Now offering “green” greetings…
We’ve been doing these video montages for clients and friends for some time now, but wanted to share that Innovate Services is now officially offering video greetings and “commercials” as one of our premier services. So what can they do for you or your business?
- Send us your photos or video clips; we’ll compile them with our crafty copy-writing skills into a fun, personalized greeting to send to a friend, loved one or professional contact.
- Have a ton of product photos but don’t want to keep sending oodles of files to prospective clients or partners as your portfolio? Send us your product photos and we’ll handcraft a fabulous video portfolio for you.
- Want to be “green” with your event invitations and thank you’s but tired of evite? Let us help you make a custom invitation for your next event…we’ll also take your event photos or video clips and turn them into a thank you attendees will never forget!
Check out some of the video’s we’ve developed so far…
Want us to create one for you? Email us and we’ll get right on it!!
Get your client greetings and keep in touch plan off your plate NOW!
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This holiday season let us take care of your holiday greetings to clients, prospects, colleagues and more! We can even use your digital photos to make your holiday greetings even more personal…and an image of your signature can be used too!
K.I.S.S. Tip – What Information is Best For a Press Release
One of my readers recently asked what information is best to include in a press release?
There are key components to press releases that should never be skipped when writing a press release:
- Your name.
- Your company name.
- Your contact information.
- Your product or service name if you’re announcing it for the first time.
- A link to your website (or better yet, an interior page of your website specific to this press release).
- A captivating or at least informational headline that tells people who and what the press release is about.
- A quote from you or a client explaining the problem you’re solving, why you received the recognition you’re telling us about, what your role in the community event you’re writing about was…something that helps the reader understand better your message and business.
- A closing line directing readers to the appropriate site for more information on you and your business.
If you are stumped for topic ideas for your next press release, take a look at our free topic ideas for generating buzz. Up next…case studies — great press release examples.
Copyright 2009 Teresa H. Berger, MBA & Innovate Services PR|Editorial
simplified, consistent public relations | copywriting | copyediting
Why Squeeze Pages Are Stupid
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I found this article by Sean D’Souza worth sharing. I’ve seen squeeze pages crop up everywhere and always wondered if anyone else felt a little disappointed or turned-off by them as I have. Don’t get me wrong, I understand their purpose…but many just seem so long-winded and impersonal or even fake; not what I would call a good marketing tactic. Read what Sean has to say and let me know your take on squeeze pages. Imagine you went for a date with a person you hadn’t met before. And your date wore a paper bag on his/her head. He/She refused to show you his/her face. That date refused to tell you anything about his/her past. Or let you into any information at all. And yet you had to give them information. Like your first name, last name, blah, blah, blah. How do you feel? Well that’s exactly how the customers feel. They feel irritated, frustrated and to choose a mild word: trapped. They know they want the information, but they can’t seem to get the any information from you without filling in that stupid form. Squeeze pages are stupid They are contrary to human nature. They force you into a corner. They force you to part with information based on some random headline and bullet points. So why do we have so many squeeze pages on the Internet? Why do people catch colds and coughs? Yes, one person has it, and then it spreads. One person put in a squeeze page, then everyone else decided to follow suit. And don’t get me wrong. Squeeze pages work. They work wonderfully. Well, so does Bruno, who’s six foot nine inches and weighs 400 pounds.Just because it works doesn’t mean you have to follow suit. Because there are other things that work. Like non-threatening, non-Bruno, no-squeeze pages. Pages that get you to sign up not through intimidation and fear. But pages that get you to sign up because you want to do so. Because persuasion is stupid. Persuasion implies that you acted against your nature. And why get customers to act against their nature when they will gladly give you information? A good opt-in page should entice. It should give you lots of details. At Psychotactics, we’ve collected names, addresses, home numbers, postal addresses, mobile numbers, city, country on our opt-in pages. All without twisting anyone’s arms. We’ve done it to entice customers to subscribe to the newsletter. Or to opt-in to a workshop. Or to buy a product or service. Our customers give us bucket loads of information, because they trust us. They believe in us. They know they’re not on a yucky blind date. I’d rather have that kind of customer, wouldn’t you? Sure beats being squeezed! |
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©2001-2009 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved. |
What exactly does Innovate Services PR|Editorial do?
