Category: Online Marketing

 

 

 

 

“I Want to Start a New Business” –A Real Case Story

As told by Brian Cox

I’m about to share some of my business ideas with you, and I would like to hear your comments and feedback.

I want to help people with their budgets and 1040EZ forms. This is the reason why: I know that some individuals (my target customers) need a quick loan during the Holiday Season.

My future customers may think along these lines:

“Because I live paycheck to paycheck, how will I get quick money for Holiday gifts? I know I’m going to get fleeced, but I’ll probably just get a tax refund anticipation loan because that’s the quickest and easiest way to get cash.”

What they may not know is that they actually have other options! I want to offer my customers information to help them consider those other options. With help, they can work toward savings goals and spending goals –both can be planned ahead of time. I want to help my customers with their financial planning, in order to avoid becoming unsuspecting victims of predatory lending businesses, and get them out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

Solutions Offered by This New Business

Working with our customers can give them more money in their pockets, which can mean:

1.) achieving home ownership – if they desire, and

2.) more money spent on valuable, durable goods.

In the big picture, these add up to a more robust economy in their community. This is the message that I want to people to become aware of, and the brand that I want to create.

Business Startup

Being a military veteran with only some experience in finance means that I have very little experience in the small business arena. However, I am greatly benefitting from the coursework I am now completing in the boots2business.org program. I was personally taught how to generate a business concept, a marketing plan, and a five year financial projections forecast by this program. I encourage all qualified veterans to apply and take that course!

Summary of the New Business Concept

I want to do marketing research for the business described above – a two page newsletter generated from a mail merge file. The newsletter will be generated from a mail merge and have specific financial results for low income individuals through subscription service. The concept is to compete with H&R block and refund anticipation loan oriented businesses by putting people on a financial goal track monthly and submit their 1040EZ.

More Detail – New Business Concept and Challenges

I know that two valuable services within that product basket are:

1. Customized email campaigns, using content through mediums such as blogs for marketing.
2. Create a physical newsletter and include a table that brings in meaningful, accurate data for individuals’ spending and savings patterns. The newsletter could be printed front and back on a regular printer

‘Boots on the Ground’ Marketing

If anyone who makes a low income and has few assets is interested in receiving the service, please email me at bc4902@911vetstart.com. You are the people that I want to serve!

As a business, I may try to earn revenue from advertising. I would prefer to not charge anything by setting this up as a non profit organization or as a project sponsored by a non profit. This makes funding easier, as donors receive a tax benefit based on an IRS recognized charitable gift.

More About the Concept

Currently, I need a form that I can embed in a mobile WordPress website. I am thinking of using a blog website and a donate button to gain support for the concept. I am thinking of making that part of a crowdfunding campaign. If I could charge enough for advertising via mobile and newsletter, I would offer the 1040EZ filing and customized financial report for free to individual consumers.

The risk is that customers will not be interested in signing up for a paid or free subscription. The life blood of this concept is the acceptance of low income families who need this help being offered. Those concerned about data will be guaranteed confidentiality on my part throughout this process.

I hope I have adequately communicated the strategy that I am trying to implement.

Topics to Consider in Order to Move Forward

I am interested in getting feedback about personal consumer and financial topics (529 plan, IRA, Savings plans, financial products) with a form to establish contact information and comments capability, personalized email campaign from contacts generated at the blog, use of YouTube infomercials, crowdfunding to validate the product and make capital investments in printing equipment and software, deliver automated free or low cost financial plan and tax product with two touch points of mobile and physical to many low income consumers, gain major advertising revenue from business customers after establishing brand and presence in the market ($10.30 per issue per 1000 subscribers is competitive; different price point for mobile ads based on impressions or cost per click).

The number of tax returns electronically filed in my community and the high number of tax preparation services that offer these ‘refund anticipation loans’ suggests a need for my services; the questions are:

How do I get the word out to people that I have a reasonable and accessible alternative?

