Brassy took my website from stagnant to dynamic; from no man’s land to the front page of web searches. I am a firm believer is focusing on what you do well in your business and letting others help you with their expertise. Brassy Marketing knows rank. The amount of client traffic I receive from my website now does not even compare to before I started working with Brassy. The new clients delivered from my website have more than paid back the investment I made.

Ronald G. Harris, CPA

Harris Group CPAs

www.harrisgroupcpa.com

Use Your Photo and Product Shot

If there are two pictures that you include with your copy it should be your picture and a photo of your product.

You include the picture of yourself because this helps to convey the message that you stand behind your product and are proud of the work that you do. Also, people generally buy into people, not products, and if you include your picture you give them another way to identify with you as a real person.  The photo should be a current headshot.

The second picture should be of your product.  It’s important that you take the time to create an attractive image of the product on your sales page.  Clients need to be able to visualize the package that they are considering purchasing, and an attractive well presented image adds credibility and goes a long way for looking professional.

If you are selling a traditional physical product, this is pretty simple.  Lay everything out on a table with a solid background and take some pictures.  Make sure that everything is displayed.  That may mean taking CDs and DVDs out of binders where they are stored with text tutorials.

If you are selling a virtual product like an entry-level downloadable eBook, or a membership Website program, don’t worry, it’s still pretty easy to give your product a “face.”  For an eBook you can have a professional cover designed for you for as low as $30-$40.   To find companies, just search: “custom eBook cover” or “custom eBook design.” You will quickly find that there are opportunities to have something designed for you or order inexpensive software that will help you do it yourself.

If you are promoting your membership Website, you can go a few different routes.  Screenshots are the easiest way to depict what the inside of your membership site looks like, but they are not the most effective.  You can also have a virtual tour video tutorial of your site created to help your potential client understand the value your membership will provide for them.  Another method is to allow access to all or a portion of your site for a limited time with a free trial.  I recommend using a combination of as many tools as possible to depict a clear image of the inside of your site to interested prospects.

Here are some hot marketing words that you can use in your headlines and/or copy. They are particularly effective at grabbing your readers’ attention.

• Free

• You

• Hot

• New

• Guaranteed

• Secret

• Act now

• Amazing

• Results

• Approved

• Best-seller

• Competitive edge

• Congratulations

• Easy

• Get

• Risk-free trial

• Safe

• Warning

• P.S.

• Stop

Use these words in your on and offline sales copy when you want to add emphasis and steal the readers attention.

Related Articles

Writing Sales Copy – Storytelling Techniques

Writing Sales Copy – First 3 Steps

Writing Sales Copy – 4 Effective Techniques for Generating Profits

Don’t want to deal with all of this?  You can hire Brassy Marketing, a Michigan SEO Company to take care of everything for you.  Click the link to send us a message about what you would like help with.

• Let your readers know you have been in a situation similar to their current one and that you understand.

• Reveal the solution and tell them what they need to do to get it.

• Explain why you know this is a valid solution.

• Tell them why you are willing to share such valuable tools and strategies with them.

• Enter the conversation in their mind and address any potential objections. Be careful not to claim to know what they are thinking; people generally don’t appreciate the presumption that you know everything about them. Instead say something like, “It would be logical for you to wonder why…” or “You may be questioning why…” or “There are only a few reasons why you wouldn’t jump at this offer.”

• When writing your copy, you should expect that your reader would find every gap and hole in your story, so make sure that you fill the holes with accurate explanations.

Related Articles

Writing Sales Copy – 4 Effective Techniques for Generating Profits

Writing Sales Copy – First 3 Steps

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Simple Sales Copy Technique: Use a Celebrity Endorsement

Celebrity endorsements can be a great way to get the attention of the public. You don’t have to get a national celebrity to talk about your services. Before you disregard this idea think “outside of the box” an industry specific celebrity can be more effective and far easier to come by. If you have a local business consider local celebrities as well.  When all else fails consider “creating” a celebrity “cartoon heroin” to feature in your sales copy.

Sales Copy Writers are Notorious for the “Take Away”

That’s because take away selling isn’t just effective, it’s also honest.

Use some take away selling techniques when telling the “whole story” good and bad. You utilize take away selling when you tell your clients all the reasons why they should not purchase. This may include explaining what benefits your product cannot provide, whom it may not be appropriate for and any other prohibitive reasons why they should not purchase. This technique can be very effective for a couple reasons, first of all it is human nature to covet what is limited, secondly in the process of utilizing take away selling, you tell the whole truth, and people tend to trust and respect those who are brave and honest enough to tell the entire truth. Some examples of take away selling statements are:

• “This program is not right for everyone.”

• “To be successful you will need the following skills…”

• “It will take (amount of time) before you will begin to see the benefits of this program.”

You get the idea. There is truth in the “take away,” and so not only can you benefit from our natural inclination to have what isn’t easily presented to us, but you can also build rapport by honestly divulging the drawbacks and limitations to your product/services. The truth is that we all know that every choice, program and system has drawbacks and limitations, and we go into a situation trying to identify them so that we can make a good decision. By “laying it all on the table,” you earn some trust while enabling the prospect to make a quicker, more informed decision.

Sales Copy Must Deliver the Message Even if They Don’t Actually Read It

You want the message to get across even if your prospect doesn’t have the patience to read it all. To do this, reserve color and special font for accenting important parts of your message so that it’s easy to scan the entire page and to get all the important information you need to make a decision to buy. A good test is to take all of your text with special font, highlighted sections, images, lift notes, and captions and copy and paste them onto another document (this only takes a couple minutes). Then hand the page to a few people and see if they can figure out what the offer is, and when, why, and how they need to purchase it. If they can easily figure it out, then you’ve done a good job.

Using Long Sales Copy

If you are a writer of few words, you may wonder why anyone would ever add anything else to their sales copy other than what, when, why and how they need to purchase (or take other desired action). The reality is that you don’t have to, but if you take the time to express all of these things in detail, perhaps in a story and then re-state them briefly your copy will be far more effective.

Our beloved copy-writing guru Dan Kennedy explains this eloquently by relating your copy to a salesperson. Would you send your sales staff out to sell your product and only give them a few minutes and limited information to sell it? Or would you arm them with all of the statistics, benefits and testimonials you have? Of course, you would give them all the tools you have. Your copy is your salesperson, and that’s why you need long copy.

