Beyond Six Figures
November 1st, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comRecently, one of my copywriting clients shared with me a tidbit of information she received from the Beyond Six Figures Apprenticeship program.
First, I want to say that my client has been receiving some terrific tips from this program! It’s great to work with people who possess a solid understanding of internet marketing.
However, I was struck by the below remark that was passed along to me from the program, via my client.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Business Management, Small Business Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »Faded WHAT? Excellent Taglines, Not So Good Clothing Line Names
October 25th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comI may have mentioned this before. One run-of-the-mill function of being a copywriter involves naming things. People hire us to come up with brainstorms for their company tagline, their clothing line, their advertising campaign slogans, their baby stroller series’, their software program names, so on and so forth.
Today I came upon a great tagline while I was walking the dog. I passed a house where the sign on the front lawn read, “Liberty Construction: The Building Blocks of American Tradition.” That’s superb! If I were in the market for a general contractor, I would totally call up that guy.
Why’s this a good tagline?
Popularity: 11% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Copywriting Services, Copywriting Techniques, Marketing Communications, Print Advertising, Taglines, The Creative, Wordfeeder Copywriting | No Comments »Should You Sell a Product or Service?
June 10th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comTons of marketing experts preach the Marketing Funnel or Product Pipeline. Their theory on online business is that you should offer an array of product choices, one for every market segment. Your high end consumer will go for the bells-and-whistles package, your budget-conscious consumer will choose the economy offering, and then your middle men will fill in the remaining rungs of the ladder. On top of that, they’ll encourage you to simultaneously market services along with the product you create.
I’m more of a marketing realist myself. As much as they might like to, most of my clients just don’t have the bandwidth to give their readers “everything and a bag of chips.” For those with limited resources, budgets, time and energy, it might be a more practical idea to focus on one, or the other - product, or service, for the time being.
So let me ask you: are you a product man, or a service gal?
Popularity: 37% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Business Management, Business Writing, Marketing Communications, Small Business Marketing, Target Audience, The Creative, Wordfeeder Copywriting | No Comments »Branding as Part of Your Business Disaster Recovery Plan
May 21st, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.com
Have you ever thought about what would happen if you decided to stop operating your small business?
Maybe you’ll be sitting on a comfortable retirement fund one day. Maybe you’ll decide that it’s time to do something completely different.
Maybe (and this is something nobody likes to think about, but it’s reality)… a physical condition or illness will prevent you from managing your business with the same passion and vitality that you are today.
What will you do? You’ve had years to build a presence and get a momentum going. We’re talking about hundreds, maybe thousands, of carefully tended professional relationships, founded in mutual trust. Scores of customers who rely on YOU, nobody else but YOU, to fulfill a specific need for them.
What do you do with all that steam that it took you years and maybe even decades to build up? Do you just open the release valve, take down the shingle and bow out of the scene for good?
Popularity: 27% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Marketing Communications, Recommended Reading, Small Business Marketing, Wordfeeder Copywriting | 3 Comments »Naming Project
April 4th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comBack at my old corporate job, we copywriters often had to work on what some in the business call a “naming project.”
I can’t even tell you how many products, brands and customer incentive programs I’ve been called upon to bestow with a name. Things like a new clothing line for preteens… a brand of mini remote-control racing cars. More baby coordinate patterns than I care to mention. A new line of outdoor play toys. A “credit card” for kids. The list goes on and on.
Well, today I’ve got a naming project that I need your help on. Help me find a cool and respectable-sounding moniker for this little guy:
So far we’ve called him Seamus, Boomer, Charlie, Rusty, and today we were contemplating Cosmo. Then of course you have the all-purpose “Buddy” which is what we seem to call him in general.
If you’re interested in helping give a poor nameless pup something to answer to… help us out here. But just know that he won’t always look like this. They told us at the shelter that he’s either full or half Australian Cattle Dog. (Quite a head on that thing, eh?)
