Wordpress Plugins – My top 9 plugins revealed

On February 8th, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Posted in Business, Corporate Blogging, Weblogs

One of the advantages of blogging with WordPress blogging software is the option of using WordPress plugins.

These plugins give us additional functionality within the Wordpress software – giving us the ability to put our blogging on autopilot.

Here's my recommended… must-have list of nine WordPress plugins I use myself to enhance my WordPress blog (listed in order of importance):

All in One SEO Pack – This is my all-time favorite WordPress plugin.

It adds automatic search engine optimization options into each WordPress post… ultimately attracting visitors to your blog almost automatically.

I say almost automatically because there are three empty fields to fill out for each post you make:

- Webpage title

- Meta description

- Meta keywords

When you fill out these the right way, you're going to get a lot more clicks from search engine results to your blog post.

WP Auto Tagger – -This plugin automatically scans your blog post and looks for popular keyword phrases. It takes these phrases and creates a backup search engine friendly duplicate page.

Don't fret about the technical details of this plugin. All I can say is that after checking my blog stats, a large majority of my search engine referrals come as a result of WP Auto Tagger creating these tags.

Google XML Sitemaps – This amazing WordPress plugin generates a special Google-friendly sitemap every night helping you get your blog post noticed by search engine spiders and bots.

Google XML Sitemaps creates a file called "sitemap.xml" — an A to Z index listing the details of each blog post. For example, mine is found at:

http://www.marketing-ideas.org/sitemap.xml

Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo! and Bing and watch your blog content show up faster in these popular search engines.

AdSense Now! – If you're not making money with your blog, you should.

And Google AdSense is the fastest and easiest way to make money I've ever tested (when you put my AdSense secrets into action, that is).

The AdSense Now! plugin makes it a breeze to add Google AdSense revenue sharing into your blog… just install the plugin, copy and paste your AdSense code and configure the positioning settings to display your ads between your blog post's headline and content:

Top: Center

Middle: Suppress

Bottom: Suppress

WordPress Mobile Pack – Let's face it, you're missing out on a HUGE audience if you don't tweak your WordPress blog to fit on a mobile device.

It's estimated that 34 million people can't read your blog — and that's just the number of iPhones sold in the fourth quarter of 2009.

It's nearly impossible to see your blog on any mobile phone… forcing your mobile visitors to scroll left to right… squinting to read your super-small fonts. Most mobile users are going to flee your blog if it's hard to see.

It doesn't have to be this way…

… The WordPress Mobile Pack plugin "mobilizes" your WordPress blog… automatically. The plugin senses a mobile device and automatically switches to a leaner mobile display.

Even better, there's a free option to have your blog listed on mpexo, a directory of mobile-friendly blogs — opening up a new audience to view your new easy-on-the-eyes site.

W3 Total Cache – WordPress is great, but it's notoriously slow loading. It takes many many seconds just to start to see your blog content display.

In today's world, speed is everything. If your site doesn't display in a second or so, your visitor clicks to your competitor.

The good news is this WordPress plugin DRAMATICALLY improves the speed of your blog by adding page and database caching which displays your blog faster.

wpuntexturize – By default, most WordPress themes add "graphic embellishments" to your blog posts… that includes those sometimes fancy curly quotes.

You've probably seen the problem frequently… you go to read a blog post and it's riddled with question marks and other weird characters. This happens when a blogger copies and pastes content from another blogger with curly quotes.

This simple plugin prevents WordPress from making HTML entity code substitutions of single and double quotation marks with their curly alternatives.

TweetMeme Retweet Button – This WordPress plugin displays the popular TweetMeme badge next to each blog post you submit… making it easy for your visitors to post your content to their Twitter account.

But the best part is a snippet of your blog posts gets automatically submitted to TweetMeme's followers — giving you an instant and automatic SEO benefit at the same time.

Broken Link Checker – Search engine robots and spiders don't like it when your hyperlinks to recommended sources are outdated and don't work.

This WordPress plugin checks your posts (while you're sleeping) for broken links and missing images. If there's an issue, you're notified in your WordPress dashboard just after logging in.

Final tip - There's no reason to struggle on your own and figure out the best WordPress plugins to use. If you're ready to put the power of blogging into action, you might want to grab these additional corporate blogging tips, techniques and methods.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys – Tips to create the best surveys

On February 5th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Business, Market Research

Customer surveys are useful for gathering all kinds of marketing data, and when they’re completed they make great bird cage liners.

Oh, did you want your customer survey to provide you with useful data?  Forget it… that’s not what they’re good for.  Unless you mail a bajillion of them survey results are unreliable. What?  Hell yes! Bajillion is a number – ask my 6 year old daughter.

