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New 2Dots Website Underway
We’ve been a bit busy recently on a few projects so the website re-design is still a work in progress. We hope to have things back in the groove soon!
Resume & Cover Letters
One of the greatest joys of my marketing is helping others. Late last week I received a referral. A wonderful teacher with 18 years of experience needs assistance in writing her resume and cover letter.
Most people, including myself, have a difficult time writing about themselves. And the resume/cover letter is one of the best marketing tools to showcase your talents, highlight your successes and help get you in the door of a potential employer.
Just as professional athletes have agents to promote them and manage their careers, everyone needs a coach to help them get them their next job, launch their career, etc.
For my teacher client, she just needed guidance on her cover letter. The basics. How to format, how to draw attention to her successes and how to focus the reader on what was important. How to get her in the door.
What a fun project for me and a very important project for her. But my happiness doesn’t end there– it does when she lands an interview. And then calls me back to tell me she got the job. Now that is success!
You are a professional. Get a coach, a mentor, a PR person to help your career. As one advertiser states, “Imagine the Possibilities.”
Writing Emails– MicroContent is KEY!
This is one of my favorite sources of marketing information! I can’t take the credit, but my philosophies are the same and I’m giving them credit: Network for Good.
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When a Few Little Words Mean So Much: Your Email Content
If we told you that microcontent was the most important part of your e-newsletters, what would you say?
“Micro-what?”
Microcontent is a phrase that catches your eye and is often viewed out of context, like an article headline displayed on a search result page or the subject line of your emails.
Good microcontent grabs your supporters’ attention and keeps them reading. Bad microcontent is generic, drab or missing entirely.
Every email has four key pieces of microcontent:
- The Subject Line
- The From Line
- The Headings and Subheadings
- The Next Step or Call to Action
Good microcontent tells the reader what’s in it for them.
The busier your supporters are, the more likely they are to look at your email subject line and nothing else before deciding whether to read it or delete it. This is your first chance at grabbing their attention. Make it good.
- Your “From” field should stay the same with every message. For most nonprofits, this will be your organization’s name or a well-known campaign or initiative.
- Descriptive headlines and subheads with active verbs and vivid nouns will grab your supporters’ attention and nudge them into actually reading the text. Headlines and subheadings that make people think “This is useful” or “This is timely” or “This is about me” will always work.
- Your call to action tells them what they can do next, including donate, volunteer, or simply learn more.
Want to give your supporters a little nudge to actually read what you’ve written in your e-newsletter? Great microcontent is how it’s done.
Testing the Waters- My Return on Investment $$$$
Updated: 6/2/09
Putting the cart before the horse? Well, I get a little antsy sometimes with my passion and excitement about my soon-to-be booming business. I thought I would run a little test about blogging and email campaigns. For those that think providing “free” information and education are a waste of your business time, you might think again after reading this.
I joined an online network related to the Aflac industry– a network of my cohorts across the country. I decided I wanted to write a Blog on my newbie experience, aka my personal story, about the first few months in the business. At the end of my Blog, I told everyone that if they wanted to get some free custom marketing tips specific to the Aflac world (and believe me, it is it’s OWN world), to email me and I would send the FREE TIPS.
Time invested in the Blog- 30 minutes and frankly, it was FUN!
I then created an email campaign using MailChimp (the less expensive and fun version of Constant Contact) that contained over 11 marketing tips- which I called “Quackerting Tips” as a play on words.
Time invested in email development- 30 minutes
Within hours, I was overwhelmed with agents asking me to send them the free tips. In addition, the developer of this online network posted my blog on the home page of this social media site which of course, increased my visibility 10-fold. Over 330 agents had access to my Blog. I also got a call from the developer telling me this was one of the best blogs written and wanted me to jump in and manage this social network site. Pretty nice pat on the back, I’d say!
