3 Simple Ways to Market Your Business, Project or Web Site

Over the years, I have become a ‘bit of a marketing junkie.  I am always checking out the latest trends, following successful marketing techniques and trying to figure out how each works. For those not as familiar with the idea, marketing is the process associated with promoting the sale of a good or service you provide.

Successful marketing can be the saving grace for a failing business.  Here are three simple marketing ideas you can use to help your business, web site or project.

Be sure to drop in, leave a comment and let me know if you would like to see more “poor boy” marketing suggestions anybody can use.

With all my other tabs filled up with other content though, I don’t want to keep switching back to another tab in my browser to check out Wikipedia too.  So that is why I have started using a bookmarklet based around the mobile version of Wikipedia.

You can too now, just drag and drop this to your bookmarks toolbar.

+ Pop-up Wikipedia

For more pop-up tools, be sure to check out my previous post on the top five Google pop-up bookmarklets.

Everybody has their own way of doing things though, so you need to make sure you meet everybody’s needs.  Thanks to services like FeedBurner, this is pretty easy.  From inside their web site you can generate tons of those subscription links, as well as your standard big orange button and even e-mail newsletter management.  It is by far the best option out there.

As a rule of thumb, you want to give people the ability to follow you via:

• Your Domain (visiting your web site)
• Via RSS (using the feed reader of their choosing)
• and a newsletter (which you can easily setup with an RSS feed with FeedBurner)

Also it never hurts to let people know your RSS feed over and over again.  Such as how I am right now begging you informing you to subscribe to this feed if you want more informative posts just like the one you just read:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchelaneous

To activate it, just press Ctrl+Shift+V.  Doing so will give you the option to remove all the HTML formatting but preserve the hyperlinks and images.  They also have a thinned HTML option which will preserve the font sizes and text alignments but strips out all the extra CSS beyond that point.  Quick tip for all you fellow Windows Live Writer lovers out there!

Networking Junkies – You know the type.  They are those people who join every single social network out there, and all they have on their page is enlarged Hanna Montana fan-made glitter signs and copy that reads, “THIZ is MY MY MYSAPCE DuDeZ!  CoMES OUT AND LetS DO THE PARTY! WHOOOO!”

Firefox Add-ons – Just when you think you have found the Firefox extension that will solve all your problems, you go to read more about it and the description goes something like this…

“This tool lets you copy the video from the Youtubez.”

Come on, you spent month after month working on this great Firefox add-on and the only thing you can give me as the user, trying to sell me on your download is two sentences?

Carbon Copy Web Hosts – A good majority of the copy on web hosts’ web pages are just stolen from the guy down the street.  Copy and paste is too easy of a task for these guys, and come on, what do you expect?  They are trying to keep the three customers they have happy who happened to mistake them for somebody important.

Social News Headlines – For an example on this one, go to Digg.com and check out any headline on the page.  Enough said.  Ok, that in itself if the main problem here.  Not only do they give us a crappy headline, then they try to sell us on the point that their headline did all the work.  Come on diggeruzer987, the headline does not say it all!

So do you agree with me yet?  If you can think of anymore copyrighting offenders please feel free to let us all know in the comments.

Who says this Internet thing isn’t a great learning device? This made it easy to pick up pointers on how to link inside of the document, and then how to export to PDF and secure the document up some so that it could not be edited. I would suggest anybody bookmark this video and play it again if you ever want to get into the basics of digital publishing yourself.

Give me some content, then tell me some of the story.  Then give me more content, then give me more of the story.  This is a great way to both entertain and inform the visitors at large.  This is also extremely handy when your writing about a subject that might be a little vanilla and dull for the mass public. 

Need some help?  With your next post mix in a story about Ryu from Street Fighter fame and his trouble with buying a new pair of shoes.  (Does he even wear shoes?) 

