Don't Have A Webinar if You Have Nothing to Say

I sat through a 17-minute webinar last week. 


Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of presentations that are brief-and-to-the-point. 

This was more like a fluffmercial. Please, don't be that guy. 

I'm going out on a limb here to say that webinars are gonna be huge (HUGE) in 2017. There are oodles of video tools to make webinars fast, cheap, and fairly good-looking. We're accustomed to watching videos to learn how to do almost anything. 

If you're reading about marketing trends (especially while drinking KoolAid) then you know hosting a webinar is on the top of the list of cool, must-do marketing tasks for 2017. They're also practical, and not complicated. You create helpful content - or reuse what you already have - wrap it up in a nice audio/visual package, and smile as you collect information on all the prospects who sign up to see your presentation. 

It's practically perfect - assuming your presentation is worth the audience's time. 

Make Your Webinar Better Than That

The mercifully brief webinar I watched last week wasn't worth my time, and I suspect most of the audience could say the same.

Here are the top 3 things that were wrong with it: 

1. The headline promised a whole lot more than the webinar delivered. In fact, the headline was almost as informative as the rest of the webinar! Grrrr. (This is how people get jaded, btw.) 
2. The last minute of the webinar focused on signing up listeners for the next webinar. I did the math: that's nearly 6% of the content worthwhile only to the company that produced it. And, I'm betting, it wasn't effective. #LoseLose
3. The way-too-general, way-too-brief presentation gave me the impression the company is absolutely NOT an expert in its industry, ergo, I am much less likely to do business with the company now than I was before I attended the webinar. I think we can safely call that an "unintended consequence." #oops

So the Point Is: Say Something Useful

Content Marketing is a great idea if you actually have content, that is, something to say that is useful to your audience (prospects). Whether it's a white paper, webinar, email campaign, brochure (remember those?) or website, your content needs a purpose. 

'Nuff said. 
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Looking for a jaded marketing consultant to help you hone your message, look like an expert, and get your useful content to the right audience? Here I am. 

Picture Yourself Not Plagiarizing

Plagiarism is theft, it's wrong, and it's rampant. In 2016, it's hard to sell the ignorance defense convincingly. It's 2016. We've had Google for a good long time. Google images, too.

And for several years now, Google has had a tool at our fingertips to help us stay legal. So, use it.

Screenshot: Google.com

Also, your mom just called. She wants me to remind you that just because "everyone" is doing it doesn't make it right.

More opinions on the subject, and a nice explanation from a lawyer, can be found with a quick - what else? - Google search. Although it's not the freshest piece on the subject, I'm fond of CNET's article on the subject.
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I don't like thieves, and I definitely don't want to be one. When managing websites and social media accounts for my clients, I opt for original art first, vendor-supplied art second, and then search for images "labeled for reuse" - and credit the source in most cases when I use them. Need some help managing content that will get you more sales - and no letters from lawyers? Get in touch. 

Social Media Management: What's it Cost? What's it Worth?

Social media, the "free" advertising vehicle, isn't free, of course. Even if you're a small business owner dedicated to doing it yourself, there's a significant time investment. Not only do you need to learn the tools and keep up with the constant changes, a little advertising/marketing/communications savvy is necessary.

Like most everything else, you can learn to do it, and do it well. And like everything else, the time you invest in learning social media will take time away from something else - probably something you're already good at, where your time is more wisely spent.

Social Media Management: How Much Does it Cost?

Social media managers, whether managing Facebook only or handling the broad scope of all social media tools (Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, etc., etc.) and - if you're lucky - blog content and email messaging - are more than "just" writers, more than "just" marketing professionals. Technical skills count and again, there's a tremendous time investment to stay on top of the game.

So what should you expect to pay? The low-end packages right now hover in the $800-$2000/month range. More complete packages go for in the neighborhood of $8000/month. (Sound high? a ballpark figure from a 2011 article puts costs higher, at $75-$200/hr.) And the bad news is, packaged social media/content management rarely gets the job done well. The "softer side" of marketing is getting to know your customers, your product(s), your niche, your industry... and speaking the language in a way that will turn prospects on without turning search engines off.

