Blogs as Marketing Tools

Imagine trying to find someone to date without ever leaving your house or going online. How would you meet anyone? You wouldn’t. You have to put yourself out there in order to meet potential dates and mates.

Same with marketing. If you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t be found by potential customers.

Blogging is one of the best ways to put yourself out there online…if you’re doing it right, meaning with enough of the right keywords and frequently enough.

As a freelance copywriter and now a Copy Coach, I’ve been promoting blogs as marketing tools for a long time now. But this report from Hubspot should convince you. If it doesn’t, I’ll think you want to “stay single” meaning you don’t want to find new customers!

According to Hubspot, companies that blog enjoy:

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

Still not convinced? Read the article on small business blogging.

Ready to get your blog up and running? Or want help making your blog make more business? Drop me a line!

Is business slow? Maybe now is the time to figure out where your website needs improvement…and do it, before the economy picks up and you get busy again.

Websites prove the age-old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind.” That’s why horrid sites stay that way—we don’t see them, we don’t do anything about them.

Bad sites don’t sell. Bad sites don’t do anything but make you look bad. Can you live with that?

Now, when business is slow, is the time to take a good, hard look at your website and figure out how to make it better…so it makes you money.

Very few websites are the best they can be, or even close to being decent. I’ve been a website copywriter for 13 years. I’ve seen some pretty bad websites.

And I’ve developed a low-cost method for assessing websites and recommending simple changes that can add up to big improvement. I call them website assessments. Not a glamorous name, yet a fitting one, because the report I give clients is straightforward and easy to act upon.

If you’d like to take advantage of this downtime to improve your website, hire me for a website assessment. I’ll review your website. Then I’ll give you a written report and roadmap for improving it as your time and budget allow. Implement all of the suggestions or only a few. Change it yourself or hire someone else to. As long as you do something.

Most of these changes will be basic because people go online to find information, not to be impressed with fancy graphics. There also basic because my experience is that of a website copywriter, not designer. I’ll also give you suggestions for ranking better in the search engines, so people find your site.

When you hire this website copywriter to review your site, here’s what I’ll do:

• I’ll interview you to figure out your target audience and their perceived problems.
• I’ll figure out why they go to your site, how they get there, and what they want to do when they get there.
• I’ll listen as you tell me what you want them to do there.
• I’ll assess your website based on all this information to see how well your website is doing its job.
• I’ll present you with a detailed report outlining recommendations for improving your site to make it a better information and sales tool.

A website assessment costs just $500 for up to seven web pages. A measly $500 for a detailed reporting that spells out what you can do to improve your website as a marketing tool. Best of all, with your assessment in hand, you can make the changes whenever you want, as your time and budget allow.

The recession will end. The economy will pick up. And customers will be back. Be ready to be busy by making your website better now while you have time.

Take it from this website copywriter: Your website has to be good, otherwise you’re missing out on opportunities…especially if you’re not even getting found on the Internet in the first place!

And when the economy does pick up again, the better your website works, the faster you’ll recover from this recession!

To see other assessment I’ve done, to ask questions, or to get started, call 206.459.8225 or email Sharon@weknowwords.com.

Although I see my role as a professional copywriter shifting as the world shifts more towards social media, taking me from Copy Writer to Copy Coach, I predict, I'm paying attention to social media, and have been for a while. 

I get Facebook and LinkedIn and, of course, blogging, since I teach people to use blogs as marketing tools.

But Twitter I continue to struggle to understand. For some businesses, it makes perfect sense. Or else, they've figured out how to make perfect use of it.

Take the Liquor Barn for example. I love their tweets! http://twitter.com/liquorbarn Every day they have a Drink 4Cast 4 2Day that's a drink suggestion tied to some historical event, or celebrity birthday, or anything noteworthy of the day. For example, the Earth Day drink forecast was for Rain Vodka.

These are clever, like little bits of trivia. They don't tell you "come to our store" so they are what I call indirect marketing, a bit of feel good that gives warm fuzzies and builds brand.

Is your online copywriter or company doing something clever with Twitter? Do tell! Post a comment! 

In an SEO newsletter the other day, I read the Twitter question of the week regarding how often should one blog. The answers were all over the place because...

It's the wrong question! 

How often one should blog depends on one's blogging goals. Even as a professional copywriter who ghost blogs for clients, I blog with different frequency depending on their goals.