So there is your homework for the weekend.  With the next thing you write up, tech opinion, help or how-to; try to bring a story into the mix.  It doesn’t have to be a true story, it could be a fictional character from the back of your brain.  Flesh out the weak points with him (or her) and you’ll keep your readers a ‘bit more interested in what you are trying to tell them.

What would Ryu do?

Writing is one of those skills that everybody can do, but not many can master. If you broke it up into a chart you would have those who can’t being a very small percentage of the pie, those who have mastered it being another slightly larger pie piece and then those who are “somewhere in the middle” taking the rest of the cake pie. 

Writing Tips to Help You Lead the Reader

If you master one skill though I can promise you that your own personal writing will improve. You must learn to lead, now what does that mean?

• Break things into chunks, with each chunk or paragraph being a new topic or idea. I always cringe when I see somebody asking my opinion on something that have written and it is a three page article that is all in one single paragraph.

• Don’t be afraid to add sub-headlines to your work. It works great to help those who just scan their articles first for information to find exactly what they are looking for.

• One thing I remember from my middle school and high school journalism classes was to write with message or idea, then follow it up with a quote. Then you give more of the story – followed by a quote. This is another way to fill up an uninteresting drabfest and make it more captivating. No mater what you think, we all want to hear what others have to say about something and that gives the reader instant gratification.

• Don’t let yourself be intimidated by other’s work. Let us say you read a great article by a great writer and your first thought is, “I could never do that”. Take this as a learning experience instead, read it again and keep this message in the back of your head, “How could I do something like this?”

So next time you start writing your opinion, want to share a suggestion or have the urge to rant about your passion don’t be afraid to spruce up your work with a few of these suggestions.

I know it might sound silly, but if you are a writer without a published work to your name you might need to create a few before you become a hired hand at your favorite blogging spot. Personally I wrote up several different types of articles covering the areas I knew the most about. Then I linked them up on my personal site (which also doubles as my resume) and was ready to give looking for a freelance writing job another chance.

The second time around I was welcomed with much warmer arms of amazement and didn’t have any proverbial doors shut on my nose.

Each time I got a gig’ I added whatever I wrote for them to my resume links, so others could see my work there too. Fast forwarding to where we are now I have written so many articles, posts, podcasts and more there is no way I could fit them all on one list. Just don’t forget that when your first starting out with the online writing game that you have to have examples of your work, the best you have to offer, if you want to make your name from behind your keyboard.

1. It is actually about them, not you.
Don’t write for yourself, your college professor or your next-door neighbor. It’s not about your style, your preferences or your own “voice.” It’s not even about what you like or want. It’s about the audience, the product/ service and, ultimately, about selling.

2. Be eye-friendly.
Nothing tires the eyes like big blocks of endless black and white text. So include bullets, sun-heads, questions, sidebars and headlines to break your copy into manageable, scannable chunks.

3. Back it up and be realistic.
Don’t over-promise, over-hype or sugar-coat. Be honest in your copy and your claims. Your customers will love you for it and your prospects will be all the more attracted to you and your products/services.

4. Tell them what to do next.
Don’t lead them to the end and then leave them hanging. Tell them what they need to do to become your customer. Whether it is by phone, e-mail, coming into the store or by Pony Express for that matter, tell them clearly and precisely. You’d be amazed by how many businesses forget to include a clear call to action in their copy.

5. Speak their language.
Know who you are writing and marketing to. Are there certain must-use words? Are there major no-no words? If the writing comes across as disconnected from the audience, it will be evident from the get-go.

6. Become a wealth of information.
Provide site visitors with resources and articles, product reviews or survey results on your product/service and industry. They will not only have the facts to make an informed decision, but they will also view you as a trusted expert.

About Allison Nazarian:
Allison Nazarian is the President of Get It In Writing, Inc., a leader in providing copywriting and marketing services to businesses of all sizes throughout the world. Allison is the author of the books Copywriting 101 and 52 Tips, and is currently developing additional e-products and services, including: Internet Marketing for Lawyers (teleclass and book), SEOCopywriting 101 (book) and My Story, My Time, a book by and for women.