6/23/09 - CONTENT! CONTENT! CONTENT! A Discussion with Emily Capps + Rachel Rose
Today, a well-crafted website is absolutely essential to your business whether it is an online one or a traditional “brick and mortar” operation. The design must be appealing, it must be easy to navigate but most important, it needs to communicate what your company is about, the product or service it is selling, and why someone would want to buy from your company instead of one of your competitors. The content of your site–what it says–is perhaps the most important aspect of building an online presence.
Gravity Free Radio spoke to two professional writers, Emily Capps and Rachel Rose, about why the content needs to be close to perfect in every way. For instance, Rachel pointed out that often she will visit a site that has grammatical errors or simple typos. In her opinion, a website is a company’s only chance at a first impression so if their website is sloppy and full of errors, it reflects poorly on the company. Emily, who worked for Ogilvy Mather and has been a professional copywriter for over 10 years agreed and added that even if they get the grammar right and don’t have any other errors, that their message is often not relevant to their audience. That’s where someone like she or Rachel would come in. Hiring a professional writer is something that some business owners don’t think they need. After all, most people know how to write but the problem is knowing how to write for your intended audience. If you are “too close” to the business or product you are selling, you may lack the objectivity needed to examine what features and benefits you need to highlight in order to capture some of the market share.
Rachel has a Master’s in journalism from Columbia and spent the first part of her career as a journalist. She said that a large part of what she does now is really not much different than how she approached writing for television or newspapers. “It’s about telling a story,” she said. She goes on to say that if you can communicate something meaningful and authentic to your prospective customers through storytelling, you are more likely to gain their trust and they are more likely to buy from you. Both she and Emily agreed that canned pitches are really a thing of the past.
This was a very informative show! A big thank you to Rachel and Emily for joining us. For more information about them, visit their respective websites, www.rachelrosewriting.com or www.emilycapps.com or follow them on Twitter, @rachelwriter or @emilydcapps.
Have a great week! See you next Tuesday.
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6/16/09 - The Mompreneur Show with Suzanne Simkin + Kristi Gorinas
What do you get when you cross an enterprising entrepreneur with someone who also serves as the CEO of their family? A “Mompreneur” of course! Mompreneurs, Dadpreneurs, Parentpreneurs–whatever you want to call a full-time parent who is running a successful business in what little spare time they may have–are very special people. They are balancing the demands of a family with the demands of starting and then running a small business. It’s no easy feat but some of them, like our guests, Suzanne Simkin of PeaceLoveMom and Kristi Gorinas of The Kristi G. Company make it look that way.
Suzanne is the co-founder/owner of PeaceLoveMom, a lifestyle brand which sells products that celebrate motherhood. Everything from t-shirts and hats to other small accessories, PeaceLoveMom is all about products that are both fun and hip for Mom.
Kristi Gorinas runs a company that makes really fun and stylish diaper bags that look more like cute purses and will be coming out with the “Go & Grow Seat” for babies and young kids.
Both Suzanne and Kristi were a delight to have on the show and we discussed everything from kids answering your home office phone to how to work when you’re on the go.
Thanks to Kristi and Suzanne for coming on and sharing some of the secrets of being a successful Mompreneur!
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6/9/09 Mountain Social and Marketing
This week we were joined by Jon Gatrell, @spatially, to discuss Mountain Social. Jon is one of the organizers of this unique event that will be held September 11-13, 2009 in Unicoi State Park in the North Georgia Mountains near Helen, GA. What’s unique about this conference is that you can bring your family along because it is structured to not only help you learn something but spend quality time with your kids or even your dog. For more information visit the Mountain Social website.
Also joining us this week was strategic marketer, Keith Finger. Keith helps companies who either do not have a full-time marketing staff or need to have someone dedicated to helping them figure out their long-term strategy. He said that a lot of companies are so focused on building their product or service offering that they lose sight of the most simple things such as a distribution strategy or target market. And, if companies don’t really take the time to understand who they are selling to, then they will miss a lot of opportunities. Keith helps companies define their strategies, nurture leads, and decrease sales cycles. Check out his website at KeithFinger.com
Thanks to Jon and Keith for coming on the show this week!
Join us next week for our Mompreneur show!
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6/2/2009: David Meerman Scott Talks about What Makes a World Wide Rave
David Meerman Scott calls himself a “recovering” Vice President of Marketing. And, for good reason. His innovative thinking was a bit too radical for the staid, corporate environment he was in at the time. This led him down a somewhat accidental path to become a marketing strategist and he has since written five books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject. We talked about his latest book, World Wide Rave. He maintains that the way people make buying decisions has fundamentally changed. However, many companies are still stuck in the old ways of trying to reach customers such as yellow pages, direct mail, or a newspaper ad. Today, someone is much more likely to “Google” a product or ask their network of friends for recommendations than they are to respond directly to a company pitch.
The term World Wide Rave, as David explained, is all about creating something authentic to attract people to you or your company. It may, in fact, have nothing to do with your actual business. The main thing is to get people talking about your company. A World Wide Rave, as opposed to something “going viral” is less gimmicky and doesn’t rely on duping people to get your message out. There are many instances of the people who created a “viral campaign” posing as customers to review or rate a product. A World Wide Rave is vastly different and has a much more positive connotation than something that is “viral.”
One of the most revolutionary ideas that David talks about in his book is the notion of freely spreading ideas via an e-book or white paper. When he says freely, he means that companies do not need to hold information hostage in exchange for personal information such as an email or physical address. Those practices are holdovers from the old days when someone needed to supply their mailing address in order to get a white paper or other information from a company. If your e-book, white paper, or other information is readily available, people are more likely to download it and share it. Also, people will link to something that is truly free instead of something that requires a visitor to give up information about themselves. We decided to experiment with David’s advice and have unlocked all of our information at Zero-G Creative. Click here to learn more about our new initiative.
By the way, if you live in the Atlanta area, David will be at a Tweetup on Thursday, June 4th at the Three Dollar Cafe in Norcross.
To learn more about David, visit his website or follow him on Twitter. Again, a big thank you to him for joining us. We all learned a lot!
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