What is the minimum viable product delivered to the largest target audience?

Are you interested in helping out low income people to avoid predatory lenders and unfair tax refund anticipation loans? Please contact me:Brian Cox – email: bc4902@911vetstart.com

Thank you, I appreciate your feedback!

About Brian Cox:

I served in the U.S. Military’s Operation Iraqi Freedom and now I am in the boots2business program with Syracuse University. Read more about me on LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/brian-cox/60/997/a86. I need to talk to potential customers to find out what the product should look like and if they can view it online. Some low income people don’t have internet service so I wanted to include the two touch points. You can email your feedback to me at: bc4902@gmail.com

About Boots to Business:

From Service to Startup is a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)-sponsored, worldwide program offered as a component of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) redesigned Transition Assistance Program (TAP) renamed Transition GPS.

Boots to Business is offered by the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University (SU) and operated by SU’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), in partnership with SBA resource partners.

Boots to Business is a three-step training program developed to introduce and train transitioning service members to business ownership. Boots to Business helps ensure that every transitioning service member has access to a standardized entrepreneurship training track and small business resources in their local communities.

After completing Boots to Business participants will have the tools and knowledge they need to identify a business opportunity, draft a business plan, connect with local small business resources, and launch their small business.

There are no registration fees or tuition for any portion of the Boots to Business entrepreneurship training track. All service members will receive textbooks and resources necessary to complete the program.

How to Steal your Audience’s Attention and Beat Your Competition

Continue reading “Your Newsletter Can Be Quick, Easy and POWERFUL”

Simple-to-understand URLs will attract more traffic to your site

Great SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can get your site ranked on the first page of Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). But the next step is up to you – or your webmaster – and it’s critical to getting more visitors to click through to your site. Here, Google explains how to achieve user-friendly URLs for better marketing of your site.

You must try to create simple, descriptive categories and file names for all documents on your website. That not only helps you organize your site better, but it also leads to better search engine crawling of your site’s documents. Also, it can create easier, “friendlier” URLs for those that want to link to your content. Visitors may be intimidated by extremely long and cryptic URLs that contain few recognizable words. They don’t lend themselves to effective marketing.

Unfriendly URLs – A Marketing Faux Pas

URLs like (1) can be confusing and unfriendly. Users would have a hard time reciting the URL from memory or creating a link to it. Also, users may believe that a portion of the URL is unnecessary, especially if the URL shows many unrecognizable parameters. They might leave off a part, thus breaking the link.

With effective marketing, users might link to your page using the URL of that page as the anchor text. If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more user-friendly information about the page than an ID or oddly named parameter would (2).

URLs returned in Google search contain good marketing keywords

Lastly, remember that the URL to a document is displayed as part of a search result in Google, below the document’s title and snippet. Like the title and snippet, words in the URL on the search result appear in bold if they appear in the user’s query (3). Example (2) shows a URL on the domain for a page containing an article about the rarest baseball cards. Keywords in the URL will appeal to a search user more than a random ID number like “www. brandonsbaseballcards.com/article/102125/”.

 

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Rewriting your URLs

Google is good at crawling all types of URL structures, even if they’re quite complex, but spending the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can help.

Some webmasters try to achieve this by rewriting their dynamic URLs to static ones; while Google is fine with this, we’d like to note that this is an advanced procedure and if done incorrectly, could cause crawling issues with your site.

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.URL Structure

To learn even more about good URL structure, we recommend the Webmaster Help Center page on creating Google-friendly URLs.

Image summary:

Simple-to-understand URLs in Google SERPs will convey content information easily

(1) A URL to a page on our baseball card site that a user might have a hard time with.

(2) The highlighted words above could inform a user or search engine what the target page is about before following the link.

URLs are displayed in Google SERPs

(3) A user performs the query [baseball cards]. Our homepage appears as a result, with the URL listed under the title and snippet.

 

Have you noticed how your site’s page URLs appear in Google search results?

