Lynette Chandler | Small Business Branding

October 6, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

7 Fabulous And Free Copywriting Resources

Most people who know me today tend to think of me as the web tech geek and that’s great – that would mean the foundations of my brand is strong. But like many of you, I’ve worn many hats along the path of finding my ‘true calling’. One of the hats I wore was a Junior copywriter at a small local advertising agency. You see, back then, I was totally enamored with the advertising and PR industry. Those interests have not gone away. I am still very much interested in copywriting.

Interest aside, this skill has really helped from the time when I was working outside until now. Even more so now as a business owner. The good thing about copywriting is it’s a skill that you can learn and the more you practice the better you get at it. Remember, copy is not just writing ads or marketing material (though that’s what I did most as a Jr. Copywriter) but good copy can also be carried forward to blog posts, videos, emails and communication with your staff. So it definitely is a good skill to learn. Thankfully there are also a lot of free resources online to get you started on sharpening your copywriting skills. These are some I found. I hope you save this post, keep the information close and don’t discount their value because of the $0 price tag.

Top 10 Words That Say Buy and Why They Work (PDF) – discover the trigger words that get people excited about your product.
Netwriting Masters Course
Make Your Content PREsell – I bought this years ago now it is free still very relevant (good copywriting doesn’t go out of style)
Micro-Script Rules – this is an amazingly insightful ebook. The author explores what makes people remember micro-scripts (more commonly known as taglines) and how you can use it in your marketing.
Marketing Writing Tips: 5 Mistakes To Avoid
Content Marketing Swipe File – Handy reference when you are stuck with headlines, transitions, call to actions and closings
How To Add Credibility To Your Writing With Statistics and Quotes

File under: Blog, Business, Marketing

September 28, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

10 Things Your Computer Can Do For You Automatically

Did you know you can reclaim hours of your time by just short-cutting or automating even the simplest actions you repeat every day, week, month or year? A while back, I invested in a small software that helps me type, launches programs and create simple macros. I didn’t use it to its full potential, most of the time I used it to help me auto-type HTML code, PHP code snippets, WordPress code, repetitive emails, email addresses, website URLs, my bio etc.

One day, I was setting up new texts and realized the software had a little calculator. It told me I had executed over 8,300 commands with it and that added up to about 20 hours saved. Wow.

Alright, it is not an exact figure but it still amazes me how much time those little tasks take up. You may not think launching a program takes more than 10 seconds. But if you are getting forgetful like me and have a gazillion programs installed, sometimes I forget the name of the program by the time I open the launcher! Sometimes, I just can’t find the program. So something that should take 10 seconds can end up taking 5 minutes.

I also love the fact I don’t have to type out URLs in full. Including email addresses. RoboForm is installed and it completes web forms for me but that’s not always applicable sometimes you may have a special page you send people to regularly via email, social networks, articles or just anywhere. The beauty about this all is, the more of these small things you can automate, the more time you’ll save.

Ready to start shaving little chunks of time? Here’s a list of things you can automate right away.

Backup-of course you knew that.
Back up your website. Yes, you can certainly set up your computer to retrieve your backups and download while you sleep.
Rename a bunch of files. Sometimes you have tons of files that need changing of file names. You can set up your system to tell it what file name pattern to use and it’ll do it all for you even at hyper speed, much faster than you can do it.
Post to your blog. Found some reprint articles you want to be up on your site? Set your computer to copy and paste for you.
Type your emails. Great for customer support. Program common responses and have your computer automatically typing for you.
Keyword harvesting. Keyword research is essential for online marketing but it is a thankless, boring job. Program a macro to let it copy and grab the keywords for you.
Web design. You can program macros to remember code snippets for you like Adsense code for example.
Set the computer to Tweet or update your social networks at intervals for you.
Submit articles for you.
Resize images in bulk.

As you may realize, your computer may or may not be equipped to create such macros for you. Some macro software require more work and a learning curve. I began with something simple called DirectAccess. It may not be able to do some of the more complicated stuff listed here like posting to the blog but it is easy to grasp and the one thing that helped me get started shaving off minutes and later hours over time.

