Treat Twitter respectfully for the right response

Twitter is also called micro-blogging, because it is an opportunity for you to express yourself and tell the world all the facts about you and your business you are unable to fit into your website. It’s micro-blogging because it is confined to only 140 characters per ‘tweet’, which means you have to be concise with your message. (If you reduce it down to 120 characters that will leave room for any retweets.)

Just go ahead and join up, but make sure you’re careful with your username. Does it truly reflect you or your business? And if you were to change direction, would it continue to be useful? And is it memberable, easy to spell, universal to understand? If you can squeeze in a keyword, so much the better.

Communicate with your followers, don’t just post endless bits about yourself. Also don’t tweet rubbish or uninteresting material. Find out others within your target market and ask them questions, engage them in conversation, just like networking. People react to a lively commentary, and if you want to know something, tweet it in general – some people say Twitter is better than search engines for finding out what you want.

Find all the gurus and experts in your field through Twellow.com. Ask them questions and try and get to know them, but don’t bombard them – they also have a life. It’s best to watch and read their tweets first to learn how to tweet effectively and what line they are taking. Look at their followers and see if there are any you would like to follow too.

Post up some valuable information for your followers to read, and if you’re stuck for content, use Google Alerts to send you material on your chosen subjects, then trawl through and post up the interesting stuff using tinyurls for the links (this facility is incorporated into applications like TweetDeck). But usually the advice that comes direct from you is best because it shows off who you are, unlike those people who tweet endless quotations.

Get fodder for your tweets from the stuff you have already written – any articles, blogs, e-books, old emails or whatever. You’d be surprised what you have already, and it will be all your own material. Feed your new posts from your blog into your Twitter stream, and get retweet widgets for your blog so people can retweet your posts if they like them, and you can also feed your e-newsletters through Aweber.com and articles from EzineArticles.com into Twitter through their automation.

And finally, get a following to follow you, which you can achieve if you continue to post up valuable information, strike up intellectual and humorous conversations, provide relevant input to discussions, regularly retweet stuff you like and acknowledge kind gestures towards you. Then you’ll get to be known as an expert in your field, and can start to achieve more business through your other business media.

Should you blog, tweet or start an e-newsletter?

Guest blog by LisaMarie Dias, e-newsletter diva

As a designer of e-marketing materials, people will often ask “Should I blog, tweet or start an e-newsletter?” While the question is usually posed as ‘which one’, I will often answer “Yes” in an attempt to help them re-frame the query. There are valid reasons to start any one of these and in my opinion, often very good reasons to have all three!

First and foremost, you need to be very clear about the message you are trying to share. The mode of transport – and that is all that these choices are, different modes of transport for getting your info out into the world – depends on what, exactly, you want to say and to whom.  Are you selling a product to a new customer or disseminating information to establish your expertise?  Are you speaking to someone that knows of you and your product or are you introducing yourself?  Once you clarify the message and the recipient, it will usually be easier to determine how to share it.

Each mode is best suited for a different type of message with some working well in multiple situations.  An e-newsletter gives you the time to introduce yourself and to provide detailed information.  It also allows you to define your ‘tone’ and to post upcoming events. But it is not a good medium for sharing time sensitive information or for last minute reminders.  Blog posts are excellent for distributing daily and timely comments, insights and musings but work best when they are sent to someone that already knows you. The same goes for tweets.  They are the perfect way to stay on someone’s radar with quick observations, retorts and reminders but only when received by someone that is ‘following’ you.  They are not a very good vehicle for introduction and certainly not for explanation.

One client, a financial planner, offers a tremendous amount of timely and valuable financial information and advice each month complete with references, charts and foot notes.  This is obviously not a message suited to a blog post or ‘tweet’.  His e-newsletter offers the space and time to deliver this information properly.  Blog posts are a great way to define your tone and to grow your following.  By posting frequently, people get a feel of who you are and over time, you can build a level of trust.  This same client might blog about the daily ups and downs in the market as well. It would not necessary conflict with the e-newsletter and, if done well, could certainly support it. And I suppose he could tweet too, though I am not sure if financial advice via tweet is in anyone’s best interests. My point is that these modes are not mutually exclusive.