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

Content thanks to Google for their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide available FREE.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

And Why Every Marketer Needs Compelling Infographics

You see them EVERYWHERE! Aren’t they great? I just love them, because I know that I’ll pick up key information in a memorable way – very quickly. And beyond that, there are many more reasons good marketing includes good infographics. In this post, we’ll discuss why you need them and how to make them.

Heidi Grutter+, a social media blogger at MySMN.com, calls infographics “visual fast food for the brain”. She posted this one to communicate the compelling need for them:

• We actually remember only 20% of the text we read (maybe less!)
• 90% of the info transmitted to our brains is visual
• On Facebook, 200% more ‘Likes’ are for images (vs. text)
• After publishing an infographic, traffic increases an average 12%

Heidi goes on to state, “When we look at symbols, objects and colors together (picture one of those hazard signs showing a male figure slipping- cautioning that the floor is wet) we can get the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second (Semetko, H. & Scammell, M. (2012, The SAGE Handbook of Political Communication).”

How to Make Infographics

Heidi gives us very specific – and easy – steps for creating our own infographics to attract and please tired brains:

STEP ONE
Either one level or two levels, infographics cover the basic information:

1. One level: includes visuals and content
2. Two levels: includes visuals and content PLUS factual data and/or statistical info

STEP TWO
Brainstorm your ‘bid idea’ – your basic concept. Is it compelling enough? Brainstorm your idea, ask friends, hash out your thoughts on paper. Then move on to your ‘core.’

STEP THREE
“Lay out the core.” – Decide which information and facts you want to share. In what order will you present them? How will you conclude? Be sure that all facts and stats are thoroughly researched and supported. Then decide on the infographic’s design, including:

• Layout
• Shapes
• Icons
• Symbols
• Colors

STEP FOUR
Now put it all on paper. Are you making all the right points, from beginning to end? Does your conclusion flow logically? Is it clear and compelling? Is your design consistent with the message? For example, if you’re presenting a serious case, don’t use bright, happy colors.

Make Your Own Infographics with this Design Kit

Heidi tells us that “If you want to try and make the infographic yourself, all you need to do is Google search “free infographic templates” and you’ll find various resources like these:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/infographic-design-kit/”

Free Download: Five Infographic Templates in PowerPoint

Hubspot offers free PowerPoint templates to make your own infographics:

http://offers.hubspot.com/how-to-easily-create-five-fabulous-infographics-in-powerpoint

Good luck. Now come back and share your creations with us!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Key Marketing Strategy to Sell Products

In my previous post, “Sample Email Newsletter That Grabs Readers’ Attention”, we discussed an excellent example for small businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals who employ a content marketing strategy to attract website traffic. Today, we’ll look behind the curtain at a hugely successful home-based business email newsletter for independent entrepreneurs. I became aware of this particular newsletter (in the image below) because my Consultant sells beautifully branded gifts and totes for the company Thirty-One Gifts. Their primary marketing objectives?

• Branding and
• selling products!

Email newsletters clearly serve vastly different businesses and audiences. So the content must be strategically planned and executed. When in doubt, employ others’ newsletter success stories. Like the one in the image below.

Email Newsletters Automate Branding

One of the biggest challenges to all home-based businesses is branding – building awareness, recognition, credibility, and ultimately trust. For Thirty-one Gifts Consultants, this email newsletter does it all. Notice that the very first element that catches your attention is the Thirty-one scripted logo at the top. This newsletter comes out every few weeks, with new promotions and products, and every single time, that logo is right there in the same spot.

In fact, the entire newsletter is professionally designed, so that you recognize it for its layout as well as the logo. Same use of color, placement, text, and product elements. Thirty-one Gifts is known for quality products that solve disorganization problems and are stylish, practical and affordable. Bingo. Problem solved. It’s a branding dream-come-true for the entrepreneur. Instant awareness, recognition, credibility, and growing trust.

