11 Rules of Compelling Content

Ann Handley

Ann Handley

Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer at MarketingProf.com. Who better to ask about writing compelling content?

In this extract from Ann’s comprehensive chapter in the Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars, she shares her eleven rules for publishing compelling content inspired by E. B. White’s principles of clarity, brevity and boldness.

“Produce great stuff, and your customers will come to you. Produce great stuff, and your customers will share your story for you. More than ever before: Content is king! Content rules!” Ann Handley

Rule #1: Compelling content has an objective

In the context of business, the juiciest kind of content is created for a purpose, with a business objective in mind.

Who does this well: Hubspot. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Hubspot is a B2B company that sells lead generation systems for small and medium-sized companies. Hubspot is the poster child for content marketing done well, because the best of what it publishes isn’t about Hubspot, it’s about the needs of its [Read more...]

Getting Your Emails Opened

email

 

Although specific estimates vary, online researchers agree that email recipients make quick decisions on whether or not they will open and read promotional emails. Obviously, if they like, want, need, and/or are actively seeking the products being offered, they’re far more likely to open them. But emails come with their own special challenge, the subject line – that short, information burst that can make you or break you.

Like direct mail envelope “teasers,” emails’ subject lines must grab the recipients’ interests and increase the chances that they’ll open the messages. That’s why you’ll want to work on getting yours just right.

Start getting ideas scanning your own inbox. Jot down any that catch your interest and then see how you can tweak them to suit your needs. You can also look at headlines in your local newspaper, magazines, websites, and the like and see it you can covert any of those into intriguing subject lines.

 

Then use these tips to fine-tune your choices.

1. Keep them short and to the point. Less is definitely more in this instance, especially since overly long subject lines will get cut off from view anyhow. [Read more...]

3 Keys To Getting Ahead In Tough Times

In this 2 minute video you will learn three tips that will definitely help you in tough times.

10 Essential Rules For Building A Loyal Following On Facebook

The following is an excerpt from Mari Smith’s chapter of Mitch Meyerson’s  Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars (Entrepreneur Press August 2010)

 

Facebook is the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin. The college friends launched Facebook from their Harvard dorm room in February, 2004. For the first two years, Facebook was only available to colleges. Then, gradually, Facebook opened their doors to the general public along with opening their API up to third party application developers. The newest gold rush began!

Since 2006, Facebook has continued to increase in popularity and always seems to stay one step ahead of the competition such as LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, even Google – in terms of being the most popular site for connecting with friends, family, colleagues, etc. [Read more...]

The Most Important Guerrilla Marketing Principle of All

Every contact with the public is marketing.

This simple but essential piece of wisdom was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson back in 1984 in the first Guerrilla Marketing book.

In today’s post we are featuring perhaps the most important Guerrilla Marketing concept of all — every contact is marketing.  Enjoy the audio and article – and take action on the ideas!
(Click on the audio button right below)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

Key Points:

  • Marketing is EVERYTHING you do to promote your business.
  • It begins the moment you visualize your business and continues up to, and long after your customers buys your products and services regularly.
  • Marketing is always intentional and detail orientated, and overlaps to every single part of your business. It’s the way you pick up the phone, the care you put into your web page … its every contact.
  • Marketing is a continual process that develops over time.
  • The consistency of your marketing messaging is so important.
  • In this cluttered marketplace you need to gain mind share so people remember you.

Your Action Step:  

Look at your business, meaning your website, your email communication, your communication over the telephone and see if there are any small details you are missing?

Do you have:

- an enthusiastic tone of voice?

- an absence of typos or errors?

- do you think thoughtfully about what you are going to say to people?

Make a list of anything that needs improvement.

 

For the last 12 years the  Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Program has certified over 400 Guerrilla Marketing Coaches worldwide in low cost high impact marketing principles.  Become a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach for 60 % off for the month of November only. Click here


Your Guerrilla Marketing Calendar


This could save you from making a costly mistake too. During the last 12 years, over 400 entrepreneurs worldwide have successfully completed the intensive 12-week online program to become Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coaches. While most were highly motivated, many didn’t realize the importance of tracking and measuring their marketing. Simply put: they didn’t have a marketing calendar which could have been a costly mistake.

The truth is you can’t improve what you don’t measure. With that end in mind, here’s a template you can use to track and measure your marketing activities:

-> Click here to get your sample marketing calendar


Why have a marketing calendar?

A marketing calendar will help make all the elements in your program work well together. It enables you to plan your budget and helps you avoid unforeseen expenditures. It prevents you from engaging in hit-and-miss marketing. It protects you from marketing lapses. It aids enormously in planning. Clients who operate from one say that a marketing calendar is their most precious business asset.

Remember the ultimate goal of your marketing calendar is to create results. The Guerrilla marketer knows that results are based on intentionality, accountability and consistency paving the road to profits.

 

 

Become a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach starting September 27, 2011.

 

How To Automate Your Online Business in 3 Steps [video]

As many of you know I am a big fan of web automation.  Simply put it allows you to be more effective and actually work less.  This 4 minute video covers some key point you may want to know.  Enjoy.

 

Get 30 days free ->  www.EasyWebAutomation.com

Six Steps to More Sales Success

While opt-ins are wonderful, they’re just the beginning. If you’ve been around the Internet for a while, you’ve certainly heard many online marketers say, “The money is in the list.” If so, don’t believe them.