Most customer satisfaction surveys don’t work because the surveys aren’t designed well.  Survey Information requested is too much, too personal, or just plain unnecessary. The satisfaction survey winds up being 8 pages long and only 1 person in 10,000 fills it out correctly and sends it in.  Problem is: you never know which one.

Solution: use the “Hidden-objective” survey technique.  You may never have heard of this style of survey because… I just made it up.  Well, I created it several years ago for a client who used it and then went on to become a billionaire, I think because I designed he survey so well, before leaving me in the dust to continue to drive my 10 year old mini van, but that’s another story I won’t go into now.  This is the first time I’m writing about it, though.

Whether it’s an web survey, employee survey or just a marketing survey for your own customers, in the hidden-objective survey we may – or may not – base the success of our survey around the answers.  Actually, answering survey questions may not be our objective. Our objective may be to use this format of a survey tool to inform customers, or advertise a new product. Now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s get back to watching TV.  Oh, sorry, sometimes my ADD gets way ahead of me.

OK, let’s move on and pretend I’m working, as my wife is watching and I can’t go to “those” websites any more, or at least not right now.  Let’s see… oh yea… customer satisfaction surveys.

Another one of my favorite survey research techniques is the “Key-Question” survey.  This is where we hide one or two impotent questions, sorry, Fraudian slip.  Oops.  Another Freudian slip.  So — most survey questions are fluffy and don’t matter, but one or two are the specific hidden key-questions of the whole shebang that make the customer survey relevant.  Confused?  Let me explain while my wife is hanging around pretending to not watch what I’m doing.

The Hidden-Objective Satisfaction Survey

Our hidden objective may be “to inform readers about a new product or offering,” or “bring an advertising message to prospects and clientele.”  In other words, it’s a slick piece of advertising, designed to look like a satisfaction survey.  Ever consider that?  No, most people don’t.  That’s why I get the big bucks.  Or I may any day now.

My own hidden-objective as a direct marketer is usually to generate a phone call or have people raise their hands and ask us to call them.  “Furgetabout survey shmurvey,” my NJ clients say, “If the phone don’t ring… you get axed.”  I grew up on the streets and this has real meaning.  We send something in the mail, the phone bedder ring.  He really meant “axed.”

Suppose, for example, you’d like to introduce a new product to the insurance industry, your new LTCI that now includes coverage for massage therapy.  Yes, grand papa would love that therapy, at say, a local massage parlor. Hey – it’s close by and it says “Massage” right there on the door.

So in the nice cover letter you send with the customer satisfaction survey – and you know me, everything is sent with a nice cover letter – you ask the reader for a quiet moment to take your quick 5-question market research survey.  No one minds a “quick 5-question survey.”

To increase participation you could enclose a crisp dollar bill for taking the survey, but it would be much better if you sent that money to me.  To increase response tell the reader you’ll let them know what the survey results are.  Viola – instant permission to call, fulfilling our objective.

“Did you know the Jeff Dobkin agency offers long term care including paid coverage for massage for your loved ones?”

[ ] Yes     [ ] No    [ ] Please call

“Do you think your grand father would like a nice soothing all over body massage?”

[ ] Yes     [ ] No    [ ] TMI* (*Too Much Information)

OK, I my have been a little over the top here, but we’re all adults here aren’t we?  Ha. You didn’t think that last question was part of the survey but it was.  Fill out the rest  of the questions and I’ll send you a dollar.  And the results.  Just send it in with a $10 processing fee…

Here you can see we don’t really want an answer to these questions – that would be too much information (TMI) about grand papa.  We just want to inform clients of this new product and service that we offer, and we do it in the form of a customer satisfaction survey. Market research surveys get high readership.  Clever, huh?

The “Actionable Key-Question” Survey

We continue our survey questionnaire, and turn it into an actionable key-question survey:

“Have you planned for good care of your grandfather in his later years?”

[ ] Yes     [ ] No    [ ] Don’t know

“Are you worried about your grand parents care as they get older?”

[ ] Yes     [ ] No    [ ] Please call

Key Question Customer Survey Tip: You can see we are now asking a key question that if clients answer in a certain way we can take action.

The rest of the survey questions?  Who cares?  It may not matter, because if this question is checked “yes” or “please call” it worked!  We fulfilled our hidden objective – remember that from a few paragraphs ago – by generating a lead: a customer asked us to call.  We call them – which makes this survey 100% successful.

But since I have one question left, I’ll ask:

“How long has it been since you have had your insurance policies reviewed?”

[ ] One year [ ] three years  [ ] don’t remember

This seemingly innocent question is really a Super Actionable Key-Question – and kind’a gives us a “reason to call” if ANY of the boxes are checked. Doesn’t it?  If this was my survey I’d toss in a few more innocuous throw-away survey questions just to make it look more legit.