Below are some of the blogging goals I've come across as a freelance copywriter. Figure out which ones applies to your blog, then you'll know how frequently to blog: 

Blog Goal #1--Internet marketing via SEO: If you're blogging to get found in search engines, then first off I'm assuming you have a great list of targeted keywords picked out. But that's not what this copywriter blog is about, so we'll just leave it at that. As far as frequency, you must blog frequently to win searches. You want to be found in Google? You'd better be blogging at least once a day, preferably more often. The more general (and popular) your keywords, the more often you must blog. For some companies this will even mean hundreds of (very short) blog posts PER WEEK. I'm not kidding. This is not simply blogging. It is Internet marketing, and like all types of marketing, you have to put something in to get something out. In this case, your time.

Blog Goal #2--Thought leadership: You're probably doing this to market yourself, not your company. If you want to build a reputation among your peers, your customers, your friends, you don't have to blog as often, and your blogs will be longer and more meaningful than those of the person pounding them out for SEO. You can blog as frequently or infrequently as you want, because it will be the content that matters, not the keyword usage.

Blog Goal #3--Meaningful blogs that also work for SEO: This is my favorite kind of goal as a ghost blogger, because the content should have real value but it also includes keywords for SEO. If this is your goal, you're less concerned with search engine results, so you don't need the frequency of hundreds of posts per week...but you still need some frequency. As a professional copywriter who ghost blogs for clients, I do one post per day for this goal, as keyword rich as I can make it and as meaningful too.

Obviously if you're using blogs as marketing tools your goals might be a mix of all these. And if you're blogging for other reasons, like to write a book, and not to blog, this copywriter blog post is irrelevant. :-) But I hope this helps you realize that when asking how often to blog, that's the wrong question to ask first. The question to ask first is, "What do I want to accomplish by blogging?" 
 

I’ve heard this question from several small business owners lately: “Why have a Facebook page for my business?” As I re-evaluate what I do as a professional copywriter in the age of social media, i.e. the age of user generated content, where the customers create the copy, not the copywriter, I see my role shifting from Copy Writer to Copy Coach. So I take this social media marketing stuff very seriously!

To answer the question of “why,” I made some notes which you’ll find below. If you have anything to add, definitely post a comment! That is social media!

It’s Web 2.0, user generated content (UGC)…people want to talk back to you, and they want to talk to each other about you. Now that is their expectation, that they will be able to. And Facebook enables that.

It’s free.

It works for B2C companies with loyal customers who want to be engaged by the brands they believe in. If you have a ho hum product or service no one gets excited about, a Facebook page is likely a waste of time.

Facebook pages show up in search results, so it can help with your SEO and getting found when people search online.

You can have a vanity URL that’s easy to share and direct people too, like www.facebook.com/yourcompanyname.

Facebook (and Twitter) icons are now commonplace on websites and in emails, encouraging people to fan (or follow) your company. This is still new enough that people will.

For a small business, a Facebook page can replace a website. You can do all the marketing you want via your Facebook page, even solicit email signups. The only thing it can’t do is online transactions (i.e. letting customers buy from you).

If you go this route, your Facebook page is far easier to maintain and update than a website, and you don’t need to pay for hosting.

You can engage prospects and customers in a way you simply can’t with a website or even a blog.

It’s automatically viral. When someone becomes a fan, that shows up on their profile page. And they can easily invite others to be fans. Imagine someone doing anything like that with your website! It’s inconceivable.

Facebook integrates seamlessly with Twitter and blogging. I don’t want to turn this into a “why use Twitter,” but there is an SEO benefit to using Twitter, and when you have your tweets integrated with your Facebook page, you are updating your Facebook page without effort.

I also don’t want to turn this into a “why use blogs for Internet marketing,” but there are several benefits to blogging, among them SEO and credibility. And, like tweeting, your blog can be automatically posted to your Facebook page, keeping content fresh.

Maybe Facebook is going to become a bigger and more important marketing tool than websites. Facebook can be where you engage, build relationships with customers, and market. Your website might only be where business done, downloaded, bought and sold.

Your customers are on Facebook. It’s the third largest “country” in the world in “population.” That’s how many people use Facebook. In the age of social media marketing, guess what? You follow them. You go where the customers are. And the customers are on Facebook.

Still not convinced? Watch this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8.

And by then I hope the question is: “Why not have a Facebook page for my business?”

Need a Copy Coach to help you get started? Sharon@weknowwords.com standing by…

I'm a professional copywriter. That means it's my job to know words and how to use them, for websites, email, SEO, print, ghost blogging, press releases, etc.