File under: Technology

September 17, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

How Solo Entrepreneurs Consume eBooks

While writing a post about ePub which is digital book format recently, I wondered how my peers like their eBooks. In online marketing, eBooks and eReports have existed for the longest time and they are almost always delivered in PDF format. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. PDF adoption rate is very high so it only makes sense to use a format most people will be able to read – or face a customer service nightmare. But in the more recent years with the proliferation of e-readers like the Kindle, Nook and now iPad, how many read their PDF’s using these devices?

So I sent the question out to my social network and was actually quite surprised by the response, which goes to show you should always find out from your audience. That’s another story altogether. For now, here’s what my peeps told me in response to the question,

Curious… do you read your PDF info-ebooks on phone, other mobile devices, on computer or do you print them?

@SmallBizMuse All three depending on the ebook. I print if I want to highlight/make notes. I load them onto my ipod to read on the go.

@Tsoniki Computer or print I have a lot printed out…but also a lot on the computer still. I’ve never tried reading on the BB.

@ToddBullivant Computer mostly, unless there’s an epub version available, then I read that on my e-reader.

@Merchant911 I almost always print e-books if more than a page or two.

@latarahamying I print them!

@401kExpert The good ones I print out and then hole-punch them. The rest I read on the computer.

Me? I print them too. I’ve tried reading them on a mobile device but PDF’s just don’t do too well on my devices and they have to be converted. That extra steps makes me very reluctant. Although I must say I devour fiction books on the mobile device. Love them. Business books are almost always printed.

What about you?

Oh and by the way – if you’d like to see your Twitter handle featured in a post in the future, be sure to follow us and keep an eye out for our pop quizzes and questions.

File under: Technology

September 15, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

How Often Should You Switch Your Site’s Design?

At a web conference today, someone asked me that very question. It is such an excellent question because years ago when the Internet was young, it wasn’t all that easy to change your design without some technical skills. These days, changing a design is as simple as uploading and selecting the theme. Yes, you may still need a little bit of tech work to tweak it but it’s much easier. As a result, I’ve seen people change web site design like they change clothes. To me, that is a problem and here’s why.

Chameleon by Ross Dismore

Let’s forget the branding part of the equation for a moment and talk about usability. Have you ever been to the store to find out they moved the bread aisle? Now you are forced to wander all through the store to find what you need. It is frustrating. While this may be a tactic in retail to get you to stay longer in the store, online, people just click away. Many of us know building traffic is not that easy anymore. You work very hard and in some cases, spend gobs of money to buy that traffic, getting people to come and return to your site. So don’t confuse them every time they turn around.

I prefer to make moderate changes that can still make the site look fresh, new and updated. Things like tweaking a few colors, making background changes, updating the buttons, removing blocks that are not effective, adding interactive tools like a ratings option if it is a store. Tweaking the copy to make it clearer where people stumble most often. The underlying structure is rarely changed. Meaning sidebars are still where they are, login links and buttons still in the same place, contact and support links don’t get moved and so on and forth.

Does that mean you shouldn’t change your site’s design? Not at all. The only thing I’m saying is, don’t make complete changes too often. Overhauls are good and should be done within reasonable time frame. Or if a site changes hands, sometimes an update is a good thing. For example, TechBasedMarketing has had the same design for over 2 years. It is time for a change. This time, I hope to standardize the structure on all our company’s sites including this blog, so there is more uniformity and people can jump from one site to another in the network without getting completely disoriented.

And yes of course, all this is part of our branding process. People need time to familiarize themselves with your brand and if you keep switching your design you look undecided, fickle, flighty. Not exactly characters that you want your brand to have. While there is a lot more that goes into a brand other than design but humans are visual creatures. Imagery and color play a huge part when people are trying to recall your company. If you take a look at some of the largest brands around – have they changed over the years? Sure. But it’s often not done all at once.

Resource you might be interested in:

File under: Web Development

September 13, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

What Are QR Codes And Should You Use Them?

See this barcode looking image? That is a QR code. If you have a mobile phone with a QR reader app installed, focus the camera on the screen, it should take you to a special web page

Don’t have a QR reader app? You can get them free. I’m sure there are plenty of options for all kinds of devices. The one I use comes from i-nigma.

What’s the big deal?

