What does it take to make a unicorn content writer?

It’s not easy to be a content writer. In a world in which everything is measured and analytics has turned everything into a set of numbers, how can one be evaluated as a good content writer?

While one can evaluate content according to its performance in the world of analytics and stats (what is the reach? how many people read the blog or viewed the video? etc. these result depend on many factors and not just the quality of the content. Good content is in many ways a matter of feeling, you just know when it’s done right! So how to determine a good content writer from a bad one? Here are some characteristics that a unicorn content writer should have.

A unicorn content writer lives and breathes the trade. Do you have a unicorn in your pocket?

Customer oriented thinking

A good content writer has to write about your business in terms the customers want to read or hear about it. At best, your writer has been a customer of your product or a similar product and knows what the customer needs. A good content writer should first review and use your product before writing about it. If your writer understands the challenges your customer is facing, the writing will be oriented to present solutions to these challenges, and that is what your customers what to see!

Second nature creativity

A good writer is a creative person. Creativity has many manifestations. Your content writer will help their child build a paper model of "the theory of relativity" or make a "Noah's ark" presentation for a sibling's school project. Not to mention dressing up for Halloween. Content creation is not just about writing good text but also creating visuals, videos and making them all complement each other.

Excellent explaining skills

A good content writing is good at explaining things. Anything! Why a certain camera is better than another? How to bake shortbread? How to calculate your mortgage payments...Taking complex concepts and simplifying them to the layman is a key asset in content writing for business.

A sense for greatness

When you see a product that is well designed you just know its so! Even if you are not a professional designer. This explains how so many people around the world from many different cultures think that Apple products are cool! The design just works for them all! It’s the same with content. When the blog post or video is good, it’s recognizable. A content writer should have a sense for greatness, so that they are able to create really good content that simply works!

An eye for trends

A good content writer need not shy from looking at what others are doing and learn from what they find. Gathering insights from data and statistics, watching content from the competition, analyzing trends and explaining the reasons for them is key to understanding the industry one is writing about.

Fast turnaround

Reacting to current events quickly is key to writing compelling and relevant content that is always up-to-date.

Quick learning skills

A good content writer learns not only about the industry they write about, but also about content marketing industry and any tools that compliment writing content. Knowing the framework, in which the content needs to be disseminated and in which it needs to perform help make a better writer.

Success satisfaction

A good content writer enjoys seeing the fruits of their hard work. Seeing good content being read or viewed by people and learning from one's successes is key to continue writing successful content.

CLO - Content Listening Officer

A content writer is always on the prowl for new information. Listening to the conversation on the web, social media, and reading blogs and magazines is important to stay on top of the game. A good content writer is truly interested in the themes they write about.

Writing for the sake of writing, or just for fun

Is your content writer writing just for fun? Do they have a blog? More than one? Are they writing a book? A writer who enjoys writing for the sake of writing is practicing the craft and will thus only be getting better and better. Enjoyment in one's work is a good starting point for quality.

If you find all of these characteristics in a content writer, you have a unicorn!

Is there a connection between marketing and dating ?

Actually I have recently heard an interesting comparison of online marketing or growth hacking to a dating experience from more than one source. The idea is that online marketing takes a customer through a  journey. Dating is also a journey towards finding your (it is hoped)  lifetime partner. So how does it work?

http://roojoommedia.s3.amazonaws.com/src_images/src_38540_growth-hacker-funnel.jpg

Acquisition = blind date

First the customer needs to know that a certain  company/product/ or service exists - this is done via dissemination in various channels. Today social media is the starting point for most of the acquisition campaigns. These campaigns are geared to capture leads, get the prospect to sign into a distribution list (perhaps in return for a free gift or coupon) so that the company can start the communication process and the prospect enters the sale/marketing funnel

This is like going on a blond date. You saw an advert somewhere on social media or a dating site and now you opted in for the first meeting. You probably gave the other person you email or phone number so that you can coordinate this first meeting. The communication process has started.