So, if you’re designing a customer satisfaction survey, even an online survey, first decide on the objective; then design the survey to fulfill the objective.

If the objective is to call or be called, insert just one or maybe two relevant “key questions” that you can act on.  Make the rest of the survey questions easy.  OK, I gotta go… I have some stuff to do on the Internet – my wife just left to go food shopping for the week at the 7-11 and she’ll be back in 20 minutes…

About the Author

Bio, Jeffrey Dobkin If you're struggling with poor response from your direct marketing campaign, you can solve this problem fast – and get amazing results by reading practical how-to marketing tips. Increase your phone calls – and customers – receive articles you can trust by Jeffrey Dobkin. Dobkin has written 4 books on direct marketing that feature his practical marketing tips and successful direct marketing methods, all created in his own breezy conversational style of writing. He can be reached at 610-642-1000. Read more of his articles at http://www.danielleadams.com

Advertising Deadline – Tips to use deadlines to your advantage

On February 3rd, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Business, Writing and Editing

A number of years ago, I consulted for a well-known charity, writing and designing fund raising emails. This organization had a strong marketing program and a loyal base of supporters. We were always racking our brains to come up with some new and clever way to ask the group's donors to make one more contribution.

Donations to this charity are tax-deductible, and every year, one of our top performers was this: In late December, we'd send an email with a simple headline along the lines of "Only 48 hours left to claim a tax deduction on this year's tax return." It never failed to bring the donations rolling in.

So here's the interesting thing. In surveys, the group's donors told us they didn't actually care much about that tax deduction.

The moral of this story is that deadlines deliver dollars. You see, the tax deduction didn't motivate people to make their donation — but the deadline did motivate them to do it today!

When you're in the marketing business, procrastination is one of the big reasons that campaigns fail. For everybody who responds to your message and whips out their checkbook, you can be sure there are others who mean to, but just never get around to it.

Once you tune in to how much money you're losing to donors and customers who procrastinate, you'll understand why marketers across the spectrum are always urging you to "act now" before you miss some deadline. Here are three tips for making the most of deadlines to overcome this human habit of procrastination:

Deadlines usually mean "deal." You have to give your audience a reason not to miss the deadline, and most of the time that means getting more for their money somehow. Two for one if you act before Valentine's Day. Our anonymous donor will match any gift you make until his birthday next Thursday. Free shipping for the first 100 customers.

The deadline must seem real. Deadlines have much less punch if your audience senses that you made them up yourself. They have more punch if somebody else imposed the deadline. For example, Uncle Sam gives you until Midnight on December 31 to claim that tax deduction. Valentine's Day is February 14. We've only got 10 widgets left and when they're gone, they're gone. You get the picture.

The deadline must be coming up fast. In your marketing campaign, you want to give people enough time to meet the deadline — but just barely. For an electronic donation or purchase, two days is a good amount of time. If it's an impulse item and they're already in your store ("Attention K-Mart shoppers"), the you can give them just a few minutes. But if you want to sell them on a big ticket item (that involves negotiation with the spouse), then you better give them a week or two. But however long the deadline it is, it should seem like it's coming up fast. Any longer defeats the purpose of having one in the first place.

It's strange but it's true — one way to make more money is to give people less time to spend it! So the next time you are planning an advertising or fundraising effort, give some thought to how you create some kind of deadline, a sense of urgency of that helps helps your audience stop thinking "I'll do it someday" and start thinking "I'll do it today."

Eric Eckl helps nature protection and pollution control organizations raise environmental awareness. He writes the water blog, Water Words That Work, to dispense tips for planning and carrying out environmental fundraising, issue advocacy, and behavior change campaigns.

Viral Marketing Strategies – Tips to get free leads to your business

On February 2nd, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Posted in Business

"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." It's a great saying. If only it were true.

Getting leads to find out about your blog or website isn't easy.

I've seen stunning sites with amazing content get less than 10 visits a day for years.

Getting a lot more visitors to your site doesn't have to be hard. All you need is to borrow my viral marketing strategies below.

The fastest and easiest way to participate in viral marketing is to create a PDF report.

There's no need to create something slick or fancy. Just create a document that solves a common problem or frustration of your typical prospect.

Successful viral marketing campaigns all have the following in common:

It's easy to pass around – Adobe's PDF format continues to dominate the electronic book space. It's easy to include your PDF report as an email attachment. And printing a PDF is super simple… just hit the print button. It couldn't be easier.

Competitors recommend your report – When written the right way, it's easy to have your competition actually recommend your report to their prospects and customers. It's true.