Successful Selling with Email Newsletters

The next biggest challenge for the entrepreneur is sales. The vehicle to meet this marketing challenge is, of course, the email newsletter itself. But not any old newsletter will do. In fact, for any business, it’s tough to get a newsletter right – one that gives a great User Experience (UX) and converts traffic to purchases. Thirty-one Gifts has done it again.

Notice the newsletter’s enticing colors, images and bursts of short copy. It’s easy to scan so readers tend to soak in the entire page. Although you can’t click the links in the image below, in the actual newsletter the big pink SHOP NOW button takes you on a shopping trip that’s easy to navigate and fun!

Thirty-one Gifts Consultant

Then they make it super easy to share. So not only do I want to shop and buy, but I’m also increasing the audience when I post it to my social pages. My Thirty -one Gifts Consultant now has her customers doing the selling for her. Smart marketing.

Go ahead and test the site: http://goo.gl/rAz0vA – You’ll love the UX! Then leave your feedback here.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

How to Increase Email Click-Through for Your Content Marketing Strategy

In order to help stay on top of marketing trends, I subscribe to a few exceptional email newsletters in the content marketing arena. I just received this excellent newsletter (see below) from Simply Measured. For small businesses, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and professionals who employ a content marketing strategy, it may be an example you’ll want to consider emulating. Here’s why:

1. The email subject line catches readers’ attention with a problem that’s common to the target audience. Makes them want to click through.

2. The content is contained in the body of the email – no attachments. Important when executing a content marketing strategy.

3. Gray background makes the content pop. Allows for use of white space in content boxes.

4. Logo at the top left – prime position for building brand awareness & recognition. (It also contains a link to their 14-day free trial.)

5. “Social Media Newsletter” at the top right – no guessing what this is!

6. Each article is separated visually with blocks. Easy for scanners to grasp quickly.

7. Each article has an image associated with it. Use of images is becoming very important because of the staggering competition for attention.

8. Strong titles and short teaser introductions tell at-a-glance what the articles are about – with distinct “read more” calls-to-action.

9. The company’s own promotional content is at the end. Readers feel that they’ve been given a lot of value FIRST and so by the end, they don’t mind the promo.

10. FOLLOW buttons at the bottom (I’d put SHARE buttons there, too.)

11. Don’t want to receive this email newsletter anymore? Simple, easy opt-out link at the very bottom.

I suggest that for branding consistency, instead of using these colors, lean toward your own branding color scheme that you use in your website, landing pages, articles, brochures, and other marketing pieces.

Your email newsletter campaign may be an important piece of your marketing mix. By incorporating some or all of the above elements, you could significantly increase your click-through rates and readership – which leads to higher conversion rates.

Does anyone have other suggestions for improvement?

Ps – Thanks to Simply Measured for this awesome example!

Here is the body of the email – opened in a browser

(Note: posting the image to this blog required cutting it up into 3 sections, but the email itself appears continuously with no breaks.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

 

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com.

Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Do This Once and Twitter Does the Rest

Where do you decide whether or not to follow someone on Twitter? At their profile. Have you invested just a few minutes to make your profile work for you?

You have one shot at a first impression, so make it sizzle.

Create an Intriguing Twitter Profile

People are skimmers these days. The first thing we notice is an image. We notice the branding. So make your Twitter branding consistent with your offline branding, and other social media sites as well.

It’s important to create a consistent look and feel among all of your social media platforms. This can be achieved with the use of consistent images, logo design, colors and layout.