Activation = relationship

Now the comply has the name of the prospect and its time to gain their trust. This is done by repeatedly sending more information to this person about the company or the service and generally keeping the service in the awareness of the prospect until they take some action and become an active customer.

In the dating world, this is the part in which people go out on dates repeatedly. If the communication is working, they will continue to date and will enter into the relationship phase. During the relationship phase there are various stages and hurdles that have to be faced (like meeting the partner's parents, deciding to move in together etc.). These are the "small sale" stages, each time one of these hurdles has been met and removed, it compares to the selling of a small product or service, on the road towards the main goal/ flagship product.

Retention (resulting in revenue and referrals) =  matrimony

Now that a company has an active customer is all about getting them to make repeated purchases an also to spend more money in each purchase. up-selling, cross-selling and getting the customer more and more engaged with the product, so that the always keep coming for more. Alternatively this could mean getting the customer to trust the company enough in order to buy its flagship product, which is also the most expensive products. This could also means to get the customer into purchasing a retainer - retention mean getting the customer to always purchase, making them a source for growing your revenue. Happy customers will also hopefully refer you to new prospects and thus serve to further grow your income.

This is a lot like matrimony. Once you get married, your partner has effeminately signed up for the biggest product, you! As the marriage progresses there is always retention and re-selling points: steps that you will take together that will get you more and more engaged and involved with each other. For example - buying a house together, and having children. Here the revenue is not money but rather  deepening of the relationship and partnership. The more things you go through together with your partner the more deep the commitment you will have towards one another. It terms of the commitment currency, you are spending more and more in this relationship, becoming more committed and "repurchasing the product" every day - your commitment to your partner only grows.

By repurchasing everyday and staying in the marriage, you are serving as a reference for others to enter the marriage state. You will of course not wish to refer others to being married to your specific partner :-)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this response - I have heard this in various sources recently, but I liked the inforgrahic Quicksprout has put together on this subject, so I ma sharing it here with you.

www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-growth-hacking-chapter-4/

This also reminds me of a blog post I wrote a couple of year's back for a blogging competition for a job seeking website - in which I compared getting a job to dating.

First you go to the interview (blind date/ first meeting) then you negotiate the terms of employment (relationship) and then you get the job (matrimony). In the post I used another  marketing model usually referred to as AIDA. More on that in another response...here is the link to the blog I wrote.

https://jobmob.co.il/blog/market-yourself-for-dating-and-job-search/

(reference to the link in my blog:

http://contentguru4all.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/i-wrote-post-for-bloggers-competition.html)

Wishing you a great weekend and happy reading,

Ofra

What I learned from Neil Patel regarding growing a blog and writing converting posts

Neil Patel, the founder of Crazyegg and KISSMetrics came to Israel, again. Neil came to lecture about growing a blog. Its a great privilege to hear someone so knowledgeable who is also still approachable and an entertaining lecturer to boot. Lets see if this post can demonstrate what I learned...

3 reasons to why a blog is good for your business.
The first advantage of a blog is the fact that you have control over the content that you publish. even if you allow guest posts on your blog and want other writers to contribute - the last choice is yours. In social media you have no control on how people react to your post or how the discussion will develop. When you have a blog, you can even close the comments option if you feel it does not fit your concept, or monitor the comment posted.

Neil's first tip regarding the content of the blog is that the content should teach! the idea is that people who read your content should get some value form it. If they learn something and can even implement what they learn - then this means your content teaches them things and they get value.

Neil also recommends stretching borderlines and being original and creative. If you have fun when you write and try new things, the results will be interesting and fun to read. If people feel they learned something, had fun doing so and got value, the chance they will convert is higher.

Guess what is the most obvious converting part of the blog?
One of the most important things is a good blog post is the header. Neil writes long posts of 2000 words , so he always ends them with a short summary and used headers in it 3-5 times. Headers help organize the text for your readers and informed them of what;s coming up. 80% of most people skim the headlines first and then decide if to read the actual content. Headlines generate interest, so you need to make them interesting. You want your readers to be curious regarding your content.