Web 2.0 loves viral content – Users of social marketing sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Digg aggressively seek out free PDF reports to help their friends and colleagues find free treasures of information. And once featured, the copycat effect kicks in… it's not unusual to have your report passed around over and over again in just minutes (even seconds) after showing up in a Twitter post.

Getting your report to spread virally is the easy part…

… But writing your viral report is a bit harder (especially if you're like most and hate to write).

Here are a few viral marketing examples to use to help you create your next viral report:

Success stories – Your prospect and potential customers LOVE to read about successful case studies. Whether you're selling saunas or software, nothing beats a great story.

Here's the best part… finding success stories is a cinch — just scan your testimonial file.

If you don't have many testimonials, don't fret. Simply scan message boards related to your business and cherry pick testimonials that are general in nature. For example, if you sell a weight-loss product, create a viral report showing before and after pictures. These are very inspiring.

Or if you sell a stock-picking newsletter, you might grab case studies about how a successful stock picking customer banked a profit using a widely-known technique.

Yes, it's best to use your own case studies unique to the product you sell, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Guest authors – You're going to be AMAZED how easy it is to find popular authors willing to write content for your viral report.

All you have to do is ask. Most will reply with, "Yes!"

You can easily get 5 to 10 experts in your field to send you up to a 2,000 words of wisdom by simply asking a few simple questions.

Imagine that… creating an amazing viral marketing ebook and you'd hardly have to write it yourself.

And the best part is when you're ready to promote your viral ebook, you have a built-in salesforce ready to promote it for you… just give your guest authors a copy of your new PDF and watch your viral report spread very quickly.

Answer popular questions – Every business gets the same basic 10 or so questions asked time after time.

Answer these popular questions and you've just created a very special report. You've also helped slashed the number of customer service requests at the same time.

Tell 'em what to do AND how to do it – Marketing "experts" (notice I wrapped the word "expert" in quotes) suggest teasing your audience that tells the reader what to do, but not how to do it.

I find people are catching up on this scheme and growing tired of it.

I suggest the opposite. Tell 'em what to do AND how to do it at the same time. Your viral report is going to stand out from the crowd, get passed around a lot more often and ultimate generate more leads for your business.

The insider's secret to find hot-button topics – Finding what to write about is a cinch. There's no need to guess. Instead, let your marketplace tell you EXACTLY what problems keeps them up at night.

Here's my nifty little secret: visit a popular message board in your industry and scan the titles of each post… specifically looking for pain points within each title.

For example, the words "frustrated" or "problem" indicates an obvious pain point.

Copy each of these "painful" titles into a word document (line by line) and sort by pattern.

Another hot place to find pain points is a search at Twitter. Simply search for a phrase and append the word "problem" or "frustrated" within your search. In nanoseconds Twitter displays real-time, live discussions based on your search topic. You're literally getting inside the mind of your prospects — seeing what they're upset about.

For example, if I'm searching for "internet connection"… I'd append the word "problem" and search Twitter for "internet connection problem" or "internet connection frustrated".

When investigating the pain points for bloggers, it became instantly obvious — bloggers HATE to write their blogs. So I've created a lot of free blog writing content to help them out.

Viral marketing is great. It's totally free (except for your time), it scales out exponentially as your competitors pass it along to their prospects… and puts your lead generation on autopilot.

Final tip – There's no reason for you to struggle with promoting your website or blog. If you're ready to use the power of viral marketing to attract leads to your site, you might want to grab these best viral marketing tips, techniques and methods.

Name Squeeze Page – How to get higher conversions

On February 1st, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Internet Marketing Success, Web Design

Building a effective Squeeze page is one of the most important parts when it comes to building your e-mail list, Here are a few tips on how to increase your convertions :

1. The Headline : The headline is the most important part of your Squeeze page, you need to grab your visitors attention with it! A very well working headline format uses questions (How to… ), but making a promise works well too!

2. Benefits : You need to make clear why your visitor need to subscribe to your list, try to write about the result or the benefit of subscribing to your newsletter! You should give away a free gift, like a free report, software or anything else!

3. We Don't Spam : Make clear that you will never share the informations collected from your subscriber, make clear too that they can opt out whenever they want!

4. Limitations : Set a limit, things like "Be one of the first 100 subscribing to my list to get this e-book for FREE" can increase your convertions dramatically. Another way is to set a countdown :" Subscribe in the next 90 seconds to recive my Special Report for Free"! (There are simple to install scripts aviable for free)

5. Your Photo : Insert your signature (Name, Company) at the end of your Squeeze Page, don't forget to insert your picture, this builds up trust to your visitors!

Using these simple but important email marketing tips will surely increase your convertion rates, and will help you to build your list real fast!

Warning : Not using these simple methods to build effective squeeze pages will result in a small, slow growing opt-in list.


