Posted by:
Suzanne Richardson
March 31, 2009
Issue #641
Over 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs since the recession began, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Your job could be in danger, and with it, your entire future.
That’s why you need an ace up your sleeve. You might be surprised to learn that one of the best ways to protect yourself from the recession mess is to become a writer. I’ll explain how in a second. Then I’m going to give you a super simple strategy for becoming a writer - starting today!
First things first. Writing can …
• Help you get your business off the ground. Writing an e-mail newsletter is an inexpensive way to market a fledgling business. Michael Masterson began Early to Rise with around $1,000, a simple website, and a newsletter. Originally, it was sent only to his friends and colleagues. But it grew. Now, Early to Rise is a $26 million business with over 450,000 readers.
• Help you become wealthy. I’m not suggesting that you’ll be the next J.K. Rowling. Most fiction writers struggle to get published, let alone make a living. But copywriting is a career path that can really rack up the cash. Clayton Makepeace, Bob Bly, Paul Hollingshead, Don Mahoney - each one of these men makes hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by writing sales copy.
• Move you up to the top of your company. This is another way to make copywriting pay off for you. After all, as Michael Masterson points out in his best seller, Automatic Wealth, the best way to get promoted is to get into the profit centers of your company. Writing copy that helps directly bring in money is one of the quickest ways to do it.
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Posted by:
Wendy Makepeace
March 30, 2009
Issue #640
Dear Business-Builder,
Wendy "The Redhead" Makepeace here.
Clayton’s busy working on another hot deadline, so he asked me to tackle his Total Package column today.
And since he didn’t give me any guidelines on what to cover, I thought I’d use this space to shamelessly plug the newest exciting addition to The Total Package.
Can you guess what it is?
No, I’m not talking about marketing lessons cleverly disguised as political rants. Or job postings to fill our expanding offices.
I don’t even mean the great sales we’ve been having on outstanding products like The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach.
Hint: Think … video.
Yep, you guessed it. We’ve officially launched the brand new Total Package Video Theater!
In this special video section of The Total Package, you’ll find helpful tips on how to boost your response rates … hot-button news clips we thought you’d enjoy … even product reviews submitted by yourself and other Total Package readers.
Granted, right now there are only a dozen or two videos in the gallery. But you can bet we’re going to add plenty more — and I’m asking for your help.
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Posted by:
Troy White
March 27, 2009
Issue #149
Troy White is on the road this week. But don’t worry — before he left, he searched the archives and found one of his best articles to bring you in today’s Total Package. Enjoy!
– Wendy Makepeace
General Manager
The Total Package
In this issue:
- Branding 101 from the Canadian Beaver
- Quarter BILLION dollar empire began with handwritten letters
- Breaking through the clutter – e-mail vs. print … the results are in!
- Segmentation creates campaign windfall
- What to test … how to test … and why you MUST be testing
- And Much More!
Fellow Business-Builder,
Love us or not, Canadians are here to stay. What’s amazing is to look at the disproportionate number of Canadian success stories, especially when you look at the fact that we have 10% of the population of the US. I have lived both north and south of the border – and I much prefer the Southern weather (I moved to Dallas in July and was in heaven at 115 degrees)! But I also love my Canada.
I am continually amazed at some of the ingenuity that comes from Canadian businesses as well. Many of them never hit the media south of the border, but have some incredible lessons to share.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
March 25, 2009
Issue #637
Dear Web Business-Builder:
Every winning headline raises a question.
The target market is curious about something. And the headline focuses their attention on it and implies an answer is forthcoming in the running copy.
To come up with a great headline for your next promotion, all you have to do is look at your product and ask yourself: What’s the big who, where, when, what, why, and how of this story?
Brainstorm a bunch of headlines around these questions, and you’re almost certain to find a great hook on which to build your promotion. They’re wonderful little idea starters.
Let’s look at a couple of examples. Say you’re selling something that helps people avoid the flu.
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Posted by:
Edwin Huertas
March 24, 2009
Issue #636
The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is in an uproar these days. If you have an Internet-based business, you need to know what’s going on - and how you can take advantage of it.
As you know, SEO is all about getting your site listed in the search engines’ top results. The higher up in the results you rank, the better chance you have of capturing your prospective customer’s attention. Get them to click on your link, and you are on your way to making a sale.
So knowing how to get those coveted high rankings is critical to the success of your Internet business.
The way that search engines currently spider, rate, and index a website depend on various factors, including link popularity, content, site structure, and a mixture of other variables. All of these can be manipulated by most webmasters and SEO specialists.
But this could be changing very soon!
The word on the Net is that search engines are changing the way they spider and index websites to help them serve better results to their search audience. They are incorporating new ranking algorithms that will take into consideration input that is submitted by “real people” (as opposed to primarily software calculations).
Google (and others) will give higher priority to sites that Web surfers vote for. The way a Web surfer “votes” for a website will be completely transparent. It will not be something that can be easily manipulated by webmasters and SEO specialists.
If this happens, we will see an entirely different pattern emerge - and it will affect thousands of websites across the Net. Many that were once showing up in the top 10 results will no longer be there. New sites (rated using the latest algorithms) will take their place.
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