Neil's 6 tips for good headlines:
1. Use adjectives and questions to generate interest
2. Use shocking negative words
3. 65 characters is an ideal length for a header, 6 words is good - informative and not too long
4. Use numbers - uneven numbers work better. The bigger the number, the better (but remember the context when you decide on a number).
5. Avoid word play and double meanings, keep it simple and clear
6. make heading suited to the content beneath it

Here are some samples for good headers:
"eyebrows you would kill for, 7 tips to create your eyebrow design"
"5 management mistakes you make, that will kill your business (and how to avoid them)"
"101 ways to save money fr a small business"
"11 worse ways to pitch a VC (and how to fix your pitch)"
"Here is why investors will not give you money (and what to do to change that)"
"21 reasons why no one reads your press releases (and how you can fix this)"
"11 ways to dress like Natalie Portman for under $100".

Your opening paragraph should also invoke curiosity, here is an example.
Headline: "7 SEO mistakes you are probably making"
Opening paragraph: "Have you ever seen a first age ranking on Google search that has no keywords in it? Have you wondered how they do it?"

Headline: "7 ways to generate creative headings for your presentations"
Opening Paragraph: "If your presentation slides do not have interesting headings, people will assume that what you have to say is boring too. in this post you will learn tools that will help you generate interesting headlines for your PPT slides, and you can come back to this formula whenever you want to create a presentation."

3 things to avoid when writing your blog
Avoid over promotion:
People do not like self promotional content. If its too commercial they will not read and you lose credibility. List blogs are a great way to provide information for people that is organised and easy for them to absorb. Put yourself in number 2 of the list. 2 is the magic spot. If you put yourself first, you are being too pushy. If you go for place 3, people might just not read a bout you. so in this case its 2 that is the magic number.

Avoid over protectiveness:
People tend to keep all the best stuff to themselves, but blogging is about sharing your wisdom and knowledge. Its a hard decision to make -  where to place your best content.  Neil says that if you are just starting out and need the push from blogs that are stronger than yours, you should give them your best content. This means you cannot post it on your blog because you want to avoid double content. Guest posting and using the authority of popular blogs is a great promotional tool for you and you will get good reputation for publishing good content on such platforms. When you are stronger, you can then keep the good stuff for your own blog.

Avoid snobbery:
The web encourages the writing style to be direct and conversational. So write a lt of "you" and "I" in your content. make your readers feel like you are talking to them. Avoid being over-intelligent and keep your language simple. Dumb down your content so that the widest common denominator of people will understand (I should have written: Dumb down your content so that most people reading it will understand what they are reading:-).

Neil's 6 tips for creating a good infographic
An infographic is a visual tool to explain complex ideas, to slice and to simplify them for your audience. Its a great converting tool. Here are Neil's tips on how to best create them.
1. Keep them visual, use images not words to get your ideas across.
2. 5-6 points/ enhancements make an idea infographic  - do not make them too short or too long, or the conversion rate goes down.
3. The various points should flow - create a story in your infographic
4. Keep the color scheme simple. (BTW blues convert better on Facebook, because this matches their brand)
5. do not forget to put your URL and logo at the bottom
6. put an embedding code for sharing your infographic when publishing it.

Other things that were discussed were the best time to post blogs (depending on the platform you are sharing in), how to get a guest post chance, monotization and promotion of the blog. Remember that people do not always see the first time you promote your blog on a social media platform, so do not be afraid to repeat the post 3-4 times during the 10 days after posting (then come back to it in 6 months time...fr round no. 2 of new readers). Neil also discussed the posting frequency. Although its best to post more often, if you do not have something really good to post and nothing interesting to say, then do not post!

To sum it all up
So why was it worth buying the ticket to hear Neil Patel lecture this week in Israel?
I learned why a blog is good for my business.
I learned of the importance of headlines and how to create good ones.
I learned what to avoid when writing my blog.
I got great tips for creating infographics.
To top it all off I learned about monotization and promotion.
It was great to hear Neil talk, its obvious he has fun being the marketing hackathon that he is,
I feel secure in recommending his marketing blog "Quicksprout". I am sure I will continue to learn.
Thank you Assaf Einstein for inviting Neil back to Israel.

