Thoughts on Marketing…

Whether you’re writing a postal letter, adding copy to your web site, sending an email, or placing an ad in your local newspaper, it’s important that your customers don’t have to think when they read your message.
OK – I hear you telling me that of course they have to think. And they do. They [...]

Last night my son came to dinner, and he brought along a little “throw away”  newspaper/magazine. You know the kind you get to browse through while you’re waiting for your lunch at a diner.
It had a few good articles and he always chuckles over the personals page, but this time it had a guest commentary [...]

Just in case you don’t read the comments when you read the posts… John Forde just left a comment on the last post and I want to share his invitation to you.
John writes the Copywriter’s Roundtable – a weekly
message that not only offers copywriting advice, but
advice for marketers in general. Not only that,
John’s writing style [...]

Bob Bly’s letter this morning offered up some interesting tidbits that he’d found, and since he gives permission to re-use his letters, here are a couple of them:
***The ideal length for a web page***
According to web expert Gerry McGovern, the ideal length for a page of web copy on a regular web site (not a [...]

A guest speaker today, Courtesy of Sarah Howell at Brian Tracy’s company
The Importance of Content in Attracting Customers
From: Cyberindian.com
“The content is very important”.
It’s true that this line has become monotonous, but you would still hear it more often from all the marketing icons. The reason is quite plain and simple; when you [...]

Back when I was homeschooling my kids we went over those – and over them and over them again. I’m still not sure that either one of them has it down pat.
That’s why I understand when smart marketers use the wrong words in their promotions. My kids are smart – they know all kinds of [...]

Have you looked at many “About Me” pages? Do they confuse you? Some of them confuse me.
Talking about yourself isn’t easy – at least for most of us it isn’t easy. We’ve been conditioned since childhood not to do that. I don’t mean talking about events in your life the way we do with friends, [...]

Have you considered buying a software program that guarantees to make dozens of new articles from just one – by changing some words to other words with the same meaning?
If so, you may get more comedy than content.
This morning I got a google alert that one of my ezine articles had been picked up by [...]

Have you ever spent some time looking at your competition on the internet?
You should. You might find great ideas that you can borrow in your own marketing. If nothing else, you’ll know what the competition is up to. If you serve a local clientelle, also look to see what others in your field are doing [...]

Then you will probably be interested in the Bob Bly article I read this morning.
In it, he explains why clients have an uncontrollable urge to re-write the copy. I’ll let him explain the whole thing, but have to put in my 2 cents worth, because it’s one of the more frustrating things that happens to [...]