by Dina Giolitto

Your brand is an extension of your company’s mission and values. Your company exists for a specific purpose–whether it’s to provide environmentally friendly cleaning products or a healthy meal for families. Your brand is the visual concept and reinforcement of your mission and values. Now is the time to evaluate what your company mission and values are.

Company mission

Disney’s is to “make people happy.” Boeing’s is “to push the leading edge of aviation, taking huge challenges doing what others cannot do.” 3M’s is “to solve unsolved problems innovatively.” What is your company’s mission? First, it’s important to understand what a mission is and what it represents for your company. Then you’ll be able to better determine what your company mission is, or what it should be. Since the mission can act as a strong marketing and branding tool for clients, establishing an effective mission is imperative to your company’s success.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

by Dina Giolitto

It’s tempting, when the news headlines are screaming about government financial bailouts, to just sit there with your mouth hanging open as you ponder what might happen to your 401K.

However, in tough times, the LAST thing you should be doing is waiting for further instructions.

If you were a Boy Scout (and even if you weren’t), then you’re no doubt familiar with their catch phrase: “Be prepared.” That’s about the best advice anyone can give. And it’s especially relevant when managing a business.

When people start to clutch their purse strings more tightly, and supply and demand turns on its head, here’s what you need to do RIGHT NOW to ensure that your company stays afloat in trying times.

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Popularity: 18% [?]

If there’s any time to dream up a theme for your marketing, it’s NOW, before the holidays hit. Yes, we’re only just approaching fall… but before you know it, the malls will be decked with holly and teeming with Santa Clauses. Are you prepared for the deluge of competition?

Large corporations begin planning for their holiday campaign launches in the thick of summer!

Here’s a Christmas toy catalog cover that I worked on “back in the day.” I’m quite certain that the air conditioning in my cubicle was kicking when I wrote this.

Your holiday marketing event needn’t be an expensive or time-consuming affair. With a little creative input from you, Wordfeeder.com can help you launch a holiday campaign like this to drive more business in December!

So, the holiday season looms, and with competition fierce in a tough economy, it’s time to get out there, get known, and get more clients. Here are some holiday ideas you can implement in a hurry…………

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Popularity: 24% [?]

Okay, so the Wayback Machine is not nearly as cool as Christopher Lloyd’s DeLorean… but I must admit, having an archive that “takes you back” to prior versions of your website can come in handy.

The Wayback Machine is also known as the “internet archive” and you can find it at http://www.archive.org/index.php. It’s great for those days when you’re feeling sentimental and want to “go back in time” to see how far your website has evolved.

I’ll give you a peek at the “awfulness” that was Wordfeeder.com circa 2004:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040208163833/http://www.wordfeeder.com/

YIKES! Look at that wretched template that I borrowed from Trellix… and how about that godawful pun at the bottom of the page?

(Go ahead and try it; type your URL right into the box at the top right of the page… and see how far you’ve come in the world of business website design!)

One thing I must emphasize: the Wayback Machine has a much greater value than looking at old versions of your website and laughing your head off. I’ve found it to be a lifesaver when you accidentally delete a page from your server and want to “recover” old copy and/or images that have been lost.

Even if the copy isn’t an exact duplicate of what you needed, having an earlier version is still MUCH better than having to start from scratch.

The Wayback Machine is also useful for when you want to learn more about people who you might be working with in the future.

Bookmark The Wayback Machine so you’ll have it when you need it.

Popularity: 26% [?]

by Dina Giolitto

Suppose you paid thousands to have a professionally branded website designed from scratch. What’s the one element that can make or break your sales? The words! Yes, you’ve heard it before - your message to the customer means everything.

Oh, you already know that? Well, that’s terrific. And now let me tell you something you probably didn’t know. Remember the part where your designer asked you if you wanted “search engine optimization” - and you said no thanks, because your bank account had just been drained?

THAT is where you went astray, and lost out on myriad opportunities to get your brand and message in front of all those clamoring, salivating prospects. And that’s what’s REALLY keeping you and the people who want to buy your stuff from ever crossing paths.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

If you’re making the transition from corporate to freelance, how comfortable are you in the new role?

Is it like a new pair of shoes; you’ve stepped in with both feet, but they’re giving you blisters — and you really just want to go back to those old, broken-in, full-time loafers?

I was interviewing a client the other day, for a new business website I’m helping her launch. She was telling me about the vast and varied experiences that led her to desire this new incarnation of her professional self.

She kept saying things like, “So then I had to change jobs again. We relocated to Missouri and I had to start teaching, because we had a family to support!”

