My office phone jingled. “Blogging Bistro. This is Laura.” “Hi. My name is Beth.* I own a local store.” Long pause. “I started a blog. But it’s… well… really ugly. And I hate writing it. But I know I need it. Do you write blogs? How much do you charge?” I smiled. More than a […]
[ Read more ]Joshua Williams listens to his customers… and responds. The manager of The Salt Shaker bookstore in Enumclaw, Washington, Joshua has created a comfortable space for folks to browse everything from books to video rentals to gifts to church supplies. The store’s children’s department features a custom Noah’s Ark reading and play area. In addition to […]
[ Read more ]Type your business name into Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Right now. What did you discover? Does your company dominate the first five pages of search results? The first page? Does your business appear at all? In my March Relationship Marketing column for the Snohomish County Business Journal (Washington state), I explain the 3 Ps for […]
[ Read more ]An increasing amount of blogs are implementing interactive commenting systems that encourage readers to engage in conversation — not just with the blog’s author, but with each other. I’ve enjoyed participating in these forums on others’ blogs, and after evaluating several commenting systems, I installed Disqus (dis·cuss • dĭ-skŭs’), a free, easy-to-use comment moderation tool. […]
[ Read more ]Rebtel. Zillow. Zune. Napster. Simpy. Ning. They’re all made-up company or product names. Some of them resonate with us. Some don’t. But one thing’s for certain: made-up names are the rage. Wordoid is a free online service that makes inventing a catchy, made-up name for your business or product a bit easier (not to mention […]
[ Read more ]What’s In It For Me? WII-FM. Every marketing piece you produce must answer this question.That’s because your customers don’t care about you. They’re far more interested in themselves. If you hope to sell them your product or service, you must set your dial to WII-FM. In the March issue of SpaRetailer, a trade magazine for […]
[ Read more ]“I don’t understand blog posts, emails and other messages that begin with an apology,” writes Seth Godin on his blog today. My readers and clients often ask me: If life gets in the way and I haven’t blogged in a while, should I apologize to my readers when I return? No. Frankly, the vast majority […]
[ Read more ]I read about the popular site, Please Rob Me, on Joan Stewart‘s (aka, The Publicity Hound) blog. Please Rob Me publicizes “opportunities” for robbing “recent empty homes” of those who announce their whereabouts via the foursquare app on their cell phone. If you set foursquare to automatically broadcast your location to your Facebook and Twitter […]
[ Read more ]All Nippon Airways (ANA) ran a test to try and convince passengers on their plane use the toilet before boarding. The theory: The average human bladder holds about 16 ounces. If 150 passengers relieve themselves during the flight, this would add approximately 139 pounds of waste. Supposedly, heading to the loo before boarding would save […]
[ Read more ]You’ve drafted a blog post, magazine article, non-fiction book, or novel. Now it’s time to weed out the “illegal” words – vague, filler words that clutter your story. Here’s an exercise to help you cut the wordiness from your piece: Choose an “illegal” word or phrase from the following list: very really rather just simply […]
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