But I've also made it part of my job as a professional copywriter to know about the tools and means used for serving up the copywriting that is my craft. That means learning about online press rooms, for example, or keeping up with changes in search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting. And much, much more! (You'd be shocked how much I know that has nothing to do with being a professional copywriter!) 

My embarrassing ah ha moment happened when I realized blogs would make perfect press rooms. I happen to know a little something about online press rooms (again, not related to being a copywriter, but related to knowing how to present my work). We did a presentation andarticle on online press rooms few years ago.

But that was before I really understood blogs as online marketing tools.

Using a blog for your pressroom is brilliant because it's easy to upload your content, the search engines will find and index those press releases faster (because they prefer blog content over static website content), it's easily searched, you can add static pages with your contact information and company bio...I honestly can't think of a reason NOT to use a blog for your online press room! 

If you've been thinking, yeah, we really need an online press room, but you haven't wanted to put the time and money into it, try a blog. I bet you can be up and running with your press room in less than half an hour. For tips on what to include, definitely read our article at http://www.weknowblogs.com/blog/sharons-marketing-missive/0/0/you-dont-have-to-be-an-online-copywriter-to-market-your-business-online-use-press-releases.

As a freelance copywriter who helps out clients with small business marketing, I am constantly on the lookout for new information to pass along to copywriting clients, especially as social media takes center stage.

I'm already pushing blogs as marketing tools, but these days I'm looking out for nuggets on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, trying to wrap my head around how these tools can be put to use for small business marketing.

So this article of using Facebook for your small business caught my eye when someone retweeted it, but it's more of the same: talking about the how, but not the why, and definitely not about the "how to make money" part of the how.

I'm a copywriter, yes. Words are my business. Web writing is my business. Email copywriting is my business. But I also owe it to my copywriting clients to be up to speed on other marketing channels, so I can make sure my work as freelance copywriter fits with their other marketing efforts.

What small business folks lack more than anything are time and money. What they need more than anything is sound advice.

And that doesn't mean telling them how to set up a Facebook page, and to make sure they have lots of friends and family to get to follow them. That means telling them how to make money, how to market their business and convert prospects to customers using Facebook.

But sadly that means looking beneath the surface of the shiny new thing that is Facebook. And articles like this only encourage more small business folks to jump on the Facebook bandwagon, wasting precious time on a tool they don't know how to use let alone necessarily need.

Am I simply grumpy because I didn't get to ride my horse today? Or am I grumpy because I too am a small business owner and I wants facts, not Facebook.
 

I like Vertical Response as a lower cost small business email marketing platform, and I usually like the CEO's blog, but my feathers got a little ruffled when I read the 2010 checklist of 10 things small businesses should do this year.

As a freelance copywriter, I do work for small businesses. And the two things practically every small business owner have in common are: lack of time, lack of marketing knowledge.

This checklist of 10 things made me squirm in my seat...and I work in marketing! 

I pity the small business owner who reads that, gulps, and throws his or her hands up in the air in despair. These folks are too busy running their businesses to implement even half of a list like this.

Years ago in my early days as a copywriter (yikes, that was 10 years ago!), I read this marketing advice: Do a few simple things. Do them well. Do them consistently.

For me as a freelance copywriter, I confess I started out with a three page marketing plan when I started my business. Hey, I'm in marketing! I should have a long, convoluted marketing plan, right? Over the years as I got busier (i.e. had less time) and smarter (i.e. had more experience), my marketing plan shrunk to less than a page.

Small business marketing has to be simple, easy and affordable. There's no one-size-fits-all plan for it. It might be small business email marketing. It might be blogs as marketing tools. It might be networking.

But it has to be a short list of simple things a busy guy or gal can do well and consistently. Not a list of 10 pie-in-the-sky ideas.

Yes, I admit it. I’m weird. I’m a copywriter who loves writing whitepapers. Is it because I spend too much time alone and my mind is warped? Is it the wet Seattle weather? Or maybe my hours spent as an SEO copywriter has damaged my perspective?

Nah. It’s none of those things. I enjoy working on whitepapers because they are such great sales tools, and because they give me as a copywriter the chance to really delve into the customer’s mindset.

I just got off the phone with one of my favorite copywriting clients. We are about to do three whitepapers around a new product launch, so this morning’s call was to get me ramped up. But we don’t spend all our time talking about how the product can do A, B and C. No, I as the copywriter want to know what to say based not on the product’s capabilities (what it can do) but rather based on the customer’s worldview (what do they want).

