Writing | Agile' Marketing Services

Prepare Your Promotions Preemptively

February 17, 2024 by amsadmin

Which is to say, start working on creating your promos before you need them.

How Early Should you Start?

If you know you’ve got a “normal” promotion you’d like to run, I recommend starting 3 months, or 12 weeks ahead of time. If you’ve got a large promotion – think Black Friday – then it’s not unreasonable to start your preparations a year in advance.

Set Your Goals

Maybe you want to increase your sales. Maybe you want to add customers, or increase your email list. Maybe you want to introduce a new service or product. Decide what your primary goal is, and perhaps a secondary goal.

Plan Your Process

Once you’ve determined your goals, you need to set up a process to reach them, and then a process for how you’re going to measure your attempt. Will you be using a system that’s already in place, or do you need to build or refurb a system to facilitate your attempts? Knowing your goals, and they system used for attaining them, will drive your creative efforts.

Create – Then Wait

I come from a writing background. I recommend to people that they develop their creative – text, visuals, storyboard for videos – early. Complete your first draft, and then set it off to the side. Work on something else. Give your work enough time (at least a week, and maybe even up to 6 weeks if needed) so that when you come back to it, you can evaluate it with fresh eyes. You want to pare down your work, hone it to the sharpest edge. The creative should deliver your entire message clearly, and not detract from it.

How Late Is Too Late?

I try to begin my efforts at least 8 weeks ahead of time. I begin worrying when I’ve got 6 weeks left before the starting bell. In the past, I’ve run a successful campaign with less than a week’s lead time, but it involved dropping everything else, and working long hours. I don’t recommend it!

I would recommend that you plan on using as much time as you can give yourself, and then a little more. If you know you can pull off the planning, creative, and execution in eight weeks, try to give yourself at least ten weeks, and twelve is even better. Once you have your promo process in place, and you know it always takes you 7 weeks, then set aside nine for your next project.

Always expect the unexpected! Sickness, accidents, unexpected celebrations – it’s all hiding just around the bend, out of site. There’s nothing wrong with having everything in place three weeks before the ball drops. It’s like insurance: when you’re making plans, you hope you’re wasting time and money. It’s always better than the alternative.

What’s Your Situation Like?

How far ahead do you start working on regular promotions? How about large-scale promotions? I’d love to hear from you! Please leave your comments below.

Teaching Online – Part 1

September 24, 2022September 12, 2022 by amsadmin

Lessons

The basis of nearly every online teaching system is the lesson. A lesson is basic instruction about a single subject. Some examples: not about all footwear in general, but about tying a shoelace; just the Battle of Waterloo, not the entire Napoleonic War; not “Cooking with eggs,” but “Introduction to the egg.”

The ideal first lesson should be self-contained. Future lessons might reference back to what the student learned in the previous lessons (ie, “Making an omelet” could reference info from “Introduction to the egg”), but should not assume knowledge not yet covered.

The information presented to the student is the content of the lesson.

Content

Content is simply information that teaches the student something. For online courses, this content can be presented in almost any media that can be provided digitally. It could be text (provided as a word processing document, a PDF, or even text on a picture); it could be audio, like a recording of an old radio broadcast; it could be video, like a clip from a news program or an educational skit produced by a professional company, or even a live Zoom webinar; it could be a graphic, like a photograph, or an informational graph representing collected data. A presentation prepared as slides in a program like PowerPoint can also be part or all of a lesson. A lesson can be made of one or more of these media. For instance, a slide presentation could be a combination of text, graphics, voiceover audio, video clips, and even incidental music.

Starting Simple

There’s a phrase I like to use when talking about most subjects: Simple is best. This is true for both students and educators. A student beginning the study of a subject should be presented with a simple lesson, and immediately rewarded for consuming the content. For instance, at the end of the lesson “Introduction to the egg,” you might ask the student “What’s the yellow part of the egg called?” When they correctly answer “the yolk,” you can do anything from having your lesson state, “That’s correct” to setting off digital fireworks and airhorns.