QR codes are big in Japan. Apparently, these are everywhere in the cities there. In the U.S., not so much although I have seen it sparingly. The idea behind using it is to mobile users don’t have to type a long URL to get to your site or any page you want to send them to. I must admit that does make sense. My phone has a QWERTY keyboard and even with that, I absolutely hate entering URLs into the browser. It’s just a pain. So scanning and going to the site absolutely rocks.

Basic ideas for QR codes – put it on your flyers, business cards or any printable material. I think that is neat and since we are in need of new business cards, we will absolutely do that for the next batch.

Beyond that, here’s a list of what some companies have used QR codes for:

As part of a contest
A scavenger hunt promotion
A way to send mobile users to watch a video (promotional, educational or otherwise)
A way to get mobile users to sign a petition
A way for customers to accumulate rewards

Should you use it?

This will depend a lot on how mobile-tech savvy is your market and also how offline it is. For us, most of our business is online. I don’t see a huge benefit for adding QR codes except perhaps to get people to the mobile version of the site. I think it’s a lot easier for people to just click a link. Even with a pretty savvy group, the adoption of QR readers amongst my site’s audience I suspect is small. Guess I’ll have to test it.

I think there is more reason to use it if the business is largely offline, or to use it on offline materials. I love the idea of using that to accumulate rewards. But it will always fall back on the fundamental problem. Adoption rate. Apparently in Asia, phone manufacturers have the readers built-in so there is no extra work for the user except to launch the reader and snap. But that’s not the case in North America. If you are in Europe, do put in a comment how well this is being adopted in Europe.

That’s not to say I won’t use it. Having one on the business card would likely be a good ice breaker and nicely illustrate (partially) what I do. If I had a physical store, I would use it on my website to link to a map of my store. But until there is higher adoption rate, I’ll probably not spend too much resources on building massive campaigns around it. Being a tech lover, that does make me sad but this is a great reminder. It’s not about the latest tech. It’s about how it will be used and help your audience. If they don’t get it or won’t use it, the newest shiny technology does not have a place in your marketing program.

Resources:

2D Code – an awesome resource to show how others around the world are using them.

Qurify – generate your own QR code, even has a WordPress plugin

File under: Technology

September 3, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

10 Ways To Get Your Documents Signed Digitally

“This is pretty cool”, I thought as we went through this mile long document filled with legalese together with the representative on the phone. Oh, make no mistake. Legal documents do not make my heart skip a beat – not unless some long lost relative bequeaths me a fortune (tough). But what I did find interesting was the system the law firm used to obtain our signatures digitally to seal the deal quickly.

We often have a need to sign NDA’s, Joint Venture agreements and Independent Contractor agreements. This sometimes is a pain because many freelancers don’t have faxes and email is so open and insecure. That experience led me to seek out available options to obtain digital signatures and I’m listing them here so it can help you too.

File under: Technology

August 31, 2010 By Lynette Chandler

Is It OK To Profit From Rejected Affiliate Leads?

Here’s an interesting issue.

James is an affiliate who sends a company leads to a page where the prospect shall complete a form requesting for – something free. Once the prospect does that and is considered a ‘good’ lead, James gets paid his commission. This is a pretty classic cost-per-action campaign or pay-per-lead affiliate program. Nothing wrong with it right? But what if…

The lead is ‘rejected’ by the company. Maybe because the form wasn’t complete or the prospect did not complete all the required steps because they changed their minds. The prospect doesn’t receive his freebie and James doesn’t get paid for that lead. However, unknown to the prospect and James, the prospect’s contact information is not discarded but actually saved into a ‘rejected leads’ database or mailing list.

Soon, the company begins to send the ‘rejected’ prospects some other offers and related emails. The links in the emails do not carry Jame’s affiliate IDs and cookies only last 30 or 45 days. Eventually, James is totally out of the picture. Yet, the company has gained a lead that James sent for free.

We’ve been cavalierly told, this is standard practice everywhere, giving names of large Internet stores as an example. Well, that may be true but does ‘standard practice’ make it OK though?

How do you handle it?

Why is it OK?

Why is it not OK?

We’d really love to hear your thoughts on this.

Photo by Ali Farid

File under: Marketing