Improve Your Copywriting with the Red Pen Rule

In my book, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, I write about how a little trick I call the Red Pen Rule can help you make your marketing copy more effective and more successful.

This week, I wrote an overview of the Red Pen Rule on Entrepreneur.com.  Here’s a snippet to give you an idea of what’s included in the article and discussed in greater detail in my book.

“You don’t ever want consumers to read or listen to your ad or marketing piece and think, “Hurry up and get to the point.” Instead, keep your messages short, sweet and succinct, and your results will prove that the red pen rule works.”

You can follow the link to read the complete article, called The Red Pen Rule for Marketing Copy.

Read an Excerpt of Blogging All-in-One for Dummies

An excerpt of my new book is now available on Entrepreneur.com.  The excerpt is about building a buzz with a business blog.  You can read the excerpt here, but here’s a snippet:

The most powerful aspect of business blogging is the potential to generate word-of-mouth marketing from the content you publish. If you can engage your audience members and get them talking about your business, products and services outside of your website, you’ve hit marketing gold.

Blogs are a perfect tool to achieve that goal because they’re conversational in nature. They’re also filled with personality (at least the good ones are) that encourages readers to participate and build relationships with the bloggers and businesses behind them. Relationships drive customer loyalty and create vocal brand advocates who want to talk about the brands they love and are willing to defend those brands from criticism. When that conversation moves from your business blog and turns into online buzz, you’ve achieved a goal that marketing managers dream of.

Read the rest here.

The Death of Interruption Marketing

My new article on Entrepreneur.com discusses how the world of marketing has changed from being reliant on interruption to engagement.

Following is an excerpt from the article, which you can read in its entirety here.

“With the growth of social media, marketers have learned that simply interrupting the online conversation doesn’t always lead to sales, nor does it lead to positive word-of-mouth marketing. Now the goal of marketing is engagement. Consumers want to know, what are you going to tell them after you interrupt them?  Marketers have discovered that there is tremendous value in building brands and relationships through long-term social media strategy vs. short-term direct-marketing tactics on social websites.”

What do you think?  Is interruption marketing dead?  Leave a comment and share your opinion.

The New Social Media Marketing ROI

I just wrote an article for the Yahoo! Advertising Blog that discusses the new ROI for measuring social media marketing performance.

Following is an excerpt from my article:

“Tracking online brand advertising and social media marketing success comes from tracking return-on-impression, the new form of ROI. Return-on-Impression encompasses two primary soft metric values: eyeballs and perceptions.”

To learn more about the shift from tracking Return on Investment to tracking Return on Impression, follow the link to check out my post on the Yahoo! Advertising Blog.

Harnessing the Power of Social Media – Interview with Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius was featured in a new interview for XLRQ Radio’s Embrace the Noise program where she discussed how companies, entrepreneurs, and organizations can tap into the power and reach of social media to effectively build brands, relationships and business.

You can follow the link to listen to Harnessing the Power of Social Media with Susan Gunelius.

Get 5 Tips for an Elevator Pitch that Gets Results

My new article on Forbes.com offers 5 Tips for an Elevator Pitch that Gets Results.  Following is an excerpt from the article:

Believe it or not, no one cares about you.  They want to know what you can do for them.  It’s the classic law of “What’s in it for me” that copywriters (myself included) follow to craft compelling and effective marketing messages that drive results.  Your elevator pitch should address your audience’s problems and offer solutions.  It should focus on the benefits that the audience will get from working with you, so they understand that they can’t live without you!

1. It’s not about you.
The five tips below can help you craft an elevator pitch that people actually listen to, remember and respond to.  Make sure you’re prepared with your own killer elevator pitch when the next opportunity presents itself for you to use it!

Elevator pitches are powerful marketing tools that tell your story in less than a minute.  They are useful for any business person to have in her arsenal of networking tools to help with business, career or personal development.

Follow the link above to read the complete article on Forbes.com and find out what the other 4 tips are for an elevator pitch that gets the results you want and need!

5 Tips for Quick Social Media Marketing Success

My newest article on Entrepreneur.com is called 5 Tips for Quick Social Media Success and it offers five key things you need to do both behaviorally and strategically to boost your social media marketing success.

Following is tip #5 from the article:

Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’.
Just because your competitor is doing something on the social web doesn’t mean that you need to do the same. By blindly following your competitor’s path, you’re marketing scared and without purpose. Plus, it’s probable that your competitor’s initiatives won’t help you meet your goals at all. While it’s essential that you monitor your competitor’s social media marketing activities, you should analyze them against your own goals before implementing any of them yourself.

Follow the link above to read the complete article on the Entrepreneur.com website.

What is your top social media marketing tip?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

12 Steps to Get the Most from LinkedIn

My newest article on Forbes.com is called 12 Tips to Get the Most from LinkedIn and I offer not only 12 easy to implement tips but also links to learn more and get started immediately.

Following is an excerpt from my article:

LinkedIn has grown into more than a social networking site for business people.  Today, it’s also one of the first places employers and business partners go to learn more about the people who want to work with them.  It’s also one of the first places that employees go to learn more about potential leaders, managers, colleagues and so on.

Not only does LinkedIn offer information about people you consider working with, but it can also open doors to new opportunities and relationships that can benefit your career in the long term.  Don’t just create your LinkedIn profile and forget it.  Instead, follow the tips below to make your LinkedIn profile work for you.

You can follow the link to find out what my 12 steps to get the most from LinkedIn are.

What is your top LinkedIn tip?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Own Your Business Decisions

My new article on Forbes.com is called Own Your Business Decisions that offers some thoughts for women working in the field of business about using your intuition and analytical senses to make decisions and then take responsibility for those decisions.

Ladies, you have intuition, use it!  But do so sensibly.  Follow the link above to read the full article.

The Ultimate Brand Champion – Hugh Hefner

Brand champions can be extremely powerful, and this week, I wrote an article that was published on the Yahoo! Advertising Blog about the ultimate brand champion – Hugh Hefner.

Here is a snippet from the article:

There is perhaps no other brand in the world which has been so closely aligned with a single person as Playboy has been with Hugh Hefner for over half a century. And there is no arguing the influence that a visible brand champion who truly lives and breathes a brand can have on the success (or failure) of that brand.

You can follow the link to learn more about brand champions and Hugh Hefner as the ultimate brand champion, and you can get my book, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way, for more information about branding lessons you can learn from Playboy.

Who do you think is the ultimate brand champion?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

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