Mastering Online Marketing optin boxEmail lists don’t generate a cent unless they contain names and email addresses of buyers. In other words, if your list doesn’t result in sales it’s not doing you a bit of good. The money isn’t in the list, it’s in the purchases that people on the list make! So, guerrilla marketers closely monitor the folks on their email lists and look for patterns of behaviors that help them move from opt-ins to single sales and from single sales to multiple purchases. If you want to increase your opt-in and sales conversions be sure to:

1. Position your opt-in box in a prominent location, above the fold (the section of your website that can be seen without scrolling up or down).

 



Click here to see web page full size

2. Use interactive involvement devices like quizzes, surveys, blogs, and “ask” campaigns to engage your visitors.
[Read more...]

5 Top Time-Tested Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

 

With no end in sight to the current economic recession, it’s time to dig deep into these low cost, high impact Guerrilla Marketing resources. Re-arm yourself with business generating strategies that have withstood the test of time. They will bring you profitable results in these testing times.

 

 

#1:   7 Low-Cost Guerrilla Marketing Principles You Should Know

#2:   3 Simple Keys To Making Your Website Convert More

[Read more...]

Create Sales Pages That Get More Sales

Guerrilla Marekting on the InternetThis checklist, excerpted from Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet, contains the most important elements and devices to include in your sales letter. So, learn them, memorize them, and use them.

 

1. Identify your visitors’ most urgent problem

You can’t create an effective sales letter if you don’t know or can’t articulate your target audiences’ most pressing problem. So, before you do anything else find this out, otherwise your letter will be for naught.

Once you’re sure you’ve captured it accurately, dig a little deeper and see if there are one or two others that are weighing on their minds and jot them down as well. And remember, you’re the problem-solver, so make sure you offer the best solution.

2. Create an attention-grabbing headline (and subheadings)

The Internet is a very crowded place and your website will either be a momentum-gathering snowball heading down a steep mountain or just another snowflake in the blizzard. If you don’t want your website to get lost in the crowd your headline must instantly call out to your visitors and pique their interest. If it doesn’t they’ll leave. If it does, you’re over the first copy hurdle and they’ll stay a bit longer.
[Read more...]

Joel Comm: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistakes People Make With Social Media

Joel Comm

Joel Comm

Joel Comm is one of the world’s leading experts on web-based, money-making strategies. This is an excerpt from Joel’s chapter titled: Social Media Marketing Success Qualities in Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars:

Social media, in particular, creates a unique context and mode of interaction. Just about everyone wants in on the benefits. Unfortunately, it’s also a particularly competitive environment; having the right characteristics, being determined and ready to act, is often not enough.

To succeed with social media, you also need the right information, and you need to be aware of what not to do, as well as knowing what to do. With that in mind, let’s review the top mistakes of social media marketing.


Mistake #1: Leading With Marketing Conversations

Many new social media marketers head into it as though it’s simply a place where they advertise themselves and their business. You see it happen all the time. People approach Twitter and Facebook, and they immediately friend people just to post links to their products and services. This makes it all about them, and they subsequently come off as being very selfish, and having an all-about-me attitude.

These people are missing the point, which is that all healthy businesses are built on relationships.

Using social media to advance your business goals does not change this fundamental rule. You must provide value for the prospect first. They will then, hopefully, become your customer.
[Read more...]

6 Ways to Communicate with Impact using Social Media

Craig ValentineThe following excerpt by Craig Valentine is from Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars.

Craig Valentine, 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, has traveled the world and trained thousands of presenters on developing world class speaking skills. He continues to help entrepreneurs develop powerful presentations that quickly generate leads, customers and vast profits.

Craig and I are starting our next 12 week World Class Speaking Coach Certification Program on June 13. Get the full story here.

What is the number one reason people will do business with you over others? Is it price? Is it quality? Is it convenience? The answer might surprise you because it is none of these three.

In fact, the number one reason people will do business with you is confidence. They must have confidence that what you say is true and what you offer will help them reach or exceed their goals.

The six communication keys below will help you build a loyal following and earn the kind of confidence that can grow a lucrative business:

Key #1: Give a Glimpse into Your life

One of the biggest mistakes new social media users make is trying to take old-time marketing methods into this new social media world. Many of them look at social media as a place to market with sales letters and traditional “build your list” strategies. There is just one problem. They are not being [Read more...]

The Fastest Way To Writing Great Copy: Your Swipe File

Guerrilla Marketing on the Front LinesIn 2008 I co-wrote and edited an excellent book on low cost Guerrilla Marketing strategies entitled Guerrilla Marketing On The Front Lines. In this book 35 Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coaches and Guerrilla Marketing experts contributed some of their best ideas for getting new customers without spending hardly any money on marketing (the hallmark of a Guerrilla Marketer).

In the coming weeks and months I will be excerpting some of the best contributions from this book.

Today’s excerpt is by Guerrilla Marketer Lorrie Morgan Ferraro where she illustrates the importance of building a “swipe file”. Enjoy.

Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero

Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero

 

So you’re ready to raise your hand and have a try at honing your own copy? Great! Let me take some of the guesswork out of it for you and pull back the curtain to reveal some time-tested copywriting tricks…the GUERRILLA WAY!

 

 

 

 

Guerrilla Tactic #1:  If  Writers Write, Do Copywriters COPY? “Yes!”

Believe it or not in the copywriting industry one of the fastest and most reliable ways to write copy is to start your own swipe file.

A swipe file is a collection of copy that has been previously field-tested. I want to be clear – the purpose isn’t to plagiarize other people’s copy. Swipe files are kept to not only inspire you, but they are helpful templates for your own copy. Study them and you’ll soon begin to see formulaic word patterns emerging.

 

What Qualifies As a “Swipe?”

Just as copy is everywhere there are words, swipes are everywhere there is copy. To be sure your swipe file is brimming with GOOD copy here are some places to collect it from:
[Read more...]