Four years ago, when I worked in-house writing and editing for a smallish mixed media and search marketing company, one of our key content strategies for ourselves as well as clients, was an online press release. We used them to  build buzz AND boost inbound links to client sites. It was a key SEO/SEM tactic in our then cutting-edge list of such tactics.

Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that the online press release is less and less in favor, despite its simplicity and relative ease of exposure:

• press releases are easy to get written–because they are one of those higher end content machines you can expect to pay more for a copywriter or shell out a few hundred to an online pr firm…or you can always cobble one together yourself if you have the time. If you’re going to write it yourself a word of caution: some of the more well-known online submission sites have stiff editorial guidelines and expectations. They’ll reject it in a skinny minute if it violates TOS — sounds too much like an ad– or is just plain lousy.

• they are a relatively easy to submit online

• dozens of online pr submission sites invite releases from FREE to many hundreds of dollars depending upon number of links and type of content.

I can still turn up press releases in online search for this now defunct company I worked for– we used them ourselves as a key strategy for building brand and market buzz, besides their usefulness as SEO levers.

Who IS Using Press Releases?

But the PR on press releases has been skewed in the last few years precisely due to the fact that their usefulness IS divided into 2 distinctly separate camps:

1. the PR folks — and they’ve gone totally social media
2. the SEO and marketing people (who might also include guerrilla marketers who will do any and all of it to generate buzz, brand, links, story, PR, debate, controversy, you name it…).

Illustrating the range of the “marketing”-driven press release consider the way StomperNet used a press release a few months back to herald a massive shift in their leadership:

They used the “press release” for a blog post– like this:

but they also sent it out to their email subscribers in the body of an email and Andy Jenkins posted it on his blog, as well. Of course a zillion internet marketing groupies “picked it up.” But did it actually make it to any of the traditional online news release sites, or was this a primo way to make a big  announcement look more official and link-worthy?

I say it was a brilliant bit of linkbait if ever I saw one…

Divided Followers…

Ironically here’s a  story posted on MarketingCharts.com almost one year ago, News Releases Not Just For Press, and based on a then current survey that showed — not surprisingly here, — that many SEO/SEM firms and marketers use the reliable online news release as SEO strategy as opposed to a traditional “press” release intended to appeal to journalists and the like. Apparently this was like new news or something (?). Does it really take a couple of years in Internet time to get results like this on a survey of “current” marketing techniques that for many are already …. old standards?

This former article juxtaposed with this most recent, Less Than Half of PR People Deem Press Releases ‘Useful’, serves to illustrate the press release great divide.

Reason Why You Might Consider Using Press Releases

1. Because these guys all say so:

TopRankBlog

Linking Matters

Seobook

Search Engine Journal

2. Because few others are really taking advantage of these content tools to build links, site appeal, brand, news, reputation…

3. And because they remain a proven method for creating natural links back to your site or blog.

When we talk about keywords and keyphrases we talk about the commodities of an Internet financial economy. We talk about them in terms of position, density, broad match, exact match, and phrase matches. And we tally them up like wampum in Cost per Click values.

Imagine The Keyword Ticker Board….in place of a company’s stock ID you see, instead, a keyword, then a monetary figure that relates to the going value of each keyword “share,” followed by a + or – and another corresponding financial value, indicating profit or loss.

In the web markets, this is the distillation of words…

Any conversation about “keywords” is rarely about language, metaphor, and meaning. Rarely is it about WORDS. W-o-r-d-s.

We add “key” to the front of “words” and it instantly token-izes them, doesn’t it?

When we talk about keywords we haunt the online marketing forums hungry to ply AdWords and AdSense masters for “lists” of top paying keywords. We’re like keyword seagulls, diving in for scraps of fast food ditched on the beach sand. We leverage keywords for get-rich-quick schemes and the most uncreative inspiration for building a blog or website. We don’t talk about metaphors, flavors, nuance, poetry, sight, smell, pain, happiness, or any other connotations because that’s all very boring and non-scientific,

counter to cash-flow, and “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.” Or does it?