I get to learn about, and write to, their pain points, desires, daily frustrations and wish lists in a way I can’t do when a copywriter for ads or direct mail pieces.

The benefit for you as the marketer is the appeal of the whitepaper because it’s customer centric. The potential customer who downloads your whitepaper is pretty sure he or she is going to get mostly factual, useful information, not a 5-page sales pitch. That’s a feel good in your favor as the company they might buy from!

And crazy as I might sound, I think whitepapers are easy to write! They are straightforward and objective. They don’t require clever turns of phrase or picturesque verbosity. They are what they are.

I’ve also written enough whitepapers, and studied information about writing whitepapers, to have a structure I use pretty much every time. That’s how straightforward it is.

Plus they can be about a variety of topics. I started out writing whitepapers for high tech only, but over the years We Know Words copywriters have even written whitepapers for the corporate travel industry, and we wrote a series of banner ads and landing pages for a whitepaper written for the HR industry.

Whitepapers. They rock. For the copywriter and the customer both. Are you using them as part of your marketing mix?

To see a bit more about whitepapers written by We Know Words copywriters, go to http://weknowwords.com/whitepapers.htm.

Hmmm… I love them so much, my next blog topic might just be on how whitepapers help you date your prospects and customers!

You can market your business on the Internet without being or using an online copywriter. Use press releases  and an online press room. And here’s how, in an article written a couple of years ago by Marina Parr, when she worked for We Know Words as a copywriter. It’s great advice for anyone with a Web site who wants to improve their SEO! So here it is again…

Who needs on online press room? You do. But the reasons go beyond reaching the media and gaining coverage in next day's newspaper. These days a press room is just as much a "customer room" as it is a place aimed at journalists. Build one correctly, and you're able to use online press releases to tell your company's story directly to whoever is searching on the Web, boosting your credibility with both media and your potential customers. And with customers shopping online for everything from flowers to shoes to cars to enterprise management systems, they are just as likely to end up researching you at your press room as the reporter at the local paper.

Fact is, your online press room's real power is in boosting your visibility on the Web, a cluttered place where search engines crawl through content everyday looking for new, updated information. It's the kind of information that you can naturally add to your press room through online press releases, recent articles and awards, and much more without using and online copywriter or SEO copywriter. So not only are you telling your story to Wesiteb visitors and journalists alike, but your press room's fresh, search engine friendly content is helping people find you in the first place by using press releases for SEO.

An online press room, at its heart, is all about you. It's your best chance to use online press releases to tell your story from all angles, whether it's facts and figures, photos and bios, or logos and slogans. Configure it correctly and fresh content will build your web presence, help the media "get it right" when writing about you and help you connect directly with customers who may not have been looking for you in particular, but will be glad they found you! And you'll be glad to find out you can achieve that kind of SEO without using an online copywriter.

Now that you're convinced you'd benefit from online press releases and a press room, here are nine tips to help you build one relatively quickly and painlessly (really).

Nine tips for building an online press room that builds your online presence

Tip 1: Consider your online press room as an extended About Us page. This is your opportunity to present facts and figures-from when you started your business to where you're located to how many people you employ. It's also a place to flesh out your company's philosophy, give kudos to key employees, note awards you've won and post articles that have been written about you-or in some cases, for you.

Tip 2: You can pump up your online presence further by using press releases for SEO, sprinkling keywords that people naturally search on into the online press release copy you post. It's a simple way to boost your search engine rankings-and get found.

Tip 3: And when you suddenly have a story to tell, your press room positions you to communicate directly with the media, giving journalists instant access to critical information about your company. In addition to being used in online press releases, that information can be boiled down into two to three sentences for journalists to copy and paste into their own stories with little editing. It makes it that much easier for you to help the news media define who you are, rather than them defining you.

Tip 4: Even though you're using press releases for SEO, this is still online PR. Make sure your press room includes all the ingredients the media needs to write and report their stories. That means including key contact information--both email addresses and phone numbers--so reporters on a deadline can reach the right people right away. Also be sure to include a corporate bio and include basic data, including when the company was founded, the number of employees, location, gross annual revenue and other objective, background information that can be dropped into a story.

Tip 5: Think in terms of pictures when thinking about online PR. Nothing tells your story better than pictures that add a human element. So be sure to include photos of founders, directors and other key players. It also helps to have a jpg of your logo, as well as a scenic shot of your operations. Again, you help shape your story by providing reporters with the photos you choose.