Sometimes I will hear the question, “I have a blog and I am active on Twitter, do I need an e-newsletter/ e-zine as well? “

I believe that, if you have the stamina – and do not underestimate the amount of time and effort each of these endeavors will require – it is often best to combine all three modes, using e-newsletters to introduce yourself and define your area of expertise, blog posts to build on that expertise and tweets to ensure that you are on your reader’s radar.

Promoting an event is a great opportunity to use the strengths of all three modes.  An e-newsletter calendar, posted regularly, makes someone aware of the event and allows them to register and plan to attend. A blog post can then be used to discuss the event and build anticipation followed by a ‘tweet’ to remind them when the date arrives.  Working together, in a coordinated timeline, these three tools will increase the likelihood of having your message received and in this case, ensure event attendance.

Pick the format that works best for your message.  Or better yet, try all three. This is not an ‘either – or’ proposition.  They are all useful tools which should be created and designed to work together to ensure that your message is broadcast and shared.

LisaMarie Dias works with people to create dynamic online marketing materials using Constant Contact.  She offers individual and group classes for those that are interested in doing it themselves and full packages for businesses that want it all done for them.  Give her a call and let her help you get your message online and into your client’s in-box!

How to use e-newsletters for effective marketing

Marketing is about long term relationship building, and a superb way of keeping your customers informed about your business over a long period of time is through a newsletter.

I have written at length about paper newsletters in the past, but now is the turn of the electronic version or e-newsletter. These are a very effective way of communication with a selection of recipients who should have expressed an interest to receive your publications (these things need to be permission based so not to be classed as spam), with the purpose to inform, educate, publicise and maintain a connection with your customer base so they don’t forget you and go off with someone else.

The first thing is to collect your customers’ contact details via an autoresponder, preferably through a double-opt-in system through a sign up form on your website. Having a secure database coupled with a template system will facilitate the procedure, especially with a large collection of details, and you can divide or create separate lists for particular campaigns or promotions.

Use marketing campaigns to collect customers’ details through the incentive system. Playing on the customers’ greed factor is an appropriate way of gathering contacts. But one thing that is not polite is to assume that after a networking meeting you can take advantage of ‘business card dumping’, which is uploading these details directly into your database, as not everybody would appreciate receiving your newsletter without their permission.

Newsletters should only be sent with a direct purpose which should be valid and appropriate. Don’t be compelled to send something out just because you said your newsletter will be bi-monthly or whatever. You want your readers to look forward to the next issue, and receive it with interest once it pops into their in-box. The last thing you want is for them to unsubscribe (a facility which should be available with every publication).

Using a template to make your newsletter ‘look pretty’ seems to be a specific requirement, but I would like to add that some businesses do very well without any special effects, as the success of a newsletter should depend mainly on the content. But if you think your readers ‘expect’ this treatment then there are plenty of templates available.

Don’t fall into the trap (myself included) of just sending out newsletters without a proper purpose or call to action.  Successful businesses always have an aim or reason for their messages, culminating in signing up for an event, publicising a promotion, highlighting a new concept that has become available, as well as increasing your expertise status. If you don’t have a call to action, ask your readers to send this newsletter to someone else who might be interested, which is another way of increasing your database of recipients, or allow them to reprint its content in another publication such as a blog or forum.

My call to action is, as well as passing this on to your friends and colleagues, if you are interested in setting up a newsletter and would like help in creating one, then I am writing a series of packages in ‘how to create marketing newsletters’ through systems such as ConstantContact.com. This will accompany a similar package called ‘How to beautify your blog’ of which details are now available through the link.

How blogging and article writing help market businesses

One way to get attention is to make a big noise. Any child will tell (or show) you that. And making big noises in business are one of the ways of getting your customers to look your way, and finding a method of getting more traffic to your website will certainly be welcome.