Price of Pain – Meaning Behind Top Keywords

“Top paying” keywords tend to be utilitarian, wooden…and you might imagine quite lacking in meaning. Take these 3 I’ve listed below, for instance.  I sat with them for a minute and thought about each. From that exercise I retrofitted my own free associations and discovered that as utility as they are, they are valuable for these reasons:

• “loan consolidation” — financially loaded, grabbed at by desperate people in desperate times, quick-fix, spam, credit crisis, oily money-hungry marketers
• “data recovery” — lost computer documents, stolen data, numbers and figures down the drain, anguish, frustration, fired, disaster, lost business, bottom line, irreplaceable, f#$%, help…
• “dui lawyer” –get me out of this quick, desperation, injury, death, embarrassment, arrest, jail, guilt, trauma, alcohol, loss of independence, seeking authority,  grabbing at straws, quick fix, a way out…

Do you see any similarity among these high-paying, high CPC keywords? Once you begin to explore the motivation behind them, their “inverted” connotations, it becomes clearer that they share a very high pain value…

Think about it…Does High CPC = High Pain Value?

Furthermore, could you implement these loaded keywords more nimbly once you explore their meanings and motivations–the prickly stuff lingering in the shadows behind their drab, steely fronts?

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Anyone who’s in business, building a reputation, building a brand must get smart to viral content.

This includes video. BUT you might imagine that some of the same tactics could be applied to other content tools as well…

400 MILLION YouTube users, says Google

This excellent post I’m about to share from the guys at Brand Strategy Insider, will hopefully illustrate why getting savvy to the power of viral content NOW can head off mercenary attacks on your rep (which btw could also save you millions of dollars in potential LOST MONEY- so the ROI on these business strategies is worth it.).

Hear what happened to Domino’s (approval ratings in the dumper, stock values dropped, and many millions of dollars in lost business …) when a couple of super-dolt employees filmed themselves screwing with customer’s food and then uploaded the video to YouTube….here’s the story plus an expert business brander’s analysis of how a company or business of any size could have stepped in instantly to tank the attack…

[before you read this (or think it doesn't apply to you) imagine how someone could screw with your business, your brand, your good reputation...would you know how to mount an immediate and  mercenary response?]

“This was fast turning into every CEO’s biggest nightmare – in just eight hours Domino’s Pizza had become a ticking brand bomb.” –Viral Brand Crisis and Strategy

This Domino’s “case study” is certainly not isolated. Here’s another recent YouTube hit story that could be titled, a disgruntled United Airlines passenger launched an effective YouTube campaign that not only got the company’s stakeholders pricking up thier ears, but plenty of media got wind, as well.

Beyond YouTube…Getting Deep and Targeted with Viral Video Seeding

Here’s an eye-popping case study of exactly how Unruly Media built a “mercenary” viral video branding strategy for Burger King. (here’s a “side” of BK you may not have caught before…:)

Burger King and the “Bootyful Game”

a snippet from Unruly’s case study:

“Viral success, with millions of free views…. Does it shift brand favourability? Does it shift product? Burger King’s Bootyful Game shows definitively that this can be done.”

Unruly Media has an excellent list of viral resources… a must-read, a must-link to….

Wikipedia’s list of “Notable Viral Video Sites”

What makes YOU look– sneak a peak, peep through the window-blinds…?

Lawrence Bernstein and Art Crowley put together a downloadable PDF, entitled “Made You Look: 527 Email Subject Lines That Dare You To Look Away.” Their criteria? These “chosen ones” had to pass their “did it make me want to look?” test.

They posit this problem:

“The big hairy problem marketers face across industries and market niches of every stripe is a
steadily weakening grip on the attention of their email recipients. What to do?”

“Made You Look…” is one of the 3 marketing and copywriting products I’ve actually bought in the last year. It’s a pretty valuable tool. But it can be much more than that. It actually put a head of steam behind a list of email subject lines I had already begun to save in a spreadsheet myself (I admit it, I also squirrel away lists of keywords, keyphrases, jargon, colloquialisms, and other amazing and beautiful words and phrases).

I was inspired by their work. Everyday I have dozens of email messages of all kinds streaming into my inbox, as it gets busier and busier I open fewer and fewer. Those that get opened  NATURALLY have passed my personal little test. I add them to my handy and growing list.

