How many of you can cope with blogspeak?

I’ve just listened to a video about blogging. Normally I would be very excited and would take voracious notes, but this time I just sat there bemused.

As a result I am determined to develop my new niche. Since the end of May, when I developed Bell’s Palsy, I had to take a back seat from my business to recover, and I used the time to rethink my strategy and where I was going with my business. This is an important activity to do now and again, and there’s nothing like having half a face to focus on what’s doing well and what isn’t.

I’ve decided to adapt my business in stages, and the first stage will be explaining how to create and maintain a blog for British non-techie females. The ‘British’ part is as relevant as the ‘non-techie’ and ‘female’ parts, because there are so much stuff out there that is American – sorry those from the other side of the pond, but American is not the same as English. The ‘female’ part is apt because, after coping with my dear, wonderful and thoroughly techie brother who sorted out minor problems with my blog, I realised that there is another vocabulary out there that isn’t tuned in to women or mumpreneurs.

So I would like to boost my ‘marketing research’ I’ve been doing at networking events lately, and ask for questions from equally bemused ‘would-be-bloggers’ what they would like to know, which bits they don’t understand, what is holding them back from setting up a blog, and how would they like their ‘lessons’ to be presented to them in the best way for them to learn.

Oh, and for those ’starting out’ bloggers, I will be working with a ‘free’ blog from WordPress.com so you can get to grips with blogging the easy way, and don’t have to worry about all that nasty techie stuff needed for self-hosting blogs. (Once you have begun to understand blogging, then you can try your hand at the more advanced stuff at a later date.)

Come on girls, let’s have some questions… leave your contributions in the comments box below.

‘Blackberry’ doesn’t say ‘babies clothes’ to me

One young entrepreneur was asking for advice on her babies’ clothes business on a women’s business forum. She had decided to call it ‘Blackberry Babes’ and wondered if it was a good name or not. This is my response:

I’m still a little confused why you need to use ‘blackberry’ – is there some underlying reason for this? I immediately thought of the hand-held electronic system. I certainly agree that ‘babies’ is better than ‘babes’.

I should take a good luck at the USP of your product. What is special about it? What does it have that your competitors haven’t? Does it use special fabrics, are the colours significant, does it cater for specific kinds of babies’ requirements, or what?

Then I would think about how it change the lives of the babies, or their mothers. Concentrate on that phenomenon when you do your marketing. For example, an ironing service shouldn’t talk about what they do, ie your ironing, but what their customers can do if their ironing is done by the company, ie free time with the family, weekends free from household chores, no more ironing piles towering on your washingmachine! You should be describing ‘what’s in it for them’, not your product, because customers couldn’t care a tinker’s toot about you or your business, they only care about how it affects themselves.

What is so special about your babies clothes that marks it out as different from all the others, has a special element that makes the recipients lives better, and offers excellent value? Take these facts, work out your ‘keywords’ and create a name using them. For example, a courier service called ‘Fetch it now!’ – says exactly what’s on the tin.

Why this and not ‘blackberry’? ‘Blackberry’ doesn’t suggest to me baby clothing, it suggests to me more of food, or blackberry stains on sticky babies. If you are going to have a website for your company (hopefully an e-commerce one where mothers can buy on-line) by having a keyword rich name will not only make it easier for the search engine spiders to find your company, but easier for search engine users who type in those ‘keywords’ in their searches for baby clothes, not to mention the mothers who will understand exactly what you can do for them.

The result may be a little more boring than ‘Blackberry babes’ but if you want to survive on the internet, being cute and pretty won’t cut the chase.

Don't designers understand what needs to go into a leaflet?

People expect clear definitions about what kind of business you are. In fact, directories have boxes that state either one profession or the other when you apply, without an option for anything else. And if you join a networking group this rule also applies. You are supposed to be either a designer, or a marketer, and not something in between.

