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Blog posts tagged free marketing advice
Drink, drugs and copywriting
August 17, 2009
Guest post by Tom Albrighton
The other day, a client facing a big marketing setback confided to me that he was going to go home, have a glass of wine and try to think it through.
I nodded sympathetically. Many’s the time I’ve combined work with leisure by doing some copywriting over a drink in the evening. A drop of something can often loosen up the flow of words, particularly when something expressive or colourful is required. (However, it can also cloud the judgement, so I always wait until the morning to send the results to the client.)
No-one who enjoyed Under Milk Wood, Sgt. Pepper or 'Kubla Khan' could deny that alcohol and drugs can enhance the creative process. Some of our greatest cultural works had their genesis in altered states. And they reached even those who never touched anything stronger than tea.
Yet I’m not sure how my clients would react if I revealed that their copywriting had been done under the influence. Even those who liked a drink themselves might be disquieted. And if I told a client I was going on a week-long acid binge to get ideas for their slogan, I’m pretty sure they’d be looking for another copywriter. (Not that I ever would, I hasten to add.)
The serious point I’m making is that although we know of many factors that boost creativity, we often deliberately exclude them from the workplace. We might grudgingly allow a few pictures over a desk, or a radio on in the background, but these are intrusions of leisure into the world of work, not deliberate attempts to stimulate our minds. Even something completely wholesome, like spending some time in a natural environment, is only allowed in the rigid structure of the corporate ‘away day’ (if at all).
Those in the creative industries often make more effort to stimulate creativity through the working environment (although one suspects that it’s also partly for show). In my view, all work is creative – not just marketing, but every other business function too. We all have innate creativity that we use in solving the problems of our day. Why don’t we do more to let it flourish in the workplace?
Local businesses must seize low-risk advertising opportunities
July 01, 2009
Local press has been having a torrid time of it lately. It seems that scarcely a week goes by without reports of more problems for titles and groups within the medium. It's also a tough time for small businesses, which are seeing their profits squeezed by the downturn, while knowing full well that there has never been a more important time to shout louder than others in their field.
Given these circumstances it might seem like a very frightening time to commit precious promotional budget to a struggling medium. But there are alternatives, and now is a great time to explore them. A service such as Signposter.com, an online service helping UK businesses buy and manage outdoor advertising, offers a viable, effective, low-cost and risk-free way to build up promotional collateral free from any potential surrounding editorial negativity.
There is no denying that local press has a role to play in the promotional mix for small businesses. It's a proven way of reaching consumers in a local area. But now is surely the time for local businesses to do some research and be more adventurous, and gain stand-out by doing so.
Outdoor advertising is now within the reach of small business managers.
Create local landing pages and gain new customers
June 14, 2009
If you have a website and want to gain new customers, why not build landing pages optimised for search terms with geographic modifiers. If that sounds like gibberish, I’m talking about creating special pages to attract potential customers who enter (for example) ‘copywriter Norwich’ instead of just ‘copywriter’ into search engines.
Because location searches are more specific, there’s generally less competition for them, increasing your chances of achieving good SEO results.
For example, as I write, my page on Copywriters in London ranks at #4 in Google and #1 at Yahoo, outperforming the sites of dozens of other copywriters who really are in London!
When visitors click through to the page, it explains that they could get practically the same level of service from a copywriter in Norwich and save money, since our overheads are inevitably lower.
Is it ethical? Am I bending the truth? Believe me, I’ve agonised over this. But I only considered it when I saw competitors doing the same thing. And all I’m really doing is creating a page about finding copywriters in London, not masquerading as a London copywriter.
Does it sell? I believe so, although I don’t always grill my new clients on how they found me (I know I should). You’ve got to be realistic. Drop-off rates will inevitably be high when people seeking local suppliers twig that you’re 100 miles away. But some are bound to be convinced.
If you want to do something similar, just create a web page with 300-500 words of text talking about finding your product or service in your target location and linking that to your own offering. Explain how you can easily reach customers in the location and, if appropriate, mention any clients you already have there.
Make sure you use your keywords in your HTML page title, heading tags and throughout the text. Aim for a keyword density of around 5% - you can check it here. Use keywords in the document name too (Yahoo likes this).
The ‘description’ meta tag carries no weight for SEO, but may still appear in search results. So you can use it to grab searchers’ attention with a punchy message like ‘Looking for an electrician in London? Call our national helpline to find a reliable, affordable contractor.’ (For more help with SEO writing, see this guide to SEO Copywriting.)
Remember, your page is primarily aimed at search engines. You don’t really want people to read it! So make sure people who arrive at it can easily click through to your home page, perhaps via a link in the first sentence.
To boost rankings further, link to your page from blog posts and online PR articles. The only thing you can’t do is get listed in local online directories for your target locality - although you could always make that possible by investing in a virtual office.
A final word of warning - if people do choose you, they’ll be expecting you to match the service a local supplier could provide. Make sure you can keep your promises!
What are YOU going to do to create a World Wide Rave?
February 27, 2009
If you’ve been keeping tabs on some of the groups of marketing professionals on global social networks over the last few days, you might have heard mention of a World Wide Rave. It describes something you’ve probably experienced, although you may not realise it. It’s also something that you should find out more about if you’re responsible for marketing for your business.
Online marketing expert and bestselling author, David Meerman Scott, is in the process of launching his new book. I suppose by now you can guess what it’s called?
World Wide Rave is all about the way in which people can start and spread a World Wide Rave about their business or cause by getting other people excited about telling stories.
Like his other books, World Wide Rave is likely to be an international best seller pretty swiftly. A quick Google search will uncover that he’s the author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and that has done very well on the business/marketing book lists, as well as being translated into over 20 languages.
Anyway, to mark the launch of the World Wide Rave, David has produced a video which itself, documents a World Wide Rave that he created. And the video itself may even become a World Wide Rave. I’ve pasted the video below, so that you can check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F4KHmm566I
You can check out David’s blog post about the video here. The blog also includes a free eBook which explains more about the making of the video. Are you starting to get the drift of a World Wide Rave yet?
I should disclose that I and many of my colleagues are on the team of people involved in making the video - but there were also hundreds of people involved as you will see when you watch the video. We’re proud to have been involved, and we are certainly looking forward to watching the process of both the book and the video over time. But regardless of our involvement, this is a very interesting aspect of the huge connectivity that we can all get access to online, particularly when we find a clever way to get other people to tell stories about us!
Food for thought...
P.S. David has really thought this through. Here's a little badge to prove our involvement!
A star is born
December 24, 2008
It seems appropriate that the Marketing Donut is coming to life at the start of a new year.
We certainly feel like celebrating, as the Marketing Donut has been many months in the planning, and we are now only a couple of months from its public launch.
The reason we decided to start this blog was to make sure that anybody who wants to find out any information, or who wants to check out some of the marketing experts we have on board, can get a taste of what is to come.
We not only welcome feedback, we can’t survive without it - so please feel free to comment, connect with us and feedback in any way you wish.
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