Writing Power-Packed Sales Letters
By · CommentsThe Proven Formula For Writing Powerful, Effective Online Ads, Landing Pages, Sales Letters and Email Marketing Pieces!
First of all, I want to pass along to you a formula that is quite ‘Old School’ and not as sexy as more modern Buzz Words - but one that serves me well even today. What it amounts to is a bare-bones structure that will work for every ad you ever write.
- Headline: If at all possible, grab the reader’s attention by appealing to a strong desire that you think he possesses. Again, I want to point out that it’s possible to grab the reader’s attention with just about any kind of startling headline, but, to the degree that headline isn’t directed at his immediate needs, you’ll have to be all the more benefit oriented very quickly in the copy immediately following the headline. If the headline appeals to the reader’s needs, it gives you a big head start.
- Subheading, opening paragraph, or both: Again, your focus should be on trying to make the reader say to himself, “Hey, this ad is about me!” If you don’t accomplish this right from the outset, the chances are excellent that the reader will move on to the next page. People are interested only in ads that propose something that will be to their benefit. By now, this should be a great truth indelibly stamped on your forebrain.
- Body copy (main text): State every reason you can think of why the reader should reach into his pocket and buy your product or service. Twenty reasons may not be enough. It may be the twenty-first reason that causes him to buy. You’re paying for every inch of white space in the ad, so do both yourself and the reader a favor and fill most of it with copy. The more reasons you can think of why the prospect should buy your product, the better your chances of selling him. Give it your best shot; it may be the last one you’ll ever have to sell the person who’s reading your ad right now.
- Closing: Close the sale by (A) throwing in one or two parting lines, perhaps repeating your strongest selling points and then ‘Tell Them What To Do‘! Tell them ‘click here to buy‘ or ‘Join our Ezine Now‘. Leave nothing to chance, tell them what’s next.
German most influential tech blog on auction on Ebay
By · CommentsRobert Basic, owner of the most influential tech blog in Germany called Basic Thinking, decided to start something new from scratch and to sell his blog on Ebay. As he wrote on his blog, Basic Thinking generated around 37 000 Euro annual income. Current auction price on Ebay has reached around 24 000 Euro.
Germany is big and important Web market, and in my opinion, having a blog named to be as “the most influential German tech blog”, or to be classified like “German Techcrunch” deserves much better price from that, especially with that annual income.
My opinion is that influential blogs are worth much more and with blogs, not everything is counted by pure math - like how much income it generates. In many cases, a certain blog is much more valued because of the influence it has
Crunchies finalists, runner-ups and winners announced
By · CommentsThe Crunchies, a TechCrunch 2nd annual show where Silicon Valley opinion makers, startups, investors and everyone else involved and interested in Web 2.0 gathered, in the sold-out ceremenony, in front of 900 people spotlighted best people, companies and services in their opinion for 2008.
I will include here only winners (because winners take all :-)):
Best Application - Google Reader
Best Technology Innovation/Achievement - Facebook Connect
Best Design - Cooliris
Best Bootstrapped Starup - GitHub
Most Likely To Make The World A Better Place - GoodGuide
Best Enterprise Startup - Amazon Web Services
Best International Startup - eBuddy
Best Clean Tech Startup - Project Frog
Best New Gadget/Device - iPhone 3G
Best Mobile Startup - Evernote
Best Mobile Application - Imeem Mobile
Best Startup Founder - Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone (Twitter)
Best Startup CEO - Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Best Overall Startup In 2008 - Facebook
10 tips for successful communication with editors
By · CommentsIf your work involve (online) PR you communicate quite often with editors of web sites and magazines of your interest. Here are some tips that can be of help.
1. Don’t send immeditely you see some new section/site about your/your client industry. Find some time and read what kind of articles they publish, how they are written to see if they use more formal or funky style in writing, how long are the articles etc.
2. Go to the meeting with the editor. Many people never find time to see the editor of the certain site/magazine. They think it is enough to send a press release and content-hungry editors will publish it if they like it. Internet is great but don’t avoid face2face meetings.
3. Don’t send the same press release to everyone. Try to identify your most important media partners and adjust your press release and content of your email to them. It is not enough just to change the name of the recipient when you write Dear, [editorname]. Everyone likes to see that they are important, and also not many editors like to publish the same content like dozen of other media.
4. Don’t bold keywords and sentences in your press release. Editors are smart enough to know what is important and what is not so imporatnt.
5. Send objective news and not over-hyped press releases. Usually editors don’t want to publish over-hyped press release because they will sound as a free ad and not informative news and they won’t bother to adjust your press release.