A Marketer's dream - Driving for change in your organization

Many people face various obstacles to change in their lives and feel frustrated that it is so. Many coaches, psychiatrists and consultants make a living from this...I was once told that business relationships are just like personal ones... just in a business context. Not being able to realize your professional dreams in your work place can be just as frustrating as not achieving your personal goals.
This makes me wonder, what should an employee do to realize professional dreams? How can such an employee drive change in the work place so that the dream may take place? Or more specifically, how does a marketer initiate and drive towards innovation and change in the marketing department against a management that is fixed in the habitual ways of doing its business? Here are five tips.

1 - Organize your thoughts:
Its not enough to say "we need to innovate" or "we need to change our marketing"... its not even enough to say "we need a website". You need to define exactly what it is that you need and why.
For example: its true that in today's world every business organisation  needs an online presence. The reason I say this with such confidence is simple. Today everyone who needs information of any kind turns FIRST to the Internet to look for it, so this means your business has to be online so that you can be found by those people who are looking for you. However, this does not necessarily mean that you need a website - there are other methods to be online. Facebook may be the "third largest "country" in the world today" but if your clients are not its citizens, that is not going to help you. A newsletter can be a great tool, but only if your clients bother to read commercial emails in their inbox without chucking them to the "spam" first. You need to take a more detailed look at the idea of an online presence.

You need to crunch the details and define the exact steps required to achieve change, and to make sure that you ideas fit the reality of the organization your work in and the field of business to which you are marketing. To continue the example: consider what are your exact business needs and how can a certain online presence assist in the marketing efforts more than others. Consider where you audience can be found on the web and how do they like to receive their information best. Consider the realistic scope of the budget your managers will approve for innovative marketing initiatives. This brings us to the next tip.

3 - The salami method - slices:
Sometimes its best to cut a big change into smaller steps and take them on one at a time. Smaller projects with smaller budgets are also easier for your managers to accept. Your boss may be willing to experiment on one of your "crazy innovation ideas" if it costs the organisation less money. So cut your big change into smaller chunks and put them in the right order (remember, organize your thoughts...). Then focus only on realizing the first step, and do whatever it takes to make this step happen (the others are sure to follow). Stay focused and keep your managers focused on a target that is easier to grasp and to define. Managers will always find it easier to approve innovative thought if you can show them that its worth it. This brings us to the next tip.

4 - Show me the money!
Show your managers how the new marketing initiative can bring in more money for the organization. The activity you wish managers to approve needs to stand the test of a cost benefit analysis. You can use any kind of backing for your claims. Check statistics online, run a small test and crunch the numbers for your boss. In today's world almost any marketing activity can be measured. If you can rank your marketing activities and find out which is more efficient, you can cut actions that do not bring required results early and use the funds to start on something new instead.
For example: if you know that an online campaign is less effective than an exhibition because you not only get more leads from an exhibition but also each lead is cheaper (this is called Key Performance Index) then you can tell you managers that this is so with confidence. Confidence radiates authority and authority inspires trust. Trust, efficiency and benefits are great selling tools when it comes to management approvals. This brings us to the next tip.

5 - Self marketing - sell your project and yourself
A marketer needs to always sell the various marketing activities and oneself in the organisation. When you have an achievement, you had better be showing it off to everyone in your organization, managers and co-workers alike. Make sure that everyone knows how great you are at your job! If they think you are a great marketer, managers will have a greater tendency to trust your initiatives and approve the budget for them. If you constantly toot your horn about your work, just like you do for the product your organization sells, you will benefit from your own marketing efforts. This brings us to the next tip.

6 - Never give up!
Tenacity is a key factor is achieving whatever it is you set up to do. Be consistent and keep drilling your ideas to anyone who will hear them until the message gets through to management.
Its not just about the business and getting more leads from marketing, its about yourself!  Its great when you can have professional goals to reach for your self development. This will give you motivation to excel at your job and will provide you with flavor for your daily routine. Remember that you must never give up striving for improvement and innovation.