Those softer skills, including the all-important voice and customer connection, don't come cheap. However, many marketing consultants offer consulting services on an ad-hoc basis. What's that cost? Average figures from 2014 for Facebook Page or Twitter account creation come in at around $400-$800 for the initial creation. (Figures from a couple of years earlier say $500-$2500. Go figure.) Ongoing account management varies depending on activity level

DIY Cheaper, But Results Are at Stake

This isn't intended to scare you out of doing it yourself. You don't have to be a genius to learn social media tools, you probably understand your audience and your products better than anyone, and marketing is much more forgiving than rocket science - if you make a mistake, you can recover.

The question you need to ask yourself is:

Will I really put the necessary time in to get the results I need, and at what cost to my business?

Great Free Tools Available

If the answer is yes, you've committed to doing it yourself, great. For heaven's sake, don't reinvent the wheel. GREAT tools are available free, many from Hootsuite - like an article on changes to Facebook in 2015.

And if the answer is no, great. Like I said, marketing is a lot more forgiving than rocket science. If you choose a consultant, or designate someone already on staff to handle your messaging and it doesn't work out, try something else. If that doesn't work, try, try again.

Because when it comes to marketing (but not necessarily rocket science) doing something is better than doing nothing.

Here's to time well spent, in 2015 and beyond.

Content Marketing that Doesn't Inspire Confidence

Anyone besides me lack confidence in a content marketing firm that misuses "it's" and a comma in the first page of copy in an article designed to show its competency in ... content marketing?

SMH.

~Diane Stresing

"I'm sorry this is so long. I'd have written a shorter blog post but I didn't have time."

Or so I paraphrase what many have said before (some in fewer words) - and what is one of the most telling bits on writing ever written, IMHO.

Which brings me to Twitter, Reddit, and the all-too-human tendency to search for a more complicated answer when a perfectly good - if unbelievably simple - answer is sitting right there, in plain sight. SMH.

In a weak moment, I waded in to the silly media stories of the day to find out if Twitter has The Magic Formula for social media success and What Newspapers Can Learn from Reddit and was disappointed in both. The Twitter article disappointed me more, because it points out how myopic many (most?) advertising industry pundits are. It's possible people read/like Twitter because it's short and easy to read, right? No, that's too easy. Let's search instead for a new, improved, 2012 answer because it's no longer fashionable to use the 2010 answer. It's also possible people respond to Twitter's ads because there's a higher proportion of good ads and/or they're targeted and/or timed better and/or they're not lost among quite so many distractions as Facebook, where you can plan your family reunion, have a virtual high school reunion, lose your job, and run your own business? Augh. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. And when it's not a cigar, it shouldn't take a semester's worth of discussion to figure out what it really is.

The second article, about newspapers and their impending doom (not) ticked me off because the headline is a sell-out for an article that's quite worth a read.

Here's my crazy, all-too-simple answer for the industry watchers: news outlets that offer news - aka important information that has nothing to do with what Snooki named her baby or how Nicki Minaj will vote - will have an audience. Advertising that's good, and seen, will work. In the newspaper, on the evidently nearly dead Facebook, or on today's SM darling.

If your ads are good, in front of the right people, when they're not too terribly distracted, they'll work.

I repeated it because that ups the odds that you'll get the message.

Which is something that was once taught in advertising 101, before distractions were born, right after Al Gore invented the internet.

Hey I read it online. It's gotta be true. Source? I don't need no stinkin' source. It was on ABC News, and they got it straight from Twitter.

So back to ads on Twitter, or anywhere.  Here's a tip: No matter how good your ads are, they won't return well this month/quarter for folks interested in the DNA ENCODE reports or cool photos of Mars. Those are called distractions. Both of which are undoubtedly better and probably more important than one election on a planet that supports more than one country.

Thanks for reading and by all means keep thinking out there. I'll edit this down to 140 characters when I get a round tuit.

