slithy" again loses the point, since the "m" of "slimy" got inexplicably lost in the combination.
For point 4, evaluate whether the name has just one plausible pronunciation. Here "snackrifice" prevails again, but Verizon falls short. I distinctly remember when the company was new not knowing whether it was intended as very-zahn or very-zone. In fact, it's ve-RYE-zahn, an option that didn't occur to me.
Point 5 is admittedly subjective. It signifies whether or not a word lover gets a shiver of delight contemplating the blended name. I'd give this point to "Bollywood," "Snowmageddon," "slithy" and "snackrifice," but not to "brunch," "smog," "snowtastrophe" or "snowpocalypse."
Thinking up word blends can become addictive! Be sure to run your creations through this five-point test before pegging expensive marketing campaigns on them.
About The Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, a company that brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names according to the client's criteria. Download a free copy of "19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line" at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm .
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