As a general rule of thumb, the more expensive the product the longer and more detailed the copy must be. This makes sense since more expensive information products (Website membership, physical information products and coaching programs) are generally more complex than their less expensive counterparts. Keeping that in mind, make sure to keep your information relevant and avoid adding fluff just to bulk up your pitch. Rambling is a sure way to bore people into leaving.

What constitutes long sales copy?

There is no page requirement that I have ever heard of that you must meet in order to have long copy. What’s important is that you take the time to tell your story, reveal how the benefits could affect your clients’ lives, and explain the features so they understand how they can deliver these benefits. Share testimonials that you may have; tell them the investment, explain the guarantee and how the material will be delivered to them. This may take 400 words or 3000 words. What is important is that you take the time to do the job right.

Assistance with Your Sales Copy

Want a professional to write the sales copy for your website? We can help. Just click the link above and call or submit your request in the form provided, or select the “contact us” tab at the top of the page.

Related Posts for Writing Effective Sales Copy

Writing Sales Copy – First 3 Steps

How to Create a Promotion to Increase Sales

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Article Marketing – How to Get Started

How to Create a Squeeze Page or Landing Page (including how to layout the sales copy so people will enter their contact information)

How to Write Sales Copy

The ability to write effective sales copy (or hire someone who does) is essential to any company. The power to demand attention and foster trust from your reader while demonstrating your capability to provide them with the valuable benefits they seek is precious. Creating effective sales copy is a skill that you will continue to hone throughout your career, and the investments that you make to improve will never stop paying off.

You don’t have to be a poet, wordsmith or author to create killer sales copy, you only need to know what benefits your reader wants and to express your ability to deliver those results while fostering trust, desire and urgency. In this section I will share a few strategies to help you hone your copy writing skills so that you can communicate and bond with your readers more effectively.

If you’re anything like me, the last thing you want to do is spend your time reading the same information over and over, so to save you time and your sanity I will teach you the sales copy rules that work for any medium, then follow up with the special factors to take into consideration for direct mail letters and Website pages, such as packaging and shipping for direct mail and online ordering systems to work with your online sales page. This way we can get through the material quickly without creating extra work or confusion, so let’s get started.

Tools for Writing Effective Sales Copy

Basically your job is to offer your clients the benefit they are looking for, make them believe you, believe in themselves and believe in your product, then ask for the sale. This can be quite a challenge to accomplish with a sales letter or Website page if you don’t have a system. Thankfully there are some effective strategies and techniques today that will make the job significantly easier.

Commit to One Objective

You must commit to a single goal for each piece of sales copy you create. It doesn’t matter if you are writing a sales letter, article, magazine advertisement, e-mail promotion, event invitation or creating a web page – if you try to kill two birds with one stone you will miss them both. Instead, commit to focusing your energy on getting the reader to take one specific step, perhaps place an order, register for your event, or sign up for your free Ezine. The action you want the reader to take can be anything you want, as long as you limit yourself to one option.

For example, if you are creating an opt-in “squeeze page” to collect contact information from your prospects so that you can build a relationship with them and promote your services, then don’t include a link on the opt-in page to follow you on Twitter. Don’t even think of inviting them to your Facebook fan page, and if you provide a link to your blog where they can peruse articles for hours, then you might as well forget about ever getting their contact information. I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and place to provide all of these options, but it’s not on your opt-in page. Keep your efforts streamlined and simple, and you will enjoy much more success.

Prepare to Write

You need to have a piece of paper or file somewhere that lists everything that you know about your client, from their hobbies, dreams and challenges to their favorite TV shows. Before you start writing review this information to help get you “in state” so that you are in the right frame of mind when you start “writing” to your client. Some people even find it helpful to name their ideal client to help them remember that they are not trying to reach out to the masses. Your goal is actually to connect with one person, in a way that makes them feel understood. Make sure to keep the primary focus on them – don’t get caught up talking about yourself the whole time.

Be yourself

Now that you have reminded yourself of whom you are talking to, remember that the two of you have differences. Don’t pretend otherwise. Since it is likely that you were in a position similar to where your client is now, use that to relate to them while speaking honestly about where you are now and how the journey has changed you. Your honesty and transparency will be appreciated.

Discover the next steps in How to Write Sales Copy, to be released Tuesday November 30th, 2010.

Additional Help Writing Sales Copy

Want to hire someone to write sales copy for your website?  Brassy Marketing can help you with that.  Just click the link above and call or submit your request in the form provided, or select the “contact us” tab at the top of the page.

Related Articles for Writing Sales Copy

The next steps in How to Write Sales Copy  (To be released Tuesday Nov, 30th 2010)

How to Create a Promotion to Increase Sales

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Article Marketing – How to Get Started

How to Create a Squeeze Page or Landing Page (including how to layout the sales copy so people will enter their contact information)

Don’t have testimonials? Here are a few techniques you can use to build up your testimonial collection fast:

• Customer comments – Allow “approved” comments to be posted to the bottom of your sales page (or special comment page) and then remind your clients they can post their comments on the page any time. The clients’ comments serve as testimonials and because they are informal, they are perceived as more genuine than their groomed and polished counterparts.

Note: It is important that you require that these comments be approved before they are posted or you will be subject to some serious spam problems, and the last thing you want is promotions for prescription drugs or porn on your Website.

• Make it easy for clients to send them in – Send your clients a letter asking for their feedback and include a self addressed stamped post card that they can write their thoughts on and conveniently drop in the mail for you.

• Simple e-mail request – As part of your follow up program with new clients, send an e-mail asking for feedback on the product they recently purchased. You will be surprised at the amount of feedback you will get and how grateful people are that you cared enough to ask.

• Contest – Offer a big prize and ask your clients (or prospects) to submit reasons why they should be chosen as the recipient. They will undoubtedly talk about why they want your product/service, essentially acting as salesmen for your services.

Use Client Testimonials in Advertising

Testimonials are great tools for building confidence in prospective clients, but you need to present them properly. Below are some tips to help you get the best results out of the testimonials you provide.

• Descriptive – The more specific your clients will make their testimonials the more beneficial they are.  The best testimonials describe the specific product or service, the clients experience and the biggest benefit they received.

• Original – Fix any spelling errors, but don’t change the grammar or phrasing that your clients have used in their testimonial to make them look more polished. Their own words, even if they are not eloquent, make the testimonial more believable.