~Diane Stresing

~ the links, in case you want them ~

http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/04/12/more-time-shorter-letter/


http://pandodaily.com/2012/09/04/will-twitters-uncanny-luck-ever-run-out/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=rightrail&utm_content=2&utm_campaign=recirc

http://gigaom.com/2012/09/04/what-newspapers-and-other-media-could-learn-from-reddit/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=rightrail&utm_content=3&utm_campaign=recirc

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=junk-dna-encode

http://www.space.com/17474-mars-rover-curiosity-longest-drive.html

The short of the DNA ENCODE story:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/05/dna-database-unlocks-map-to-genetic-disease/

The long of it:
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001046

And the medium but digestible for the liberal arts crowd version:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=junk-dna-encode

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMG5fkiY_-ZH9wjRm8UgfS07Kb-kN5iKUPLdKnOdWer4QhOah491nTehm2q8O_nIgiB3awvWX_Vo6fVAQJ2wLAJZRAwuP1JBBKy1EgVXOoRH7VzG3747fr9LqJ39qEJo6ToN9RXTK941sp/s1600/A_Round_Tuit_Picture.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mouthmotions.blogspot.com/2011/03/round-tuit.html&h=1104&w=1144&sz=216&tbnid=ExrYxeZ4N6wbCM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=94&zoom=1&usg=__lLJ-I0XH6GTQkylPD1kTXVdHtgY=&sa=X&ei=WsJIUL6tL6rO2AW_sIHQDQ&ved=0CCUQ9QEwAQ&dur=1265

What's your newsletter done for you lately?

How many newsletters did you read this week? One from your local winery? bike shop? Did your corporate wellness program send you one? And did you read them?

I'm guessing you received more than you think; you read (at least the headline and possibly first graph of) almost every one. And even if you "just" touched delete on your slick phone screen, you thought - for a brief and shining moment - about the sender.

That's called mindshare. Get enough and you've got a brand. Do it right and you've got a valuable brand. 

But newsletters can do so much more than occupy an atom of your prospect's mind for a moment.

What else can newsletters do? 

Glad you asked.

Well-crafted newsletters can help train and develop employees, get new customers, retain your current clients, and improve your employee satisfaction rates - for a song.

Now I sound crazy, right? Well, give a crazy idea a chance. Done right, newsletters can help you reach your goals.

Regardless of their intended audience, the most effective and cost-effective newsletters are both timely and evergreen. Sound like a tall order? Well, I invite you to stretch with me.

Your newsletter can (and should)...

Be practical and just a tad inspirational. Employee newsletters reinforce (and sometimes replace!) training initiatives and remind everyone on the team that they are part of something bigger than themselves.

Increase sales. Newsletters directed at customers can increase sales, encourage referrals, and deliver coupons. Beyond that, they educate your clients, reduce unnecessary calls, and remind customers why they chose to shop with you in the first place – why they, too, are part of the team. But customer newsletters aren't the only newsletters that should add to your bottom line.  Employee newsletters can also increase sales. How? Have you ever been convinced (or just plain pressured) into buying an extended warranty for a new product, because the salesperson simply wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Maybe that contest was in his company's newsletter. Maybe he wants his name in the next newsletter under the "winners" column. And maybe, just maybe, an underperforming salesperson (or two) will read the list of winners and think, hurumph. I can do better than that.

Newsletters can tell stories, and stories build relationships. Remember newspapers? I bet you read the features, didn't you? The ones with a photo and a headline like, "The Reason I Became a Bottle Washer." Good stories - ones that ooze good news about your brand and have a human interest factor, to boot - are likely to get shared. Go viral, in other words. Another word to say viral advertising is "free" advertising. I bet you see where I'm going with this. Maybe you'll even share it :D

Do you have a newsletter? If you do, is it current? Is it working for you?
If you don't have a newsletter - does your competition?

~Diane Stresing

Related & really interesting
Does anyone read that long copy? Marcia Yudkin settles the long v. short debate.
Do you need a newsletter or a discussion list? One author vs. many contributors - it's your call.
Want a newsletter, but it's just too much work? Get help, get it done.

Guest Blogger or Ghost Blogger?

Much has been written about the value of blogging. If there's one aspect of online marketing all the 'experts' agree on, it's that blogging has value, and lots of it.

Beyond that, the opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody seems to have one that's just a little bit different from his neighbor's. So, if you want to "prove" that ghost bloggers are the best way to use your marketing dollars, and save your staff's time, you can find plenty of experts who agree with you.

And if you want to argue that having a blog authored by none other than the CEO is the best way to go, well, ditto. You can probably even come up with a study on it.

I take most studies with a grain of salt, and on this subject especially, I listen to my gut. My gut says blogs, like belly buttons and opinions, are unique. (Or at least, they ought to be.)  Meaning you probably know the answer to the question - which is better, guest blogger or ghost blogger? - and even if you don't, you can't go too far wrong... as long as your blog is up to date, on topic, and not too long.

