Web Copywriter

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.

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…

Sigh...

Why is it people think anyone can be a copywriter? I just did a rush job as a website copywriter trying to save a project for a poor soul with hardly any budget or time. She had been sucked into what I think sounds like a shifty web designer deal. He hired some friend of his to write her website. She didn't like the copy. She turned to me in desperation, with little money and a hard due date of today.

I deleted 90% of the crap I was given that the supposed freelance "copywriter" had done. It wasn't poorly written. It wasn't wrong. But it wasn't doing its job. This guy had gone off on some tangents that while potentially helpful information to a prospect later in the sales cycle were totally irrelevant and useless as far as the website's job: marketing this person.

Not only did I delete most of the thousands of words, I completely redid the sitemap. None of the copy made sense, none of it, not even the structure.

In only seven hours, I did the best I could and the client now thinks I'm a goddess. (I even did some basic SEO, but very little.) But it's not going in my freelance copywriter portfolio because I know how much better it would be if I'd had the time. And this woman has to move forward with a "good enough" website, having wasted money on the schlep.

Too many freelance writers pass themselves off as freelance copy writers. They think because they can write, they can write copy. And people seem too accepting of whatever their writer gives them. So we get literally millions of bad websites, poorly written direct mail, spam instead of email copywriting, ads that do nothing but take up space in a magazine...I could go on and on.

The best copywriter is the copywriter who knows marketing as well as she knows words. And she knows her strengths. I am strong as a:
 

• Website copywriter
• Email copywriter
• Whitepaper writer
• Case study writer
• Newslettter writer

I do not do, because I don't know how to do:
 

• Script writing
• Speech writing
• Presentations (OK, I can do these, I just don't want to)
• True journalism
• Catalog copywriting
• Those convoluted direct mail pieces that have letters and postcards and...

I know my strengths, I know my limitations, and I'm honest about both. Every professional copywriter should be.

People, if you are hiring a freelance copywriter, be picky! Don't assume simply because they say they are a copywriter that they are. Ask for proof. Don't be afraid to question the samples you're given. Expect more.

This is your marketing, your branding, your voice, your reputation. Do you want the best copywriter for the job? Or any ol' freelancer with a laptop?

 

Web writing can be a tricky business for a professional copywriter: You're never quite sure what you're going to be working with for a design, sitemap, clarity of message...I wrote my first website in 1997, if you can believe it, way before I even knew what a professional copywriter was! And in the 13 (gulp) years since then, I don't think I've done two website copywriting projects that were the same.

I really like what we were just able to do for Contract Controllers, a CPA firm, and this was a first for me: They had a set template and sitemap for me to work with, because of the company doing their site. But they were smart enough to know that even with a design that wasn't one-of-a-kind, their message better be! 

So they called me in as their professional copywriter. (Am I being self serving here? Probably, but this blog really is about them!)

They were great to work with, and the project went smoothly for this website copywriter. But I give them kudos for recognizing the need to stand out, to have a unique message.

I was a little frustrated with the company putting together the site because they wouldn't let us use unique Title tags (critical for SEO!). And certain elements couldn't be changed. But for the most part as the freelance website copywriter, I'm a happy camper because Contract Controllers got a decent looking site that tells their story.

See the site at http://www.contractcontrollers.com.

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 just got off a conference call for a new website copywriter project. I call these kickoff calls, and I warn my new copywriting clients that they will be answering a lot of questions during such a call. That's because of my mantra about talking to customers, not at them. The only way I as the freelance copywriter can truly write to the customer is by understanding where the customer is coming from, his pain points and challenges, her worldview.

During the past hour, I didn't ask a single question about the services provided by my web writing client. I only asked about their customers. And in doing so, I learned about the services offered...from the customer's point of view. That's exactly what I want, as the copywriter, to tell my client's story from the point of the customer.

And it was a great call because more than once I'd ask a question and the client would pause, say, "That's a great question!" then give me a very thoughtful and insightful answer...because they had to think about it! That tells me it's good info for me, as the copywriter!

Talking to your customers, not at them. It's not hard. It's just different. And effective.

