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Archive for February, 2007
February 25th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
 Though I’m not sure we’ll be whistling after the nearly-all-nighter we’re pulling to wrap up the last loose ends before we head off to this second annual bash in Myrtle Beach, SC.
 The dealio: “Achieve the right marketing mix in today’s competitive global environment.” That’s the mission behind the Global Marketing Summit, and confirmed speakers include marketing execs from Google, Visa, the International Olympic Committee, MySpace, Cirque du Soliel, and a bunch of other senior marketing executives.
 We’ll be there with our strategic partner Kevin Skarritt of Acorn Creative, and we’ll also be taking half-hour meetings with execs from Vh1, Microsoft Games, Walgreens, TBS, and more (apparently, the schedule changes up to the last minute, so we’ll keep you posted when they finally happen).
The opportunity to meet and build relationships with these folks is pretty darned exciting, and as a result, here’s my sleep-deprived challenge to you - who’s the biggest name in your field, or the most influential company in your industry? Who can you reach out to today? Send an email, make a call, do something nice for no reason whatsoever. That’s how relationships get started - so take that first step!
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and delight you with some copywriting zing), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Dances With Gurus, Fun With Marketing | No Comments »
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February 23rd, 2007 by Allen Voivod
 I’m a PC guy, but I’ll give Apple credit every day of the week for their marketing messages. Whoever they have doing their ads and website content, lemme give you folks a shout-out - you’re absolutely phenomenal these days!
The reason I’m thinking about Apple today is because their messaging is so dead-on, and recently we’ve been reviewing the sales and marketing materials for a company that shall remain nameless. And for everything that Apple does right, this other company isn’t there yet. But how do you explain that to a business in an easy-to-understand way?
Over bacon and something called “Wheatina” at the breakfast table, Lani likened content messaging to the brand messaging exercise our strategic partner Kevin Skarritt at Acorn Creative does. He’ll have you lay out all your marketing materials, ask you to glance at them all and absorb the impression in a moment, look away and see whether a clear emotional connection comes through. (Usually not, which is where your growth opportunity lies.)
Lani pointed out that you could do the same thing with your content. Here’s a fun little experiment you can try:
Pull out 5-10 of your marketing touchpoints that use words - your website, press releases, articles, brochures, you name it. Then grab a highlighter, and highlight the important points, like you used to do in your school textbooks.
Then review your highlights. Are they all about features, or benefits? Results, or specifications? You, or your potential customer?
This is what Apple gets sooo right. Customers don’t care about the details - they care about being able to showcase their talents and empower their lifestyle.
Whether your customers come to you for something personal, for business, or a well-blended mix, your job is to get your message through to them in the most powerful, focused way possible. That’s what brand stategy is about, and that’s what content strategy is about, too.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and delight you with some copywriting zing), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in All About Content | No Comments »
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on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm and is filed under All About Content.
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February 19th, 2007 by Lani and Allen
If you’ve never heard of “Squidoo,” or the “lenses” you can build there, no worries. Until last week, we were clueless about it too. But here’s why it’s worth knowing about…
The brainchild of marketing maven Seth Godin, “Squidoo’s goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search.” Their words. Acorn Creative’s Kevin Skarritt puts it this way: “It’s like MySpace, but for ideas.”
Basically, you can sign up for a free account on Squidoo, and create a mini-website (called a “lens”) there. We just did our first a few days ago! Of course, you may be asking yourself: “Umm, Lani & Allen - exactly why should I bother with Squidoo?” Four quick reasons:
- Share your knowledge.
- Build credibility in your niche.
- Increase your traffic and search rankings.
- Earn money.
Now, since we only started a few days ago, we have the barest of toeholds in Squidoo. So of those four reasons, we’ll benefit from #3 even if we do nothing else. Why? Because now a very popular website has links on it that lead to our website and blog, which will lead to higher search engine rankings for us.
And it only took about an hour to look at the site’s FAQs and build that first template-based lens. Now, if you’re not sure if it’s for you, just read the answer to Question #5 on the FAQs, “Who Should Build a Lens?”
And if you find yourself on their list of 10 types of people who should have a lens, then go for it!
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and delight you with some copywriting zing), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Tools to "A-Ha Yourself!" | 1 Comment »
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February 15th, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Edited by Kim Castle, BrandU®, stolen (with “blurb” permission) by me, after reading Kim’s Valentine’s Day edition of her “Power Play” ezine.
