Basically, I’m getting my server and blog updated. It means the site may be down for short periods over the next week, well it has to be fitted around Christmas activities too!

So if you try to visit and the site has ‘disappeared’ be assured it will be back shortly.

Thank you for reading my musings over the past year, enjoy the festive season and my best wishes for a brilliantly successful 2012.

~ Carol Bentley

You also have the option to subscribe to a series of weekly copywriting articles that are delivered in PDF format as an email attachment.

~ Carol Bentley

An email from Tony, one of my blog readers, kindly warned me about this card scam. Having your card stolen is bad enough but this one also attempts to fool you into giving your pin number up as well.

It is a very simple process – but potentially devastating for anyone caught by it. The 17-page PDF (link below) shows, in picture format, exactly how it is done and how to avoid it happening to you.

I suggest you tell anyone you know and care for about this, but as the PDF file is about 500k in size, it may be easier for you to suggest that your friends visit this post to get a copy for themselves.

atm-thefts.pdf

Or visit the hoax website where they show the pictures on-line along with tips for taking precautions:
Snopes.com ATM theft warning

Thank you Tony for the warning.

Stay safe and guard your hard-earned cash.

~ Carol Bentley

Payment reminders are often curt and sometimes unfriendly… ‘if payment is not received within 10 days we may have to take debt-recovery proceedings‘ – the one that arrived on my friend’s doorstep was the exact opposite. And, when she showed it to me, it made me chuckle.

This is what it said…

Dear Customer,

Here we go with a little rhyme. To remind you that your payment has not been made in time.
To enable us to keep our customers happy. Could you raise our payment and make it snappy.

The sender may not be a Poet Laureate – but it is certainly a different, friendlier way of asking for their payment.

How do you encourage your customers to pay your invoices?

~ Carol Bentley

Why?

Because she described the best approach to creating a press release… or as she prefers to call it a News Release… that increases the chances of it being accepted and published.

I’m sure you know, as well as I do, that the publicity you get from a news release is truly valuable. It is a story about you or your company or your product or service that brings your business to the attention of prospective customers.

Faith* gave us a few pointers I’d like to share with you. You may already know about these, as I did, but it never does any harm to be reminded – does it?

Top 10 News Release Tactics For Getting Your Story Published

1. Remember, your news release is not an advert or a sales letter. It should be written in the ‘third-party’. Unlike a sales letter, where I always advise you to write to the individual that is reading your letter, a news release is reporting a story.
2. Consider your headline carefully. It should attract without being too sensational or sales orientated.
3. Be careful about the content. If it looks like a blatant advert it will be immediately tossed out.
4. Consider which publications are most appropriate for your business and story, the ones your target audience is most likely to read. Is the story relevant for your local newspaper readers or would it be better in a trade magazine or other publication?

5. If possible get your news release accepted for the ‘safe pages’ – these are the first pages laid down in a publication; the ones that are not likely to be changed if important news breaks just before publishing. You have a better chance of getting into these if you send your news release in early enough to be selected.
6. Following on from the previous point; check submission dates with the journalist. You need to know the earliest date for submission as well as final deadlines. Submitting too early can be as bad as submitting late.

7. Be considerate to the journalist you are sending your news release to. Think about their submission deadlines; they will be different for different media – e.g. daily or weekly newspapers will have a different schedule to monthly or quarterly magazines.
8. Check with the journalist how they would like to receive your news release. If sending by email (as most people do these days) some prefer the content to be in the email others prefer to have an attachment.

9. Always offer to supply a good quality picture to accompany your news release.
10. If your picture is taken at an event you are running make sure you get model releases for any people in the photo before submitting. You don’t want to upset anyone and some people do not like their picture splashed in the media. Plus, you reduce the chance of getting future news releases published if complaints are made to the publication.

Another point to remember is try to find different angles for your releases. Doing so makes it potentially more appealing to your journalist.

Faith gave us a list of angles (or edges) for news releases – her A-W list. She gave me permission to share these with you…

Get your copy of Faith’s A-W News Release Angles

* Background: For Faith, working in the media and providing media training have gone hand in hand for more than twenty years. She spent 12 years in radio, has connections within television and her writing for magazines and newspapers is ongoing. She has helped businesses of all sizes; public sector organisations and PR professionals to set up long term, confident and effective media relations, reaping the rewards of free, high impact media publicity with measurable returns.