I conclude with a sentence many couches use, but its really does work,so here goes:
Remember to believe in yourself and others will believe in you!
Believe in your dreams, professional and private - work hard to get them and they might just come true...
Food for thought
Good Luck

The importance of creating a focused and effective email campaign for marketers

In the era of internet people have less and less time to actually read content! You may be the best writer out there and no one will know because people just do not take the time to read! The average time span for reading an email is 51 seconds! (according to a survey by Nielsen). White its more than the 8 seconds you get for first impressions in meeting a person face to face, it is precious little time to get your message through.

This means that marketers have to be efficient and attractive in order to get potential customers and readers to actually read the marketing content they provide. How to create  such an email? here are 5 tips.

1 - Create your email campaign according to client expectation: Remember what type of message you have to deliver and make your newsletter look accordingly. there are mostly 3 types of campaigns: Content, offers and events. You are either providing your readers with valuable content - this means usually more text in the email, or you are providing info about a special product or discount - an offer - this usually means a focused email with short text and a link to the coupon or a web shop, or you are announcing an event and want your readers to register (conference, webinar, etc.) this means a shot email with details of the event and a link to register (call to action). Readers have learned to expect a certain look for each type of campaign and the design helps them understand what your email is about, even before they read it.

2 - KISS-keep your message simple and direct: You know people do not have much time, so say what you want to say in a simple, clear and direct manner. Use carefully selected images to enhance your message and create clear and obvious paths for a call to action. Make its easy for your reader to understand what it is you want them to do and why.

3 - Good division of elements in your email: Keep a balance between graphic elements and text in your messages. Too much text may be daunting and a picture is worth a thousand words. A short and focused animation may also be of use, especially for a product launch. Remember that the top left of the screen is scanned by your readers first. Clear division of content and hierarchy of headers and titles to different parts of your email campaign will help readers to understand better what it entails. Use a clear font in a comfortable and readable size. Organize your content and keep it orderly, so that your readers may easily search through it quickly. Use a professional and aesthetic design to further promote yourself as a serious provider of information.

4 - Keep up with the technology: Make your email campaign accessible to new devices and readable in as many platforms as possible. Responsive designs are easily read in most mobile devices (smart phones and tablets) today and are suitable to more than one screen size (alternatively make you message no wider than 500 pixels for easy reading in smart phones...provided it is not too long). GIF animation is supported by most platforms, and even if it is to supported by the emailing system of your reader as an animation, you may be sure that the separate images will still be seen.

5 - Remember to ask questions: the best way to find our what your readers want to read about is to ask them. A short survey email may prove to be a powerful tool to enhance the final emailing campaign you are planning and a means to guarantee its overall success. Contact readers who have been inactive to find out why they have stopped interacting with you. Use the emailing system as an effective sieve to sort our readers who are not truly potential clients for your business and who are not interested in receiving your newsletters.

Remember that eventually, if people feel that they are receiving good value from you, they will remain registered to your newsletters and campaigns. By keeping your message focused and effective, people will be able to evaluate the quality of your email campaign and their interest in it quickly. Showing respect for your readers time and intelligence in making such choices will be reciprocated, when you have upscaled the quality of your distribution list and increased your business following a successful email campaign.

How to Get the Gold out of Social Media?

I recently attended a Facebook marketing seminar and one of the things the presenter said was that the real money is not in the social media but needs to be dug out of there.
so Data Mining has a whole new meaning now. Mine the gold out of Facebook and other social media networks means that you need to get people who surf in these networks to click on a link that  gets them out of the social media and into your marketing funnel - a link to a landing page or your website, depends on how you structure your marketing efforts.

But which social network would give your business the best results? There are a few issues to consider before making this choice:

The first instinct is to day - maximum exposure. but then over time we have learned that in order to get good conversion rates, is you can focus on your public, then quality is better than quantity. The internet gives you the ability to focus on your true public. social media networks like Facebook and linked in are able to cut through the masses and sort out those people who care really interested in your information.