Email subject lines are akin to sales letter headlines. They are mission-critical to getting your message read, period.  Here is a short selection of some of my recently “swiped” –and squirreled away:

• What I discovered during my season of desperation…(Perry Marshall)
• The secret that doubled a successful company in four months…(Perry marshall)
• (name), this is my most powerful lead generation tool… (Troy White)
• When marketer meets beekeeper (Clayton Makepeace)
• 99 Questions to train your email brain (Perry Marshall)
• The Junkie’s Success Secret (Early to Rise)
• FW: Business building tips for Entrepreneurs (Nate Bloom)
• The best way to learn anything – EVER (Rich Schefren)
• Give us your feedback and you could win $500 from Public Storage  (Public Storage)
• Your Email Bombed? Here’s What to Do (Troy White)
• Xtra Xray Vision for Google’s Content Network (Perry Marshall)
• Add an extra hour to every day (Bob Bly)
• I use this to train my own staff.. (Jeff Johnson)
• Hate Mail and Threats About this Video (Dr. Harlan Kilstein)
• Creating Demand Where None Existed Before (Perry Marshall)
• Call the FTC on These Bastards! (Six Figure Copy)
• SEO and nofollow – Should you even Care? (Andy Jenkins)
• Momentum Killers (Matt Furey)
• Million dollar marketing ideas – from a pizza joint?! (Troy White)
• How Copy Alone CAN Change Minds After All (John Forde)
• GMO Sugar is the Biggest Trick this Halloween  (Care2 Action Alliance)
• The Curse of the 10,000-hour ‘Talent Syndrome’  (Psychotactics)
• This is different and kinda Gutsy… (Andy Jenkins)
• Why COPYWRITING is the KEY marketing skill  (Eben Pagan)
• Internet Marketing 2010: The Road Ahead (New Report…)   (John Reese)
• The Art of Criticism  (Early to Rise)
• Let’s end the banks’ tricks  (Consumers’ Union Action Fund)
• The revolt is on! (Consumers’ Union Action Fund)
• Unbelievable… (Consumer’s Union Action Fund)
• Hate your cellphone bill? (Consumer’s Union Action Fund)
• The flow-state secret (Clayton Makepeace)
• “People crave a wicked tale – and they will buy from the dude that tells them one” – John Carlton  (Perry Marshall)
• Secrets of the “Buy” Button (Wordtracker)

What kind of tool could you create over time — like this– that has value AND could put some spice into copy and content?

On Monday, December 29, 1913 this ad appeared in London classified ads…

MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY.SMALL WAGES,
BITTER COLD. LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS.
CONSTANT DANGER. SAFE RETURN, DOUBTFUL.
HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.

or so some stories go.

There is general consensus that this is how Shackleton’s copy read…

• A few accounts suggest the help-wanted ad was placed in 1914…

• At turns the tale reports 5,000 men answered Sir Ernest Shackleton’s help wanted notice.

• Again that this 5,000 included 3 women…

• and another source reports that “twenty-eight” men responded…

BUT, to date, Shackleton’s real help-wanted ad remains at large…

Whether this “irresistible” distillation–ideal “sales” copy, ideal “leadership” copy, ideal “triumph against all odds” copy– was an honest to goodness piece of Shackleton history, is moot….fact remains: SOMEONE wrote it.

This 7-year old thread on Google Answers (a now defunct service) titled, Historical Classified Ad, provides a link to a source that asks this question:

“Who would ever respond to such an ad…?”

Who? Indeed….

What possibly could be the appeal in Shackleton’s short ad snippet…

Ever heard of the French Foreign Legion? (wasn’t it the demise of the down-and-out guys and those pitiful jilted lovers in all the old movies to slink off to join the FFL?)

Here’s their ad:

How about The Marines…? “We’re looking for a few good men…”

and their latest commercial :

AMERICA’S FEW:

THOSE WHO ANSWER THE CALLING

WILL FIND OUT IF THEY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

And why exactly do men and women to this day leave their loved ones behind to strike out in search of death-defying adventures in which they risk life and limb?

