Joan Stewart, the Publicity HoundPreview », always has good tips to share. Today her ezine offered words of caution for LinkedIn and Facebook users.

When someone wants to connect, do you automatically say yes? After all, what’s the harm?

Lot of harm, it turns out.

(1) You could be inviting a spammer.

(2) You could get yourself suspended.
If you start inviting people you don’t know, they can respond, “Don’t know this person.” The system thinks you’re spamming and suspends your account.

(3) Your reputation is at stake.
You are known by your friends. Make sure you know them.

I recently un-friended someone I’d done business with awhile back. Every deal ended in disaster. One day she admitted she had credit problems and couldn’t pay a vendor with her card. I realize her questionable practices are going to hurt her reputation and I sure don’t want to be known as her friend.

When I get a friend request, I write back to ask, “How do we know each other?”

If I don’t get an answer right away, I ignore the request. I’m only interested in friending active users.

Sometimes I get a ditzy answer back, like, “Our names both begin with G,” or, “We are both women in business.” I ignore those, too.

When someone seems genuine, I respond with a message:

“Thanks for the add. I am a copywriter and website marketing consultant. Let me know if I can help you in any way. I invite all my friends to my free teleseminars so you’ll be hearing from me often.”

This message seems to work. I actually had someone send a nice note, thanking me for the message.

At least I know he’s alive and probably has the potential to be a good friend.

And I recommend Joan Stewart’s Publicity Hound ezine: she’s always got some keepers.

I must admit I get totally frustrated when I see people spending their money on website marketing products and services they don’t need.

This spending doesn’t just waste money. You can actually harm yourself in the market. You deplete

More important, you harm yourself by creating a negative mindset. You feel frustrated. You might even get physically and mentally tired. You resist working harder because you think, “Why bother?”

One of the most frustrating scenarios looks like this.

You get an idea for a book or ebook. So you spend many hours working on your new project. You might even take time from productive business activities that bring you revenue: writing articles, holding teleseminars, and following up with clients.

Somewhere along the way you pay big bucks for a seminar on “How to Market Your Book.” You might pay for editing services and even design services to make the book look better..

But you haven’t paid for the single most important service: developing and testing your idea. You haven’t asked, “Do I have a hungry market waiting to be served?”

For example: The Secret was a blockbuster best seller. So I’ve had at least half a dozen clients say, “I’m writing a spiritual book…like The Secret.” Or, “My book will help people implement ideas from The Secret.” Or, “My book shows another way to get to The Secret.”

The Secret was not promoted as an ebook on the Internet. It spread through viral marketing (and the exposure on Oprah and Larry King Live didn’t hurt either). The authors of The Secret already were well known. Each had a following.

Inspirational books don’t do that well on the Internet (and frankly, anywhere else). If you want to promote an inspirational book, make it a great one and start with a joint venture.

And it’s not a secret: Test your idea before investing big bucks to promote it.

Now I have to tell you I really, really hate the expression, “Don’t put the cart before the horse.” I’m not too crazy about, “Don’t build castles in the air,” either.

But one of my favorite mentors, Kathleen Gage, puts it a nicer way: Create a foundation.

Recently I talked to 3 people about their website marketing efforts. These folks were spending big bucks to build castles in the air and buying expensive carts to put before creaky old horses.

Today, we’ll focus on the Case of the Spurious SEO.

“Wanda” spent $400 on an SEO package. What’s wrong with that? Nothing…if SEO makes sense for your business and it’s done right. Wanda is in a very competitive field..something like “life coaching” or “internet marketing.” Getting a Page 1 rank will take a lot more than $400 and may not be do-able.

So Wanda needs to ask her SEO folks, “Where will I get a page 1 ranking?” If it’s something like “Life transition coach - Omaha,” her ranking won’t do her much good.

But I had to ask Wanda, “Are you ready for SEO?” Wanda’s website doesn’t communicate who she is or what she does. Her navigation will confuse visitors. She doesn’t have an opt-in box (or even an irresistible freebie to tempt her readers).

Wanda should use her $400 to get some good copy (i.e., content that sells) and begin building her opt-in list. That’s how she’ll make serious money….not with an SEO scheme built on air.

Today I received a very polite email from someone I’ll call “Sam.” Sam seems like a really nice guy, not a spammer.