Your content should be simple as well. Present the information in at least one medium that’s easy for you to create. While you could set up an entire kitchen with multiple cameras, there’s no reason why you couldn’t present “Introduction to the egg” as text with a few pictures as illustrations. The written lesson is much faster, easier, and less expensive to produce.

Teaching Software

Many people considering providing online education get caught up in trying to decide the best platform to use. They begin the whole process by asking themselves and others, “Which software should I use?”

I understand the concern! I began my own exploration of teaching online with the same question. What will happen down the road when you’ve created tons of content, but the platform turns out to be crap?

I have a heretical answer: it doesn’t matter what software you use. Pick the one you can afford, and learn it. Then, start using it to present your first lesson to students.

When I say “afford,” I’m talking about cost and not price. Price is the dollar amount someone tells you to take out of your pocket. Cost could include dollars, but it often includes time and other non-monetary investments, like research (what are your peers and competitors using?) and testing.

There are platforms that will host your lessons, along with thousands of others, and provide you with the framework to assemble your lessons out of your media. There are others that force you – or allow you, depending on your point of view – to create your own website and host all the software and media yourself.

I started out paying for a hosted platform, but now own licenses for two educational platforms that I can use on sites I build and direct myself. Again, it doesn’t matter what software you use to present your educational system. What matters is that you and your students can understand how it works from either side, and that you can and do create content for lessons.

Read part 2 here. Read part 3 here. Read part 4 here. Read part 5 here.

Karate Website Marketing Copy

September 28, 2022August 22, 2022 by amsadmin

I was recently tasked with writing the marketing copy for a new karate website. This is appropriate in a number of ways: I’ve been involved with marketing for nearly 40 years, and I’ve been training and teaching traditional Okinawan goju-ryu karate for over 20 years.

Anyway, here’s the website:

www.BestSyracuseKarate.com

31-day Email Onboarding Sequence

January 6, 2021 by amsadmin

No matter what you read, I can tell you bluntly that email lists work. They help you turn leads (“Anyone with a heartbeat”) into prospects. Used correctly, they can also help you turn prospects into first-time purchasers.

The base of an email list, however, is the automated onboarding sequence. You should have this set up before you post your sign-up form. I’ve developed an outline for a 7-email onboarding sequence, sent over 31 days after a person signs up, that will help you develop a relationship with the list member.

Relationship Building

It’s a hoary old chestnut, but “People do business with those they know, like, and trust.” The whole point of an email list is to build a relationship between each member on the list, and the business. But how do you get there?

Give Without Receiving

Many, many email lists are based on the concept of the “lead magnet.” That is: your business trades something of value – like information, or a checklist, or something else the recipient might find useful – in exchange for adding that person to your email list. And that’s where a lot of businesses stop, which is one of the reasons people quit reading their emails, and fail to develop the relationship.

The best way to build trust and likability is to keep giving. You’re not losing anything, so why not continue to provide value? Make sure at least two emails in your onboarding sequence give the recipient helpful, actionable information. Even if they don’t need that information, they will most likely recognize the value you’re giving them.

Ask Their Opinion

When we first meet someone, our brains love it when they ask about us. What do we like? How do we feel about a topic? What is our opinion of a situation? One of your onboarding emails should ask their opinion of a subject related to why they might have joined your list. You might start your question with –

What is your opinion of. . .
What’s your favorite. . .
What do you think about. . .

The best start: “We need your help.”

Show You’re Listening

Communications experts call this “active listening.” You should reflect back that you’ve heard the thoughts and opinions of the list, and that you appreciate their feedback. You don’t have to agree with or even acknowledge each individual reply. You could show poll results of the aggregate answers, or reflect back that, “Most people we’ve asked think. . .” The important thing here is to ask for their input, and show that you’re listening.

7 Emails

You don’t want to beat new members over the head with emails every day. Then you’re that person they just met who won’t leave them alone!

By the same token, you don’t want to leave them wondering if they’re really on your list, or what to do next.

So here are the seven email topics I suggest for building that initial relationship with new members, along with the schedule for sending them.