When one is faced with the opportunity to be remembered for something remarkable…and against all odds…to be part of an elite team…get branded as “brave” and “honorable”… that’s some powerful punch.

Despite our hopes that Shackleton was responsible for this ad copy, it nevertheless has been virally handed down to us as one of the most remarkable examples of sales copy ever penned….

sheer poetry for a Friday afternoon.

Jaded Customers, Market “Sophistication” and Other Copy and Content Concerns that attack your sellability, crash your copywriting, and make you go “Hmmn….”

I was working last week with my main client on a large website promotion project. To make a long story short there was a large chunk of cash at stake in a contest. And the rules, simple. Our expectations: a windfall response to the media releases–viral propagation of the promo,  massive influx of interest AND contest applicants. Reality: lukewarm reception and enough respondents that wondered: “what’s the hitch, kids?”

There was no hitch. There was no “squeeze page” for netting leads, no sales page with a big pitch for customer commitment. We were left sort of scratching our heads. Why the apathy? Why the big ho-hum and virtual yawn? I figured….they’re all jaded and sick to death of the other marketplace “competitors” (and I use that term loosely) whose businesses are built not on valuable content, but on distilled lead gen (I want your name in my hat for nothin’ in return).

But still, what proof was there that this jadedness and intolerance I wondered about in my gut was a real thing?

Early this morning I was reading this Todd Brown post on Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits blog entitled, The Greatest Marketing Lesson I Ever Learned.  What does this have to do with customer apathy and my client’s surprising and disappointing mini-launch?

Brown tackles an increasingly relevant issue that gave me the proof I needed. And it’s key to the business of copywriting, content, and marketing of the same. No, it’s not some newfangled “innovation” strategy, no cheat, or marketing “trick.” It’s a decades old concept originally posited by Eugene Schwartz:

“The 5 Sophistication Levels of Your Market.”

As soon as I read Brown’s post I had what he terms the classic “AHA!”

It’s not earth-shattering, the idea that online shoppers and consumers are getting more and more savvy (“sophisticated”) as the days pass. At the same time they are growing sophistication, they are also increasingly jaded, suspect, critical, and pessimistic. And despite the fact that we innately or intuitively may sense this new swell, fact is our marketing and copy angles may not be keeping pace with the transition from online marketplace pubescence to adulthood.

For my recent experience  you could make a case that my client’s business niche is just very swollen with mixed messages and spammy marketing schemes, which could be directly affecting a legitimate and no-strings-attached campaign. Who believes it anymore? “You’re giving away that much money? Whatever….”

“No, it’s TRUE,” you scream, jumping up and down and waving your arms…

You might see why Brown’s post resonated with me. He paraphrases Schwartz:

The different “levels of sophistication” are determined by how many competitors there are in the marketplace, what claims they’ve made about their products or services, and how long prospects have been hearing about their products and claims.

Yes, now I see more clearly. Can you see how this concept might create small but substantive changes to your copywriting message, the attack angle you take with your audience, or even build your sales funnel? It’s not enough to simply “swipe” an old “legendary” headline and slap it to the top of a landing page, squeeze page, or sales letter…your market customers have grown up–they’ve developed “street smarts.” In many “big ticket” niches they’ve been lied to, taken for fools, and otherwise mistreated– now they are reacting harshly. When you can’t even give money away, cashola, moolah, greenbacks, without some sneers and jeers — you know you’ve trekked into some wild and woolly place.

The first time I saw this movie trailer I was hooked. The New York Times says, “‘Where the Wild Things Are’ is intensely original and haunting….”

First, I think we all envy the writers and producers who will ride high on this. I’d love nothing more than to create a work described as “intensely original” and poised to suck in paying customers like a vacuum. And in mainstream… anything, “intensely original” is rare. From a very short child’s book– in which each page has about 5 words on it–has come a major movie that is no child’s play–it’s about marketing and money as much as it is about humanness. In a different time in history, this movie might have been laughed at—maybe. But it can’t lose today or tomorrow or likely anytime this year.

Marketing-wise the trailer alone presses on everyone’s emotions– fear, love, hope, grief…you name them. It’s a sales MAGNET. Today we are more scared than we were a few years ago, less cocksure, more jaded, and if the driving on the road is any indicator–we’re mad as hell and we’re chugging Starbucks espresso-laced coffees. Hot buttons are exposed.