But things start to get a little cloudy if you describe yourself as a designer with a marketing twist, or as a visual marketer. People’s foreheads furrow and they may even turn to look for an easier subject to network with. If you don’t fall into those easily understood categories then that’s more hard work for them, and it’s more hard work for me to explain exactly what I do.

Let me provide you with two scenarios. First, decorating a room. There’s all that time needed to strip off the wallpaper, wash down the walls, make good the cracks, sandpaper down the door frames and skirting boards, and get it all ready before you put the paint on to make it look nice. If you don’t do all this the paint will peel off, the walls will not be smooth and the end result will look amateurish.

Scenario Two: have you ever looked at a cake in the café and salivated with the thought of eating it, but when you took a bite you were bitterly disappointed? Chocolate cakes have a tendency to do this. It all depends on the kinds of ingredients used, the conditions the cake was baked in, and whether the flavours matched up to the expectancy of the finished results. The humble carrot cake in the corner probably provided a better treat, as well as being healthier, because the ingredients were superior.

Scenario One demonstrated that a lot of preliminary work needs to be done beforehand that cannot necessarily be seen in the finished result. It is important to set up your foundations for a frame to hang the design on. Scenario Two showed that just because it looks fancy it doesn’t necessarily mean it will perform well. And make sure the contents of your leaflets reflect the purpose, are aimed towards your customers’ needs and wants, and provide a suitable call to action to make the project worth while.

So a visual marketer will combine the elements of design and marketing to make leaflets perform better. Rather than creating logos, I work with your logo (as well as any other imagery that’s relevant). I write copy that has a purpose and an understanding of the psychology of the customer. It’s not just how you position the words and pictures on the page, it’s what you say to gain the reader’s attention and get them to do something towards achieving a sale or buying into a service.

There’s a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ stuff that goes towards a successful leaflet. And that’s what this blogsite is all about: I hope to explain it satisfactorily in future posts, so watch this space!

Don’t just say it one way

If you look at the BBC website newsdesk, you’ll see lots of different links to their news items. It looks like there’s lots of news there, but in fact there isn’t. If you investigated further, you’d find that quite a lot of the links go to the same news article. Why is this?

People view the world in different ways. That’s why we’re all unique. Therefore if you want to reach a wider area of customers, you have to think more outside the box. Most of this can be accomplished with research, hence why there’s websites for finding out the most popular keywords for your website (and your marketing literature). As people think differently, you need to promote your business in a similar vein. Not everybody will respond to the same stimuli, as coaches trained in NLP will confirm.

That’s why there are many newslinks going to one source: to capture more of an audience. Each headline or link has been carefully sculptured to fit in with a certain type of person, in the hope that it will encourage more to respond favourably. They’re designed to work on many levels, in order to increase the success rate of getting their news out there (and this has proven to work).

How can you do this for your own business? If you were able to describe your company in many different ways, how many extra customers could you attract? How could you market your product or services through a variety of avenues to encourage a wider target market? Or even vary the product or service themselves perhaps? Hmmm.

I have said in the past that one way to promote your business is through your ‘perfect customer’. It is much easier to get your prospects to relate themselves to your ‘ideal’ than for you to adapt to their inexhaustible brain patterns. But I’m going to complicate things further by saying you should still promote your ‘ideal customer’, but in more ways. Allow your extremely varied customer base the chance to understand how you help Tom Jones, or whatever you’ve called your ‘ideal’, so that they all get a chance to relate to his predicament, and the solutions you provide for him. Even vary the solutions in which Tom is able to achieve his success; promote from different angles, view points, attitudes, methods, presentations, but all with the same role model.

And to find out these different ways? Don’t forget to use the power of questions, and the qualities of ‘test and measure’…

But what is this advert really saying?

I’ve just finished an advert.

The process was that it needed to be made ready for print: the image at 300 dpi, changed from RGB to CMYK, collect the logo from the original and superimpose it onto the new one (using Photoshop to separate it from its original background), work out what font was used for the text and transform it to the right size for the magazine’s dimensions including bleed.