6. Proofread your press releases.
7. Give a proper Subject name for your emails. Many people send press releases with blank Subject line or with the Subject line: For immediate release
8. Send your press release in the body of email and as an attachment. Because many editors won’t publish it immediatelly and they want to save the file somewhere, but some other editors don’t like getting attachments. Also, some local letters can be shown in error if sent in email because of recipient email client’s settings.
9. Don’t be pain in the ass. Once you sent the news don’t call every day and ask when it will be published. It is good to know what is the standard schedule for publishing and if you see that it passed too long since they got your email (in case of web sites several days) you can call them.
10. Give some benefit to journalists. Some exclusive information, product review or taking them to your company travel/conference or sponsoring their trip that can be later used in their articles is usually a nice thing to do. They will appreciate it.
It seems that Autumn, especially October is the favorite month for conference organizers. Here I compiled some conferences that can be interesting for you if you are interested in regions of SEE and CEE.
Sorted based on dates
Internet Hungaria - premier conference about Internet business in Hungary, held at the Balaton, in place called Tihany - October 14th and 15th
Internet CEE - premier conference focused on CEE region, the first conference was organized in November 2007. Place and date of this year’s conference is Warsaw, Poland, October 28th and 29th
TMT Ventures ‘08 Zagreb - a New Europe Event, about Venture Capital industry, this time held in Zagreb, Croatia - October 28th
BizzBuzz - 3rd conference about Internet business, which is held in city in southeast Serbia called Nis, theme for this year is Content management on the Web - October 29th-31th
JavaSvet - conference about Java technology, held in Belgrade, Serbia - October 29th and 30th
View from the virtual world - conference organized by well-known PR agency in Serbia McCann Ericksson PR, held in Belgrade - November 1st
WebStrategija - 3rd conference called WebStrategija is held in Zagreb, Croatia, topic of this year’s conference is SEO - November 6th
Edgios P2P search engine has been launched
By · CommentsEdgios is a search engine based on a P2P model which means it is highly dependent on the user base. It is a new search engine, and they are focused on making the initial community who will test the search engine so if you would like to see how P2P search engine works you can visit www.edgios.com and get information how you can start using it. Basically, model works like standard P2P network model, so you download and install Edgios software on your computer and the aim of that software is to monitor your Internet activity and based on that activity search engine will show results to its users.
Making a good search engine is very risky but can be also very lucrative business if projects become popular. Many companies want to make a Google killer or at least very good alternative search engine to the highly popular Google search engine. Definitely, the thing is that everyone knows that there is a lot of additional possibilities how search engine results and user satisfaction with the search results can be better and because many companies wants to make “the next big thing”. We will see who will succeed in that competition.
It is interesting to say that one of the premier VC companies DFJ (invested in Hotmail, Skype and other very successful ventures) invested in Edgios and also development team of the project is also based in Serbia.
Easier online brand management with new Nielsen tool
By · CommentsNielsen Online has announced that their new set of services will help marketers in managing their brands online. It is becoming very important to watch how your brand is performing not only in offline word but also in online world especially on social network site, on web sites where users of those web sites create content which is often not moderated by web site owners strictly. This new service from Nielsen is part of their Digital Strategic Services Group. US presidential campaigns often define importance in online media and in constant evaluation what other people are saying online. Paying big attention to online brand reputation is one of the key topics in business magazines and Internet consultants in western world but that trend will inevitably come to less developed Internet countries, as well.
In UK in 2009. online ads will surpass TV ads
By · CommentsUK will be probably the first country from the group of major advertising countries in the world where the total online ad spending in 2009. will be higher than total TV ad spending according to a study released by agency GroupM (part of WPP network).
Also, it is estimated that online ads will surpass TV ads in Sweden within the next 12 months. Logical answer for UK market is that BBC is publicly funded so they are not depended on advertisers.
WPP’s GroupM in their study “This Year, Next Year” study doesn’t think that online ads will surpass TV ads in UK in 2008. they predict that at the end of 2008. online ads will have 24.8% and TV ads 26% of marketshare.. However, they also think it will happen in 2009.
It is interesting that the forecasted Internet spending be more than 10% of the total global ad spending.
Ten Useful Tips For Launching A Startup
By · CommentsLoic Le Meur, a well-known French Internet entrepreneur (his latest venture is video site Seesmic) compiled an useful 10 tips for launching a startup. Many of those (maybe all) tips you already know but it is nice to have it at one place.
Click here to read his tips.