• “Major banking corporations post massive losses”
• “Swine flu fuels Armageddon fears”
• “Profits tumble…”
• “Suicide bomber kills hundreds in an open marketplace”
• “Terror plot foiled in the nick of time”
• “Human trafficking business skyrockets in Small Town America”
• “Drought amplies worry about human survival”
• “Unemployment worsens overnight, deepens fears…”
• “In the coming economic meltdown only those with ‘Road Warrior’ mettle will survive”
• “HIDE! Take cover while you can…”

(btw, only one or two of those are “ripped from the real world headlines”…)

We have more skin in the game than ever before.

Are things about to get better? Asks Gary Halbert in his legendary, “How to keep your money from being MURDERED!” letter.

No way, he says.

It’s time to market…but cut yourself a fresh path.

Where Automation and Facsimile Lead Us, even in online content

We are hell-bent to automate as much of our businesses and our lives as possible. Just from my perspective as an online writer the sponsored ads for “automatic” content production are amazing. Really. did you know there’s some bit of software that proposes to create instant sales letters, instant landing pages and more? And I’m not suggesting these so-called products produce amazing results. My point is as a species we continue to see success and profit in our attempts at large-scale automation and facsimile with little regard for historical record on similar maniacal maneuvers.

In today’s white-knuckle marketplace, less appreciation is accorded “intensely original” UNTIL it snatches everyone’s wallets from their pockets.

Take a short spin through Twitter, for instance: zillions of “get rich quick” marketers, another zillion “‘millionaire’ business coaches,” and a stupid gaggle of retweeted famous quotes. My email spam folder is absurdly crammed with scams from “Nigerian” banks, MLM schemers, and a dozen other old-news reinventions of crapola-designed-to-screw-you-and-leave-you-curled-up-like-a-scared-child-sobbing-in-a-dark-corner…

Automation:

In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements… (Wikipedia)

“reduces the need for mental requirements…” hmmmm.

I’m no historian, but some have highlighted very distinct and alarming similarities between our current situation in time with that leading up to the Great Depression– an era that included rapid automation of everything from agriculture to craft-work. And other recent media sources have pointed backwards to where in July 1979–another notable recession– former President Jimmy Carter went on TV with his now famous “malaise” speech– or “Crisis of Confidence.” Reaction? Harsh and whip-like. Now? Resonates with the current economic and human crisis. In fact, Carter’s speech–30 years later- finally gets this, “‘This particular speech…was unlike anything any president ever said…. In this particular speech, he was sort of a prophet. He spoke as a prophet. And I mean by that not as someone who’s predicting the future, but as someone who’s diagnosing the national soul.” (Noemi Emery: In praise of Malaise)

Make no mistake, Where the Wild Things Are is intensely original, but this flick is also about making money in the right place at the right time (“Spending money is serious business,” said Claude Hopkins). Whole families and adults across the country are sure to cram movie theaters starting tonight with wallets wide open and spewing a small fortune in ticket sales, sodas and sweets. Why?

Intensely original….Relief.

Cultivate a personality peculiar to yourself.  Make that distinction, if you can,
point in the right direction.  But better a wrong direction—in degree—than similarity. (Lord and Thomas advertising company)

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Six years ago this forum conversation–Turning Corporate Speak into Useful Web Copy– took place on Webmasterworld. SIX YEARS AGO– akin to 100 in Internet years.

Technology has tripped right along, website designs and infrastructures have evolved, but that thread–on how to spin boring corporate copy (cardboard) into something your visitors may sink their teeth into (fresh grilled Angus steak) could have rolled off confused tongues …yesterday.

In 2003, laptop computers were much rarer than now, cellphones still had external antennae, and most of the people I knew still  thought the word, “blog” was some nonsense word I’d made up in my freakish brain.

Despite rigorous Internet and computing development, what’s not been so swift is the handling of  website copy and content. My God, what do we say? How do we say it? It’s not all about your business or your company, but about the emotional needs of your client…. How many times have you heard that last one? Six years from now some people will think it’s the most revolutionary concept they’ve ever heard. In fact, it’s a “tale” that’s been retold countless ways.