For an example of nice, clean and consistent branding, see the following screenshot comparisons from Facebook and Twitter for the app “Shopping Chaperone”:

TWITTER:

Source: https://twitter.com/ShoppingChap

FACEBOOK:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/shoppingchaperoneapp

Outsource the Design Work

You can create these branded images yourself, if you’ve got the time, tools (and talent!) But it’s easily outsourced by providing a concept, images and logo. If you haven’t developed your brand look yet, you can use outsourced labor for very little expense. Some of these creative professionals live in countries with a dramatic currency exchange rate that allows them to charge pennies on the dollar. For imagery, copyrighting, design and just about anything you can think of, try:

• www.fiverr.com – Jobs completed for as little as $5.00!
• www.odesk.com – “The world’s largest freelance marketplace”

These sites are run professionally and seem to really care about user satisfaction. If you don’t have a logo, start there. Get one created by shopping on Fiverr or Odesk – or your favorite local graphic designer.

Build your Credibility

Present yourself as a Subject Matter Expert in a focused field (or two). Don’t try to be everything. Choose specialties that you really enjoy and then provide proof that you’re the best in that field. Use quotes or recommendations from others. And let your enthusiasm shine through. Talk about recent accomplishments and specific outcomes. Use KEYWORDS!

Be Social

Finally, in the end, it’s all about relationship. Make it inviting. Take a look at Nika Stewart’s Twitter Profile (AWESOME!):

Wouldn’t you want to contact Nika for help with your social media postings?

(And many thanks to Nika for the inspiration for this post.)

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com.

Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Public Domain Images for Marketing – No Strings Attached

Today I’m going to save you money – by giving you the solution to the rising cost of finding images for your content marketing. Using relevant stock images in every piece of content marketing is fast becoming the indisputable standard. On Facebook, posting without an image is like not posting at all. And Bloggers especially need images for each and every post. All these stock images can become quite expensive.

You are about to benefit from many hours of my time and tedious research. As a Blogger myself, I want to keep my costs down. Way down. I want free stock images. And I’m tired of hunting for the hidden “gotchas” such as the fine print which prohibits commercial use, or requires that I include an attribution link back to the source of the “Royalty-free” photo in the public domain. It’s not that I mind giving credit, it’s just that it takes so much more of my precious time.

List of Public Domain, Commercial Use, Quality, No Attribution, Free Stock Photo Sites

So I’ve drilled down to a list of TEN stock photo sites with images that are:

1. free,
2. public domain,
3. ok’d for commercial use,
4. high quality, and
5. don’t require attribution!

Drum roll, please!

Keep this list of links in your ‘Blog ideas’ or ‘articles to write’ file:

• http://www.morguefile.com
• http://www.freemediagoo.com
• http://www.photos-public-domain.com/
• http://www.public-domain-photos.com/
• http://www.imageafter.com/images.php
• http://www.atozstockimages.com/
• http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php
• http://freerangestock.com/ (attribution requested but not required)
• http://www.pdphoto.org/ (attribution requested but not required)
• http://pixabay.com/en/photos/ (attribution requested but not required)

Bonus #1:

Attention Marketing – there’s a similar site for free stock clip art, too:

• http://www.openclipart.org

Bonus #2:

If you can’t find what you’re looking for in any of those links, try this search engine for free photos:

www.everystockphoto.com is a search engine for free photos that come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo’s license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos. Membership is free and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos.

Bonus #3:

Not free, but in my opinion this is the most cost-effective paid stock photo site – at this time: http://www.123RF.com. When purchased in bulk, they come down to a mere $.89 per image. Can’t beat that!

PS – The image I used in this post came from openclipart.org

Do you have other sites to add to this list? Please share and help us all save more money!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com.

Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

38 Exciting Examples from Bob Bly, “America’s Top Copywriter”

We recently talked about Bob Bly’s ultra successful direct marketing approach to writing headlines – they have four specific tasks. We talked about how to write your headlines to accomplish those tasks.

In this post, I simply want to give you Bob’s list of 38 powerhouse headline examples that you can adapt to grab your readers’ attention and draw them in to your copy. Here’s the amazing list:

1. Ask a question in the headline.

“What Do Japanese Managers Have That American Managers Sometimes Lack?”

2. Tie-in to current events.

“Stay One Step Ahead of the Stock Market Just Like Martha Stewart – But Without Her Legal Liability!”