Monday Minute – K.I.S.S. PR Tip
Ever wonder how some entrepreneurs and mompreneurs seem to pop up everywhere online? It’s not by chance, that’s for sure. Those entrepreneurs and mompreneurs are either well organized and have a plan in place for all of their public relations activities or they have partnered up with a professional virtual assistant specialized in PR to help them get the buzz they dream of. A huge piece of that buzz-generating pie is being consistent and well organized.
Here’s your Monday Minute K.I.S.S. tip – if you’re going to do PR, do it consistently, simply, and develop an annual calendar (either in your contact management system or on good ol paper). Follow that PR calendar to a T.
Don’t know where to begin? Contact us for your K.I.S.S. PR needs.
Copyright Teresa H Berger & Innovate Services 2009. This Monday Minute is brought to you by Teresa H Berger, lead Visionary & PR Pro at Innovate Services. As a mompreneur, wife, business owner and partner to clients who need PR|Editorial rescue.
Friday K.I.S.S. Tip: How to Succeed at Content Marketing Even if Your Content Skills Suck
Turn on your TV at 6 pm. What do you get?
The news, right?
Then turn it on tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the week after.
You can turn in on at any day and guess what?
The news is still on at 6 pm.
Now imagine if you tuned in on a Monday, and they had a sitcom. What if you tuned in on Tuesday and oops, it’s an adult movie with clothes flying all over the place. And then maybe on Wednesday it’s the news again.
Would you continue to watch that channel for news? Or would you simply go to a channel that was more reliable?
Many people don’t understand that the most important thing in content marketing is reliability. I don’t care if you put out ten or twenty or seventy-three pieces of content a month.
I just want to see it same bat-time, same bat-channel. So be reliable.
If you’re going to write an email newsletter, the first thing you need to know is that it needs to be published on a pre-fixed schedule from now until the year 2025. If you’re going to post videos on YouTube, plan for 2025 too.
It doesn’t matter if email newsletters or YouTube will change or even continue to exist in the years to come. What’s important is that you’ve created a channel, and you’re the content producer. And you jolly well better show up, or I’m leaving you for a more reliable channel.
- It’s not just your credibility that takes a beating; it’s also your sales.
- And not just your sales, but also your pipeline of new customers.
- And not just your pipeline of new customers, but also return customers.
Your whole darned business really depends on your reliability of communication. Why? I’ll tell you why!
It’s because if you don’t show up, the customer’s memory of you gets increasingly blurry. And that’s only one part of the problem. The other part is that if you don’t show up, and the customer wants to buy your product or service, they’ll buy the product or service anyway… from someone else.
- Remember the time you bought an iTunes album, just because you got the newsletter?
- Remember the time you bought something online just because you saw a video?
- Remember the time Oprah recommended a book, and you traipsed off to buy that very book?
Of course this brings us to a very important juncture: The problem with perfection.
What if you don’t really like the quality of your current content? I have news for you. You’re never going to be completely satisfied—ever!
But you’ll look back at your work six months from now, and the work you’re doing then will be much better, even though you still think it’s not good enough. You’ll look back at today’s work two years from now, and you’ll wonder how you ever got anyone to pay attention at all.
If you really want to get better, you won’t get better wondering about it. You’ll get better only by producing content consistently. You have to put out newsletter after newsletter, video after video, to get better.
Put out what you have today. It doesn’t matter how crappy it looks to your eyes… just put it out. And then improve as you go.
People will put up with less than polished prose, or less than professional video or audio, but they won’t put up with fruity frequency. They’ll simply change the channel and go elsewhere.
If you don’t want customers and prospects to leave, you need to have a plan.
So here’s your plan:
- Get started today by putting a schedule in place.
- Promise this schedule to your audience (even if you have a list of three people).
- Get your content out on the day/days you promised.
- Don’t forget that reliability is everything, because quality comes from consistently doing.
Posted with permission from Sean D’Souza offers a free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter. Check out his blog, too.
Innovate Services & Client Media Mentions…
http://www.business-opportunities.biz http://blog.cristinafavreau.com http://www.ivaa.org/pdfs/latestcast.pdf http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog
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