Facebook is able to collect many tidbits of information about the combination of interests of its users, so you can really use its campaigning tool to find exactly who you want to approach with your messages. Placing an advert in the news-feed itself guarantees that it is seen also in mobile smart phones and tablets. these are the viewing platforms of the future and will become increasingly important to your business.
Linked in enables membership in targeted groups and you can use their campaigning tools to reach those groups.

Focusing your efforts is also important. It is very difficult to spread the work in all the various social networks. yo have to be efficient and select the network that is best targeted to your specific audience. Facebook has gotten its users used to commercial content, while twitter and linked in are characterized by a public that is more sensitive to marketing.  You have to also think about the type of product and which way to present it will be the most efficient. If you have lots of interesting pictures, you might consider Instagram or Pinterest (e.g these are great platforms for internal designers). If its video, then YouTube is the most powerful channel out there today, and yes, ?I do regard YouTube as a social media network!
Focusing your message also means that you need to repeat it often. setting up an automatic system of adverts and links is part of getting good results. Frequency should not be too often, but you should be exposed again and again to your potential clients. Twitter has the "retweet" system, which enables messages to be repeated again and again in the network.
Focusing means also thinking locally. Local networks may be more powerful in certain markets, so if you want to penetrate them, looking for the strongest local social media or forum is the best solution, and it usually means posting in the local language as well. Professional forums and magazines could prove to be the best communities in which to reach your audience online.

The trick to an efficient and focused campaign is efficient presence. this means that you choose the best two social media networks that are most suited to your product and marketing strategy (see above in focusing), and you remain active in those networks, putting all your efforts into them. In other networks, where you only need to be present (active low scale), will only serve as background to repeating your postings from active networks and linking into your funnel.

Being active means to engage: Put most of your content into the active social network. Take part in discussions, follow group members, respond to posts and create interesting content. Post your own adverts in these networks, pulling readers out of the social media network and into your landing page  in order to provide the reader a more elaborated experience with your specialized marketing content. Invest your dollars in campaigning in the social media network you have selected to be active in.

Being present means links to the active social media or to existing content on the website, with no special effort at new content or paid campaigns.

Selecting the main network to be active in is not so simple anymore. Social media has become a popular and accepted means of communication and not only for the young. If you have never worked with social media before, it is advised to test all the networks in the first month and then select the ones to be active in based on results and achievements of the test campaign. the internet offers great measuring tools that can dig up data on your campaigns into the finest details.

Flexibility is key: One network is hot today and cold the next. If in the past Facebook catered to the young and restless, it is today becoming a mainstream family network and young users go to the smart phone apps Like "Whats app" and Insatgram.  Twitter was all about news when it started, and now no celebrity who respects themselves will be caught without the ability to "tweet" about every step they take. Being aware if these trends and the changing nature of each of the social media networks is key to launching a successful campaign. Using the measurement tools available to day and monitoring achievements will help you maximize your campaign results. watch your campaigns as they develop and steer them in the right direction, making changes as you learn along the way.

Remember that social media marketing is supposed to serve your product and business. Do not create content jsut for the sake of creating content. Do not purchase "likes"  just so you can have thousands of irrelevant people looking at your posts. Make your posts focused to your clientele and give them links into your marketing funnel for maximum results. Dig the gold out of social media, do not stay behind to wallow in the river's mud...

Email marketing - recommended frequency and other tips

If you are about to use the email marketing method that send all kinds of emails to people you do not know, you might as well do it right! We all suffer under the flood of information (mostly not requested) that flows into our email and social network walls. If you are a marketer and want to use these tools to expose your product, the least you can do is try not to annoy your potential customers.

A marketing colleague of mine says he does not mind annoying his customers with emails. The way he sees it, if someone does not think that the emails they are receiving is giving them value and if they are annoyed by it, they can unsubscribe. My colleague is big on mass emails on a daily basis, claiming that the high quantity is actually a mechanism to filter out readers who are not interested in his offer. He claims that people who are annoyed with his emails unsubscribe and those that stick to it are the people who will also eventually purchase from him. So by flooding the in-boxes of his potential customers (and annoying them in the process) he claims that he filters the true;y interested parties.