Note: The schedule starts on the day they sign up – Day 01. It doesn’t matter what month and day is on the calendar when they sign up – this schedule takes care of that. If you have someone who joins your list on May 3rd, then that’s Day 01 for them. Someone who joins on October 14th has their Day 01 on that day.

1) Thank You/Unsubscribe any time – Day 01

As soon as the person confirms that they’ve subscribed (you should always use a double opt-in process), they should get an email thanking them for signing up, and pointing out the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. You don’t want them to feel trapped. Besides, if at any point they decide receiving your emails is not for them, you want to make it easy for them to leave. Too many autoresponder lists are choked with people who don’t open the emails sent to them.

2) About Us/Services & Products – Day 02

The next day, send them an email that spells out what your company does. Short and simple is always best!

3) Mission Statement/Philosophy – Day 09

Your next email gives them a bit of background. It might be, “I started this business because. . .” or “Here at ZYXCo, we believe that. . .” The important message here is, “This is why we do what we do.”

4) Helpful Info/Article – Day 13

As I said near the beginning, too many businesses quit giving of themselves. Here’s another chance to give your new listmember something they can use. Maybe it’s a checklist, or a graphic they can keep on their desk, or an article (one of your blog posts) that provides helpful info, and solves one small problem – I like to say that it scratches an itch – that they might have.

5) What’s Your Opinion? – Day 19

Don’t you hate it when you meet someone, and any conversation is all about them? We call them boors – and not just because they’re usually boring!

So, don’t be that person. Create a blog post that’s a poll, or asks a question. Ask people that question in this email, and point them to the post where you encourage them to leave their opion, or their thoughts on the subject.

This accomplishes several things. First, you’re soliciting their input, and that will make them feel important! Also, when they go to the post, they will see you have several other people who are interacting with you, so they know they’re not alone on this email-centric journey. Warm and fuzzy feelings will abound.

6) Helpful Info/Article – Day 25

Here’s your second chance at providing help to the people on your list. One of my dear friends keeps this in mind with a plaque above his desk – “Be a blessing in peoples’ lives.” Stretch that helpfulness muscle!

7) Direct Sales Pitch – Day 31

I’m on a couple lists where every single email I get is a hard-core sales solicitation. “BUY THIS NOW!!!” I mean, that’s very tiring. I get it: “Buy my stuff, or get off my list.”

But you’re in business, and that’s what businesses do – they sell products and services. Every person who signed up for your list knew that going in. A very good way of looking at sales is that you’re helping each customer resolve a problem they have. You’re providing a solution. True, not every solution fits every problem, but it doesn’t hurt to offer. And your last email in the onboarding sequence is a great time to do that.

And that’s a good onboarding process that will help you develop a relationship with each person on your email list.

As Many As It Takes

October 22, 2020 by amsadmin

How many marketing plans does your business need? The answer is: as many as it takes.

A simple, single plan

If you’ve got a hotdog cart on the corner of 1st and Main, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll get by with just one marketing plan. You’ve got one business (the cart), with one division (the attendant – you), selling a single product (hot dogs on buns), to a single target audience (hungry people from the immediate vicinity who want a quick meal).

Your marketing media may consist of print (words on the cart & umbrella, a sign stuck to the window of a shuttered business) and audio (shouting, “Get your dogs here!”).

More variables, more plans

But once you start opening new locations, or adding new products or services, or even servicing different target markets, you might find marketing easier if you have plans that address those specific differences.

Imagine there are several buildings down the street on the corners of 5th and Main, packed full of law offices. Another cart down there (same business, new division) selling an upmarket product (new product) to a different target audience (lawyers with more cash, or using digital payments). This would require a different marketing plan. Instead of hawking cheap dogs, your marketing pitch might be for quality served quickly, in a wrapper that will keep food from falling on their expensive clothes.

That new target market will probably respond better to different marketing techniques. Hand drawn signs and shouts are less likely to draw them in.