He’s sent me a series of hard-copy greeting cards to promote his business. They’re beautiful and thoughtful. One even included a Starbucks gift certificate for $5 which suggests he has a well-funded war chest and/or a deep discount with Starbucks. And if he can afford $5 plus the cost of the card for a mail-out to an unqualified lead, he’s getting a hefty commission for the sale. So I’m not looking at something cheap.

What I don’t know is this: why would I want to use these cards to touch base with someone? If I want to get more personal with a client, why can’t I just send a polite, hand-written note on a note card?

In fact, wouldn’t these cards backfire? A few months ago I got a card sent to me by an acquaintance I’ll call “Vincent.” Vincent sent one of those cards with a printed message (designed to look like handwriting) with a Starbucks card attached. I’ve talked to Vincent and always thought he considered me somebody special. So the real message of the card was, “You’re one of many people getting this card. You’re not special.”

Back to Sam. He just sent me email inviting me to have a telephone conversation about these cards. His email was professional and friendly. The closest thing to a sales pitch was a statement about the value of the cards…in blue italics, very hard to read online.

As a copywriter, I wanted to get started on a Diagnostic call right away! “Sam” needs help.

The blue italic type told me something about the company’s history. But he’s promoting the cards as a business investment. I care about returns on my future investment - not the company’s past.

The blue message continued with a note about the way the world is changing, so we need to be able to follow up. OK, the world is changing…but I want to know, “How will these cards benefit my business?”

Mainly, Sam needs to show me why these cards will be more effective than handwritten cards or just plain old email. I’d be more impressed if he added, “Jane Jones just added 3 new clients when she used these cards.” And I’d be interested if Jane were a copywriter. If she’s a life coach or a financial consultant, I’d be less interested.

Ironically, Sam illustrates not the effectiveness of the cards, but the limitations of any technique. Techniques and tactics work only if you’ve got a sound strategy — and some terrific copywriting when you’re finally ready to make a call for action.

Article marketing, blogging for business, ezines…sounds like a lot of work, right?

Experienced marketers save time by recycling content. Here’s how it works.

Suppose I want to write an article: 7 tips for writing website content that converts browsers to buyers.

I can start with one article to be distributed to article databases and other people’s ezine — 500 - 800 words. Here I have all 7 tips: Avoid using non-words, paint word pictures, create a great headline and so on.

I divide the tips into 2 categories. The first 4 become Ezine Article #1: Browsers to buyers in 3 easy steps. Since “4 tips” sounds awkward, I would have 3 tips and a bonus.

The remaining 3 tips become Ezine Article #2: “Web site content that attracts visitors.” I’d need to revise the opening to focus on just these tips and add a short upbeat ending that blends to the Call to Action.

Finally, it’s time for blogging. I take the 7 tips and divide them into 3 parts. Each set of 2 becomes a blog post. The final tip might become a separate post or combined with one of the others. Because readers see all posts at once, I can actually set up titles to let readers know we have a sequence here. I could even say, “Browsers to buyers” on the first set, then “More ways to convert browsers to buyers,” and “One last tip…”

Or I could reverse the process completely. I might start with 1 or 2 tips a day and then add them up, first to a ezine post and ultimately to an article.

Sure, you can hire someone to do the writing for you. You have to trust them to deliver quality work and be totally honest.

Some of those folks who promise fifty articles for $50 may be recycling material… in not quite the way you had in mind.

To get some great tips on article marketing, tune in a FREE teleseminar with the Article Guy himself.

Click here for more information and registration. Time conflict? No problem — download the mp3 file and listen at your leisure.

“Blogging seems like a chore. Do I really need one more marketing activity in my life?”

For many business owners, the answer will be a firm “yes.” I’m meeting more and more indie business owners who tell me, “I’m getting more business through my blog than any other source.”

But there’s a catch. You have to write entries at least 3 times a week…some say 4 to 5 times a week.
So what do you do when faced with that small space, already dated, begging for words?

(1) Find an article, news release or blog entry on your topic in an online source.

If you’re really an expert on your topic, you’ll rarely agree 100% with the article. I just read a WSJ article for executives entering a new job. The article urged new employees to keep asking the boss for feedback…every single week.

Gimme a break. Can you imagine a new employee hounding the boss with that infamous “How am I doing” question?

A post for my career blog.