Are You Interested… Here’s What We Are Planning

Knowing how to promote your business through publicity (preferably good publicity) as well as how to write direct response marketing letters is a valuable skill in business today – especially for the smaller business owner who does not always have access to expert professional help.

So Faith and I are exploring the possibility of holding a 1-day workshop; how to write an effective sales letter in the morning (presented by me) and how to write an effective news release that gets accepted (presented by Faith) in the afternoon session.

The event will be a hands-on workshop during which we will answer individual questions and offer personal advice to each person during the writing exercises. Giving this level of personal attention means we will only be able to take a limited number of people.

If you’d like to know more about the workshop – no commitment – then please register your interest below:

As I said, registering does not place you under any further obligation.

~ Carol Bentley

Chris Marlow is a copywriters’ coach – yes, professional copywriters do need guidance and help sometimes as well – and she created a list of 10 copywriting sins that should be avoided – hmm… I wonder if maybe they could also be regarded as the ’10 Copywriting Commandments’?

Anyway, although the content is geared for professional copywriters, a number of the tips are handy for anyone writing their own copy so I got Chris’ permission to share them with you.

Some I’ve mentioned in previous posts, but it is handy to have them all together… and, for your convenience, I’ve popped them into a PDF file you can download.

10 Copywriting Sins

I hope you find them useful.

Coming Up…

There was a presentation on how to structure news releases to promote your business at a business meeting I attended recently. I’ll share some useful insights and another free gift from that with you soon. Keep a look out for my next post.

~ Carol Bentley

We were talking about a new venture I’m launching with a business partner. When I told him the name we had chosen for our new business he advised us to go for something different.

“Why?” I asked

“Because it’s got the word ‘Easy’ in it.” He went on to explain.. “We’re changing our name from Easytax Accountants to Worth Accountants because Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, owner of the easyGroup, threatened to take legal action against us. His solicitors claimed an infringement of the easyGroup’s rights under a registered Community Trade Mark.”

Apparently easyGroup has registered the word ‘easy’ as a Community Trade Mark giving it protected rights within the EU.

He went on “So, although our trademark attorneys feel there is a good chance of successfully defending our case, because the word ‘easy’ is not a distinctive mark here in the UK, I’m not prepared to invest the additional time and money it would take.”

I was shocked.

In my opinion that’s bullying tactics from a big business that can afford the legal fees more readily than a smaller business. (You can read Steve’s press release about his re-branding at Easy Take-Off for Worth Accountants). What are your thoughts?

So we decided to change our new business name from EasyMarketingApps to Apps4SME. It has delayed our launch but we felt it was better to do it now to avoid potentially expensive problems in the future.

In the meantime my accountant has to budget for the unplanned costs associated with re-branding.

(BTW – if you are located in the south of England and want an accountant that is easy to access and talk to – doesn’t just turn up at year end – then I can heartily recommend the newly styled Worth Accountants).

~ Carol Bentley

There are hundreds of e-books, reports and self-professed ‘how to’ guides that are supposed to explain how to set up an ecommerce website. Few actually match up to expectations.

So, for me, it is a refreshing change to find an e-book that does actually show you, in detail, how to create an ecommerce website. What’s even better though is the author, Karin Hermans, not only gives easy to follow instructions, she also reveals how to do it economically – like for FREE. Karin’s premise is to get an ecommerce website set up and see if it works for you before investing too much time or money in the project.

For anyone who is considering an online presence for their existing business, but is not 100% convinced it is right for them, this is the ideal way to ‘test the water’.

The guide (which is only £7.47) describes how you can use and combine 4 free online software programs (all free versions of award winning software), plus one ‘pay-when-you-sell’ program to get your Ecommerce shop up and running in no time at all.

Step-by-step, with a multitude of screenshots, Karin guides you through the account opening processes and shows you how to link the programs together – and it is a lot easier than you might think.

In fact I worked through the instructions she gives in her ebook and I was impressed with the amount of detail she included.

You can get your copy at Selling Online Basics, where she explains how BBC’s ‘Britain’s Next Best Thing’ was the inspiration behind this guide.