Dicover a lot more tips on Optin Email Marketing and effective Landing Page design by downloading your Free Copy of "List Exploding Squeeze Page Secrets"!

Article Directory – Make money with your own directory site

On January 28th, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Posted in Business, Corporate Blogging, Weblogs

Watch this video:


One of the most profitable businesses to operate is an article directory.

Here's how it works – you setup a blog and allow guest bloggers to send you articles. Once approved, the articles go live and show up on your blog. Each article is surrounded by paid advertising (e.g. Google AdSense)… and when your visitor clicks on these ads, you get paid cash (whether they buy something or not).

This is a brilliant business because the profit margins are off the charts. The only real cost is time… time to approve each article draft. And it's a never-ending parade of profit because every word doubles as search engine bait… delivering visitors to your site day by day — and never ends.

I run a blog directory. And I bet you've never heard of it (until now).

I took a dormant website called Weight Loss Chats (originally a discussion site) and converted it into a niche blog directory.

Unlike most blog directories, I don't accept author submissions. I don't need to (I explain why below). That's WAY too time consuming. Plus most article writers put out worthless junk.

Instead, I borrow content from a competing blog directory (ArticlesBase) and let them do all of the hard work for me… screening authors, approving well-written content and even formatting each article perfectly to insert into my blog directory.

This is 100% ethical and 100% legal. In fact, this article directory actually encourages anyone with a blog to steal their author's content and clone it to a blog. But here's the best part…. the entire process is automated. Every morning, a fresh batch of precisely-targeted content awaits my approval. I simply preview each post and click the [Publish] submit button in my WordPress Dashboard. That's it! It couldn't be easier.

So what's my secret to complete blogging automation?

It's a nifty premium autoblogger WordPress plugin. I bought it when it was just $47, and it's the best under-$50 purchase I've ever made. Every day, it grabs precisely-related blog content from an article directory and post it to my blog.

By default, this autoblogger software posts each article live on my blog, but gives you the option to wait for your approval — I choose this option as I'm a bit of a control freak. Each articles takes me less than 45 seconds to scan.

Now there's no reason for you to struggle with making money online. If you're ready to put your internet marketing on autopilot now, you might want to grab these internet marketing secrets, tips, techniques and methods.

Web Site Font – Safe fonts to use on your webpages

On January 27th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Business, Writing and Editing

Creating your own website should be fun, exciting and rewarding, both creatively and financially. Too often the would be online entrepreneur, hit by and whole list of technical problems, gives up in frustration – I know I've been there!

It need not be this way, like everything in life it is simply a matter of finding the right guide to take you through, step-by-step in non-techie language, every last detail to ensure that, no matter how inexperienced you are, creating your own website is within everyone's reach.

Today we look at fonts and the stuff you really need to avoid.

The correct use of fonts, images and color is what brings your website to life. Are you sure you will finish with a stylish, readable and profit producing look or will it be a 'dogs dinner?'

  • You should not have more than two fonts styles on your page.
  • Those fonts should be clear, clean and easy to read. I use only Arial, Verdana and Tahoma.
  • Anything below 10pt can be difficult to read – remember the aging population.
  • Your main area of copy should be black on a white background. Pale colored backgrounds for sidebars etc are OK but always bear in mind that you want the surfer to read your stuff and read it easily.
  • Use embolding, italics, highlighting, underlining, quotation marks and color but don't over do it! You are trying to achieve clarity not clutter.
  • Do use bullet points, everyone likes to take in information in short, precise chunks. Numbered lists are also very effective.
  • Do not have paragraphs that are more than two sentences long.
  • Use emboldened sub headings to help break the page up.
  • Make sure that you pay attention to the above relevant points when it comes to your headline – it's the most important thing you will ever write!

When it comes to creating your own website, there is top quality, free expert guidance to help you achieve all of this and have you  publishing a site within a single working day!

With the world the way it is today and a future that cannot guarantee any of us being able to rely on a traditional job as our only source of income can we afford not to try and supplement our income by starting our own home based online business?

About the Author

So where will you find this free expert guidance? – here – http://www.GetStarted-Online.com. In case you are wondering this is not one of those 'with strings attached' deals, there are no silly up-sells just free step-by-step, click by click instructions – including video – to get your site up in a day!

Direct Mail Postcards – Fast tips to get your mail read

On January 25th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Business, Direct Mail

Face it: most people sort their direct mail over the trash can.

This process works fast, like flipping channels on tv. Or better yet, think back: you’re a kid and a friend is showing you baseball cards for possible trades: gottem gottem needem gottem gottem needem gottem. 200 cards, 50 seconds.