But making a big noise without any content is a waste of time. You have to set yourself up as an expert in your particular field. Analyse all the elements of your business that you know: what makes you successful, what special features do you possess, what little bits of information can you share with your customers that demonstrates your expertise?

Forming relationships in business (ie marketing) is all about giving stuff away, as long as it leads towards the ultimate persuasion of getting customers to buy from you. There are easily things you could tell your customers that would be of benefit to them, but would cost you practically nothing. Think of the baker’s dozen idea, when providing that bit extra results in good will and an increased awareness of the provider.

Of course one way of providing information is through writing a business blog.  This versatile piece of software is virtually free to set up, totally self-editable (you don’t need a web-designer), loved by the search engines (they are visited hourly by the spiders), and can be adapted to reflect your corporate image (including creating more pages that contain further information).  Anybody with permission can add content, and all readers are encouraged to provide feedback, which also helps with search engine optimisation.

Another concept of promotion is through links to your website. Blogs are a superb medium for linking back within every post. In fact, why not comment on other people’s blog posts to increase the linkage back to your own blog or website? This will provide more exposure to a wider audience as well as helping the internet spiders.

Ideally a blog post should be short and concise. Blogs are for quick-fire expertise statements, providing the readership with a concept to grasp, information to process or to provide details of an event with a call to action. Some are over-lengthy, but really a blog isn’t the correct medium for essays. In fact once you get more accomplished at writing about your expertise then you should submit your examples as on-line articles, and there are a number of websites that can host your pieces to aid towards further exposure.

And then there’s the added advantage of linking your blog and on-line articles to the social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, FriendsFeed and the like. All this can be automated through RSS feeds, and again this increases your audience, which in turn is passed on virally through the complexities of their RSS feeds, plus referral and recommendation. The more people who read about how good you are and what you company does, the more likely they are to visit your website and be persuaded to make a sale.

If anybody is interested in setting up a blog but want to know how, including personalising it, then I am creating a series of packages “How to Beautify your Blog”, in which customers can pick and choose certain elements to create the perfect blog for their marketing purposes.  Click on the link for more details, or watch this space for further announcements!

Create a call to action on every webpage

I really don’t mind giving my opinion on website design. And it’s always so nice to comment on a really good one for a change.

A photographer friend of mine asked for my reaction to his new website design while it was being renovated. My first reaction was very positive, with its clean, clear, crisp lines providing a very professional layout. It was the grey words and logo on the white background that did it for me – how nice to see an uncluttered presentation with plenty of white space and light!

But I felt compelled to provide some comments to increase his website efficiency:

The index page should work to the three second rule. Three seconds to make up their minds that this is the right website and what they should then do. Getting the visitors to do something is paramount; they should be encouraged to go further into the site to learn more, or sign up to something with a suitable incentive (this is to gather their details for future communications). The last thing you want is for them to leave!

Also, don’t overload other pages with detailed content. My friend’s grey text may have looked elegant and contributed to the spatial atmosphere that was so pleasing, but it did make it very difficult to read in large quantities. Websites are not like books. People don’t find it easy to sit down and read through webpages with a cup of tea. Also if they are surfing they usually do not have the time to plough through densely packed paragraphs.

Your accompanying webpages should act like little landing pages for specific subjects. This means they should contain the same structure and marketing elements as the index page, because spiders direct surfers to the most relevant page to their search, and this may not be the index page of the website. Allow for drop-in visitors for that particular subject, and adapt the page for the three second rule too.

Design your webpages with the initial concept of getting your customers to make contact. Once you’ve got them across your threshold then you can give them all the necessary detail to seal your capture. Your content should be delivered quickly and concisely with poignant and relevant information. Separate each benefit with bullet points or paragraphs. This allows the eye to rapidly choose what it wants to read and then enables the reader to digest and take action.

What should you say and how to say it within your leaflet campaign

Quick reference:
How to get your leaflets to start working for you
How to get your successful leaflets to look good

It’s not what you say, but how you say it, that contributes towards a successful campaign. Be aware that your customers come first; after all, your business would not exist without them, so therefore they need to be the main focus for your campaign. This means you need to turn your mindset around to accommodate the fact that your business comes way down the pecking order of importance.