I'm pretty sure that's my cue to stop typing.

The last word -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Need someone to help you meet your blogging goals this year? I can guest or ghost blog on a variety of topics including corporate communications, customer service, marketing, promotions and public relations. Twenty-plus years of experience and a long list of satisfied clients say I can write about almost any industry, but for the record, I've written most often for organizations offering business and legal services, and those involved in the health and medical industries, manufacturing, and  technology. And oh yeah, I know a little bit about hiking and other things to do in Ohio. Need to keep your blog up to date? I can help.

Bye-bye BookTour

"We regret to inform you that BookTour will be shutting down on Thursday, September 1, 2011. On that date, all of our services will end and our data will be unavailable."

So begins the message from BookTour.com to users, sent today. Although I agree with the company's assessment that its basic services are well-managed by others (including Amazon's Author Central, which I mentioned in a previous post) I'm sorry to see another casualty in the publishing industry, and it was especially painful because BookTour so clearly calls out the elephant in the room: lower book marketing budgets. Duh, but ouch.

Here are the two take-aways from this little post:
1- If you have any info in a BookTour.com page, go get it, and while you're at it, clean up and replace any links to BookTour you may have on your website (or other sites) before September 1, and
2- If you're an author, you're in charge of marketing and sales.

200+ Reasons Content Matters

There are a lot of experts willing to give advice about how to legitimately get your site higher in search engine rankings. When you boil it down, what they're all saying is that the most important thing to do is to build a good site. --SEO: Beware of the Dark Side. Lamont Wood, in ComputerWorld, May 31, 2011.

For an interesting and not-too-technical article posted earlier this week, CW's Lamont Wood interviewed folks who got in trouble for trying to cheat Google's page-ranking program, as well as Google execs, who shared as much info as the search gorilla is willing to provide about its page-ranking algorithms. Hint: they're based on about 200 factors, and counter to the commonly-held misconception, links aren't all that matter.

Content, if not quite king, is still the key element people want to find when they're searching.  Far better and considerably easier than trying to outsmart Google's algorithms: Nurture and grow a real audience by posting smart, interesting stuff on your Facebook pages, create (and manage) worthwhile Tweets, and invest in data-rich blogs that drive interested readers to your site.

Marketing (still) means reaching and cultivating your audience. Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, are just some of the new tools you need to do it.

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You don't have to spend time spinning your message on the web - I can do it for you.

Corporate blog posts, Twitter/Facebook account management +more

Do You Measure Revenue from Social Media?

By now everyone is convinced that social media can drive web metrics (eg, visitors to a site) but how much MONEY does it MAKE?  If you don't know yet, you'll probably be finding out soon.

But even if you can't exactly pinpoint the dollar amount, making money is the point, isn't it? I mean, while a billion visitors is nice, a billion dollars is even nicer.

You know where this is going: writers drive decisions about where dollars go. Do you need a writer? Only if your business uses words.

• web content
• business blogs
• client newsletters
• sales letters
• brochures
• catalog copy
• targeted e-mail marketing
• product descriptions
• press releases
• employee newsletters
• contracts
• case studies
• catalogs
• employee training manuals
• invoices & collection letters    

  Where don't you use words?

Good Grammar Shouldn't Slow Us Down!

Social media marketing concepts are important and yet they haven't made grammar obsolete, have they?

I don't think so, but then, I still favor complete sentences when I'm texting.

I was very glad to meet the alot earlier this week. (See my last post) The seemingly unassuming beast offers a lighter look at grammar gaffes, but however friendly alots might be, they scare me. I understand (and agree with) the argument "since social media moves fast, so we have to move faster." To that argument I add, we can move faster better with clear communication.

If I'm a grammar snob, I'm a low-level one. Improper use of its and it's and its' and apostrophes in general are my primary complaints. In fact, the rules governing the proper use of apostrophes are so simple, I'm amazed the basic spelling/grammar checker features in most word processing tools can't be programmed to highlight at least half of the potential culprits. It wouldn't be cheating! C'mon. Some of us grew up "cheating" with paper dictionaries before spell-check saved us from countless typos and our own ignorance.

What ignited my rant today: two misused apostrophes in a short blog post by a marketing professional. That is, two remaining AFTER a visitor to the site pointed out another, which the author then fixed. I repeat: we all make mistakes.