The effect is stunning, because the image used is stunning. But that is all it has going for it. Sure, it will fit in extremely well into the kind of magazine it is going into, as it will look like just the rest of the pages, beautiful. But the problem is, is it really an advert?

Why am I questioning this? Because it misses some vital points. OK, it has a logo, but that isn’t the be-and-end-all of an advert, not unless it is Coca-Cola which needs no explanation. Do you understand exactly what it is promoting? If you do, what makes it different from anything else? Also, the text (if you could read it because it is so small) is too cryptic to understand its message properly; there are no instructions for the reader to take action; and even if they did want to make contact, there’s only a webaddress which is miniscule and totally unnoticeable (can you find it?).

I suppose the owner wanted their promotion to be subtle, like their product, but unless you have managed to secure world-wide fame and a huge following, have made millions of pounds and have several well-placed outlets throughout the world, have all the fashion magazines falling over themselves to do a story on your product and the biggest celebrities showing off their latest version on the red carpet, then this kind of advertising is not going to work – at all!

What does the word ‘marketing’ mean to you?

Why is it with reporters and broadcasters always associate advertising as the primary source of marketing? Is there a mental block with the public when it comes to understanding what marketing is? Is advertising always the first thing people think of when the word ‘marketing’ is mentioned?

I suppose that is the case, because advertising tends to be the most visible form of marketing. But it is also the most expensive, and, in most cases, the most unproductive, especially if it is not done well. I have seen some really bad examples: companies assuming all their readers know who they are, or their message is too cryptic so it doesn’t make sense, or blabbing on about themselves rather than what they can provide for their customers.

I suppose the misconception that advertising is the be-all-and-end-all of marketing will continue unless the public want to find out what marketing really is. This is probably because alot of marketing is almost invisible to the public, silently working away in the background creating that effective message to form relationships with people to eventually encourage them to buy.

How powerful is a postcard newsletter?

Here’s a concept that is big in the US. Think of a small, bijous, concise form of communication that is quirky, eye-catching, yet still packed full of information. Of course the Americans have a larger version of the postcard, something resembling an A5 so there is more space for the designer to play with, but I still think it could work with our British sizes if you’re clever.

How can you fit a newsletter onto a postcard? This all depends on an efficient use of layout. You don’t have to make your font extra small so the reader needs to get out a magnifying glass to read it, it’s all to do with columns, succinct copywriting, choice subject matter, prioritisation and, of course, a brilliant use of headlines. You could say it is an exercise in combining the verbal with the visual into another form of communication. And don’t forget to wrap it up with excellent imagery that describes, reinforces or compliments the content, with a fully incentive-biased call to action together with your clearly presented contact details.

Why do a postcard newsletter? Well, in this age of emails and e-newsletters, why not grab your readers’ attention with something different. Postcards are simple, easy and cheap to post; don’t require an envelope; fun, different and visually compelling; are always open and therefore immediately readable; not time-consuming; and are a medium for quick messages and prompt news items. Their brightly coloured visual impact will not get swamped, deleted or forgotten.  They can be read there and then or later with a cup of coffee, and can be passed around for others to read or stuck onto a noticeboard.  It’s their individuality that makes them stand out above the crowd and get noticed.

Use a postcard newsletter to advertise your news in bite-sized chunks and tantalising snippets of information.  You can post up the remainder of the story on either your blog or website by including the link at the end.  I know it won’t be interactive, so make sure your link isn’t complicated or over-long, or provide clearly placed links from your homepage to the remainder of the content, a double whammy as the reader will then get a chance to view the rest of your website later.

Then there’s the added bonus that they are relatively inexpensive to produce, even if you get them professionally printed.  And that’s probably a good idea, as digital printers can mailmerge the names and addresses onto each card (as well as other variable information), topped off with your personal franking mark and, of course, your corporate identity and colour scheme. If you prefer to use stamps, then send them to a distributing house for economic facilitation, especially if you want to stick a sample onto them or whatever else your marketing team comes up with.