Each element of your message needs to be carefully planned, placed and executed. The first thing at the top should not be your logo and company name. Even though most leaflets and adverts blare theirs out from this position, this only works for worldwide recognised businesses; otherwise the reader’s reaction is ‘who?’ or ‘so what?’.

The main key element is the headline, which should be designed to attract attention. Begin your campaign with a statement or question that stimulates a positive response to your customers’ pain or problem. You should have done adequate market research to find this out, so position yourself inside your customers’ head and start to think like them. Work with something that will result in the reader saying ‘yes’.

The subhead should provide the resolve or solution to the headline, and there you can subtly drop in the name of your company.  I mean subtly, as the solution should always come first. The result should be to increase the readers’ empathy towards what you are offering.

Next highlight your benefits in bullet points. Here most businesses happily list their features, but remember since you are focusing on your customers, turn these features around to their point of view, so that they become customer benefits. Take out all the ‘we’ and ‘our’ and substitute them with ‘you’ and ‘yours’ to achieve this.

Why use bullet points? Readers find it easier to scan or quick read through a list than to trawl through a dense paragraph. In this fast moving 21st century, bombarded with stimuli from every direction, people don’t have the time or inclination to read everything. A list containing concise, focused and relevant points is more likely to be absorbed.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. How many campaigns forget to include a call to action? The remainder of your leaflet could contain all the right ingredients, but if you don’t ask your readers to do something, even to tell them to call you for more information, then what is the point? And by making this time-dependent you are more likely to stimulate a response, otherwise, even if they have the best intentions towards your campaign, there is no stimulus to demand a quick reaction and your leaflet could get forgotten.

And last but not least, make sure your contact details are large, clear and easily accessible. If your telephone number doesn’t jump out to hit them between the eyes, your landing page web-address is not clearly visible, or your email is hidden amongst other text, you will not encourage your customers to make contact. And no customer contact means no sales.

How to get your successful leaflets to look good

The misfortune of the single leaflet (or postcard) campaign is that there is limited space for what you have to say. By choosing only one shot at your potential customer market, you will have to cram in a lot of information into a relatively small space to get the full message across.

The initial reaction, after scanning the grey mass in front of them, is that readers will look for a way out: get rid. Even if all the marketing criteria are met: headline, sub-headline, bullet points, call to action, special offer, contact details, the fact that they are virtually sitting on top of each other defeats their objective.

When laying out your leaflet, the first thing to consider is your margins; wide borders navigate the eye towards a focal point: the message inside. Adequate white space provides sufficient elbow room to allow the leaflet to breathe, so each marketing element has a chance to succeed.

Next, consider which kind of picture you are going to have. Background images can backfire: one particular advert had a relevant picture behind all its text, but it was so complex you couldn’t make out what it was trying to say. Presented by itself it would have been easier to understand its message, therefore providing a more effective contribution.

Another problem with a complex background is that it detracts from the words in front of it. Messages are not easily understood if they have to compete with their surroundings. Clean, clear backgrounds, preferably white or pale in colour, combined with a darker colour for the words, will have far more impact for quick recognition and readability than the reverse.

Pictures should be relevant, and not just a smiling tele-operator who looks good. It’s easy to get a picture off the net that will do, but then it may be so popular that everybody uses it, thus reducing your impact. A good quality, well produced photograph is vital, with excellent focus and presentation within its own frame; a home produced job with camera shake or low resolution taken from a mobile phone will not cut to the chase.

And finally how the leaflet is prepared for the printer will make or break a good campaign. Customers respond to quality, and an obvious product of the office ink-jet will certainly not provide the impression you are looking for. Neither will a leaflet whose pictures are not converted to the printers’ resolution, as failure to do so will result in flat, 2D, uninteresting images that also suggest low quality.

Also the kind of paper or card used will make a difference: good quality with a clean finish will easily sway the customer to read, absorb, understand and therefore take action – ultimately resulting in a sale.