• Personal information – It’s not uncommon to see testimonials with only a first name and last initial or a first name and state and city, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. For the majority of  businesses there’s no reason why your clients should mind including not only their full name but also their business name, city/state and Web address. This does a lot for increasing the credibility of your testimonial.

• Permission – Make sure to get written permission to quote the client for any promotional piece. A general release makes it easier to gather testimonials for multiple promotions instead of trying to get specific quotes to only be used on certain pieces.

Now that you have some ideas for collecting and using testimonials in advertising and marketing pieces get started right away.  Gathering and posting quality testimonials is an ongoing process for any business, but as you share more “stories” from satisfied clients the social proof will stack up and you will find that your clients messages will do more and more of your selling for you.

Getting More Help

If you would like help getting your testimonials in front of more people searching the Internet for the products and services that you provide,  click this link to learn more about the organic search engine optimization tools we can use to get your website on the first page of the search engine results for your market.

You can post a specific question or request that we take a look at your site and provide a free competitive market analysis to see where you stand and what it would take to get to the top.

Articles Related to “Testimonials in Advertising”

Writing Testimonials for Others to Boost Your Business

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Rebate Incentives

The “Graduation Rebate” for Information Products

We all know that rebates come from the manufacturer not the retailer, which is why we so easily accept mailing in the coupon to get our discount after the fact, instead of the more convenient savings that you get right at the store. There is another reason why companies will offer you a $2 rebate on an $11 bottle of vitamins instead of just discounting the price $2 right at the register. Many of us are guilty of thinking that we will follow through when in reality we will get distracted, re-allocate the job’s importance, forget, procrastinate or give up. I have a lot of experience with this phenomenon myself.

So you buy the bottle of vitamins that you want but don’t need or pick up the more expensive brand when you typically wouldn’t because of the rebate. Then you get home, put the bottle in the cupboard and stick the rebate sticker in a pile of not too important things to do. Odds are if it doesn’t get taken care of that week it won’t be mailed in at all. This makes rebates a very profitable marketing method.

Typically I would not recommend using a rebate as a promotional tool for your information product, this is a learning incentive. It just doesn’t make sense since they are meant to be discounts offered by the manufacturer for products that you purchase from the retailer. Sure, by not making the discount available immediately they save money on the healthy percentage of them that are never redeemed, but there is still reasonable justification for the system since you are getting the discount from the manufacturer not the store and this doesn’t apply to you.

So the question is how can you use this information to generate higher profits ethically? The solution you provide a “rebate” to people who actually USE your product to achieve their goals and improve their lives. This accomplishes several things simultaneously.

However, there is an ingenuous twist on the rebate concept that you can use for your information product, I will call it the “Graduation Rebate.” The concept of the rebate incentive is that your clients will have to complete a requirement like a test in order to “graduate” from the program. Upon completion of the program they will receive a monetary graduation gift and a small present symbolizing of their accomplishment.

Example:

The “Short Sale Specialist Program” for Realtors may cost $1,497 to purchase, but upon completing the graduation requirements the client will receive a $500 check and a framed certificate of completion for their office.

Obviously you must make a big deal about the graduation gift in the promotional material so that your prospect is sure to get the message. You must develop a way of testing your clients’ knowledge, and a way to ensure that you get notification that someone has graduated quickly so that you can get their check and gift out quickly. Do not try to be sneaky and give them a gift certificate to use with your business. Give them a check payable to the client for the amount specified in your marketing, and make sure that it gets to them quickly.

This incentive marketing program can be a great addition to your information product for multiple reasons:

• It gives your prospects more incentive to buy. Naturally they plan to use the product or they wouldn’t consider purchasing it in the first place. Therefore, the graduation gift tends to serve as a discount in your client’s mind. They figure, “Well, I’m not really spending $1497 at all because I will get $500 of it back. I’m really only spending $997.” It’s less than a thousand dollars, which for some reason seems dramatically less than $1001.

• It motivates your clients to take action. Now your client has another reason to open the box or go through the site and absorb the information that they paid for. You can’t force them to apply the information to improve their businesses. You can’t even force them to open the box, but at least this gives them additional motivation, which is good news because let’s face it, your fates are tied to some degree.

Guess how many more products your clients are likely to buy from you if they never use anything you give them and therefore get zero results? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they probably won’t buy anything else from you, and why should they? They were buying it for the benefits not to have the pretty kit. Of course there are a few crazy people that will keep buying the material even though they never read it, but let’s just say you can significantly increase the likelihood of a return customer if they use the material.

• You need testimonials and word of mouth promotion. There are very few people who open the box, then you’re not going to be getting the floods of great testimonials and referral business you are hoping for. Is it your fault when your clients don’t follow through? No, but it is in both of your best interests that they do.

• It provides you with a consolation prize. Ideally you want to earn a life long client, but if not even cold hard cash will motivate this person to follow through then you probably won’t get their return business. Instead you get to keep the graduation gift money, therefore increasing the profit margin on clients that don’t follow through. Of course, this is a nice perk in the short run, but don’t be deceived – it’s not ideal. Your ultimate goal is to get them to use the tools you sold them and earn their return business. A loyal client is far more valuable to you, but to offset the loss, clients unlikely to buy from you again ultimately pay a higher price.

Step-by-Step How to Create a “Graduation” Rebate Program

Identify the information from your material that would work well for clear question and answers in a multiple-choice format.

If you are at a loss, here are some ideas:

• Provide definitions for terms that may be new to them

• Identify the correct examples of specific marketing

• Identify effective sales or client service techniques

• Ask to identify the proper name of things, select the correct order of things

• Identify the wrong choice or the item that does not belong

Your clients should be able to easily look up the answers to the questions in your test. Focus on the core principles, big mistakes, and most important keys to their success. The purpose is to ensure that they do understand the factors, steps, and components to their success. Unfortunately, you still cannot force them to actually use the information that they now have, but you have at least ensured that they have gleaned the key information from the material.

Make your quizzes/tests available via your Website. You can provide the link and a password to the client with the information product. You can have it set up so you or your staff is notified via e-mail the moment someone completes the test, so you can mail their rebate check and gift immediately via priority express mail. I would recommend hiring a professional to step up your testing site for you.