(2) Review a book, movie, play or TV show — and relate the topic to yours.

Often you’re attracted to off-duty entertainment because it meshes with your business or career passion. I just wrote a blog entry on Carrier, the PBS series about sailors on the USS Nimitz.

So I blogged a couple of entries about “extreme careers” and got some great comments.

(3) Answer a question posed by a client, prospect or seminar attendee.

You may answer the client at length (because she’s paying you) or decline to answer a seminar question (because he’s off-topic).

But you can answer these questions in your blog…a shorter version of what you told your client, a longer version of what you said at your talk.

I just ran across this tip from an Australian copywriting website, a reminder that the human mind works in threes.

Indeed, says this Web Copywriter, 3 is a magic number. Think of the Holy Trinity, he (or she) says.

The Power of 3 appears everywhere. An anthropologist once told me, “The propensity to group in threes seems universal across all cultures.”

Even academic journal articles follow this rule. “The three motivations for buying new products are…”

Just yesterday I was writing a line for the forthcoming Cat Chats teleseminar with Jeff Herring: The 3 P’s of Article Writing: publicity, prospects and profits. When I write bullets, I’m almost always writing something like:

“You want your website to greet your visitors as soon as they arrive, so they feel at home, comfortable and ready to buy.”

That’s from the home page of my copywriting site.

Something in our brains has been hard-wired to go triangular. As the Web Copywriter points out, you rarely get a quadruped like, “Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice.” In fact, that old movie title stood out partly because it violated the rule so blatantly.

If you use the Power of 4, you’re making a statement. You call attention to your own rule violation.

But as copywriters, we want our words to disappear. We don’t want readers to stop and admire the words we use or the clever phrases we create.

So for the most part, we follow the Power of 3.

Elizabeth Wrenn, author of Around the Next Corner, says, “An author needs to have an established Web site, preferably one that’s up and running before the book comes out.”

Wrenn should know. Her novel sold over 60,000 copies - double what’s considered a best seller.

Read the full story here.

Yesterday we talked about getting your client to tell stories. But what if you want a simple Q&A short-answer survey?

No problem. That’s a good way to start.

(1) Skip the “what would you do” questions.

Psychological research shows we tend to be poor predictors of our own decisions. Grocery shoppers have trouble predicting whether they’ll choose strawberry or blueberry yoghurt next week.

(2) Skip the “why” questions.

Most people have no idea of their own motivations.

(3) Make sure you get enough responses.

When conducting interviews or surveys, most marketers tend to rely on too few sources. A few people are not representative.

(4) Sneak in an observation.

Once I offered my respondents a choice of information products, each on a different topic. To my surprise, most subscribers chose my ebook on how to write books. Now I know what’s on their minds.

Now they’ve voting by their actions - not fantasy and theory.

(5) Add a couple of open-ended questions.

Some market researchers have experimented with questions like, “If your product were an animal, what would it be?”

Or, “If your product were a person, what personality would it have?”

Have some fun with this one. You’ll have to adapt for a service, but it’s do-able. And you’ll be surprised at the results: much more helpful than, “Why would you buy…”

Finally, be aware that researching a market is an art as well as a science. You need knowledge, but you get better wih experience.

Before developing a website, your first will be, “Discover what your clients want.” But how do you find out what your clients and prospects really want?

“Ask your clients.”

That’s good advice…if you know *how* to ask, not just *who* and “what” to ask. For instance, clients often tell you what they think you want to hear. And they want to present themselves in a favorable light.

The answer:

Get your target audience to tell stories. They’ll become less self-conscious, especially when they describe an imaginary “typical” buyer of your services. They might be describing themselves, but they feel safer.

For example:

“Imagine a male who might buy my financial advising service. How old is he? What’s is occupation? What led up to the decision?”

“Tell me about someone you know who might hire a life coach during a transition time. What led up to the decision? What was the choice process?”

You’ll get tons of information and ideas. For instance, you might discover that several members of your target market paint disparaging pictures of the imaginary client. “She’s a ditzy type,” or, “He’s got a big ego.” Now you know why they avoid hiring you.

You’ll build bridges with clients. You can use their words to write content and promotional pieces.

Clients enjoy the exercise. You’re not asking them to think, let alone work. When I’ve used this method, sometimes I have to set time limits — we’re having too much fun.