All marketers know that its all about exposure. the more people see your message, the more who will eventually buy into you products. So if a marketer keeps the rate of emailing low, the potential customers will not be seeing the product he or she is selling at all.

So what's the right thing to do? marketers annoy their  potential customers if they email them to much, but it they refrain from doing so, they may be missed entirely. I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle. One should create a graduated funnel to market a product, offering free information along the way and distributing that info with automatic emailing software, but one should not overdo it. As long as you are offering your potential client value, they will stick it out, even if they are a bit annoyed on the way by your emails. so its not only about frequency or about value - its about a good  and balanced combination of both. The golden rule of balancing value and frequency will ensure that you annoy less people, but you also get the clients you want to work with, and who think that they receive the most value from you.

So how can that be done? 10 tips to consider:

1. Know who your preferred clients are: What is your value proposition and how much you want them to pay for it. Transcend these issues in focused messages in your emails, and those who are not good clients for you will be sorted out once they understand that your value proposition is not what they are looking for.
2. Strategy and planning: Email marketing is a great and effective marketing tool. But if you want to use it successfully, you need a marketing strategy from day one and a plan that will drive the right customers to your contact lists. Over aggressive marketing can even damage your brand reputation, so make sure you are sending targeted valuable messages to people who are interested in them and who feel that getting your info is making a difference to them. Do not be spontaneous, plan it all out and then work the marketing plan step by step.
3. Do not email for the sake of emailing: Your messages have to contain value to your readers, or else they will opt out of your list and feel annoyed. Flooding in-boxes for the sake of creating as many emails as possible is not the way to go. You can get great exposure using an emailing tool, but use its ability to give you focused and values exposure rather than a flood of irrelevancy.
4. Develop a consistent marketing funnel: Offer you client additional value in each additional message. Each message is also targeted to filter out people who are not interested in or unwilling to pay what we will charge for our services. The further along a client is in the funnel, the more suitable that client is for us, but the more suitable we are form them as well. 
5. Keep your messages focused and interesting: Make it easy for people to understand what value you are offering and how they can get it. Make your emailing an easy read. The message should not be too long before you get to the point. Write with humor, make your massages fun. Keep the spirit of the messages positive.
6. Timing is everything: Do not send too many emails. Daily messages is not the way to go. Think about the value you are offering and what would be a reasonable and valuable time span to receive it in.
7. Keep is clear and simple: If your grandma can understand what you are writing about and what she needs to do, your message is probably clear and simple. clients will find it easy to get their value from it.
8. Give before you take: Provide your client with additional value an free information before you ask them to pay money for additional services. If they receive from you, they will find it easier to give back. The value you give them along the marketing funnel should create their loyalty and trust. Generosity is reciprocated. Clients will then feel more comfortable purchasing from you at your desired price.
9. Call to action: Create a clear style to your message with an obvious heading and a conspicuous call to action , so that people can find it easily and act on it. Its not about being pushy or aggressive, its about providing clear instructions as to the next step. Keep it simple. If people know what to so, they will do it!
10. Good followup and learning: Use the statistic tool of the emailing programs to see who opened your messages and what they clicked on. what they liked and where are they seeing the value. You can then refine your future messages according to what you learned and improve your marketing even more, to the growing benefit of you and your clients.

Email marketing - recognise the trap that floods your inbox

we all know what its like, we get annoying emails that flood our in-boxes and we do not recall subscribing for them at all... what's worse, even if we request to unsubscribe, our request is not always granted. One might think, this kind of cyber behavior is illegal...well, it;s not! Unfortunately...