Consistency is the key

Whilst cleaning my bathroom I was struck by the Body Shop bottles on the shelf. That got me thinking on a variety of levels.

One: how the contents of the bottles matched the colours on the labels. Silly really, but I liked that consistency.

Two: the labels themselves were simple and uncluttered, and each bottle matched its partners so that you could tell they were of a set: cleanser, toner, moisteriser, serum, eye cream, etc.

Three: I thought of the consistency of the Body Shop interiors; as a franchise, they are all presented in exactly the same way, so regardless of where you are (Reading, Brighton, Brisbane in Australia) you know exactly where the shampoos are, as well as your favourite brand of face creams.

Four: the consistency of the patter of the sales persons; they all spoke from the same hymn sheet, so no conflictions of information could confuse a potential customer.

Don’t you think that consistency makes your marketing safe? You should make it so that your customers don’t have to think too hard, that it is easy for them without being condescending, that they can find things really easily without losing their interest, that your messages are consistent to avoid confusion, and the simplicity factor highlights your success because everything runs like a well-oiled machine.

That’s something for me to strive for in 2009…

What advantages are there in a blogsite?

Most of us understand the concept of a blog: an on-line diary that is either used for personal reasons or to promote a business. It is an excellent tool for SEO (search engine optimisation) and to bring more traffic to your website and other on-line media, and allows you to explore, explain and express yourself and your business in a way that is not possible on a website. Multiple posting regularly each week will keep the spiders and search engines busy, and your audience will learn to expect frequent missives from you to learn the latest idea or share your successes and secrets, as well as receive advance notice of any events your are organising, be party to special offers that are available and be kept in the link of how your business is progressing. It’s almost as if your readers have a privileged toe-hold that the rest of the world is missing out on.

Now a blogsite combines the flexibility of the blog and its ability for frequent updates, immediate SEO and access onto other people’s PCs through RSS feeds, with the static backdrop of a website, including fixed information pages, a culture media for e-commerce systems, and the comfort of a navigable and visual brochure status through the world wide web. Your URL can be adapted for SEO and pay-per-click, your blog headlines are stuffed full of keywords combined with relevant tags, and you can take advantage of Web 2.0 for visitor interaction, as well as gathering their contact details to invite them to join your newsletter. All good stuff for generating leads and traffic.

Now another advantage of a blogsite is that it allows the owner to edit and add to contents without the need of a web designer.  Apologies to all those web designers out there, but not everyone wants to pay through the nose to change their text, create new pages, add pictures and frequently update their website to keep the SEO active. I consider myself privileged to be able to change my website at a drop of a hat, but this advantage is not available to all, especially if you’re not ‘techy’.  The beauty of a blogsite is that it is relatively easy to change the contents once it is set up, and posting up blogs is as easy as pie. Just think of the flexibility of adapting your on-line presence to whatever you want, whenever you want.

Don’t assume your audience can mindread

Reading through my son’s school newsletter, which is full of the headteacher crowing about the school’s achievements, one particular entry had us totally perplexed. It was quite a full but garbled account of the school getting to the finals and what a hard time the boys had getting there.  Great, but did they win? And what sport or event was it?

These two rather important items of information were completely omitted from the report.  Remember to be very clear with all the information from the beginning, including the date, subject, full names of those involved, any particular details associated with them, as well as the outcome with all flags flying.  You may be involved with the incident, but your audience isn’t, so unless you explain everything in detail, they will be unable to share your success with you.

Does your home-cooked marketing still taste good?

I attended my first NRG networking session and one requirement is to make a 2 minute elevator pitch, using their ‘meeting aid-memoire’ as a guide to content. As well as stating your name and business, think about a typical client, the problems they may have and what solution you can provide for them. Adapt it into a story about one of your successful clients: describe their symptoms before they worked with you and how this affected their business, then elaborate on what you did to help and the effect it produced. Try and relate an actual scenario, it comes across better and is probably more realistic.