Todays direct mail… Post Cards… Same thing: Direct mail credit card offers, direct marketing magazine subscriptions, direct selling insurance solicitations, and junk mail penny stock hawkers all get the briefest attention before being trashed.

But wait, there’s more! Post card marketing adds another dimension to the view-and-toss direct mail sorting process. Create your card right, and post card readership can be quite high, instantly. Because – it’s all right there, right in front of the reader—and in his hand.

Post card readership is defined by how great the direct-selling copywriting and graphics are for your card. So the fate of your direct mail post card starts in the hands of the creator, which I believe is you, isn’t it?

I call it “Instant Readership;” a term I coined, well… just now, to explain what happens the moment a reader glances at your direct mail post card that has just landed in his hands. Instant readership is the 2-seconds readers spend upon their initial glance on your post card: one second on headline and topic, one second on copy and the blink of an eye on graphics — unless they’re really dazzling.

It’s the same thing as in life! Like, when I meet a new woman: one second on headline and topic, one second on copy and a blink of the eye on graphics, unless they’re dazzling… Hey, maybe this is a pattern of ALL life, and everything can be described by this phrase?

Wow, this is like discovering plutonium… maybe I’ll get a medal! The Nobel Peace Prize – yes, I’ve always wanted one of these, especially since Obama received one for doing, well… I’m not sure – so they can’t be that hard to get. Or a Pulitzer! Yes, for writing this direct marketing article! OK, I’m pretty safe here saying this won’t happen. Or, maybe, just maybe I’ve just discovered all this writing is just a soliloquy for my own life? Help me out here, wouldja…

Glance readership of a post card is like seeing the headline of an ad in a newspaper (remember them?): you only get a second or two to capture the attention of a fleeting reader, before they continue on to the obits, the comics or the TV page. Or is that just me?

Failure. Post card readership reviews can be fast and brutal and end in the briefest of time; failure resulting in the sudden spiral of your direct marketing mailpiece directly downward into the circular file below. And your money following suit. Ouch.

Success. Or, you can instantly get an extremely high-rated review and have your post card placed in the highly coveted pile of “read later with the rest of today’s important mail.” It’s your choice. Right now, you’ve got to ask yourself, “Am I feeling lucky?”

Rule Number 1. Write and design everything in your post card for the first two seconds.

When your recipient gets a good look at your post card, you get the immediate opportunity to pass or fail. So… what’s it gonna be? Coveted pile, or circular file? Yea, or Nay? Success, or failure? Prosper, or fludghum? OK, I might have made that last word up, but you get the idea, and the reader’s decision is immediate. Your choice.

The bright side: For us on the creative end of direct mail, it just can’t get any better. Buy the right mailing list and get your post card into the correct reader’s hands: I’ll get him to read it. Your direct marketing agency will too… and if they can’t, find another agency – plenty of good ones out there. Or call me – writing post cards is a favorite pastime of mine, like monopoly or tractor racing – but it pays better. A well written and well designed post card can enjoy exceptionally high readership – and get exceptionally high response.

OK, so your potential reader is now standing there with your wonderfully written, dazzlingly designed, properly prepared post card in his hot little hand and that, my friend, is great alliteration. It’s where the rubber meets the road. Or hit the road, or something about the road. I forget——I have Alzheimer's. But… at least I don’t have Alzheimer's!

Rule 2. You need to force the reader to read your post card.

How? Compelling headline. Followed by intriguing subheadlines. Brilliant body copy and great, great graphics. Spend a little more time (and money) here and what happens? Yes, the coveted “read later” pile. As in paragraph 6a above, subsection 254: The reader brings the card to his desk, and with no other option handy, reads the card you forced him to read.

Now, some nitty-gritty of how to do it.

“Instant readership” is based 100% on your headline hook, appropriateness of subject to your audience and dazzling layout. It’s followed shortly by the value created in your offer, if they get that far. Wrap all these elements in sparkling printing and nice paper and now your direct mail post card presents itself in a glancing, fast 2-second visual bite.

Direct mail post cards are the visual versions of the sound bits you hear on MTV or promos for the evening news; which, come to think of it, appear to be written by the same writers. Designing for instant readership has the singular objective of drawing the reader into the post card, no more, no less.

On the immediate receipt of your post card, each reader has his or her own mental preference files that compels him or her to stay tuned into your card, yet some commonalities exist. Wait. Wait just a moment. This gender thing of saying “Him or Her” all the time has got to go—it’s too clunky to keep saying “him or her, him or her,” – so let me clear this up once and for all. I’ll just place everything in the male gender until I get complaints from, well, you know… Hey, do you know how many men it takes to change the toilet paper roll? No, me neither.