Tip 6: Both in your online press releases and your press room, offer easy-to-find links to other information customers or reporters might be looking for: information about the company and its principals, information about your product or service such as product sheets or case studies, recent articles written about your company, etc. An online press room has to be straightforward and not overly salesy. Reporters will spot the hard sell and click away, and so will regular customers who happen to wander into the press room, either on purpose or by chance.

Tip 7: To use press releases for SEO, regularly create online press releases and submit them via an online service like PR Newswire. Or simply add them to your site as separate pages, and link to them from your press room. Regularly can be just twice a year, if necessary, just make sure it's regular (keeping in mind that they more frequently you update content on your Web site, the happier the search engines will be with you). And even if you don't spend the money to submit them online, still add them to your Web site. It shows both prospects and search engines that you keep your site current. After all, these days your online press releases about getting covered in the New York Times; as they're about telling your story to a potential customer as much as to a journalist.

Tip 8: Include a descriptive sentence or two with links to your online press releases, so journalists and regular folks know what they're clicking on. Too many press rooms provide long lists of press releases without enough supporting information telling someone why they should click on a link and what they'll find if they do. Without that summary information, visitors won't bother to click-and you miss the chance to enhance how you're viewed and written about.

Tip 9: Don't treat your online press room as a last-minute afterthought. Think of it instead as a portal to the rest of your Web site-and your company's credibility. Your press room can be-and should be-one of your most information rich, keyword loaded, always changing sections of your Web site. Your press room is also your opportunity to provide visitors a more personal look at you, your employees and your company. And because people don't always enter Web sites through the home page, prospects searching online for information might find your online press room first. So make the most of it by giving it plenty of your attention.

In short, your online press room is really a full view of you and your company, as well as a tool for SEO. Think of yourself in front of the dressing room mirror and take advantage of every angle-from the pictures you post to the articles to the press releases you use for SEO to a three-sentence corporate summary that can be quickly copied and pasted. You're in charge of how you present yourself…and how you get found online in the first place. The power is in your hands. Use it!

And if you find that this sounds too hard and you do want to hire an online copywriter or SEO copywriter to help, go for it. That or use blogs as marketing tools instead!

Note: This Seattle copywriter has been cleaning up a very cluttered We Know Words copywriting Web site. I’ve deleted a ton of files and pages and consolidated and made it much more manageable. I see now what Gerry McGovern means by being a “putter upper.” If blogs had been as easy (and if I’d understood them as well) back in 2002, I would have built a blog to market my copywriter services, not a Web site! Anyway, as I streamline the We Know Words Web site, I find stuff I don’t want to get rid of, so I’m moving it here to this copywriting blog instead. Plus I came across this little plug, and realized I might not have ever plugged my marketing tips ebook in this copywriting blog, oops! OK, enough preface…

Most small business owners can't afford professional marketing help. Nor do they know enough about marketing to do it well. That's why I compiled this ebook, "Marketing in a Minute."

Small business owners want to grow their companies. But growth requires sales, and sales require marketing, and many small business owners struggle with marketing... and time. So they don't necessarily have the skills, nor do they have the time to learn how to do the marketing.

That's where these marketing tips come in. They are short, easy to digest and easy to apply. Without investing in any expensive marketing program. "Marketing in a Minute" offers 104 such marketing tips, written for the realities of small business budget and time constraints.

So where does a marketing ebook crammed full of 104 marketing tips come from? Does one just sit down and write it? Not in this case. It took years to create this book...

In 2002, I took my copywriting prowess and started writing weekly tips and dispensing them via email to small business owners who desperately needed marketing help but couldn't afford to hire a marketing agency like We Know Words. The marketing tips were deliberately short and basic, but offered new ideas for those too focused on running a business to be a real marketer. The tips were nothing fancy, just text and just enough to fit in one's Preview screen. They covered print, Web writing, email marketing and more. I dubbed them "Sharon's Marketing Minutes" and made sure each one could be read in a minute or less. (Hence the title, "Marketing in a Minute.")

I wrote the weekly tips for almost 2 1/2 years until I ran out of time, but not out of ideas. The feedback was always so positive, and more than one subscriber confessed to archiving the marketing tips for future reference. When I announced that I was going to stop writing the marketing tips due to lack of time, many subscribers emailed to say, "Put the tips together in a book."

It took years, but most of the marketing tips are now gathered together into one extremely useful resource for small business owners and those in charge of marketing for a small business.

This Seattle copywriter is finally updating the We Know Words web site. It's a running joke that I need to hire a website copywriter to keep the web site maintained! But a pleasant lull in the copywriting business is making the update doable.

