Coinciding Your Email Campaigns with Major News

Contributed by Heather Maloney .   Heather Maloney, Founder of Contact Point IT Services and eNudge.com.au, has a Master in Technology (Information Technology) majoring in the web, and has over 16 years experience in the IT industry, most of which has been focused on delivering business benefits via the use of internet related technologies.

Heather Maloney has written 8 article(s) for us.

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Sell The Benefit, Not The Feature. Here’s How To Do It.

Knowing why your customer needs your service is the first thing you need to know when writing copy. If you’re selling services, it can be quite hard to sell the benefit because you don’t have a physical product to show. In that case, you have to focus on other aspects like personal service, warranties, expertise or unique selling propositions. Read the rest…

Tips On How To Get On Page One Of Google.

We’ve all heard the expression ‘Keep It Simple’. It’s a lofty goal in some ways as running a business seems to get more and more complicated every day.

When Ernest Hemingway coined that phrase, life was in some ways simpler – much simpler, but of course he didn’t have to grapple with computers, the Internet, search engine optimisation, social media and all those other tools we need to keep a business running. Sure, he had other problems but running a small business was not one of them. Read the rest…

The Difference Between a Feature and Benefit and Why It Matters!

 I saw an advertisement a while back that promoted the benefits of getting your doona dry cleaned. In fact, I liked the advertisement so much that I actually took my doona in to get dry cleaned, only to find out that the cost to dry clean it was almost double the price of what I paid for it. Needless to say, I didn’t proceed.

But here’s what was interesting.  The advertisement stopped me in my tracks and compelled me to say “Gee, I need this service” when, three seconds before, I had never even heard of it.  It also highlighted a previously unknown ‘problem’ that I had (an unclean doona) which compelled me to take action and to visit the store. Read the rest…

Marketing Plans That Work: Remove the jargon and get results

When you are writing a marketing plan, nuke the big words and don’t use three sentences to say what you could in one. If you want your business to gather pace rather than dust, it’s vital that any marketing plan you write is easy to understand, effective for the business and easily implemented. Sounds like a no brainer, but the majority of plans – all written with the best intentions of course – end up wallowing in the bottom of filing cabinets or being used a year later as scrap paper.

A practical marketing plan can save your company from going backwards, and in the scenarios we like to see, propel it into a whole new realm. Here’s some tips regarding the best way to go about preparing a plan that you’ll want to see through and implement! Read the rest…

PR – There’s a story in every business

Every business has a great story to tell. But who’s telling it and what they’re saying can make all the difference. Public Relations is all about effective communication. It helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and co-operation between an organisation and its target audience. Read the rest…

The Top 3 Mistakes Most People Make When Writing For The Web

Writing for the web is similar to writing for any other medium but it does have some unique protocols that must be followed. This article outlines the 3 big mistakes business owners make when writing website copy and how to avoid them. Read the rest…

Criteria Based Selling – It’s all about the questions

The age of features and benefits selling is dead. Remember the days when we all watched John Cleese videos on how to close a sale! Oops, maybe just a few of us baby boomers remember those days. But modern day selling is all about understanding the needs of your customer, this is where criteria based selling comes in. Read the rest…

Social Media Rules Of Engagement

Since social media has exploded onto the scene, a new set of cultural rules has emerged to accommodate each tool and it sometimes can feel like there is a secret handshake to gain access that no-one told you about!

Firstly, it is important to understand that all social mediums were not created equal! Socialising approaches are different for each channel, for example, I would not post on my Blog in the same tone that I Tweet, and I would utilise a different approach when updating my Facebook page in comparison to updating my LinkedIn account. Read the rest…

Marketing: How To Create Compelling Offers

Why have an offer? Offers (or incentives) are imperative because they make people sit up and take notice. Offers should stop the reader dead in their tracks and make them say “I want that!” If you don’t have an offer, it’s too easy for the reader to turn the page and move on. Even if they’re interested in your product, they won’t stop to do anything about it because they’re just too darn busy. They’ll probably say, “That looks interesting – I must get around to getting one of those.” And of course, that day never comes. So how does it actually work? Read the rest…