Post Card Instant Readership & The first round of sorting

So right on the top section of your post card, as in all highly responsive direct mail, your headline needs to be great. If you have a “good” headline, no! NO! That just won’t work. Strangely, “good” is actually not good enough. You need something more than just good, you need “exceptionally great!” Create this one line correctly, viola – instant readership on a maximum level. That’s how important this single line is.

The first work-order of the day is to create an unbelievably great, maximum-interest headline so the reader is instantly hooked into staying in the copy and continues reading. So…

Rule 3. The goal of the headline: keep the reader reading. Nothing more. Nope. No selling.

Rule 4. Invoke The 100-to-1 Rule:

Since your post card headline needs to be G-R-E-A-T, use the Jeff Dobkin 100-to-1 rule for creating G-R-E-A-T headlines (as found in Dobkin’s book, Uncommon Marketing Techniques): write 100 headlines, go back and pick out your best one. Oh, you like this idea! Plan to use it? OK, it’s copyrighted. Send me Ten Bucks. And you’re getting away cheap. OK, jest kidding. Just send $5 bucks. Make that a Starbucks Card — they were going to get it anyway.

Rule 5. The founding principle of high readership: Headline = G-R-E-A-T, or else.

The objective of any direct marketing or direct mail headline is to grab the attention of the reader and yank him so far into the copy that if he throws your direct mail piece into the trash, he’ll come back later and route though the trash to dig it out. Yes, and a really great headline is when the reader digs it out of the trash even though he dumped his kitty litter in there on top of it.

Rule 6. The headline is NOT the time to sell your product.

The reason? The first glance is a pivotal point in your presentation because the reader has no investment of time in your direct mail piece and so no commitment to read further.

Initially, your recipient isn’t intrigued by whatever you’re selling, at whatever price; because he hasn’t seen your electrifying offer, hasn’t seen any of your product benefits, and hasn’t followed your compelling story line for 10 paragraphs and wants to see how you close the sale, or how your storyline finishes.

So right now, at this first glance – nothing: no commitment, no involvement – right now you’re just another blah blah of direct mail; a piece of paper with no message, no heart, no soul. Man, these first 2 seconds are critical. And without any involvement, your reader is ruthless.

If the headline sucks at first glance the card can be tossed without regret. Kindly recall the reader has lots of other mail, and has years of practice at “getting fast” at his standing-there-over-the wastebasket first sorting time. You need to instantly connect and deliver: survive this cut OR your direct mail piece suffers death by wastebasket. Cruel. And buried along with your post card, your money. Whoa… Crueler still.

Rule 7. The rule of readership survival.

The rule of readership survival as it relates to the first glance of your direct mail post card: it’s the critical changeover point where unless your headline and graphics are G-R-E-A-T, your loss of readership stops your post card from being your “investment” and shifts it to an “expense.” What’s it gonna be — Pass? Or failure? Good headline. Or great headline. Good graphics. Or awesome graphics. Your choices.

The second round of sorting

Ok, enough blah blah about Instant Readership of post cards. Like my first wife said about our marriage certificate, let’s just get past this. Oh well; I thought we had a pretty good week. Evidently she didn’t think it went that well. But opinions are like smelly feet — everyone has their own. I then discovered while only some women may marry you for your money, they all divorce you for it.

OK, so you and your post card made the first cut. Congratulations, y’old direct mail guru. Great graphics, hellatious headline, compelling, convincing copy; opulent irresistible offer. Having survived the first cut following the “Instant Readership” rules, your card now sits comfortably at the reader’s desk with the rest of the “important” mail. Nice. But you’re not out of the woods yet. Check your balance sheet.

This “Second Look” opportunity gives your direct marketing post card the luxury of more time — now that the reader has taken it back to the comfort of his office, a comfortable chair, a couple of beers, some good smoke and a little more time to invest in reading it. Or is that just me? Anyhow, to survive the first glance means the reader has made the decision he has an interest in whatever you’re hawking, or at least in what you have to say. Congratulations. Welcome to Level II.

Jeff Dobkin will now take your questions.

Final tip: If you're struggling with poor response from your direct marketing campaign, you can solve this problem and get help fast for your next direct mail postcards. Gain an advantage – and get amazing results by reading practical how-to marketing tips. Immediately increase your phone calls – and customers – read articles you can trust by Jeffrey Dobkin.

Brochure Printing – Cheap color brochure printing

On January 22nd, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Commercial Printing

Practicality sometimes goes out the window over the holidays. Most business people want their promotional materials bigger, better and louder including brochure printing.

In my opinion however, there is still room for some practicality to this equation. Especially since we are not totally out of this recession, a few practical tips on brochure printing this holiday season will not really do harm. In fact, these tips should be really useful for those businesses who want to be wise and cost-effective in their brochure printing.