Specific plans for specific differences

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a brick-n-mortar store, or a virtual business. As you begin to grow and diversify your lines, it’s inevitable that the things you’re selling will appeal to different audiences. Having a plan on how to best reach them – to introduce them to your products or services, and convince them to buy from you – is important.

I have a friend who has a business making earrings. One line is made from recycled paper, and the other line is made of metal and gemstones. Yes, they’re both earrings, and there is some crossover from one target market to the other, but not much. The women buying the brightly colored paper earrings like to buy several pair at a time, giving them a selection to wear throughout the week. The women who buy pairs from the gem line usually only buy one pair at a time, although both audiences buy from my friend an average of four times per year. But her message to each audience is not the same!

The paper earrings are at a lower price point, but her profit margin is higher. In her emails to that audience, she emphasizes the bright colors and wide variety. They’re inexpensive enough that the audience can afford to buy several different sets to go with different outfits.

The gem earrings are marketed as unique – no pairs the same. They’re made of more expensive materials, and are promoted as going with higher-end clothing. Something worn for special occasions. While the prices are higher, the profit margin is slightly less than with the earrings made from paper.

Two different lines, two different audiences, two different marketing messages – two different marketing plans.

But the basics are the same

Building those plans may seem difficult, but you can create almost all marketing plans using a basic template. I’ve created a checklist for those that want a framework. This free version will allow you to make sure all your bases are covered. I’m currently building a low-cost online course covering the checklist items in much more depth.

Download your PDF of the free marketing plan checklist right here.

Why Engage in an Appreciation Program?

September 15, 2020 by amsadmin

For years, I’ve told my clients that the first additional marketing program they should implement is a Certificate of Appreciation program.

It’s inexpensive
It brings your business to the attention of others
It makes others look good
It works

The Point

Presenting Certificates of Appreciation needs to be an ongoing program, and not just a one-time event. Why? Because the number one reason for doing this is to get your business mentioned by the media over and over again, across an amount of time. I’m not talking about days or weeks, I’m talking about months and years.

The second most important reason for running an appreciation program is to demonstrate to others that you’re “good folks.” That as people, you (and your staff) truly appreciate the good that others do, and want to call it to the attention of their customers and prospects. You should be seen as appreciating others.

Why Promote Others?

“If I award others,” goes the usual argument, “I’m promoting their business and not mine.”

And this is exactly why you shouldn’t pull 20 people into a room, and give them all certs at the same time. Each individual time you submit a media release, you’re promoting the recipient but mentioning yourself as the giver. Over time – say, each month over the space of a year – you’ve promoted the recipients once each, but you’ve promoted yourself twelve times!

Worth A Thousand Words

When you choose folks to whom you’ll award certs, make sure they know ahead of time you’ll be taking pictures and/or video clips and submitting them to the media. Each picture will mean a ton to the individual recipient. After all, very few people get their picture in the media unless they donate a wing to the local children’s hospital. So here’s something special for them to hang on to: a photo of them getting an award. If they’re lucky, they can get a print-out of the photo and the release when it appears in the media.

The Results

What are the results – the benefits to you – of running an appreciation campaign?

You’ve done something positive for many individuals, who will then be inclined to do something good for you.

You’ve promoted yourself and your business in a positive manner, over and over again in searchable media.

You’re building an image – that is, building a part of your brand – that says a large part of your personality is gratitude and appreciation. Those are positive qualities prospects look for.

The Cost

The most expensive part of these programs is the time invested. That’s maybe two hours per recipient; you travel to them, take a pic, write and email the release, print the pic and the release, and hand deliver those back to the recipient. You can buy the frames and the certificate paper in bulk, along with the ink or toner to print them. The desktop printer is a one-time expense. You’ll sink maybe $5 into each recipient. Over a year, you’ll spend maybe $60.

And for thousands of dollars worth of positive publicity, isn’t that worth it?

Have you tried an appreciation program? If so, what were the results? If not – why haven’t you? I’d love to read your comments below!

Facebook Page Posts 04 – Media

January 22, 2020 by amsadmin

In the earliest days of online life, the world was limited to text-only interactions. But the pace of technological advancement has been amazing these last 30 years. Now, many of us hold computers in the palm of our hands that are vastly superior to those early desk top units that squealed and screamed when connecting with another computer over a landline.