The anti spam ruling determines that in order to email any content that is commercial - i.e will induce readers to spend money - then one must get permission to do so. Getting permission is usually achieved in two ways.
1 - an non permitted opt in email that contains a short explanation about the offerings and a request for people to register. this is not very effective, and its seen less and less.
2 - an advert or email with a free gift! One must register in order to receive this gift. once you have registered, you have technically given you permission also for commercial emails and the automatic email marketing tools of today have pulled your email into a mailing list that is usually connected to an automatic chain of commercial emails - hence the flooding of your inbox begins.

you are supposed to be able to unsubscribe from this emailing, and all modern emailing tools have an unsubscribe option. This thing is, that all these tools maintain a list of the emails that unsubscribed. So this means the owner of the list can reuse the addresses in another context, and you continue to get emailing to your inbox, even if you unsubscribed! Furthermore the anti spam regulations allow people to send any kind of advertising emails even without permission, as long as you are not being solicited to spend money directly in these emails - they are covered.

It is unfortunate, but the little people are trapped and there is little one can do to stop the flooding.  Here is what you can do

• You can mark certain emails as SPAM and hope that the Gmail and other emailing programs will learn and stop sending messages from such addresses to your inbox.
• You can also unsubscribe consistently - it does eventually lower the amount of emailing you receive. it is advised that you unsubscribe in two ways:

1. Use the link in the email itself, but make sure to read carefully the instructions so that you will indeed unsubscribe and not resubscribe...these mass email services have tricky mechanisms.
2. Write a reply email and request to have them stop sending you emails.

• You can avoid registering your email as much as possible to any free offers and such, and thus not enter the chain at all.

Users of Gmail have a bot of good news, the division of the inbox into 3 categories (primary, social and promotions) mean that usually the promotional mass emails are pushed to the promotions category and you can erase them all in one go! the downside to this new system is that if you  did want to get some promotional information, the email will be indeed found in the promotions section and you need to look for it there in between all the other undesired emailing.

If you are a marketer, remember what its like to have you inbox flooded with junk! using automatic emailing methods is a great way to get exposure to your message and product, I just wish marketers would use this tool with more moderation, so that my inbox would not be flooded with junk, just because I take an interest in what people have to say on the web... lets hope the current flood of junk in everyone's inbox will teach marketers not to flood our inboxes in future.

Vidisco's website has a new look and the Spanish translation is up

The Vidisco website has a new look. Finally I have the pleasure of working with an administrator who can bring out the best in the Drupal open source CMS, on which the Vidisco webiste is based. The new graphics have been up since May 2013, but now the Spanish website is up and running. French and German are also due - If you know how to use Drupal, you can really create large, content rich websites. I can only recommend it as the best CMS for medium size websites and up (but your business has to be able to hire a good administrator and Drupal developer).

www.vidisco.com

The magic of small details in fruit and chocolate

I just completed a small website for a nice lady called Michaela, who has started a new business of fruit and chocolate treats. I think her products are really cool and everything is fresh. From the content side, I especially pride myself on the service pledge I worte for her. I do hope the business is a success.
Her website is http://michaelapri.com/
(in which you can see the content I wrote for the pages on the main top menu)
Enjoy the sweet thing in life...Ofra

Quality Content for your Business

High quality content is the key to all the marketing efforts of a business. Sharpened and focused marketing messages that are customized to customers and potential buyers and distributed to them in all the media platforms is the base of a successful marketing campaign, which will be eventually measured in growth of sales and enlarged business income.
Content fuels the web and drives all the traffic and searches in the Internet.
Website content has two objectives:
Providing the surfers with clear information about the business activity and guiding them to a desired action (contacting the business or purchasing from it). IF this action is conducted, the marketing was a success.
Providing the search engine scanning programs with clear information and providing an infrastructure for web promotion efforts and SEO - in order to improve search engine (particularly Google) result placement of the website to ensure its visibility.
High quality content is require in order to fulfill these objectives. Only quality content can pass on the correct messages and still maintain a professional and earnest ambiance for your business and the website representing it. Only high quality content can properly represent a business in a marketing and sales point of view.
We at CONTENT4ALL will create quality content for you and your business needs, while focusing your marketing messages on potential and existing customers. Our target is to provide you with the infrastructure of a successful marketing campaign that will bring your business more sales, result in an increase of the number of clients and enlarging your business income.