3. Create a new terminology in the headline.

“New ‘Polarized Oil’ Magnetically Adheres to Wear Parts in Machine Tools, Making Them Last Up to 6 Times Longer.”

4. Give news using the words “new,” “introduction,” or “announcing.”

“Announcing a Painless Cut in Defense Spending.”

5. Give the reader a command – tell him to do something.

“Try Burning This Coupon.”

6. Use numbers and statistics in the headline.

“Who Ever Heard of 17,000 Blooms from a Single Plant?”

7. Promise the reader useful information.

“How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake You Can Make in Building or Buying a Home.”

8. Highlight your offer.

“You Can Now Subscribe to the Best New Books – Just as You Do to a Magazine.”

9. Tell a story in the headline.

“They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano … But When I Started to Play.”

10. Make a recommendation.

“The 5 Tech Stocks You Must Own NOW.”

11. State a benefit.

“Managing UNIX Data Centers – Once Difficult, Now Easy.”

12. Make a comparison.

“How to Solve Your Emissions Problems – at Half the Energy Cost of Conventional Venturi Scrubbers.”

13. Use words that help the reader visualize.

“Why Some Foods ‘Explode’ In Your Stomach.”

14. Use a testimonial in the headline.

“After Over Half a Million Miles in the Air Using AVBLEND, We’ve Had No Premature Camshaft Failures.”

15. Offer a free special report, catalog, or booklet.

“New FREE Special Report Reveals Little-Known Strategy Millionaires Use to Keep Wealth in Their Hands – and Out of Uncle Sam’s.”

16. State the selling proposition directly and plainly.

“Surgical Tables Rebuilt – Free Loaners Available.”

17. Arouse reader curiosity.

“The One Internet Stock You MUST Own Now. Hint: It’s NOT What You Think!”

18. Promise to reveal a secret.

“Unlock Wall Street’s Secret Logic.”

19. Be specific.

“At 60 Miles an Hour, the Loudest Noise in This New Rolls Royce Comes from the Electric Clock.”

20. Target a particular type of reader.

“We’re Looking for People to Write Children’s Books.”

21. Add a time element in the headline.

“Instant Incorporation While U-Wait.”

22. Stress cost savings, discounts, or value.

“Now You Can Get $2,177 Worth of Expensive Stock Market Newsletters for the Incredibly Low Price of Just $69!”

23. Give the reader good news.

“You’re Never Too Old to Hear Better.”

24. Offer an alternative to other products and services.

“No Time for Yale – Took College At Home.”

25. Issue a challenge.

“Will Your Scalp Stand the Fingernail Test?”

26. Stress your guarantee in the headline.

“Develop Software Applications Up to 6 Times Faster or Your Money Back.”

27. State the price.

“Link 8 PCs to Your Mainframe – Only $2,395.”

28. Set up a seeming contradiction.

“Profit from ‘Insider Trading’ – 100% Legal!”

29. Offer an exclusive the reader can’t get elsewhere.

“Earn 500+% Gains With Little-Known ‘Trader’s Secret Weapon.’”

30. Address the reader’s concern in the headline.

“Why Most Small Businesses Fail — and What You Can Do About It.’

31. “As Crazy as It Sounds…”

“Crazy as it Sounds, Shares of This Tiny R&D Company, Selling for $2 Today, Could be Worth as Much as $100 in the Not-Too-Distant Future.”

32. Make a big promise.

“Slice 20 Years Off Your Age!”

33. Show ROI (return on investment) for purchase of your product.

“Hiring the Wrong Person Costs You Three Times Their Annual Salary.”

34. Use a “reasons-why” headline.

“7 Reasons Why Production Houses Nationwide Prefer Unilux Strobe Lighting When Shooting Important TV Commercials.”

35. Answer important questions about your product or service.

“7 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Collection Agency … And One Good Answer to Each.”