It was only a few years ago that watching a video online was frustrating, and posting a 30-second video required a thick manual, a ritual sacrifice, and the luck of the gods. Well. . . almost.

According to several studies, a plain text post now receives the least attention. In order for a post to grab eyeballs, at minimum it should have a picture attached. (A post no longer has to include text – it could be just a still picture, or even just a video clip, but we’ll get there in a few minutes.) This is why you might see a post on Facebook about almost any subject, and attached will be a picture of a pet, or a sunset, or a tree – something totally unrelated to the subject of the message. If you can get a person to stop and look at your picture, there’s a chance they’ll also read the text of your post.

The picture you add to your post doesn’t have to be a photograph. It can be a graphic – clipart, perhaps – with or without text in the image itself. It could also be all text, stylized in one or more interesting typefaces; you’ll often see those created for quotes. Whatever type of image you attach, try to make it directly related to your post. If you announce that your business now sells blue widgets, post a picture of a blue widget. Now taking appointments for plumbing visits? Show your workers in their best uniforms smiling as they step from a truck with your company’s logo on the side.

In between the still picture and a full-motion video is the “animated picture” – often a GIF (graphic interchange format) image. These are still pictures arranged into “loops” a few seconds long, where the subject is often funny and/or shocking. The use of GIFs has changed drastically over the last few years, and I could write a whole dissertation on their use in personal posts. For now, we’ll just say that Facebook considers GIFs a category of still picture, and they’re attached the same way.

As I said a few minutes ago, your posts no longer need to include any text. If you’ve got what I call a self-contained image – with a picture, some explanatory text, and connection information – then post that by itself. FB also allows you to upload video clips, and the same goes for video posts. If you’ve got raw footage you’ve shot with your phone, you’ll probably want to add text explaining the context of the video, and adding any commentary you think necessary. Of you can post a fully-produced video, complete with an intro, closing credits, and mood music. Producing video clips for your business is a completely different subject. I tackle that in another series of articles.

The one type of medium that FB does not currently allow in posts is stand-alone audio. So if you’ve got an audio podcast, or an audio recording of a book or article you’ve written, you’ll have to produce it into a video clip in order to upload it. Again, the specifics of this are beyond the scope of this article, but the “video” can be as simple as a single still picture (or multiple pix chained together) taking up the image track, while the audio track plays. You can find these type of videos on YouTube, often created by home enthusiasts for songs where there’s no video recording of the artist.

Currently, the maximum file size for a video uploaded to Facebook is 1.75GB, which at HD format is a run-time of around 45 minutes. However, you should keep video posts as short as possible. You’re pushing it with videos longer than 30 seconds. Only people who are surfing FB to relieve boredom will watch videos longer than a minute, and you’d better have completely unique content that people feel will change their lives if you post a video with a run-time over 5 minutes.

Regardless of the media you use, any post you make on Facebook or elsewhere should have a specific intent – a set goal you want to accomplish. The message should be crafted using the principles of immediacy and scarcity when appropriate. Any time your post attempts to sell, or you ask a question, give the reader the contact info or link needed. In almost all posts, you should tell the reader exactly what you expect them to do once they’ve read the post, and give them any tools they need to do that.

11 best business post types, worst to best

11) Text-only post – long
10) Text-only post – under 25 words
9) Text post with unrelated still picture
8) Audio post with still picture
7) Text post with related still picture
6) Text post with self-contained image
5) Self-contained image, no text
4) Text post with raw video clip
3) Long (5+ min) fully-produced video clip
2) Medium (around 1 min) fully-produced video clip
1) Short (30 seconds) fully-produced video clip

Facebook Page Posts 02 – Scheduling

December 16, 2019 by amsadmin

In the last article, I mentioned the three main types of posts for a Facebook business page: Tells, Asks and Sells. At their most basic, they do exactly what the name says. In this article, we’re going to talk about a way to connect with your followers that has nothing to do with the content of your messages.