Before I finish the story, let’s go back to our basic business model. When you have clients, you have a database of people interested in your products/services. You have people willing to purchase. If you don’t have clients, you don’t have business. And you should always be mining for new prospects to fill your database. So we know the value of your database– it’s your gold mine and life line.
My database started out at ZERO. To date, I have 43 new contacts in my database of interested prospects, and it’s growing by the day which means I captured 13% of the agents thus far. Target marketing is the way to go!
Here are the metrics, provided by MailChimp, for my hour of time:
The industry average of opened emails: 18% ~ My average: 58%
The industry avg of bounced emails: 6.5% ~ My average: 0%
The industry avg of click thru rate: 4.5% ~ My average: 17.5%
This is how effective marketing works. This is the NEW marketing. Results. Since this was an experiment and I did not offer them any of my services for a fee yet (still developing that portion of it), this was incredibly valuable for building my brand, awareness and prospects. I continue to send this group FREE tidbits which helps continue to build my credibility and expertise. When I’m ready to launch my website, I’ll have a database of people interested in what I do and can send them a special invitation and special rates to try out my services.
You can do the same. Would you like to know more and how to make this work for your business? Reply to this note and I’ll connect with you!!!
Happy Days to all!
6/2/09– on May 29th, Mailchimp.com Blog linked to this post, for which I am grateful and delighted. In addition, the Aflac network has almost doubled in 4 weeks to over 650 agents– and the emails keep pouring in, building my subscriber list. It’s pure bliss to be able to help my fellow agents and see the power of marketing live, from my living room office.
Working ON Your Business vs. IN Your Business
Defining this is pretty simple. When you work ON your business, you are working on your organization’s business plan, marketing plan, accounting books, paying contractors, freelancers or pretty much anything that does not create direct income’interaction from your customers, clients. Working ON your business will generate income in the future from your actions, of course. This is what I call FIPA- Future Income Producing Activity.
When you work IN your business, you are working for your client. You are providing them a service/product in which they will pay you in return for such. This is what I call IPA- Income Producing Activity.
The balance of this can really get wacky for many business owners who are wearing both hats of FIPA and IPA. You can’t do one without the other.
I’m in the FIPA phase of starting my business. However, my mortgage and bills really don’t appreciate FIPA very much. They much prefer IPA. And well, frankly so do I. It’s hard to walk by DSW and see a gorgeous pair of heels for the summer and have to pass it up because my FIPA far outweighs my IPA work at the moment!
However, FIPA will provide amazing rewards for me in a few months – converted to IPA.
Since I already have a handful of clients who are using my services, I spend my mornings and early afternoons completing their projects in a timely fashion. The afternoons are spent working ON my business– if I don’t focus ON my business, I won’t get this business launch by September. That is my goal of course!
And I want MORE business now. Wow. So instead of waiting to have all my “ducks” in a row to launch the entire vision I have in my little Virgo brain, I’ll be phasing my company launches over the next few months. So you will see various iterations of my services being offered, advertised, and promoted to you and others.
For now, I am working on an international mortgage company’s digital media (aka website for starters), print media, and of course, integration of data for future marketing (permission, viral, and referral).
I happen to also be working a ladies’ golf league website– a simple design to provide information and start the permission and viral marketing aspects of growing the league over the summer. This project will help the coordinator who really has used emails to get the word out– the emails have amazing content, and are hilarious to read, but there is no image or a way to easily invite others to join this amazing group of women.
Another project is in the works to add a DONATE NOW feature to a non-profit website in the local area. They currently are not able to collect donations to further their goals, except by snail mail. Not surprisingly, they have not received many donations over the years– small chunks of donations. The ease of adding this robust feature will definitely catapult them into the 21st century of marketing and from there, it will only grow and grow with some tactical and specific marketing techniques to support this wonderful online feature.
Oh, and well, I do need to work ON my business… you know what I’ll be doing at 3pm today… 
. Got any ideas for a company name? Still waiting for that inspiration to HIT me over the head.