If a testing Website is out of the question, you can choose to include the paper version of the test in your product or put it on a disc that your client can run on their computer. Although these methods are easier up front, there are some drawbacks. First of all, it’s an extra step for your client to take to submit their test manually through the mail or e-mail. If you accept the results through the mail you will have an additional time delay before you get the results, and most importantly a paper test does not give the client the opportunity to see their own results instantly so that they can retake the test if needed.

Selecting the Amount of the Graduation Gift

To make this most effective, I like to provide a substantial gift amount, typically anywhere from 20% to 50% of the purchase amount of the product. Obviously there are several factors that you will want to consider when choosing the amount of the graduation gift:

• Price of your product - If your product is only $47, 20% is less than $10, not a very good incentive for all the work of studying and taking quizzes. The less expensive the product the higher percentage of the purchase price the amount should be based on to provide sufficient motivation for the client. Graduation programs generally work better with more expensive and intensive products.

• Profit margin - Make sure that you are aware of your costs so that you can place the amount at a level that you feel comfortable with. Typically you want to leave a healthy profit margin unless you are comfortable using this exclusively as a gateway product to other services.

When doing your calculations, remember most people will not go through the effort to complete all of the tests and receive their gift even if the tests are very straight forward and simple.

• Testing results - The bottom line is that you will eventually need to pick an amount and record the results of the test. Over time you can modify your approach to get the best results.

Here’s a list of tips to help your Graduation Reward Program become a huge success:

• Name it – For example, “Graduation Reward Program”

• Present it with class - Deliver the graduation check with a certificate of completion or diploma. You may wish to deliver it in a unique way, framed, on a plaque, or an acrylic, crystal or rosewood award so they can display for their clients. Providing them with a quality piece to recognize their achievement and work gives them additional incentive to purchase and complete the program – not to mention acts as an advertisement to any one who may see it.

o Make the delivery important – Send your package FedEx or priority mail.

• Promoting Product to your Lead List - The easiest way for you to promote your graduation gift program to your lead list is through your Ezine, but you can also use your sales page, direct mail letters and other forms of marketing.

• Shipping – Just like the graduation gift you want your product to be shipped FedEx or Priority Mail for a couple reasons:

o It speaks to the level of importance of the material.

o It reflects that you care that your client gets their information safely and in a timely manner.

* Don’t want to deal with all of this?  Brassy Marketing can help click the “contact us” tab at the top of the page or this link:  Internet Marketing and let us know what we can do to help you.

Want to see related articles?

Create a Promotion to Increase Sales

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Create promotions to sell more. It’s a simple, yet highly effective strategy that increase sales and profits when used properly. Still you can’t just throw offer a random discount, or bonus and expect it to make you money.  In fact misusing promotions can lead to lower perceived value, not to mention a lack of sales.  Here are some ideas for different promotions you can easily implement and how to use them.

Before you create your sales page and/or sales letter, you should be thinking about motivators beyond the products benefits that will persuade people to take action. The most common enticement you see is a discount with deadline. I’m sure you have been offered a discount on a product or service that asks you to “buy now.” There’s a reason for that – it’s an effective sales tool. I would also like to talk about some less common motivating tools that you can use to increase your sales:

Early Bird Discount Promotion

The early bird promotion is not as popular as the standard discount because it requires a little more planning on behalf of the seller, but it can be very effective. One of the reasons it works so well is that the discount is legitimately justified. Only people who purchase in advance and within a defined time frame are given the discount (think Christmas supplies in July), since the discount is limited to a time frame when it is obviously a less attractive time to buy providing the discount does not damage the perceived value as much as a traditional discount may.

Pre-order Discount Promotion

Pre-order discounts are offered to clients who order your product before it is available to them. This is a great way to guarantee you will have sales for a new product, collect revenue to pay for expenses and create a buzz about your new release. The pre-order is also a solid justification for a discount, as it makes sense to most people that they should receive a price break for parting with their money without the instant gratification of the product.

Traditional Sale Promotion

As mentioned before, these are the most popular types of promotions and can be used for any reason – a holiday, limited inventory, personal event/accomplishment, seasonal change, new client, loyal client, client who hasn’t purchased from you in a while. You name it. These types of promotions do not require a lot of planning and can easily be added at the last minute. You must be extremely specific as to when the sale ends and make sure that the information is posted throughout your marketing material. As a general rule of thumb, you want to make the deadline two weeks or less from the time your client receives the message. They can be effective at generating additional sales and are a great tool but they do have the potential of depreciating the value of your products over time and you do run the risk of “training” your clients to “only buy on sale.” I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use traditional sales. I just want you to be aware of all of the factors so that you can create the most effective marketing program possible.

Limited Bonus Promotion

You can dramatically increase the reasons to buy by providing valuable bonuses that your clients really want, but they still might not purchase immediately and miss out all together if you don’t give them a reason to act quickly. Here are a few ways to limit bonuses to light a fire under them:

• Bonuses provided to only the first X people to purchase/subscribe/enroll. Call or e-mail to check if there are still bonuses available.

• If you order before “INSERT DATE” you will also get the following… If you order after “INSERT DATE” the bonuses will not be included or bonuses may expire one at time until none of them are available.

• “If you upgrade your purchase today you will receive the following bonuses…” This offer is referred to as an upsale and I believe is best when made immediately after the original purchase is completed. By waiting until the original purchase is complete you are able to focus on selling only one item at a time instead of trying to validate the benefits of each option simultaneously.

Don’t want to deal with all of this?

Brassy Marketing can take care of it for you. Click the contact us tab at the top of the page and let us know what we can do to help.

Want to read more articles on related topics?

Try 5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Check Out How to Create a Landing Page or Squeeze Page to build your prospect list.

Read Landing Page Give Away to learn how to create an effective “free gift” for your landing page.

You should be using an e-mail service provider that allows you to schedule your e-mails to be sent out at a later date so you don’t have to worry about being available to press send right when you want the message to go out. When scheduling your messages you want to try to catch people when they are likely to be checking their e-mail regularly (so the inbox isn’t already piled up), and when they are in a frame of mind that makes them more likely to read your message.

Typically, Tuesday and Wednesday are prime days for professionals to open e-mail, but make sure to take into consideration any special aspects of your industry that may change that. For example, many real estate agents work on Saturdays and may take a weekday off of work. This would effect when they check e-mail.

The goal is to provide the information when they would be most receptive to it: when their inbox is not loaded down with mail and they are working but not at their busiest time. A good method may be to start with Tuesday and/or Wednesday and then test some different days to see if you can improve the open rate. Any good ESP will provide a place where you can view how many messages were opened.  This will allow you to test different days to see if one gives you a significant advantage.

