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Who says branding doesn’t reap big rewards? Broadcasting bigmouth Rush Limbaugh just signed a new $400 million contract: a $100 million signing bonus and $38 mil a year for eight years.
Ironically, because of his iconic personal brand, we already know everything he’s going to say!
Just do it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Most wanna-be writers think they have to save up a year’s salary, quit their jobs and flee to Tahiti to write their novel (or move to Nashville to become a songwriter). Not true. Here’s all you have to do: write a little every day. Maybe a half-hour, or an hour, even two hours.
Writing, especially creative writing, is not the kind of thing you can do all day, every day. Most fiction writers have a daily word count (or page count) they try to hit, then they take a break and do other things. Most need to get “out of their heads” for a while to let the embers of their creativity cool.
Singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield recently told the NY Times’ Measure for Measure blog how she writes little-by-little.
“(A)ll you really have to do is write a little bit every day. Even if it is rubbish, even if it’s really bad, just set aside a half hour every day to write. Write something, anything, and don’t worry about whether it’s perfect. So when you’re songwriting and you’re staring at a blank page before you — I’m talking about when you’re feeling daunted about the future and afraid to make any step, afraid that the bad stuff is going to get embarrassing — just let the bad stuff come out!
“I found out it that it doesn’t even matter if I fall because even if I fall, that gives me another good story to write… Learning all of that really freed me.”
So what are you waiting for?
Too many information marketers are making the same stupid mistake. Seconds after you arrive at their site, a pop-up (or slide-in) window appears, asking you to fork over your precious contact information. Hey man, I don’t even know you.
Just like in comedy, the secret is… (one, two, three) timing. Why would I be willing to fill out your form when you haven’t even given me a chance to read anything yet! I don’t know you, how good you are, or whether your expertise is even relevant to the problem I’m trying to solve. Back off, Jack.
Imagine a guy walking up to a good looking woman at a party or bar. Instead of saying hello and getting acquainted, he immediately says, “Please give me your name, e-mail address, and maybe your phone number too, while you’re at it.” The fact that you would even ask for that kind of intimate information before you’ve established any kind of relationship makes you seem a little, well… creepy. It’s annoying and off-putting.
Business owners and marketers: Don’t be a victim of “premature e-POP-ulation.” Get to know your website visitors a little before you ask them if you can contact them. Otherwise they’re going to look for someone who’s not so pushy.
Only the good die young? Another one bites the dust? How do you describe the unthinkable?
My mouth literally fell open at the news today that Tim Russert had died suddenly. It felt like a death in the family, although I never knew him except from his television appearances and books.
Tim was one of the good guys: passionate about politics, a master of his craft, a hard working, decent man who adored his family and never forgot his working class roots in his (and my) hometown of Buffalo, NY. In fact, Tim and I went to the same high school at the same time. I regret never getting to know him then. Now, I guess, I never will.
My thoughts are with you, Tim — and of course, with Big Russ, too.
It will be the hottest marketing promotion of the summer — until it runs out of gas. Companies of all kinds are giving away tankfuls of free gas as long as you buy something: a new car, hotel room, even Calloway golf clubs. With $4 a gallon fuel prices and $50-75 fill-ups becoming part of our auto-oriented lifestyle, gasoline giveaways are a real attention-getting promotional idea.
Expect to see it a lot of them this summer, before they fade away by Labor Day, says a marketing professor at at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.
But why bother with gas cards at all? Why not just take $50 off the product price, or give customers the cash as a rebate instead? After all, money is money, right? Shouldn’t consumers be just as excited about a $50 discount as a $50 gas card?
Aha, that’s where the psychology of marketing comes in! Any copywriter worth his thesaurus knows that buying decisions are primarily driven by emotion, not logic, no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise. Suzanne Shu, a marketing professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, says:
“The more (a) purchase feels discretionary, like staying at a luxury hotel, the more the gas cards have impact because people can use them to justify something they might not do otherwise.”
So if you’re thinking of going down the “free gas” road for your next promotion, just remember those roads are going to get pretty congested. Link
photo credit: pixelnaiad
When is a complaint letter like a sales letter? When it gets the immediate, affirmative response you’re looking for. Take the letter “professional complaint letter writer” Bruce Silverman wrote to the Ritz-Carlton that ended up getting him a week, totally comped, at the company’s Kapalua in Hawaii.
As today’s Consumerist detailed, Silverman has been amazingly successful in getting companies to give him all sorts of free stuff: First class upgrades, hotel room upgrades (how does a free week in the Presidential Suite sound?), hundreds of dollars in cash — all from his way with words.
Silverman has now written a book filled with advice for complaining. The basic technique isn’t too far off from the way to write an effective sales letter. Basically his advice is:
As the Consumerist put it, “It’s really just an artful way of demonstrating the basic principle of “it will cost more to ignore me than to take care of my problem.”
Check it out. It’s a fun read. And it may get you what you want next time you’re wronged.
You could practically hear poor Seth Godin’s teeth grinding Sunday when he wrote about a recent agonizing encounter with corporate voice mail. You know the drill: you finally work your way through four or five menus, then end up with a recording, “Sorry, we’re closed.”
No human employee could get away with that kind of behavior. It’s like slapping a customer across the mouth, then slamming the door in their face.
Suppose an employee pulled this kind of stuff every day? asks Seth:
- Puts up a sign indicating which of five doors customers should use.
- Locks that door.
- Randomly unlocks another door.
- When someone figures out which door to use, he runs out and kicks them in the groin, then locks the door.”
How long would it take you to fire that clown?
But hiring human beings to answer the phone isn’t always the best answer, unfortunately. A few years ago a company I worked with decided to go “customer-friendly” and finally got rid of their (terrible) voice mail system.
Result: It took 3-5x longer to get through to your party with the human operator than the old VM system.
Like they say, be careful what you wish for…