Last week as part of our 12 days of Christmas festivities, I took my daughter and her friend to the Washington State History Museum and then to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We got to the restaurant early, before 5:00 even, but because it was the holiday break, there was already a wait for a table.

The hostess said 10 minutes but sat us in less than five. The two girls were both surprised and impressed! Plus we got a table in the trolley when the hostess had only replied “maybe” when we requested it.

That shows the power of under promising and over delivering. And the power of the experience. Our dining experience started out on a positive note, and even if things had gone wrong from that point forward, our attitude was bound to be good and our meal enjoyable.

The hostess could easily have said, “Oh, it will just be a couple of minutes.” But the restaurant gained an emotional advantage when she said 10.

The girls were still talking about this when we walked to the car after dinner. Their reaction made such an impression on me, I’ve been looking for a copywriting lesson to pull from this. This approach works in marketing and sales, but in copywriting?

As a freelance Seattle copywriter, I try to under promise and over deliver on projects, meaning I often over-estimate the amount of time I think a project will take (and therefore the amount of the final bill), then I happily get the project done in less time and delight my clients with a bill under budget. (This doesn’t happen every time! But I finally after 9 years of doing this learned it’s easier to over estimate and charge less than the opposite!)

But when it comes to the actual copywriter end product--the website, email, direct mail postcard, ghost blog, whitepaper or press release--how does a copywriter under promise and over deliver, and should I?

I do cringe when clients ask me for copywriting that promises the moon and I suspect they can’t deliver it.

Alternatively if someone can offer the moon but I as the copywriter don’t tell prospects that, we likely won’t get their attention in the first place, meaning what we deliver is irrelevant.

On the other hand, I’m relentless at times, hounding clients to give me a moon to promise. I recently worked as a Web site copywriter for a client with a wonderful story to tell…and they reined me back in copywriting wise again and again and again.

I don’t have the answer. I know I don’t like to get less than I expect when I spend my money. And I often do! I’m delighted when I get more than I expect, which happens on occasion. But the sad thing is, I’m delighted when I get just what I expect because I’m so used to the over promise, under deliver that seems prevalent today.

Does that mean my clients must promise the moon…and then deliver even more than that? That would certainly wow the new customers and turn them into lifelong fans. But is it possible?

I don’t have the answer. Only a fond memory of two young ladies learning the power of the under promise, over deliver approach.

Because I detest updating my Web site, being a copywriter, not an html guru, I don't put recent copywriting samples up on it. I told myself I would start blogging on projects as I completed them instead, so at least somewhere online, this copywriter would be showing off her prowess with samples.

It's December 28 as I type this copwriter blog, and I think I maybe blogged on recent copywriting projects um...twice?? This year I resolve to do better! And not only because potential clients need to be able to see my work and the types of companies I work for, but because they might learn from seeing these samples too. Or not. Maybe blogging on my copywriter projects is purely self serving! 

This project took a while to go live when my Website copywriter role was over, so I was delighted to see it finally. In those cases, I often have forgotten what I wrote by the time I see the finished product, so it's a pleasant treat to see the Website copywriting with fresh eyes and think, "hey, that's pretty good!"

The Website is www.maxsampartners.com and the challenges were unique. I didn't have to worry about keywords and SEO, but I had a very restrictive template to work within, which dictated not only the word count for each section and page, but the character counts even! Seriously, headings, captions, text, bulleted lists...every section had a set character count to work with.

It was a totally different Website copywriter experience for me as a result, and fun! Fun trying to make sure I was getting the core marketing messages across while still being compelling and interesting and all within a tight space.

And as much as I love being an SEO copywriter, it was nice to take a break from keywords and thinking on all that stuff.

Here’s another analogy for proving marketing is like dating: Think of personal ads. Why? Because words can woo.

Even with online dating sites like Match.com, you don’t rely solely on the photos. Heck, plenty of people (mostly men for some reason) don’t even put up photos. The words still matter. You read someone’s profile and decide if it resonates with you or not.