Good luck!

*Don’t want to deal with this? We can do it for you, click Michigan SEO Company to let us know how we can help.

Looking for more information on Email Newsletters?  Check out these informative articles.

5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages

Ezine Newsletter – Getting Started

Implementing a New Ezine Newsletter

Selecting an Email Service Provider

If you are going to send a promotional message, you may want it to be about a special event. There are many reasons you may choose to hold a promotion. It doesn’t always have to be linked to a discounted price. Instead, during the promotion you may limit the availability of the product only to that group, add special bonuses, or provide additional formats. Here are some ideas for special promotions. Try one of them or create something unique of your own:

• Loyal Customer – The loyal customer promotion is a great category for “early release” or providing regular discount that all members of this group enjoy. By providing the loyal customers with a company-wide discount you preserve the value of the products better than by discounting the products themselves.

• Birthday – On your clients’ birthday month, why not send them a nice message, maybe a small gift, and gift certificate to use at your business. Of course, the gift you choose and the value of the gift certificate should reflect the value of the client. They will likely appreciate being acknowledged, and if they use the gift certificate at your business are likely to spend more than its face value.

• Holiday – Creating a holiday promotion is easy because you don’t need any special information about your clients in order to set one up. You should be aware, though, that it’s likely that not all of your clients celebrate the particular holiday, and you should delicately address that. Discounts and gift certificates and special launches work well for holiday promotions.

• Last available – It’s human nature to have an elevated desire for something that is scarce, so if you are trying to sell the last place or two in your coaching group or to an event, make sure to let them know that this is the last place(s) available. If you think there will be high demand, you can also limit the offering to a select group to thank loyal customers or to give new people an opportunity.

• Pre-launch – The idea of a pre-launch is to build excitement, get early feedback, reward early adapters, and create buzz about the soon to be released product. When you send pre-launch messages, you should explain to the reader why they are on the list, when the product is going to be launched, and the benefits they can get from acting now (for example placing a pre-order).

Create a countdown with additional messages to the group prior to the launch. Make sure that if a person places a pre-order that they are put on a different list than the people who have not yet pre-ordered. It is frustrating to get solicited to purchase a product that you just ordered. Give the people on your pre-launch list little pieces of the product for them to review. Consider releasing the product early to only a few people so that they can provide feedback and create a “buzz” about how great it is.

Note: Make sure to break up ideas to make the message easy to read. Keep the length long enough to get the point across but short enough that you don’t overwhelm them. Remember, you are only selling them on the idea of clicking through to the sales page.

Other Posts on Ezines  Ezine Newsletter – Getting Started Implementing a New Ezine Selecting an Email Marketing Service

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Part 2 – See Ezine Newsletter – Getting Started for Part One

When creating a regular Ezine you should do the following.

Name It

• Give it a Name Pick a name that is easy to remember, tells the person a little about what the Ezine is about (at least make sure not to accidentally mislead them). If you can include a keyword while you are at it, better yet. Here are some examples of real Ezines and their titles. These Ezines were selected by www.bestezines.com a website that enables Ezine publishers to list their Ezines and visitors to write reviews/rate them. As you see each has a short simple title that tells you something about the topic, reviewing them may help you think of a good title for your own Ezine.

Trade Show Tactics Newsletter by the TradeShow Teacher

By Linda Musgrove

Parenting Partner

By Connie Hammer

Chinese Health Tips

By Matthew Scott

Writer’s Fast Track

By Angela Kaelin

These are all great title examples.

How frequently should you publish your Ezine?

Consider the two factors that should play a role in determining how frequently you publish. There are a couple things you should take into consideration. First, it’s better to publish fewer high quality pieces than a lot of mediocre material. The reason is that if you are just trying to find something to say in your current Ezine and it ends up more “call to action” and graphics than valuable content – or just a plain waste of time for any reason – then you will quickly train your reader to ignore your messages.

The second factor to consider is that the frequency of valuable Ezines can increase your overall Ezine effectiveness up to a point. So if you have enough content and patience to create additional well formulated Ezines, then that’s great. Personally, I would recommend aiming for an Ezine frequency that falls somewhere between every 4 days and monthly. Even if you have tons to say and the most effective Ezine content available, I would not recommend publishing more than once every 4 days because if your readers get busy and don’t get a chance to read your Ezine for a few days you don’t want them to return to a pile of unread Ezines from you.

You are better off conservatively choose one of the following frequencies that you feel comfortable you can generate valuable content for: monthly, bi-monthly, weekly, every 4 days. Then if you find that you could easily do more, then you can choose to increase your frequency at a later date.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing

• Be clear about “whom” you are writing to.

Most of this work should have been done in section one when selecting the perfect profitable niche and getting inside your client’s head. Just review the work you have done in that section to refresh your memory.

• Determine how often you will use promotional messages.

A good rule of thumb is three content messages per promotional message. Make sure that the promotions are relevant to your client/prospect’s current needs and if you are promoting an affiliate that they are highly reputable.

• Help your readers stay focused on a couple key benefits.

Although you may have an array of specific subjects that help your reader make progress, there should be two or three primary objectives of the Ezine. Regularly make these objectives clear to your readers. Keep these objectives listed in a place where you can view them frequently – it will help you stay on task.

• Decide what overall tone you want to use in your Ezine.

Are you going to be serious, funny, or inspiring? Choosing a tone that is well aligned with a strong facet of your personality will make it easier for you. Staying consistent allows the reader to feel like they’re getting to know you. You can think of setting the tone like creating a cartoon character based on you. Use your core characteristics but exaggerate the features. No one is funny, inspiring, serious or sentimental all of the time, but if it’s a strong part of your personality just exaggerate it and run with it.

• Make it independent.

Create each Ezine message so that it makes sense when read independently from the others. It’s ok to reference earlier messages, but don’t make the mistake of making them so connected that they can’t stand-alone. You must always assume that it’s highly likely your reader either missed the previous message or doesn’t remember it.

• Give them the next step.

You always want to give you reader an option to take action after they are done reading. It could be as direct as sending them to a sales page or as soft as suggesting they check out your blog or follow you on Twitter. You will want to change this section to reflect an appropriate action for that message. Note: If this is your promo message, you want them going to a sales page not your blog.