When a professional communicator makes a mistake in a blog post (or any other document that remains available 24/7) and can correct that mistake, he - or she - should.

A nifty little tool that catches apostrophe errors and other grammar goofs would make us all look better. Bored programmers? Are you listening?

Twitter works in DC

This smart use of Twitter gets the message across.

Twitter as a 5/8" socket wrench

Strategic Services Director Bryce Marshall of Akron-based Knotice delivers a clear description of just what Twitter isn't in the January iMedia Connection article, Where Twitter drops the marketing ball.

If you have been living comfortably with the notion that Twitter is your marketing slave, expect a little discomfort.  Its an article worth reading in its entirety, but in the spirit of things, here's a summary in 140 characters, or less:

      Twitter is a useful marketing tool, but you can't build a whole campaign with it. Be sure you have some
        other implements in your toolbox.

Put a Bow on It (Grammar is Part of the Packaging)

Packaging fascinates me, from the myriad marketing issues (eye-catching strange shape or practical box for easy shelving?) to the technical considerations of shrink wrap. Let me be clear: on the style v. substance question, I pick substance every time. BUT.

Packaging problems can kill products.

And grammar, my friends, is part of the package. Consider this, from a help-wanted post:

"[name omitted] is one of the largest book publishers in the world. It's subsidiary [name omitted] publishes [blah-blah-blah]..."

Did you catch it? When it jumped off the screen at me, I promptly prepared to send in my offer to help this world-famous publisher PROOFREAD ITS OWN AD COPY.

Maybe I'm a little extra-sensitive these days, what with the holiday parties and all. Every seasonal gathering seems to require one of those "so what do you do?" conversations, and when I say, "I'm a writer" nine times out of ten, I hear "Oh really? Sometimes I think about being a writer..." and honest, I try to smile kindly. Because [dripping sarcasm] yeah, it's true, everybody can be a writer.

Now, before you give it a go, do me (and other poor unsuspecting readers out there) a favor: do a good job. Use the right word. Clean up the punctuation. Proofread for errors. And before you offer your gift of writing to the world, put a bow on it.

By that I mean, don't print, publish, or mail anything until it's your best stuff. The words you choose to describe your business, services, and products are your packaging, as much as cellophane or cardboard.

What kind of presentation are you making?

Practical Intro to Using Social Media

Outback Steakhouse is one company that's gotten a bang for its buck using Twitter and Facebook. But scads of companies are wasting their time (and $$) on social media "campaigns" that are just so much cyber-waste.

If you're in marketing/advertising/pr (or advising someone who is) I urge you to read this marketing brief from motivelab, which, before it launches into some very practical advice, acknowledges that social media is just good-old-fashioned word-of-mouth with a much speedier delivery mechanism, thanks to current technology.

Why it's worth the download and some thoughtful consideration: it reminds us how to use the old tried and true marketing theories online, on mobile devices, and such. Clarify your positioning is good advice that will never go out of style; figuring out how to do it (and not muck it up) using social media vehicles is what writers need to know, now.

As the article points out, very wisely, "Ultimately, your most influential audience are human beings, not computers, so don't let your SEO ambitions take the life out of your blog."

Of course, I translate that sentence into "content is still king." (If you've been paying attention, you're not surprised.)

If you've got a solid grounding in advertising or copywriting, do you need to read this? Yes. There are plenty of new twists marcomm writers need to understand.

For example, we still need to leverage the one- or two-percent response to convert good marketing into better sales.

See, the game hasn't changed; social networking is just like the new sharkskin-inspired swimsuit - and we all have to swim a little faster now.

The Long Arm of Search

If you're ready to write beyond basic SEO strategies, get to know your customer, and start focusing on the reasons behind their searches.

Content is still King

So sez William Rice in September's Promo Magazine.

In his article on Web Marketing 101, Mr. Rice seems to suggest that writers are necessary, even in the all-about-eye-candy land of web design.

"FOCUS ON CONTENT" is first of the four steps he recommends to "help ensure a Web site's effectiveness."

Content is what people come looking for. And they expect much more than just words. They want links to manuals, customer testimonials or ratings, and virtual demos. Content needs to be as entertaining as it is informative.

I like this guy. Even if he does end a sentence with a preposition.