Part of the update is simplifying the site since I now rely more on blogs as marketing tools. (More on that in my next blog.) But I as a copywriter have a tendency to get a little fond of copy. As a result, I'm posting an article on email newsletters here since it's being deleted off the copywriting web site. It's an oldie but goodie and maybe a bit unusal to spot here since I've become such an evangelist for blogs as marketing tools. Why would I be encouraging the use of email newsletters? Granted they are not necessarily the best choice for small business marketing, but for the right size business, and right business, email newsletters are still great for marketing, even in an age of social media. Enough explaining, here's the article...

Market with email newsletters
Perhaps the hardest part of marketing is to keep doing it. The irony is, this is also one of the most important. One contact with a potential customer is less effective than repeated contacts over time. We also live in a world of skepticism and doubt, a world where trust matters more than price when people make buying decisions.

To market effectively, you need to establish and nurture a relationship with a prospect. Ditto for existing customers: Once someone has bought from you, don't assume she'll be back someday. You must stay in touch with her on a regular basis so she'll think of you next time she's ready to buy, and possibly refer you to others in the meantime.

So how do you stay in touch with your past, present and potential customers on a regular basis? E-newsletters. An e-newsletter is perhaps the most effective and cost-effective way to build and maintain relationships that earn their trust. And trust is crucial to sales.

E-newsletters reinforce your other marketing efforts too by:

·         Driving traffic to your Web site through links and special offers.

·         Establishing credibility and positioning your business as a leader and resource.

·         Improving your search engine rankings: Archiving the newsletters on your Web site adds to your content, and search engines love good content!

So why are we suggesting email rather than print? It's cheaper than printing and mailing a hardcopy version, for one thing. Plus you don't know if a snail-mailed newsletter even gets read or if it goes straight into the recycling bin. With an emailed newsletter, you can know right away how many people opened it and even how many clicked on a URL to go to your Web site. Email marketing also gets a higher response rate than direct mail: 10-15% compared to 1-2%.

Of course, as with all good marketing, your results depend on doing your e-newsletter correctly. Newsletters that are infrequent, boring, purely promotional, or sent to people who didn't ask to hear from you only harm your marketing efforts. But do your email newsletter right, and you will reap the rewards of that ongoing contact as you build relationships, earn trust…and make sales.

Stories are compelling. Stories are how people passed along knowledge, lore and culture for thousands of years before the written word. If you have children, you know how compelling stories can be: There are some stories kids can’t hear enough. (I used to know “The Little Engine that Could” by heart, I read it so many times to my son when he was little.) Even longer books keep kids engaged: “Wolf Story” is a chapter book I read dozens of times to Evan, then later to his sister.

Or think about a dinner party: Who’s the most entertaining guest? The story teller, the one who spins the yarns while everyone listens and laughs.

Whether you're marketing your small business, freelancing as a Website copywriter or SEO copywritier, or focused on blogs as marketing tools, you should be telling stories every chance you get.

It’s part of what I call Indirect Marketing. The soft sell. The nuance. The influence. You tell a story about, say, a customer, and other potential customers will relate to that customer’s story much more than they’ll relate to you talking about you.

Here’s an example from the University of Washington Foster School of Business Web site, telling a story about how one person is involved at the corporate level to get other C-level executives interested in getting involved with the school too. The story is about Bill Ayer, CEO of Alaska Airlines, and his personal and business involvement with the school. By telling his story, we’re encouraging other execs to picture themselves there too, playing a similar role and getting a similar benefit.

Stories happen all around you all the time. You just have to get your antenna tuned to notice them. Then, guess the best place for your stories? Your Web site definitely, maybe your email newsletter if you do one, but your blog is the best place for your stories. Your stories can start there, in your blog, where it’s easy to post them. Then they can morph into Web content, printed content, an article in your email newsletter, etc. But if you’re blogging and constantly scratching your head, while at the same time using blogs as marketing tools, start telling your stories!

And you’ll be a hit at the next dinner party too.

p.s. Yes, I wrote the  Bill Ayer story after interviewing him. Delightful person and the only person I've ever met who talks faster than I do!

I would like to request a copy of your e-marketing book.  I thoroughly enjoy your Web site...such great information. Each morning I look forward to reading new posts on your Blog, and if not a new post...a previous one.  We are in the process of redesigning our Web site and the information you provide has been very helpful. Yes...you “extremely bright, talented, informed and fun” women may indeed be the best copywriting agency on the West coast J

Lynn Mitchell

Woodland Scenics