• Ensure each message contains all of the information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some things are required to appear on your Ezine. If you are using a reputable company like Aweber or Constant Contact to help you publish your Ezine, they will make sure that you have this included in every message. You must have a functioning return e-mail address, your complete contact information and an unsubscribe link for subscribers who no longer wish to receive messages from you.

• Include only relevant graphics if using HTML.

A picture of you, logo or picture relevant to the message is a good idea but don’t go overboard. It will distract from the message, look too promotional and increase download times.

Don’t Spam

Spam is unsolicited e-mail sent indiscriminately to a group of individuals. These may include people who have already opted out of your list or who have no existing relationship with you. Spam is taken seriously, and if you are even being suspected of being a spammer it can create a real hassle for you.

Internet service providers (ISP’s) work with anti-spam organizations to help identify spammers. If you are “labeled” as a spammer, a substantial portion of your mail may start being dumped in your subscriber’s junk mailbox. If it becomes a reoccurring problem and you are identified repeatedly as a spammer, you may find yourself blocked from sending e-mail from that ISP. There can even be legal action taken against you.

Here are some basic tips to help you steer clear of trouble:

• Always include an easy to find opt-out link.

If you use a reputable e-mail service provider like Aweber or Constant Contact, they will include this for you in your e-mail messages.

• Only send messages to people who know who you are or who have requested info, ideally both.

• Never send messages from a fake address or name.

It’s not only unethical to send messages with a false return address, it’s illegal. The reply function on the e-mails you send should work, and you should include the functioning e-mail address in the contact information as well. Again a reputable e-mail service provider will make sure you are following regulations on this.

• Don’t disguise your messages to make them look like they came from someone else.

It’s okay, and I encourage you to use creative headlines to raise curiosity and get your mail opened. It’s not okay to be misleading. Even if it were allowed, who would want to buy from you after you just deceived them?

Summary

Generally, just be direct and honest with your headlines and content and make it easy for people to unsubscribe from the newsletter if they want to. There is some disagreement amongst the public as to what qualifies as spam, and even if you don’t get into trouble legally or with your ISP, if your reader feels they are being sent spam they will likely feel tricked and taken advantage of and the last thing they will want to do is become your customer. To learn details about the current CAN-SPAM laws, go to www.ftc.gov/spam/

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We will cover all the different purposes of an Ezine and how you can accomplish those motives by using different formats and angles. We will cover the basics of how to name your Ezine and decide how frequently and on what days you should send it. You will discover how getting a little personal help can strengthen the bond between you and your reader. Then we will discuss spam, what it is and how to avoid becoming entangled in it. Next you will learn how you can categorize your Ezine contacts to get optimum results, how to use personalization and ideas for special promotions.

The bottom line is there’s a lot more to creating and running an Ezine than just writing a short message and pressing send. Some people spend their entire careers teaching people how to create effective Ezines. Fortunately, you don’t need to struggle with your Ezine the strategies in this article we will help you get off to a good start and the feedback you get will allow you to systematically test different approaches until you have cultivated it into a strong asset.

Purpose of an Ezine

The most fundamental purpose of an Ezine is to build relationships with prospects. This is done both by asking the reader questions and by providing valuable and entertaining content as well as the occasional glimpse of your personal life.

Some of the tasks of Ezine correspondence are:

• Help your prospect make progress toward their goal

• To deliver links for downloadable products

• Establish you as an expert

• Keep you and your brand front of mind

• Serve as an enticement to collect contact info

• Follow up with clients after a purchase

• Get people to your sales page

There are several different types of Ezine messages, including contests, tips and articles.

Contests

A contest could be based on getting the correct/best answers to a quiz, or your clients’ or prospects’ submissions. They could submit video, or text entries focused on why they should get the prize. Then you can use the submissions for more “testimonial” content or narrow down to the finalist and then let the subscribers pick the winner.

Weekly or Daily Tips

Your Ezine can regularly provide a valuable tip that your prospect/client can use to build their business/career. There’s no need to make the message long; two or three paragraphs explaining your recommendation and how to implement it is enough.

Article Series

Sequential articles explaining how to do something or revealing different ways to approach a single challenge are great topics for an Ezine. Each article can reveal one of the steps, or ways to reach the end result. The following are title formats that work well:

• How to…

• # Steps To…

• # Ways to…

• Top 10…

• # Strategies for…

• # Things that Will NOT…

News

You can use your Ezine to keep your readers notified of important industry news or how mainstream news may impact them personally. Google alerts can make this easier by keeping you abreast on current events. When you set it up make sure to create alert specifications detailed enough that you are not overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Then report the news with your personal insights, to your subscribers.

Interviews

Interviews are not only an interesting way to share information but also a great way to create new content. You never know exactly where a conversation will go between two people and that’s what makes it interesting. You can hold interviews with:

• Industry celebrities

• Experts in related fields – this is a great way to get fresh, pertinent information

• Experts with more authority and name recognition than you; just association with them can elevate your status

• Clients sharing their success stories

• Question and answer series with practically anyone in your industry, from an expert to a newbie

• Product review – this is one way of providing valuable information and getting an interview with someone who may have not otherwise met with you

Personal Information

You can include some entertaining stories about family, friends, pets, hobbies, successes and travel. Or you could occasionally include humor, opinions or recipes in your Ezine. Always find a way to link the personal information back to relevant work topic so it is relative to the piece as a whole.

For example, you could use a story about a recent trip and then talk about how your business has made travel like this possible for you. Or share a family recipe and explain that due to your business success you are able to spend more time with family creating some of your family’s favorite traditional meals.

Be yourself. You may be nervous that this will offend some people or they will simply be turned off by you, and you are right that a few undoubtedly will. Those who dislike you probably would have left soon anyway, and those who stay will like you more for being genuine. Eventually revealing more of who you are just accelerates the process.

I like to think of it as weeding out the group so you can find your long-term clients faster. There is a quote by playwright and lecturer Raymond Hull, “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” You have to stay true to yourself even if it means loosing a few clients, because it’s necessary to preserving yourself.

Special Events

You can also include special messages for holidays, anniversaries and birthdays. These can be more of a personal nature or you can relate them to your industry. Having a birthday? Talk about how aging impacts your business? Is Christmas approaching? How does the business environment change in your industry around the holidays?