~ Carol Bentley

More importantly businesses that are ignoring their Google Places listing are missing a vital marketing tactic. A completed and well optimised listing is more likely to appear on the first page of local search results. This is because Google has a greater trust in the information entered after a listing has been claimed and verified.

Is Your Business Listed?

Your business may already be listed because Google uses publicly available information, such as details in telephone directories like yell.com, to create the listing. But all it is likely to have is your business name and some basic details. There will be nothing to encourage browsers to look more closely at what you offer; no marketing details.

Why Claim Your Listing?

When you claim your listing you can add marketing descriptions, keywords, photos, videos – a whole raft of promotional material – to make your business highly visible and attractive to potential buyers. And once you’ve claimed your listing Google gives you a whole host of analytics, including how many times your listing has been seen and how many visitors are clicking your listing to find out more.

This is an ideal way for every business in the UK (and other countries) to be seen on Google even if they do not have their own website set up – this is effectively your free website on Google.

How To Claim Your Listing

You will need a Google account if you haven’t already got one. Google recommends creating a Google Places account using an Google email address that you don’t mind sharing with others or passing along, in case you ever sell your business and need to transfer ownership of your listing.

(You can create a Google gmail account at mail.google.com/mail/signup)

Once you’ve got your gmail account set up…

Go to www.google.co.uk/places (or search for Google Places to find your local Google Places if you are outside the UK).

1. Sign in with your gmail account
2. Choose the country you are located in
3. Type in your business telephone number

If Google finds your business is listed it displays details for you to edit.

If your business is not listed Google displays the form for you to enter your details.

In both cases you can add /edit:

• Business Name, telephone and contact details
• Business address (you can stop your address being displayed if you work from home)
• Business description (200 characters) and business category (up to 5)
• Your website, if you have one
• Where you carry out your business – on your premises or at your customers
• Opening hours
• Payment methods you accept
• Photos to display your products / services
• Video clips to promote your business
• Additional details, such as local parking facilities etc.

Once you’ve completed your information Google will ask for verification. They send you a pin number, by phone or SMS text. Entering the pin number confirms the listing.

Now, whenever you are logged in to your Google Account and you go to Google Places, it shows your display stats for the business.

May I ask a favour?

I think claiming your Google Places listing is important for any business, but especially for small businesses such as privately owned retail outlets, that don’t regularly interact with the Internet. So please tell any business owner you know about Google Places listings and encourage them to claim theirs before someone tries to use it to damage them.

Thanks.

~ Carol Bentley

How often have you seen a letter or web page that just seems a bit OTT? Outrageous, unbelievable, over-the-top claims throw up barriers, even if the offer is genuine. Even if we are careful about making genuine claims we can sometimes slip into gobbledygook without even realising it!

So what, exactly, is gobbledygook?

The dictionary definition is: Unclear, often verbose language, usually bureaucratic jargon.

I think there is a bit more to it than that because there is a lot of confusing terminology creeping into our everyday language, jargon that really doesn’t make any sense at all. I often see jargon being used as a way of ‘blinding with science’. Not such a good idea because creating confusion in your prospect’s mind rarely turns them into a customer.

So why am I talking about gobbledygook? Well, after my post last Friday about making sure your messages are clear, I was intrigued by a question in an email I received from one of my LinkedIn groups that asked:

I guess we all have our favourite phrases or cliches, even if we avoid using industry jargon, but some of the language we use in our writing can set the BS bells ringing unintentionally and that, of course, can prevent a sale or response.

How can we check that what we have written is OK; that we are describing and explaining our offer in a way that is acceptable and isn’t likely to be seen as BS or gobbledygook?

Reading through the comments left by other members of the group I discovered two potentially useful tools:

• Bullfighter, created by Deloite and Touche, is designed to check your text for BS and
• An online garbage checker, called gobbledygook grader

The gobbledygook grader page also has a link to The Gobbledygook Manifesto, by David Meerman Scott, that reports on what are the most frequently used gobbledygook words – makes interesting reading.

Before you send out that all important letter or upload your crucial web page copy it may be worth using these tools to give it a quick checkover and then see if you agree with the results.

By the way, I ran this post through the gobbledygook grader and (phew!) I’m glad to say it got a 0 count of gobbledygook verbage.

~ Carol Bentley