Let us start with a usual issue of interest, quantity versus quality.

1. Quantity versus Quality – We have heard all about the debate about quantity versus quality. High quality brochures will really get the job done and have the best impact on readers, and while increased quantities of medium quality ones will have a greater reach in terms of readers than the quality ones. In an ideal business scenario, you will want both quality and a lot more quantities of them, but in the practical real world of business, you have to choose between one.

This holiday season, it is actually best to choose quantity over quality especially if you are in the sales industry. This is because during the holidays people are really shopping in a sense that they only need information. You do not need to spend on a lot of money in printing the best designs. Just a simple and straightforward design is enough since most readers will be actively seeking to make their shopping decisions easier. With more you will have a better chance of reaching these shoppers and hence more sales for you. As long as many people are reading your brochures, you will be fine. So print more to get more this season from your color brochures.

2. Printing for the weather – Also, since the winter is upon us, you must print with regards to the change in weather and temperatures. Since it is probably colder and wetter at this time, it is good to make them tough against these elements. Thicker paper stocks and special resistant coatings onto the material should be enough to lengthen the life of your brochure while toughening it up for changing weather. You will be helping yourself with your goals for a long time if you do this.

3. Use standard folds – Another practical thing you should do is to just use standard folds. The standard tri-fold brochure is the most popular and particularly the cheapest when compared to others. Therefore, it is only practical to use the standard folds to keep printing quite fast, reliable and cheap. The brochure printing company will not charge you with extra services by using these standard folds while other customized folders will probably be more expensive to produce since there is a lot of retooling needed for them.

Great! Hopefully that helps you get practical with your printing over the holidays. Remember, you do not really need to splurge on the printing budget. There is still sense to be practical even with this market Good Luck!

Learn about the developments in brochure printing industry that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in online printing that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

Increased Website Traffic – Tips to get website traffic fast

On January 20th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Posted in Website Search Engine Optimization

When working online getting traffic to your website is absolutely essential. The bigger number of visitors to your website then the better chance you have of getting them to buy and so you make more money. (profit)

The FIRST tip I would give to anyone to help bring visitors to your website is to make sure that you add new content to your website everyday. Also make sure that the content of the additional information is good relevant information and not a load of revamped rubbish. If your website stays the same with no new content why would anyone want to visit your site?

The SECOND tip I would give is to make sure that you always tag your keywords on your webpage. Tags are where the "search engines" look to assess the page rank of your site and if they find no tags they will pass by and you will lose out. Tags are simple to use and I will give you a few essential places to put them.

TITLE TAGS
I know it may sound a little silly to you but believe me lots of money is lost because people do not place tags in the title of their page. The title is where you put your most important keywords with a title that will grab the readers attention.

HEADER TAGS
These tags are found below the title and are also second in importance to the title tag. If the title tag is not eye catching then the visitor will not read any further and may not even get to the header.

META TAGS
These provide a small informative text. Usually only a few words but they must be up to date and contain good information.

ALT TAGS
These provide a description of graphics and each graphic should have an Alt tag.

The THIRD tip
This tip would be to find and link to as many websites as you possibly can. The more links you have coming to your website the more valuable these are to the "search engines". If you can get links to your website from a government site which is also relevant to your site you have hit the jackpot.

Linking can be achieved by submitting articles to article directories, publishing press releases and using the new social forums like facebook and twitter. The use of linking to a direct website while still workable is being overtaken by putting a link to a website in the text of an article so the reader can click onto this and be take immediately to the website page.

The FOURTH tip is a favourite of lots of people and when it is done correctly can improve the rating and profitability of your website considerably.
Advertising can be done by many methods and I will list a few for you.
Classified Ads
Email Marketing
Postcards
Article writing
Pay per click
Search engine optimization
Direct marketing
All of the above are easy to do and carry little or no cost involved.

The FIFTH tip is just to do some of what I have outlined above and I am sure you will have fun in building a business or just learning more than 80% of the online marketers know. You may want to find forums where you can exchange views and information with others.
You can find information by going into Google and typing in
"freeclassifieds.com"
"directmailers"
"newsgroups"
You get the idea?

Then you type in some questions you would like answered. You would probably be better placed if you could answer some of their problems first but at least look at the relevant sites and learn. Remember DOING NOTHING MEANS NOTHING CHANGES.
I hope you learn something from this article. Most of all Have Fun.

William Conway

The author of this article is mentored by Mary Gerston who is now the Vice President of "Global Cash Flow Network" of America.
If you would like to learn more and get a FREE report go now to
http://www.24hourwebcash.com/conway4053
or CALL 1-800-719-8268 extension 40597
From Outside America CALL 001-480-355-5612 extension 40597

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