Let’s take search engines and search results as an example…

Like your personal ad, you can write these to say anything you want, as long as they also have the search terms you want to get found for. The goal of this search result is first, to get found, and second, to get someone to click through and go to your site, for this copy to resonate with the prospect. You don’t get to use any pictures, so it’s like the personal ads of old, when people put their ads in newspapers.

Now think of the search result someone gets when searching on Google, using the We Know Words copywriting Website as our example. Type Seattle copywriter into Google and sure enough, We Know Words is on the first page (under that horrid local search map, gads I hate those things!).

What people get for a search result is the title tag and description I’ve written for a particular page on the We Know Words Website. In my case, this is really bad, I don’t know that it would resonate with anyone, honestly…  

Marketing writer - Seattle copywriter portfolio of web writing and ...

Copywriting portfolio of ads, brochures, case studies, datasheets, emails, Web content and more showcases the singular talents of the marketing writers at ...

But besides the fact that this Seattle copywriter is maybe acting like the cobbler whose children have no shoes, my advice is still sound. J Have your copywriter, whether freelance or in-house, write your website copy, brochure copy, email copywriting, whatever it is, as if she were copywriting a personal ad.

If I were to rewrite my title tag and description as a personal ad, keeping in mind that I have to achieve both search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion (getting people to click on the link and go to my site), I could do it as:

Marketing writer - Seattle copywriter portfolio of web writing and ...

Searching for a stellar freelance Seattle copywriter? See complete portfolio of print copywriting, email copywriting, Web copywriting and more.

I want to keep marketing writer in the Title tag, because it ranks well in Google, but I’m pushing Seattle copywriter as a keyword a bit more so it’s in there twice now. That’s my SEO. But I also made it more action oriented.

OK, maybe not the best example of having your copywriter write marketing ads, but like the cobbler, this copywriter has to get some client work done! No more indulging in blogging for now!

My friend Mavis is a freelance copywriter like me. But she calls herself a story teller. And it's true. Copywriters are story tellers. Companies hire us copywriters to tell their stories on their Websites, in their email marketing, in their blogs...at least the smart companies do.  

People love stories. Maybe it’s because for most of human existence, we’ve relied on oral traditions to pass along information, lore and lessons. Whatever the reason, watch a room full of children enraptured by a story teller, and you’ll see that same attention given to a compelling speaker standing before a room full of adults…if he or she is telling a story.

Here’s a recent example that makes my copywriter point so well, I will simply…tell the story!

Last month I went with a friend to visit his friends, a family of four in Idaho. It was a nine-hour drive from Seattle to their little town of 1,500 residents, and their impressive 32-acre spread. Among the two kids, four dogs, 13 horses and more cats than I could count were 300 chickens being raised for eggs and meat. Matt, the patriarch of this affair, works 50 miles away in the city of Boise. He trucks in cartons of eggs when he heads to the city for people to buy, but people also come to their place to buy the fryers.

When he first started this little side business, he was shocked not only to find out that people would pay $20 for a chicken, but that they’d drive 50 miles from the city to do so. In his mind, the economics just didn’t work out as far as the real cost of that little fryer.

As he told me, the Seattle copywriter, this story, I wasn't surprised at all. I was rather envious that I didn't have more copywriting clients like Matt, with stories that just tell themselves...

That's because those customers are buying so much more than that fryer! They are buying the whole experience of driving out to the country. They are buying the chance to interact with a real country boy (because even at 46, Matt is still very much a country boy!). They are buying a chicken that lived a healthy, wholesome, natural life…as opposed to a factory raised one.

The first time a customer asked if the chicken she was buying had lived a good life, Matt thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. And I’m not surprised. It’s all part of the story.

The story. It’s all about the story. Whether you’re talking about chickens or Hummers, it’s all about the story. The one we tell ourselves as part of the buying process. The one we experience as we buy. The one we tell others about our purchase. We humans love stories.

We copywriters love stories too. Wheter it's Web writing or brochure copywriting, story telling makes our work more fun and more effective.

So go forth, copywriters and marketers, and tell those stories! We're listening!
 

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.