This is my example: A friend of mine recently bought a franchise, and realised he needed to have some stationery done. He got himself a new laptop and a reasonable printer and started to experiment with creating his own. His first brave attempts certainly saved his bacon at networking events, but he soon realised that his competitors had better quality business cards, snazzy brochures promoting their wares, and were stealing a march with their leaflet drops. He really needed to have better quality and properly printed publications. So after working with me, he then hit the networking circuit armed with a box of professional business cards sporting a polished logo, a modern colour scheme highlighting his corporate identity with matching business stationery, a wodge of well-designed leaflets containing relevant pictures and catchy headlines, and a pile of punchy postcards displaying special offers and call to actions. We’re now working on his new website to further his publicity.

This true-life story has already convinced one person that her self-produced publicity has now passed its sell-by-date. Perhaps yours could do with a pick-me-up too?

How to encourage your target market

I’ve been talking to my daughter Josie about marketing and how products are sold to customers. She is very astute and keeps on referring back to my business. Her main question is: ‘Who, exactly, are your customers, Mum?’ and I’m afraid I had to hesitate! All the marketing advice out there says work out who your customers are and then build your business around them. I suppose I have to find potential customers to match each of my products (at least I’ve pruned those down in recent years) – not exactly the right way to go about it.

I can say I am looking for organisations who want to have information, publicity and promotional material in paper form using graphic design, eg membership organisations who would like to have a well designed newsletter or magazine to promote themselves to their existing and prospective audience, or small businesses who would like to have some paper marketing material to promote their services or products in a colourful and eye-catching form to their target market – but how do you say that in only a few words?

Josie and I have been Christmas shopping and one place she took me was the Build a Bear shop in the Oracle in Reading. A fascinating place as regards marketing goes – and I got Josie to try and analyse them for me. She was aware of the range of different bear skins to choose from, the fun idea of stuffing them yourself, going to a computer to name your bear and get a certificate for its ‘birthday’, and then choosing your outfit for your bear. She recognised the fact that the rich range of outfits would encourage bear-owners to come back ‘for more’, the upselling of other products in the form of accessories for your bear or finding a ‘companion’ for it, and the layout of the shop encouraged young prospects to enjoy their time there with bright colours, ample space and fun activities during their stay. When she asked me where were the same ideas in my business I realised I had a lot of thinking to do!

Obviously I can’t be the same as a bear shop, but I can make the process of visiting my website a more enjoyable experience. Why not offer an insight into graphic design, the different styles of paper marketing material, the potential of each commodity in relation to small businesses or organisations? I need to encourage my visitors to my website to ‘do’ something rather than just ‘surf’ and disappear, through offering freebie information packs and a well-written newsletter explaining and reminding its readers about my services. Undergoing research to find out more to impart to my readership, and to enhance my own experience and design work, will, of course, benefit everyone. What a positive way to look forward to the New Year!

Alternative Technology Uses

Just a little idea I had: a lady at a networking event proudly showed me her new iPod, which I much admired.  I’m used to products made by Apple, and noticed one feature that showed a gallery of record covers relative to her music that ’swelled’ up to the fore when moused over.

I wondered if this could be put to another use – a series of images that backed up a pitch or small presentation in a 1-2-1 situation, intimately shown to the prospective as a visual aid.  Examples and information pages could ’swell’ into view to emphasise certain points or highlight subjects to concentrate upon.  An audio description could accompany each slide if necessary.

Simple Soup Solutions

We’ve all heard the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”, so does that mean the broth contains too many ingredients? If your stew-pot had all your favourite foods mixed together, do you think it would taste nice? Could you define any of the individual foods from the concoction?

Usually simple procedures are the most effective. Soup made from mushrooms with a hint of garlic and a sprig of fresh parsley is extremely tasty, and you can appreciate that it is mushroom soup and not a disgusting mess.

Now take a look at your promotional material. Is it easily digestible? Does your message present itself effectively? Would an alien from outer-space understand exactly what your company is all about? Is the meaning of your literature obvious at a quick glance? Are the contact details easily accessible? Is your logo clear and your strapline relevant and punchy? Are the benefits of your product/service instantly desirable?

Select your ingredients with care, because the proof of the pudding (or soup) is in the eating.