Now that you have a lot of ideas for the style and format of your Ezine  we will cover exactly how to set up your Ezine. See Implementing a New Ezine Newsletter for Part 2 of 2

Don’t want to deal with all of this?? You can hire Brassy Marketing & Publications to take care of it for you just click the “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you.

Secondly, you get the added exposure of an eloquent statement posted on their Website with your photo, title and URL attached to it. If people are interested they just might check you out.

Finally, you will get your face and message out there for overall branding purposes and further establish yourself as an expert in this field, while creating backlinks to your website.

Note: If you want to provide a testimonial to a professional who does not allow comment posts on their website provide them with a written, signed testimonial with a statement at the bottom that says you are giving them the permission to use any portion of this statement in any on or offline marketing pieces.  The gesture will be much appreciated.

The biggest drawback of manual submission is that it’s time consuming. The benefits are that it allows you to hand pick where you want your articles going and make sure that you have the categories correct. The last thing you want to do is have an automated service send your articles to directories that have a poor reputation and end up damaging yours in the process. Also, there is no guarantee that each directory has the same categories available to choose from, and if you do not take the time to select the correct one you could lose traffic due to poor categorization and rank.

Manual submission enables you to make sure you don’t send the articles to directories that would be detrimental to your ranking due to their poor reputation.

Here are some big directories with solid page rankings, from around 4-6, that you may want to consider sending your articles to:

• EzineArticles.com

• Ehow.com

• Articlesbase.com

• goarticles.com

• buzzle.com

• articledashboard.com

• articlealley.com

• isnare.com

• ideamarketers.com

• articlecity.com

• easyarticles.com

• searchwarp.com

• weeno.com

Automated Submissions

In theory, automated article submission is great: Submit an article to hundreds of article directories throughout the Web, getting your article lots of exposure and lots of back links to your site to help drive traffic and increase your page rank. The best part is it takes minimal time and financial investment.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems. First of all, if your automatic submission software submits your article to a site with a poor reputation and ranking the backlink that is created could actually damage your reputation. In addition, articles occasionally will become corrupted in the process of being submitted to directories and the end result can render an article with missing or unreadable pieces. This not only looks unprofessional, but if it affects your text anchor or website link it can make it impossible for traffic to get to your site. Each article directory does not necessarily categorize their articles in exactly the same way. Creating problems similar to the automated search engine submission. It is possible for some of your articles to be rejected or poorly categorized just because the correct category was not identified through the automated article submission process.

Automated Article Submission Sites

• Fast Submit Articles, completely automatic $6 gets your article sent to all of the major http://www.fastsubmitarticles.com/

• Unique article wizard is also an automatic service, you pay a monthly fee of about $67/month https://www.uniquearticlewizard.com

• Easy push button service (https://easypushbuttontraffic.com) is a “semi-automatic” submission service (you have to customize the category). The cost for this is $27 per month, but they also have a $1 trial offer. This system takes a little longer than the fully automatic software but it allows you to circumnavigate the problem surrounding category issues.

I am not an affiliate or associated with any of these companies, and if you search “automatic article submission” you will find a plethora of other options to research for yourself. Personally I use the easy push button traffic system because it saves me time, and I like retaining the right to select the category of each article – a happy compromise between the two.

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• It gives you a chance to establish yourself as an expert.

• There are virtually no costs associated with it.

• You can easily change your approach, topics or niche in a moment’s notice.

• It’s easy to see what information gets the most attention from your audience.

• The leads generated from article marketing also tend to be high quality, which makes sense considering that they went through a considerable amount of work to become your lead. They were probably searching for information on a topic that you know, and came across one of your articles. Then they proceeded to actually read the article or at least scan it in order to find the offer at the end for more information and the link to get there. Your prospect followed the link to your website and provided you with their contact information. In the world of online prospects, those are some pretty motivated people.

• As an added bonus, the backlinks that are generated going to your site will help to increase your Google ranking over time, since our primary focus of the this section is for direct lead generation, not Website ranking. I am going to stick to the strategies that will directly generate leads. To learn more about page rank review Chapter 3 – Pouring the foundation, pages 61-66.

How to Implement Article Marketing

I have used article marketing and it’s really quite simple. Here are some simple steps to follow:

1. Get your keywords handy that you selected in step one. If you want to review the process of selecting your best keywords review the “keyword” post on this site.

2. Identifying your topics. There are lots of different ways to go about identifying your topics. When I first started writing articles, I took about an hour and wrote down all of the stages and categories that a person would have to know about and then created titles from that. Now I use a different method, which I would recommend that you start with. I think it’s easier and creates more effective articles in the long run.

First, you have to think about that perfect client, the person that you want to help and attract to your program. Review everything that you know about them and get yourself into a state where you can relate to their current reality. Then start writing down all of the questions and concerns that this person may have.

This is different from just dividing all of the categories that they will need to understand and writing a little about everything because if you consider the current situation of someone starting they will be significantly more concerned with the first few steps in the process than they are the rest of the system. This does NOT mean that you should avoid explaining the big picture in some of your articles so that people who read your material regularly have the opportunity to gather that you do have knowledge and a plan beyond the first few steps. If you want to provide the most help, possible in 400-700 words then you should write the majority of your articles on the concerns that pop up for someone in your client’s current situation. This will most likely mean you will be writing about the first steps that need to be taken to achieve growth in their business.

This allows you to give enough detail that people can actually implement your recommendations and see results, which will significantly increase their trust in you, and their initial success will fuel their desire for more progress. It also protects you from every worrying about putting all of your skills, techniques, strategies and knowledge out there to the world for free. Even if you wrote 1,000 articles and someone took the time to read them all, they would still only have a very good grasp on the first few steps in establishing their business.

Here are some examples of questions the independent advisors in your market might have if you were a financial planner who trains other advisors how to specialize in reducing taxes:

• How can I determine what financial planning specialty is right for me?

• What are the signs that I am a generalist not really a specialist?

• How can I increase the value to my clients while decreasing my workload?

• How can I get more clients?

• How can I attract more affluent clients?

• How can I provide my clients with better service in less time?

• What are affluent clients really looking for?

• What marketing and advertising techniques attract affluent clients?

• How do I minimize my work hours without damaging the level of service I provide?

• How can I take my business to the next level?

• How do I earn the trust of new clients sooner?

I’m sure if this was your actual topic, you could create many more questions. Once you have as many as you can come up with simply pick out your top keywords (shoot for 7-10) from the list you created.