By the way, the article below is a rare beast - a mix of humor AND marketing. “Marketing” on its own often tends to be too serious for its own good. If you’re fond of mixing humor with your marketing, check out Kevin Skarritt’s Squidoo page: “How Many Marketers Does It Take…” and see if you can come up with the winning punchline of the new twist on the ol’ lightbulb joke. A secret prize goes to the winner. Good luck!
The buzzword in business is MARKETING. However, people often get its meaning confused with the other ways they interact with their customers. Here’s an eight step at-a-glance understanding of this tricky subject. See if you can apply it to your business.
1) You’re a woman and you see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Direct Marketing.
2) You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a handsome guy. One of your friends goes up to him and, pointing at you, says, “She’s fantastic in bed.”— That’s Advertising.
3) You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and get his telephone number. The next day you call and say, “Hi, I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Telemarketing.
4) You see a guy at a party, you straighten your dress. You walk up to him and pour him a drink. Y ou say, “May I?” and reach up to straighten his tie, brushing your breast lightly against his arm, and then say, “By the way, I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Public Relations.
5) You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. He walks up to you and says, “I hear you’re fantastic in bed.” — That’s Brand Recognition.
6) You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. He fancies you, but you talk him into going home with your friend. — That’s a Sales Rep.
7) Your friend can’t satisfy him so he calls you. — That’s Tech Support.
8) You’re on your way to a party when you realize that there could be handsome men in all these houses you’re passing. So you climb onto the roof of one situated towards the center and shout at the top of your lungs, “I’m fantastic in bed!”— That’s Junk Mail.
If you want someone to “buy” from you, one way or another you’ve got to get the word out.
Brand Visioneer and BrandU co-founder, Kim Castle teaches entrepreneurs and small business owners how to turn their business ideas into a moneymaking marketable brand. If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank™, get your FR*EE branding tips now at www.whybrandu.com.
Posted in Fun With Marketing | 1 Comment »
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on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Fun With Marketing.
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February 14th, 2007 by Lani and Allen
by Lani & Allen Voivod, aka The Content Lovers™
You listen to music, right?
So you’ve probably heard a medley before. Or you’ve heard songs that use “samples” of other songs to create new and interesting music. Or maybe you’ve even heard Mel Torme sing “Mack the Knife” to the tune of “New York, New York.”
If so, you’ve got the basic idea of the mashup - a different way of getting your knowledge, passion, and expertise out to the world.
According to Wikipedia, a mashup can be:
- “a musical genre of songs that consist entirely of parts of other songs” (a famous example featured music from The Beatles’ White Album combined with the vocal track from rapper Jay-Z’s Black Album)
- “a website or web application that combines content from more than one source” (i.e. combining real estate listings with maps from Google Earth)
- “a video that is edited from more than one source to appear as one” (like that commercial with Gene Kelly dancing with the vacuum)
And it’s starting to appear in the marketing content world as well. Here are three prominent examples of traditional marketing vehicles mashed up to create new and unique methods for sharing your knowledge with your ideal audience.
1. Press releases and articles. Press releases are the foundation of generating publicity for your business, product or service. But why write a press release when an article would serve the same purpose?
Here’s one example. A landscaper we know told us there are things we can do to prepare our lawn for a lush green summer - in January. Really?! During snow season? Apparently so.
Now, imagine he writes an article with the top five things you can do to prep your lawn for summer. And at the end, he writes, “For more lawn prep tips, visit my website at …” Now, the media’s way more likely to run that article, compared to a garden-variety press release.
2. Blogs and websites. Yup, you may not need a traditional website anymore. With WordPress, you can use their “Pages” functionality to create the same types of webpages you’d find on a basic business website - “Products,” “Services,” “About,” “Contact,” and more.
And, in fact, it’s more important than ever for you to have not only a website, but a blog as well, as Lani recently wrote in an impassioned rant for the “Blog Bits” category at www.AhaBlog.com.
3. Ezines and audio. We’re not quite hip to “podcasting” yet, but we do know folks like Kendall SummerHawk, who does her weekly “Marketing Wisdom” article via HTML email and in Audio Acrobat streaming audio. Her audience gets to experience her the way they want to!