I have a childhood friend that owns a multi-million dollar bug extermination business in Phoenix, AZ. I love her dearly, but her posts to her FB page suck. Not the content – they’re actually very informative Tells. No, it’s the lack of a schedule.

See, her FB page will go for months without a post or an update. Then suddenly, three new posts will appear in the space of a couple hours. And then her page goes dead again for weeks or months.

One of the best things you can do to help develop a relationship with your target audience is to be consistent. In this case, you should make your posts come out at regular intervals. It might be once a day, a couple times a week, once every two or three weeks, or even longer. How do you know the most effective interval?

Ask!

Let me be the first to acknowledge that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. (Well, maybe I’m not the first person. . .) And you can’t entirely believe what people tell you when you ask them a direct question. But if you’re posting messages every day, and people tell you they want to see you post just once a week, it’s something to consider. You’ll get the answer “Every day!” from people who visit your page every day. “Once per month” is an answer someone might be able to leave, if they saw your question when it was posted, instead of the one day a month they visited your page.

It’s not the frequency of your posts that are important. It’s the regularity – the fact that people can count on seeing your posts every certain number of days, and at the same time. Posts about “How to manage your day better” should probably come early in the morning for your audience. “Hump day hints” are probably expected on Wednesdays. While having a post come out every day, or every Tuesday evening, or whenever is a fine idea, real life often gets in the way of sitting down and cranking out a post.

And that’s where the Publishing Tools on Facebook pages come in. You can actually schedule posts weeks, or even months in advance. For this, you have to be the administrator (admin) for your page, or an editor or moderator (mod). You should schedule the upcoming steps.

Set aside at least an hour – I generally allow half a day for this work – and get a piece of paper, or your computer, and start jotting down ideas for the posts you want to create for the next six months or so. I’d also have a calendar or datebook on hand, so that you can look up major holidays – I schedule those for my clients and myself first.

For the holidays you want to hit, create what I call “social lubricant” posts: “Wishing you the warmth of the season this Christmas,” “We appreciate all those who have served” for Veteran’s Day, “Happy 4th of July,” and so forth. When I count total posts, I disregard Social Lubricant posts.

If you’re planning sales based around any holiday, put those Sell posts together next. (“President’s Day mattress sale – come in before the 22nd to get the best prices of the season!”) I keep Sell posts to around 20% of all posts made.

As for Tell and Ask posts, I try to keep each category to about 40% of the total posts (besides Social Lubricant posts), so that with Sell posts, you come up to 100% of all posts made. Since you’ll probably want to trying to get new people to Like your Facebook page, don’t be afraid of repeating Tell posts every once in a while. “Don’t forget – click this link to join our email list, and get 20% off your next order,” or “We’re closed on Mondays, but open the other 6 days a week.”

Obviously, the next step is to log into your FB page and, using the Publishing Tools, start creating and scheduling the posts you’ve been working on. I recommend attaching pictures or video to about 90% of your posts. I’ll be covering Media in an upcoming article, so stay tuned! Make sure your posts follow a schedule. It could be once a week, twice a month – it doesn’t matter. Your readers’ minds will grab onto the pattern repetition.

Because life – and business – is all about change, leave plenty of room in your schedule to write posts on the fly. If a Tell or an Ask comes to you, go ahead and write it and post it immediately. Just don’t forget to check your schedule first, to make sure you’re not duplicating a post.

For years, my wife bought me Franklin Planners for Christmas, and I never used them. I have a very good memory, and can keep a great deal of info stored in my noggin. However, since I started creating posts for up to fifteen clients at any given time, I’ve embraced planners whole-heartedly! As I write this, it’s early December and I already have four different planners sitting on my desk. One is completely filled for next year already with posts I have to make for my own company. One planner has the schedule for my non-profit clients, and another has the schedule of posts just for my restaurant clients. You can probably get away with just having one planner or calendar.

Start planning – and scheduling – those posts!

Restrict Access

September 5, 2019 by amsadmin

RecEx Status – Principle #2: Restrict access.