3. Create Some Titles to Work From

Next, craft an article title for each keyword using each title. Let’s pretend that three of your keywords are tax efficient planning, top financial planners and high net worth clients. (I have no idea if these are good keywords or not – I just picked them randomly.) Here is an example of how you could take the first question and create a title for each keyword:

• Tax Efficient Planning – Is it the Right Specialty for You?

• 5 Reasons Top Financial Planners Specialize in Tax Efficient Planning

• High Net Worth Clients – Finding a Specialty that Serves Them

Notice each of the titles are on the same topic but with a slightly different twist, so if you had nine keywords to focus on you could easily create a title that would lead you to write an article on this topic that was related but still original from the others. Another perk is that since the titles are all answering essentially the same question about specialties you should be able to write each of them faster by doing them one after another because you’re already thinking about that same topic.

Make sure to place the keyword near the beginning of your title. Words near the beginning are considered to be more relevant when the search engine is looking for information.

Title idea starters:

How to…

Discover…

Recession proof ways…

How I…

Revealed,

New ways

Top Ways

# Secrets

# Ways

If you can’t work the keyword into the statement smoothly, then throw the keyword in the front of the statement followed by a colon. Some examples are:

• Short Sales: Become an expert in two weeks

• Divorce Specialist: Grow your practice by specializing

• Tax Planning Agriculturists: Stop overpaying your taxes

4. Write a short introduction

You only need a very short introduction. With 400-600 words to share your message, you don’t have any words to waste. So write a couple of lines that give the reader a clear indication of the content that is to follow.

5. Great article body formats

You want the body of your article to be easy and entertaining to read. Use a relaxed, conversational tone. Keep the paragraphs in your body short, and place a blank line between each paragraph. Also add bullet points or numbered items to depict lists of things.

6. Conclusion

One or two lines summarizing the material are all you need. Your “author resource box” serves as the rest of the conclusion to your article. What is the “author resource box”? Different article directories might use a different name, but they all give you a little space to write something about you and what you would like the reader to do next. (We talked about the author resource box earlier when discussing text anchors.) You are limited to how long your resource box can be. For example, Ezine articles allow you about 300 words.

Note: On Ezine articles, you can find the author resource box by logging in and clicking profile manager. They also have a video with some tips for how to create an effective one.

The author resource box is important for multiple reasons, it:

• Appears on every article

• Is the last thing that your prospect reads

• Holds the key to what motivates them to go to your Website

• Provides the backlink to your site

Things you should consider when creating your author resource box:

• A photo of you (if it is allowed)

• The benefit/solution you can provide

• Why they should believe you.

• What to do to get more information, for example click the link to download a free, audio, video, eBook or Ezine subscription.

• Keep it short and concise.

• Use a keyword that you are focusing on in your link.

My example:

Are you ready to take the next step toward turning your skills into profitable membership Websites that can earn you massive (and practically passive) income?

I will lay out for you the step-by-step process I used to build a paid membership Website that generated over $50,000per MONTH (with practically no overhead), in less than four years.

This includes: How to choose your specialty, systematize it, market it and deliver it to your clients, all served to you on a silver spoon.

You can download your “Profitable Membership Website” E-book to your computer in a matter of seconds. Click Here: <a target=“_blank” href=“http://www.BrassyMarketing.com“>Membership Website E-Book <http://www.brassymarketing.com> </a> and get your success tools today. Erica Joneson is an expert at building profitable membership Website based coaching businesses.

Optimizing Your Articles with Keywords

I’ll be honest with you, I am not an expert at determining the exactly frequency a keyword should be used to get search engines to identify your document quickly, but without getting you labeled as a “stuffer.” Stuffer, referring to a person who is just cramming in keywords for the purpose of search engines optimization. Many SEO experts argue that the days of keyword “optimization” are over. Search engines like Google have become much too good at weeding out documents that provide little value and high keyword density, and can apparently calculate the frequency that a particular keyword should appear in a document.

That being said, it’s still important to make sure that your reader and the search engines know what your material is about. To do that you must use the terminology that they are looking for. This means making sure to include your keyword near the beginning of your title and then “sprinkle” it throughout your material as it would appear naturally anyway. Also, keep in mind that Ezine articles among other directories limit the frequency of keywords, so if you get too carried away they will make you eliminate some of them.

Increasing the speed of your writing

Practice is the best way to increase your speed over time. It’s the only way to refine your skills and learn what works for you. Here are also a few keys that can help you get started:

• Write your titles ahead of time. You can write them at the beginning of the day or even once a week. Use your questions and your keywords to combine them and create your titles. Remember that each question can create a title for each of your keywords. I like to do eight or so at a time, all based on the same question, so the topics are closely related. By writing on these closely related topics all at once, you will be able to get more done in less time because you don’t have to stop and brainstorm for ideas between each article.

• Take a time out. After you are done writing all of your articles on a specific question take at least a 30-minute break. When you return, you can tackle a new question. Create titles for it or select from some you have already created and hammer out a new set of articles.

• Don’t edit each article immediately after writing it. Before the articles are ready to submit, you will need to edit them at least once. When I got started I made the mistake of editing each article right after I wrote it. I would not recommend this. The material is still fresh in your mind and more than once I would see what I “meant to write” not what I “actually wrote” so put your fresh articles away and come back to them a few hours later or the next day for an edit.

See Post on Submitting Articles to Directories for the next step.

(If you are looking for information on how to write content for Ezine Newsletters see the following posts…  Ezine Newsletter Getting Started, and Implementing a New Ezine

* Don’t want to deal with all of this?  Contact Brassy Marketing (click the “contact us” tab at the top of the page) to see how we can take care of everything for you.

Sweat equity marketing promotions is any marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networks to spread a company’s message.

Viral marketing is unique, entertaining and easy to share. It is often in the format of a short video, an audio or eBook. What makes a piece of material “viral” is that the message is passed quickly from one person to the next until its reach increases exponentially.

Some of the benefits are:

• Low costs (development only, and that is typically minimal) when a marketing piece successfully becomes viral it is etched into the minds of those who absorb and share it making it very powerful.

• Low maintenance as passed on by public

• Efficient as message is quickly passed through networks and becomes part of the culture.

Some drawbacks are:

• Impossible to predict with certainty if a marketing piece will successfully become viral.

• Eventually the effectiveness of the marketing piece will wane, and you will have to create a new one or pursue a different avenue.