Vol. 3 , No. 35     September 2, 2003

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Mitch McCasland
Making Brands Relevant Online (Part 2)

A miraculous combination of events must occur for someone to visit a Web site. When it happens to yours, you have almost a sacred obligation to not waste her time by being irrelevant.

To waste a user’s time is perhaps the most common offense on the Web. When a Web site proves irrelevant or unclear to a visitor, it violates the premise upon which the medium is based: user control.

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Tamara Halbritter and Hank Stroll
Can’t Get No Respect? Our SWOT Team Tackles Telemarketing

"Respect is a nebulous term but we all know when marketers aren't giving us enough!” Thanks to James Gardner of One to One Interactive for summing up the rest of the SWOT team sentiments when they provided their responses this marketing dilemma: Telemarketing: Dialing for dollars is harder than ever.

Read on for your peers’ best advice if you choose (or not) to use this controversial marketing tactic.

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Nick Wreden
How to Write Effective Proposals

Companies devote tremendous resources toward generating leads, then fail to invest the time and effort required to close the “last mile” between prospect and contract. Failure often results from an inability to deliver an effective proposal.

Proposals can be your best branding and sales tool. But too often they are a boilerplate mishmash stitched together seconds before the FedEx pickup.

And that's a shame.

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A Note to Readers

One Thing I Know

Earlier this year, Nick Usborne contacted me with a neat little idea for a book. “If you could give me just one piece of advice for doing business online, what would it be?” Nick asked me, as well as 16 others who have been kicking around online for a long time.

The result of his effort is The One Thing I Know About Doing Business Online: Advice from 17 Experts.

It isn’t a long document (23 pages), but it is rich in learning – bringing you some fundamental concepts from a group of people who have been online forever, and h ave achieved success through learning what it really takes to get it right.

Nick’s book is available now in our bookstore . Check it out. It’s an inspiring little book.

Also this week, please give a round of applause and big group hug to Peter Altschuler, vice president of marketing strategy and creative service at the Santa Monica-based Wordsworth & Company.

Peter is the winner of the ebook A Marketers Guide to e-Newsletter Publishing: Your Roadmap for Visibility and Profit by our own Hank Stroll and Tamara Halbritter, for his pithy comments in this week’s SWOT Team dilemma on telemarketing. Check out Hank and Tamara’s column, which is now (by reader demand!) a weekly fixture on the MarketingProfs home page.

As always, your feedback is both welcome and appreciated.

Until next week,

Ann Handley
ann@marketingprofs.com
MarketingProfs.com

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Scott Buresh
Paid URL Inclusion: Is It for You?

One of the many options available to promote a Web site on search engines is “paid inclusion.”

Although there are several different kinds of paid inclusion -- like pay-per-click and “trusted” or “direct” feed programs -- this article deals specifically with the simplest form, in which an annual fee is paid for each page included in a search engine index.

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Linda Kazares
Playing Safe Can Make You Sorry

We left you hanging after the previous installment, when we discussed high-return, low-risk ways of getting an edge. First you set a consistent tone throughout your campaign. Then you activate your targets into action. Ask for the order; get something from them to build real value in your offer.

In this final installment will wrap the whole thing up into one neat package. The final step in getting the edge is about how you communicate with each prospect and customer.

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Sean D'Souza
Does Your Marketing Strategy Drive up to Echo Point?

Most marketing strategy is misguided. It’s not so much because the strategy’s not good, but because the strategists don’t drive their marketing strategy to Echo Point.

Not sure what that means in marketing terms? And how it can affect your marketing plans? Read on to find where you could be going all wrong.

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Laurel Delaney
Start Making Horse Sense: Eight Lessons for Business Women Racing to Build a New World

Laurel read Laura Hillenbrand’s thrilling story, Seabiscuit: An American Legend, and couldn’t help but recognize the parallel between women in the business world and a great racehorse who has a fighting spirit like no other.

Here are eight lessons women can learn from Seabiscuit, the horse that achieved greatness while captivating our imaginations.

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Contact

Publisher:Allen Weiss
amw@MarketingProfs.com

Content: Ann Handley
ann@MarketingProfs.com

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