36. Stress the value of your premiums.

“Yours Free – Order Now and Receive $280 in Free Gifts with Your Paid Subscription.”

37. Help the reader achieve a goal.

“Now You Can Create a Breakthrough Marketing Plan Within the Next 30 Days … for FREE!”

38. Make a seemingly contradictory statement or promise in the headline.

“Cool Any Room in Your House Fast – Without Air Conditioning!”

 

Which one did I use in this post?

 

About Bob Bly: Robert W. Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 70 books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Direct Marketing (Alpha). His Website is www.bly.com.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com.

Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Guest Author: Jessica Davis, GoDot Media

Tips to Integrate Your Offline and Online Marketing Strategies

A central message, many marketing mediums. Interactions between the mediums attract more eyeballs to whatever it is that your message is promoting, and improve brand experience. Offline advertising drives a majority of online search queries – integration is essential to being found where your prospects may choose to look and encourage them along the sales funnel. If you market traditionally and digitally, integrating the two is not a challenging task. Here are four tips that can help you start strong.

A smart internet marketing strategy – ‘Hashtag’ your way into prospects’ minds

Hashtags (#) let prospects in on what people are saying about your brand and invite them to join the conversation. You can integrate hashtags into your traditional advertising by including them in your flyers, brochures and banners. Hashtags are easy to remember and prospects are more likely to use them to learn about your brand online than using your website URL.

Hashtags identify topical interests that Twitterati (that’s 240+ million active monthly users) uses in its digital conversations to talk about brands, among a plethora of other things. Encourage guests at your company events to use hashtags in exchange for rewards. A good incentive to tag photos of your event on Twitter and Instagram will enthuse them and enhance awareness around your brand.

Incentivize the use of QR codes in your offline marketing collateral

For every prospect or customer with a smartphone, there lies the opportunity to interact with QR codes. Use fliers and other offline marketing collateral printed with QR codes (two-dimensional matrix codes) that allow prospects/customers to scan instantly on their smartphones to perform the desired action on your website or social media business page. Define the objective you want the QR code to achieve. Direct prospects to your ‘discounts and offers’ page or ‘new products’ page. Encourage customers to rate your product/service by taking them to your internal feedback system the way FedEx has done so successfully with their feedback fliers. Give them an incentive to perform this action. FedEx gives customers who rate their experience up to 25 per cent off on their next order.

Are you a local business? Requesting mobile check-ins at your physical store is one of the best online marketing strategies you can use

Mobile check-ins allow customers visiting your store to communicate their interaction with your business. Like hashtags, they are effective in bringing attention to your brand and making you appear likeable and exciting. Facilitating this mobile, social and local activity are Foursquare, Yelp and Facebook. It doesn’t take much to request customers to check-in on their mobile apps when they are waiting in queue at the cash counter or browsing through aisles. Not everyone may check-in, but those who do can support your marketing efforts in a meaningful way. To encourage customers, you can offer a free item or discount for every check-in.

Invest in paid search campaigns for products you promote offline

As prospects go online to learn more about products you are promoting offline, it makes sense to use paid search campaigns to help prospects find the products easily when they visit popular search engines. It is a lost opportunity if they are unable to find you online after being motivated by your flier. In the case of products that you are promoting heavily offline, you can consider increasing the budget for top placements in paid result results.

When you are aiming for such a seamless integration, match the look and feel of your online and offline marketing, and examine the use of the same keywords for both campaigns to stay front-and-center in prospects’ minds. If you are not keen on paid search, you can create custom webpages dedicated to your offline campaign. Add custom URLs to your offline marketing and track your campaign without breaking a sweat.

What methods have you used to integrate your online and offline marketing? Share your tips and advice.

About the author

Jessica Davis is a Content Marketing expert at Godot Media, a leading content writing company. She works with other eBook writers to create relevant and engaging content for businesses and individuals. She is also interested in technology, social media and fashion.