Value is What You Get
Price is what you pay.
Value is what you get.
I love this quote from Warren Buffett because it truly describes what sales and marketing is all about.
If your clients or customers are complaining about the price of the services or goods you are offering, they probably don’t understand the value of what they are buying. And this is where you need to beef up your marketing efforts.
We’ve all heard how we must feature the benefits of an item, not its features when selling. This concept takes that credo to a new level. People will pay — and pay handsomely — for something they value.
Within the past few months I had the opportunity to work with a start-up company in creating its brand and new website. We went round and round with the pricing for copywriting on their new site. If it weren’t for the fact that I was referred to them by someone they respected, I’m not sure they would have hired a copywriter at all. They simply didn’t see the value in good writing or the need to pay for it. But in the end, Continue reading →
The Two Best Ways to Market Online: Guest Post
All the Buzz is pleased to offer this guest post by William Skuba, Director of Marketing at Enable, a web design firm offering affordable web design, graphic design and marketing for small businesses.
The Two Best Ways to Market Online
I hate the word “marketing.”
Whenever I use it in conversation, I immediately see the person I’m talking to lose interest. His or her eyes glaze over, he gives a canned response like “Oh cool,” and I know he isn’t listening anymore.
And I don’t blame him.
What does the word “marketing” even mean? I hardly even know what it means, and I do it for a living.
The fact of the matter is, the term “marketing” has become a vague, meaningless term from decades of overuse. You see self-styled gurus on Facebook offering reports on: “Top 7 Secrets of Marketing,” or “The Content Marketing Hacks That Made Me My First Million.” And you see YouTube ads trying to sell training courses and webinars about how you too can make millions from home simply by starting a digital marketing agency.
But none of us really even knows what they mean by marketing. Continue reading →
Do You Have Passion For Your Business? Take This Quick Quiz.
If you don’t love your business, you probably dread going to work every day. It’s a bad feeling. And unfortunately, it is not only you who feels that way, your customers pick up on it as well.
They say that those who are passionate about what they do never feel as if they are working. Their passion is what drives them, and what makes them successful.
Wonder if you’re still passionate about your business? Take this quick quiz to find out: Continue reading →
Washington Post Reports Writing Skills Rising on the List of Job Requirements But Failing in Candidates
The Washington Post published an article on Sunday, August 13, 2017 titled “Writing skills are rising on the list of job requirements–and falling in candidates,” by Jeffrey K. Selingo.
Selingo continues to reports hearing an interviewer from government contracting firm, looking to hire proposal writers for federal agencies, complain about “how difficult it is to find good writers these days.” Continue reading →
What is it You’re Truly Selling?
I was listening to a TED Talk today that offered to teach people how to find their true calling in just five minutes. In it, the speaker, Adam Leipzig, asked the audience five questions:
- What is your name?
- What do you do?
- Who do you do it for?
- What do those people want and need?
- How do they change as a result?
Want More Sales? Writing in Active Voice Gets Others Excited
Even as a professional writer, I have to review everything I write to make sure I am writing in “active voice.” I review for it in my professional writing as well as my everyday correspondences via email or letters, and believe it or not, I usually find at least one place where I can make my writing stronger.
What is Active Voice?
When using active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed in the verb: The girl brushed the dog. An example of this same sentence in passive voice would be: The dog was brushed by the girl. One tip for identifying a passive sentence is to look for the word “by.”
Why is Active Voice Important?
Active voice sentences are preferable in writing because Continue reading →
Does Your Marketing Copy Tell Your Story?
Are you using plain, nondescriptive words on your website and marketing materials? Words that everyone else is using? If so, you might be falling into the copy dead zone.
I learned a technique as a magazine writer. As an exercise, we wrote a sentence or paragraph using ordinary words, as in this example:
- John went to the store to buy bananas.
How to Give the Perfect Pitch
If you have ever been to a networking group, you were probably asked to stand and give your “elevator pitch” to the group. Members are trained in how to present who they are, what they do, and the benefits of their product or service in 30 seconds or less, or the time it would take to travel in an elevator from floor to floor (which is why it’s called an elevator pitch).
Even if you don’t network, you will constantly be asked, “So, what do you do?” It will happen at family gatherings, parties, social events…pretty much anyplace people gather.
Therefore, you need to be prepared with an elevator speech. It doesn’t have to be canned, but it does need to outline the basics that not only tell what you do, but inspire the listener to ask more. Here are some simply steps to developing your perfect pitch. Continue reading →
Running a Home Based Business? Keep Doing It!
Many an entrepreneur has started a business from home. You might recognize some of the more famous names: Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Apple), Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), and Walt Disney (Disney). These men all started their companies from their garages.
In 2013, Small Business Trends reported that 69% of startup and 59% of established businesses were home-based. Even more interesting, the 2012 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report stated that more than half of U.S. entrepreneurs continued to operate their businesses from home long after they had been established.
There is no stigma in stating that your business is run from home. In fact, there are many smart reasons to continue doing it Continue reading →
Your Website is Sooooo Out of Date
It’s time for a website audit.
I can’t believe how many websites I see that are just plain awful.
- Their copy is out of date.
- They have only bulleted lists on each page.
- They haven’t used keywords or internal links.
- They have typos or bad grammar.
- Their pages only have pictures, without even having captions.
- They are even lacking copy altogether.
- Worst of all, they have the dreaded “Under Construction” on their pages or their entire site.
Egads! Are people turning away from your site because they get a bad impression from it?
When’s the last time you changed or updated your copy? One year? Two years? Ten years? Continue reading →