So what kinds of content delivery vehicles can YOU mash up to “A-Ha Yourself!” in fun and profitable ways? Send your examples to Inciter@EpiphaniesInc.com, and we’ll feature the best of the best on our blog!
WANNA USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE?
Please do! Just kindly include this blurb with it:
Lani & Allen Voivod, aka ‘The Content Lovers,’ help budding entrepreneurs and small biz dynamos ‘A-Ha Themselves!’ in fun, innovative, and profitable ways. For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business, sign up for their ezine, ‘The Inciter,’ at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Inciter Articles | No Comments »
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on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Inciter Articles.
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February 8th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
The makers and minds behind The Secret are appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show today, and if you haven’t seen The Secret - or Oprah, for that matter - today would be a great day to check your local listings for time and station.
The “secret” of The Secret is The Law of Attraction, phrased one way as, “You get what you think about. Your thoughts determine your destiny.”
In other words, you’re supposed to dwell only on positive things, and focus on positive outcomes for any life situation - personal, business, health, money, you name it. And the flip side is that dwelling on the negative outcome only makes a negative result more likely.
Put in a nutshell, the thought gurus behind The Law of Attraction are telling us that our minds control our reality.
And the down-to-Earth, hyper-intelligent brains behind the content of Wired magazine seem to be leaning this way, too.
Their latest issue features the topic “What We Don’t Know.” It’s 40 little essays (the online version has 42) about things like what’s at the Earth’s core, what causes ice ages, and where your keys are.
Here are a few snippets from four of the 42 that, together, may surprise you:
Is time an illusion? Plato argued that time is constant - it’s life that’s the illusion. … The most radical interpretation of [Einstein's] theory [of time]: Past, present, and future are merely figments of our imagination, constructs built by our brains so that everything doesn’t seem to happen at once.
How can observation affect the outcome of an experiment? Physicists have no problem with the cognitive dissonance of [a photon's] “wave-particle duality.” But… so… what’s light made out of, really? The dichotomy raises the mind-boggling prospect that unless we observe an event or thing, it hasn’t really happened, that all possible futures are quantum probability functions waiting for someone to notice them - trees falling unheard in a forest.
How do entangled particles communicate? According to a famous doctrine called Bell’s Inequality, for entanglement to square with relativity, either we have no free will or reality is an illusion.
Is the universe actually made of information? “What we call reality,” [John Archibald] Wheeler writes coyly, “arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions.” He adds, “All things physical are information-theoretic in origin, and this is a participatory universe.”
These are hard-science people addressing these questions, not airy-fairy folks strumming harps in between mantra-chanting.
Please watch Oprah today, and check out The Secret for yourself. It took me a while to come around (I’ve got a hard cynical streak in me), but I’m officially a believer in the Law of Attraction. And I deeply believe it’s worth your consideration, too.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and delight you with some copywriting zing), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Mood Boosters | 2 Comments »
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on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Mood Boosters.
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February 2nd, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Dear Toshiba,
I couldn’t help but notice your ad at the back of the February ‘07 issue of Wired magazine. You feature a photo of two gentlemen holding hands - one old-school corp-dude in a suit and tie, one new-school bohemian in jeans and sandals. Wait - I’ve got the photo right here:
This is an eye-catching ad. I especially loved it when I first saw Apple going with this juxtoposition months and months ago in their TV spots. You know, like this one:
Only trouble is, your tagline. You say, with an amazing sense of irony:
Don’t copy. Lead.
Now, I love the tagline, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re going to stand behind a mission that champions originality, don’t you think you should try creating an ad campaign that doesn’t entirely rip off another major computer/tech/innovation brand?
Maybe I missed something. Maybe YOU thought of this campaign first, Apple copied you, I never noticed, and this is your way of telling the world Apple is a big ol’ copy cat. Somehow, though, I doubt this is the case.
Nevertheless, I went the extra step to give you the benefit of the doubt. I followed the dedicated link you gave me beneath your ad’s “CFO & CIO, So happy together” picture: LetTheHarmonyBegin.com.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you forgot to finish this website.
There are three pictures of unlikely pairings (the CFO/CIO pic included), a place to submit Toshiba testimonials, some ambient office noise, and a “send to a friend” link, just in case I want to show my friends…what, exactly? Three pictures?
