Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Here's the deal - a boring, plain, blah business card costs just as much to print as a funny, powerful, and attractive business card.

Which category does YOUR business card fall into?

Right now, I'm trying to create a creative, funny, inspirational business card that's gonna have a strong "pass around" factor - funny as hell... or different... or something.

I gave my awesome designer, Erin Hyland, of www.jackoutofthebox.com a design assignment - actually it's not just a design assignment, it's a creative assignment.

Starters / initial thoughts: I wanted to put something clever on the back, such as:

If you hate marketers, I'm a professional speaker... If you hate professional speakers, I'm a marketer. Nyah-nyah!

- OR -

Our firm also does business under ALL of the following names:

• Someone Else ("We decided to hire someone else")
• A Different Direction ("We're going in a different direction")
• A Budget of Zero ("We have a budget of zero")
• Our Current Agency ("We're happy with our current agency")

If you're considering one of these other options, please continue to make checks payable to David Newman

Or I could go in this direction... man, is this ever TEMPTING:

What's the funniest, cleverest, wittiest copy you've ever seen on a business card?

Let me know in the COMMENTS area below - in fact, the best idea will win something cool from me. [No, it's not a puppy.]  

Grab your FREE copy of the Strategic Marketing eBook.

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

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Copy writing 101: compelling and results-producing copy requires two skills: You must learn how to break complex items into smaller (more digestible) parts and you must be able to convince your readers to take action.

Here are guidelines that have served me (and my clients) well. I hope they're equally helpful to you.

1) The first few paragraphs of any marketing document must tell your reader what's in it for him. We don't want our reader looking up after 30 seconds and wondering, "Why am I reading this?"

2) Each marketing document (sales letter, web page, brochure) should focus on a single purpose -- it should be written to stimulate a specific response. This response could be an action (take the next step in the sales process) or it could be emotional (I want them to feel worried about a particular problem).

3) Density (not length) is important. Marketing materials that stimulate interest and curiosity have lots of new and good ideas. Ideally you should introduce a new fact, figure or idea every couple of paragraphs. This stimulates interest, builds credibility and goes a long way towards ensuring that your entire piece gets read.

4) Write only about what you know.

Keep these points in mind the next time you sit down for a heavy-duty session of copy writing to grow your business.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
-- John F. Kennedy 

He who learns but does not think is lost.
-- Confucius

Small business marketing has a lot of moving parts - even more so in a recession and it's often up to the CEO or business owner to keep all the parts moving all the time. That can be challenging, to say the least. Here are some ideas to keep your momentum up.

Never stop learning. Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills. But never think of learning as learning for its own sake.

Take what you've learned and apply it, modify it, expand it, develop it, share it, teach others, and boil it down to its essence in real, concrete business terms that you can use in your immediate environment.

In any learning situation, focus like a laser beam on application, application, application! Learn from every source, think, and then translate that learning into appropriate, useful, meaningful action.

Don't just focus on learning - focus on unlearning, relearning, and learning differently. With the economy in a meltdown, financial markets undergoing tectonic shifts on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, and everything else up for grabs as giant corporations stumble, falter, and collapse - it's an understatement to say "the rules have changed."

Stay alert for small business marketing ideas that you would have never considered before. Scan the horizon, see where your customers and clients are going, and then as the great Wayne Gretzky advises, "Don't skate to where the puck is... skate to where the puck is GOING to be."

This smart marketing tidbit came across my desk from Joan Stewart, aka the Publicity Hound:
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One of the most valuable tips I learned is that the onslaught of emails I'm receiving from business people offering cut-rate prices on their products and services is, for them, the quickest way to the poor house. In fact, raising prices, even in a meltdown economy, is one of the fastest ways to success.
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Why is this so smart? Well, because Joan agree with me on this point. I'm not ashamed to share with you that for 2009, I've just raised my fees. And not by a little - by a lot. Specifically, it's a 33% boost. And my fees weren't low to start with!

What are YOU doing to raise yourself above the competition - both literally with pricing and in other more customer-centric ways?

Here is a piece I wrote for Sales & Marketing Management. Due to deadline issues, it didn't make it into the magazine, so here it is for your reading pleasure:

Salespeople can gain more and stronger leads through e-mail correspondence by becoming aware of the trends in overall email marketing - and in getting ahead of the curve by FOLLOWING those trends with their email practices!

Email is the most revolutionary tool in marketing history, and everyone should take advantage of its flexibility, ease of execution, low cost, and trackability. Here are some guidelines to make your email more impactful - and to help you ring the cash register more often!

1. Let the customer choose
Providing customers with some level of control makes them feel as though they are in the driver's seat. For example, don't have one email newsletter - have several on different topics or "tracks" and let people select the one(s) they are most interested in.

2. Don't worry about frequency
Let the customers' requests dictate frequency. As emails become more relevant to recipients needs, the question of how frequently to email subscribers goes away. If you'll help solve my problems, get me new customers, or show me how to work smarter, I'll gladly open your emails 2-3 times a week.

3. Data Integration
Email is uniquely positioned to take existing data and elevate it to the level of relationship marketing that most marketers have only dreamed of. Amazon.com is a great example. They know what I've bought, what I like, and they regularly email me suggestions about new titles that match my buying patterns. Database marketing drives relevance. Relevance drives sales!

4. Use the Personal touch
People buy from people. Email technology provides a way to leverage this knowledge and deliver emails coming "from" real people. These emails can include pictures, personal notes based on prior engagements, working reply addresses... just like a real relationship!

5. Use your signature file smartly
Your email signature file should not only have a 'hot' (clickable) link to your website, but you also need to give people a REASON to click. Nobody is going to click on a link because they're thinking, "Wow, Joe's company has a website... wonder what it looks like." Kick your signature line up a notch and add a CUSTOM line or two based on who you're writing to. For example, when writing to a hotel industry client, add this line to the bottom of your email signature block: "Ask about 'Inn Service' our latest offering for the hospitality industry."

The idea is to use every email (both personal and automated) as a marketing vehicle, mini-teaser, or venue for generating further inquiries into your services!