• We know how to build, technically.

• We still stumble around blindly trying to communicate via language. In many cases we’re no more nimble than a group of 7 year olds out in the road with fistfuls of fat chalk chunks scrawling our rudimentary vocabularies onto bumpy asphalt.

Take a time machine trip backwards for a moment:

14th century England– Jeffrey Chaucer, writer, poet and bard, is most well-known for his Canterbury Tales (still famous 600 years later). This viral literary work was a down to earth and bawdy selection of stories that won him a massive following and paying patrons, from the middle class up to kings and queens. Just the fact that he appealed to this breadth of audience was unheard of. Why this massive appeal? He wrote in a completely unheard of style of the day– he wrote for and about the Everyman. His Middle English, though lilting and intoxicating  by today’s language standards, was in direct opposition to the written language conventions of the day. Scholars and authors stuck close to the rule: dry and inaccessible Latin. Chaucer’s use of everyday language to appeal to his audience and interest readers, was revolutionary.

Best Sites: Big Content

Time’s list of 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without (which could be a bit outdated, from 2007) includes Wikipedia, Craigslist, Amazon, ESPN, Google (of course), FactCheck.org, How Stuff Works, National Geographic, YouTube, Kayak.com, WebMD, TMZ, and a slew of others. Most of these were and still are —– huge content sites that successfully blend engaging and frequently updated copy and content, design, a user-friendly experience, some user-generated content, and multimedia.

But getting back to more corporate content and messages- when it comes to putting our businesses online (message, brand, site design, user experience, explaining who we are, what we sell and what it’s going to do for you) in 2009 there remains a learning curve–even among major brands. Search Engine Land posted a sprawling and detailed post in February that compares Super Bowl advertisers, their brands and slogans, to search visibility, search volume, and user intent. Result of this exploration? Some surprising insight on content RELEVANCE, site visibility,  and customer engagement.

Overall, the theme among major brands was: confusing, with instances in which off-brand competitors provided a much better search option for visitors. SEL, for example, cites the differences in FINDABILITY and relevant content offered by Toyota (users searching for the slogan “are you venza,”) versus an off-brand content site, Cars.com. Which do you think wins in search results for keyword, brand relevance, AND content provided? Is it that surprising? In this particular instance it’s valuable to show that Cars.com beats Toyota at its own slogan game because the former leverages current keywords and search trends via a frequently updated blog. Six years ago few companies cared about a blog and it seems as though some still don’t get how this most rudimentary content tool can make the difference between sink or swim. It’s a sign of life behind that business or corporate curtain, an attention to customers, engagement, interest in creating an open conversation, it’s availability. (It’s like medieval bards tripping from town to town to share the most current tale of the day with their hungry audiences.)

SEL also reports that it observed an alarming number of major brands with poorly crafted content and missing or weakly crafted search snippets, the lattermost an elementary, but KEY, component.

Outside online business concerns like domain relevance, brand, search engine placement, corporate message, site architecture, content, overall design– is there room for considering creativity? Is there a slim chance of breaking free of the general everything-looks-and-sounds-the-same patina to which, it seems, many businesses believe they must strictly adhere?

Copywriter, John Carlton, over and over in his attempts to instruct, argues that the missing ingredient in most advertising and marketing copy messages is the guts to be bold. He contends that most online users and certainly those to whom you are trying to sell something, are zombies. They are flogged day in and day out with the same messages, same tone of online voice, unexciting, uninteresting, BORING. If you think they like this….then keep on. Carlton argues that the only way you have a chance in hell of standing out is if you reach out and grab your prospective client by the shirt collar and PULL HIM IN — nose to nose, not arms-length. ENGAGEment via bold copy and content, and marketing messages that  hit sweet spots your competitors are afraid to strike. Truth be told many legendary copywriters and modern online marketers, practiced these same tactics, but I continue to be drawn to Carlton’s image of the customer-zombie, which nails the problem …

“One simple trick mastered today will have your customers beating a path to your door, even if they have to fork over more cash for ….”