Oh - to be fair, I DID forget to mention the *hilarious* rollover word bubbles. And by *hilarious* I mean so useless and uninspiring I can only believe it was placeholder copy that never got outfitted with the real stuff.
Now, I’m not into tech jive. But I DO know if you’re willing to spend tens of thousands - if not HUNDREDS of thousands - of bucks on a back-of-the-mag advertisement, and then develop a complementary webpage, the the least you could do is include some dynamic copy in the word bubbles. I understand that kind of value-added entertainment is a no-brainer to any decent Web developer.
Did I miss the “fun” link? The “wow” factor? I just don’t get what you want me to take away from this experience?
If you want to talk to Epiphanies, Inc. about how you could improve your next ad campaign so you have a chance in Hades to get in on this whole viral marketing game, please please please, connect with us. It’s a darn shame to see a company with so much potential (and marketing moulah!) waste it on an unoriginal, unfinished effort.
Heed your own “Don’t copy. Lead.” advice, Toshiba, and you’re bound to do better next time.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Fun With Marketing | 5 Comments »
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on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Fun With Marketing.
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February 1st, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Because it’s so very easy sometimes for small business owners to lose track of why we work so hard when others punch in, punch out, and have a life, I’ve vowed to keep track of kind words in our blog as often as possible.
Recently, Mike Lemire, owner of Everything Wired in Winnesquam, NH, sent me this wonderful message after I spent a few hours talking with him about life, business, niche marketing, cell phone plans, the power of blogging, and why he thought my computer was running slower than a hobbled three-toed sloth on valium:
“From the moment you came into my store, it became fully apparent to me how much value you provide, with no apparent expectation of reciprocation. Like I said to you when you left, “I felt it was ME who received the higher value in services rendered.” I valued all the insights you shot my way, your interactive approach to problem solving, and the very passion in which you do what you do. You really seem to love what you do, and I think you very effectively deliver those solutions!”
Now we just have to reconnect and get him officially started on a powerful plan to make his profits skyrocket in 2007!
(We can do it, Mike. I know we can!)
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get YOUR profits over the rainbow), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Agents of Karma | No Comments »
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on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Agents of Karma.
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February 1st, 2007 by Lani Voivod
Congratulations to Robert Half International (a staffing firm with more than 350 offices around the globe) for letting the world know copywriting is a sizzling career choice these days, and not just an arduous chore the intern is forced to do after a designer and marketer throw a brochure, webpage, or postcard together.
According to a recent article from Yahoo! Hot Jobs, a Copywriter is one of “The Top Five Professions of 2007″:
If you’ve got the “write stuff,” your career prospects are bright. Demand for skilled copywriters is rising as more companies require compelling content for Web-based initiatives and print advertising. In fact, in a survey by our company, 60 percent of advertising and marketing executives who plan to hire new employees said they’ll be adding copywriters. Due to this increased demand, average starting salaries for senior copywriters will rise 6 percent in 2007 to $63,000 to $92,500 annually. Versatile writers with experience developing content for both print and online projects are especially valued and may earn even greater pay. Copywriters who specialize in a particular industry, such as pharmaceuticals, are in particularly strong demand.
To be a good copywriter, you really have to have advanced degrees in human psychology, English, sociology, marketing, business, drama, law, art, hypnosis, schitzophrenia, and shape-shifting.
Trouble is, for those who don’t understand the difference between words in a sentence, on a webpage, or throughout a letter that delivers results and words that fill up the space around stock images, copywriting looks like it can be done by anyone. It’s just about producing decently constructed, error-free communications, right?
Yeah. Sure it is. That’s why some copywriters make millions of dollars a year for direct mail pieces, advertorials, and promotional campaigns. The companies that pay ‘em have too much money and feel like sharing the wealth with the lowly, simpleton copywriters.
How very kind of them!
As for the other four professions:
- Internal Auditors (which Allen has been, once in a blue moon)
- Senior Admin Professionals
- Web Developers
- Freshman Legal Associates
It looks like the world is becoming one big online hub of interactive communications, with people to manage, managers who need to be monitored, and a whole lot of paperwork that needs to be shuffled through the legal department.
What a world.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and delight you with some copywriting zing), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in All About Content | 1 Comment »
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