Your help is appreciated!
Dina at Wordfeeder.com Copywriting
Popularity: 10% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Coffee Break | 14 Comments »How does a copywriter blog for someone else?
April 4th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comA lot of people ask me how, as a copywriter, I can blog FOR them. I avoided answering this for a long time. I honestly wasn’t sure.
What I’ve learned is, you can’t blog for someone else. Blogging is a highly personal and subjective thing. If a person has zero writing ability and zero inclination to blog, then they shouldn’t blog, period. In that case, I wouldn’t even suggest having a copywriter help you out with blogging.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Posted in Ask Dina, Blogging Tips, Branding Strategy, Copyediting, Wordfeeder Copywriting | 3 Comments »Should You Blog?
April 4th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comEvery time someone emails me the question, “Can you help me manage my blog?” I know it’s always going to be one of two types of blogs. The first one is your fully loaded blog, with the juicy content and high quality graphics. The other type is your “search engine” blog that’s just one step up from being a spam machine.
I’m sure you know what I mean by a “fully loaded” blog. These blogs host intelligent life forms. They have a definite style, and a definite presence. Visitors sense this, and so they can’t resist stopping in for a spell on their daily web travels. I’m talking about blogs that take the lion’s share of web traffic on a daily basis - like DumbLittleMan, ProBlogger.com and Copyblogger.
Why are these blogs so impressive, and why do they work?
Popularity: 11% [?]
Posted in Ask Dina, Blogging Tips, Branding Strategy | 2 Comments »Are Demographics Dead?
March 19th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comOne of my copywriting clients has challenged me to write an article claiming that “demographics and psychographics are becoming obsolete.” The rationale being that he attracts coaching clients from all ages, income levels and walks of life.
I spent a restless night with this one rolling around in my head. My client wants me to revoke everything that’s been drilled into my brain for the last 15 years about target markets and ideal customers and who I’m writing to?
When someone makes a bold assertion like this one, I’m inclined to analyze their marketing behavior. So what’s my client been doing all this time to bring in such a vast and varied smorgasbord of clientele?
Popularity: 25% [?]
Posted in Blogging Tips, Branding Strategy, Creative Platform, Marketing Communications, Social Media, Target Audience, The Copywriting Client, The Creative | 6 Comments »100 Marketing Secrets
March 18th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comI just wanted to call to your attention a compilation that Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends has put together.
It’s her 100 Marketing Secrets downloadable report, contributed by the readers of Small Business Trends, including a panel of hand-picked, well-known names in the industry.
If you want to download the report instantly, click here.
If you prefer to poke around on Anita’s site and blog first, visit http://smallbiztrends.com.
What’s especially nice about this, for me, is that I got to help Anita compile and organize the report, and she has publicly acknowledged this on her blog. What a great feeling, and the gesture really says a lot about Anita’s character.
Another perk to being behind the scenes on a project like this is taking the time to click through to each contributor’s website. I’ve gotten to know some people in the marketing industry who I didn’t know before.
Download Anita Campbell’s 100 Marketing Secrets report!
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Posted in Branding Strategy, Business Management, Gracias, In the Spotlight, Marketing Communications, Resource Room, Small Business Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »The Almighty Tagline and Why Your Company Needs One
February 13th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comThe tagline is a short, one-liner that follows your company name and makes an emphatic, philosophical statement about your business. A good tagline captures the heart and soul of your company in a single, compelling sentence or phrase. It’s often a call to action (Nike: Just Do It) but it doesn’t have to be.
A tagline is conceptual in nature. It is the abbreviated version of your Company Philosophy or USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Your tagline should convey the greatest values embodied by your organization, or your reason for being.
Who doesn’t enjoy a snappy and clever tagline? Recall these famous taglines that have stayed with us for decades:
Popularity: 25% [?]
Posted in Branding Strategy, Copywriting Techniques, Taglines, The Creative | 2 Comments » « Previous Entries