I pass by a grizzled, rumply guy selling newspapers every morning. He is positioned strategically in a small median at a busy 3-way stop. I can’t imagine he sells many. I’ve witnessed only 3 people stop, flag him and hand him a buck or so in exchange for the paper. BUT what’s so unique about him is that he engages almost every passerby, everyday, even in the rain. How? While balancing his coffee to-go, sometimes lighting a cigarette and hugging an armload of fresh morning papers, he makes eye contact with every driver stopped at the 3 stops signs, waves and nods his head in their direction, smiling. These greetings are quick, but he’s engaging in a way that far outdoes any of his competitors on any other street corner in the city. If I were to buy a morning paper, I’d go to his corner, even if it were out of my way.

Engagement with the Everyman.

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Can you be yourself in the Internet maw?

“In the digital age, razor-sharp clarity and definition are the keys to success. Knowing what and who you are, and conveying that idea to an audience, is the only way to break through to readers ADD’ed out on an infinitude of choices. General-interest is out; niche is in. The irony, as restaurateurs and club-owners and sneaker companies and Facebook and Martha Stewart know…is that niche is sometimes the smartest way to take over the world.” ~Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic, The Newsweekly’s Last Stand

Yesterday, Micheal Masterson, in his Early To Rise newsletter, offered up his thoughts on this question: “Where Do You Look for New Marketing Ideas?”

His response: Forward, Backward, Sideways, and one more “secret” place.

• Forward is the divination of “breakthrough” ideas, the “never before seen.”

• Sideways is a brutal exploration of all that’s going down in your own market.

• Backward is a respectful and academic nod to those marketing savants–in your niche– that have come before you. Truth be told it was THEIR breakthroughs, THEIR unabashed pioneering that laid most of the brickwork from which “forward” and “sideways” perspectives are able to happen in the first place.

Masterson’s final direction–the secret place– in which to search for marketing inspiration is INWARD. Wad together all of the Forward, Backward, and Sideways notions, concepts, innovations, and ideas, and stir them around on the inside for awhile–where creativity does her better work.

Is it possible to be a maverick individual in your online business?

Does it seem like we get caught up  in trying to reframe our individual and creative messages into a carbon copy of someone else’s, or cram them into a package manufactured by someone else and in use by thousands of others? In the ring of web content I can certainly vouch that the online world some days  looks a Wasteland of mediocre and re-hashed fill-in-the-blank and templatized automata that vaguely resembles words and language. That’s not to discount rehashing– it certainly has its place in our online ecosystem and what would the world be without swipe files and all manner of techie mash-ups?

The things we’ve begged, borrowed, stolen, and bastardized are, in themselves, whole combo meals of Forward, Sideways, Backwards and sometimes Inward components that Masterson speaks of. Suddenly, in our possession, they become a Backward. If we choose to do something with one of these things– to force our individuality on it, it becomes ours, a Sideways creation for all to see, with some of our Inward and Forward inadvertently dropped in the secret sauce.

Maverick?

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Online businesses thick with valuable content and durable products and services hold themselves upright forever.

Online businesses built on foundations of valuable content, as well as products and services, can self-sustain and grow forever. Google rewards this model.

In that illustration, the left-hand image is my rendering of a large website:

• deep internal links
• clear navigation/menu
• custom-written title and description meta tags for each page
• strong keyword/phrase per page
• well-crafted page content: easily scanned, persuasive, informational, use of readable text conventions, SEO optimized (head with keywords, subheads, bullets, internal anchor text links where appropriate; images that make sense. Some copy-related questions: what do you want your visitors to know, to do? Click a button, fill in a form, buy, learn, interact, bookmark, follow links deeper? Is the copy a big YAWN or is it compelling and insightful, even bold and interesting? Is it all about you or all about answering your visitors needs, desires, triggering their emotions?
• Are the important elements visible above the fold?
• Are you building an email list? Products? Services? Offer a comprehensive customer engagement, from free content to high-level paid?
• Blog– volume, relevancy and engagement?
• Provide content that outside sources may wish to link to; information others in your niche may find useful for their audiences?

I hope you get the picture. In the illustration above: will it be the business on the left, or the business on the right?

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