My client sounded almost apologetic. Every time she mentioned a new skill that she had acquired along the way, she had to justify the experience as though it was a “bad thing.” Like she shouldn’t have changed jobs, or she shouldn’t have bothered to learn new things.

After hearing her repeatedly downplay her credentials and experience, it occurred to me why this client needed my copywriting support and marketing direction.

It was because *she still didn’t think of herself as a consultant!*

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Popularity: 66% [?]

Facebook, Ryze, LinkedIn, Myspace… what’s the point?

Can social networking REALLY work to get you clients? Or is this just a way for wily webmasters to bring hits and attention to THEIR websites, so they can pull in more ad and membership revenues?

Last week, a fairly new copywriting client asked me the above question. Then he said to me, “I emailed you to work on my project because I remembered you from Ryze.”

I was active on Ryze… oh, three years ago? And yet this person remembered me after three years, sought me out, and here we are doing a website project together.

This is not the first time I’ve gained a new client due to having “put in my time” on the social networks.

In my humble opinion and experience, I would say that the more of a standout social networking experience you create, and the more you put into making your profiles professional… the more thought you give to creating posts that add value and meaning to others’ professional lives… the more you’ll get out of social networking.

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Popularity: 91% [?]

If you’re a user of Google AdWords then pay close attention. Google has announced that they will now begin adding landing page load time to your AdWord rank score.

According to Google, people who have web sites with slow-loading pages will be charged more for their Google AdWords advertisements.

There are several ways to reduce the loading times of your pages.

• Cut down the graphics. Graphic files take up a lot of bandwidth even with today’s high-speed connections. If your site depends on graphic intensity, then make sure you optimize your images to minimize load times.
• Take a written approach. While graphics slow down load times, text seems to have little effect, so making pages that are heavy on the copy are to your advantage. They load fast and, if properly optimized, will help your page ranking.
• Avoid Flash animations. Flash animations are definitely cool, but also eat up bandwidth faster than Iron Man eats up WD-40.
• Avoid embedded objects. YouTube videos, photo slide shows and other items that you embed into your pages increase the amount of information that has to be sent, which causes your pages to load more slowly.

Studies show that if a page doesn’t load within 8 seconds, people go somewhere else. So optimizing your web pages for better load times will not only help your Google AdWord bottom line, but will provide a better experience for your readers.

Read the full story here.

Michael Sieber is professional web content writer. Visit his site at prowebwriting.com.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Dogs and bees, and freelancers, can smell fear. As someone who writes copy and produces marketing materials on a freelance basis, I can tell within five minutes of talking to a potential customer whether their fear of being overcharged will set the tone for our work together. I can also assure you that there are ways to retain quality and get good turnaround time on projects without being run through the wringer.

Some facts and suggestions on how to get the most bang for your outsourced buck:

Know that the freelancer is just as interested in being quick and efficient as you are.

People who are new to outsourcing might view me (the copywriting consultant) as someone who would try to milk them out of their last dime while dragging the project on forever. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Established freelancers typically juggle multiple projects at once. It makes much better business sense for us to complete two projects for two happy clients in two days, then deliver one project for one client in two days and have that client feel uneasy about the amount of time we spent on their work.

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Popularity: 87% [?]

I’m currently in the middle of trying to figure out why my client’s email newsletter looks strange when viewed in some versions of Outlook and in Gmail. So I Googled “sending html emails in gmail” (but I didn’t put it in quotes).

Up came this phenomenal article from MailChimp.com with information so specific they should be charging money to let people read it.

I’m going to paste the beginning here and then let you click to read the rest.

(By the way, their use of “How” and “How to” in the title and subtitle is enough to send this copywriter into convulsive fits… but I’ll let it pass because the rest of the information is just so superb.)

How To Code And Send HTML Email Campaigns and Newsletters
How HTML email works, basic concepts, best practices, tips and tricks

Want to learn how to code your own HTML email campaigns? You’ve probably Googled all kinds of web pages that give you countless “what works, what doesn’t” charts. They tell you which CSS definitions break, how Lotus Notes never renders HTML properly, and how Outlook can’t send email campaigns right.

But instead of focusing on specific tactics, let’s go over some fundamental principles…
Prerequisites

One thing I have to stress is that in order to code your own HTML email, you really, really, really need to know how to code HTML. You should be able to code web pages “from scratch” without the help of any WYSIWYGs (like Front Page, or even DreamWeaver). If you’re that good, then you really don’t need to worry about a million little rules (like what CSS definitions work in this email program, but not in that email program). Just being able to understand “the fundamentals” will save you a lot of time and frustration.

Continue reading this article

This tip courtesy of Dina at Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing

Popularity: 38% [?]