Where's the Value?

Some of you might remember the old Wendy's ad, "Where's the beef?" I was reminded of that when I saw these 3 examples back-to-back on Twitter.

What's missing from the middle post in this screenshot? The beef.

People are picky about what they subscribe to. If you don't give them a good reason to sign up, they won't even get to taste the beef, no matter how many patties there are.

Good calls-to-action are not easy to construct but it's important to make the effort.

Click to Tweet this Article

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home Office Holiday Party

Image
In preparation for our office party this year, I wrote a poem. Then I gathered together the things I would need to have a party with Romeo and Danielle. (The Temptations were for Romeo, the phone for Danielle, and the coffee for me.) Romeo, my cat, is used to hearing me talk out loud as I proofread and he was unusually excited about hearing the poem. Danielle, who lives several time zones away in Saskatchewan, also works alone (and helps me out lots) so I invited her to my office party by phone. It was a good move because she's a master at rhyming words. After much anticipation, I started to read the finished poem aloud to them. As you can see in the photos above, I had their full attention. Ode to a Midnight Blog Silent night, late at night, I've still got my blog to write. My laptop propped up on my bed, I'm hoping ideas will fill my head. Yawns escaping, eyelids drooping, Neck is stiff, my thoughts are looping. My brain is sore, I th...
Keep reading »

Lost in the Forest and Finding the Trees

Image
"Which is better?" I asked. "'I need to capitalize on the time I've invested in writing.' or 'I need to leverage the time I've invested in writing.'" Danielle said, "'I need people to read my stuff.'" Two lessons here, one obvious and one not so obvious. 1. Using plain language and simple words is critical - and often surprisingly difficult. But, when you use simple words in your marketing, you reduce the risk of something being misinterpreted. ( Tweet This! ) 2. Brainstorming by phone has a big advantage. I was looking at the sentences, hung up on the visual impact of the decision. How would the words look? Would they fit where I needed them to? When I read those two carefully crafted options out loud to Danielle on the phone, she immediately simplified the whole concept. Isn't brainstorming wonderful?! photo by michael pollak / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article
Keep reading »

Is Your Canadian Small Business Compliant with CASL Yet?

Image
It's that year - the Canadian Anti Spam Legislation comes fully info effect on July 1, 2017. Wait, before you roll your eyes and click away, read the next paragraph. The average small business in Canada has nowhere near the list size to trigger an investigation under CASL. And the reality is most small businesses aren't yet CASL-compliant... and that probably includes yours (and even mine). There's no need to get alarmed. Here are the 4 most obvious ways businesses aren't yet fully compliant. #1. Subscription process is missing a description of what content the subscriber can expect to receive and how often You don't want to be misleading and you also can't be too vague. Simply "Sign up for my newsletter!" is not good enough. Besides, you want a killer call-to-action ; it makes good sense regardless of CASL. Offering a free download? If you plan to add the contact to your regular mailing list, you still need to say that. #2. Maili...
Keep reading »

Basic Set-up for a Lead Magnet

Image
Recently several small business owners have asked me about how to set up a lead magnet to encourage more subscriptions to their newsletter . Here are instructions for you DIYers. First, prepare your lead magnet - the thing that you're giving away. It should be something of value to your target market. Next, you'll prepare two pages on your website: a landing page where people can sign up for your newsletter (this may or may not be on your website menu) a redirect page ("Thanks for signing up" page) where people will receive your lead magnet (this should not be on your menu and you'll want to discourage search engines from finding this page) Let's do your redirect page first. Create the page and name it something like 'thanks' or 'download' or... it doesn't really matter what you call it. If you're using WordPress, you can set it to discourage search engines. On this page, you'll place the item you're giving away. It might be...
Keep reading »

Your 'Thank You for Signing Up' Page

Image
A redirect page is a webpage where someone ends up after filling in your subscription form. This is something you have control over and it's worth putting a little effort into. After all, someone has just said they trust you enough to sign up for your newsletter - it's a good time to dazzle them with more of your brilliance and give them some value right away . Here is a screenshot of Anita Kirkbride's redirect page. When someone subscribes to Twirp's newsletter, this is where they end up. Here's why this page is great: It clearly describes what the subscriber signed up for. There's a free giveaway, which was promised in the call to action. There's a link to get immediate value by going to Twirp's blog. Also those cute little Twirplings at the bottom of the screen jump up and down... which made me feel kind of happy to have subscribed. Is it time to take a fresh look at your own redirect page? What is the most important message you want t...
Keep reading »

Editing Tips to Benefit Your Readers

Image
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” - Henry David Thoreau - It is always easier to edit someone else's writing. We're emotionally invested in our own words, wanting to hoard them and take ownership of them. The thing is, you don't need to justify anything you write. I often see words and phrases like this which can be completely eliminated: "I want to say that..." or "I want to let you know that..." or "I want you to know..." "It's my opinion..." or "I personally think/feel that..." "... of mine" (as in "friends of mine" or "colleagues of mine") Then there are those phrases and even whole paragraphs that should be about the reader instead of the writer: "I'm planning to..." or "I'll send you..." Try starting with "you" instead, as in, "You'll receive..." You can often eli...
Keep reading »

What's best when... Phone vs. eMail

Image
Over coffee at Starbucks last summer, Mary Jane Copps, The Phone Lady , and I were chatting about the benefits of using the phone versus email for business communication . We decided to take our debate to the public. In September, we announced that comedian Lianne Perry would be our MC for the live debate scheduled for November 5, 2014, at the Westin Hotel in Halifax. We launched a website, online votes started to tally, and ticket sales began. Mary Jane and I took the debate online with articles on our blogs. Mary Jane started with her blog post When You Say "Hmmmm" . " When reading an email, if at any point you go “Hmmm, I wonder what they mean by that?” ...pick up the phone!" ( Click to Tweet this! ) I continued the debate with 7 Tips for Communicating Details by eMail , one of the big benefits of email over the phone. Next I wrote about The Speed of eMail . "If you need to reach a lot of people fast and at the same time, email is definitely the medi...
Keep reading »

Quick Tip - Avoid Hidden Format Problems

Image
When you're inserting content into your newsletter, website or blog, you're often copying it from other documents.  I suggest you always compose in Word (or similar) to take advantage of its spelling and grammar-checking functionality. Your formatting in Word may not be the same as your default formatting in these various applications.  While there are a raft of applications that make it easy now to do your own newsletter, website and blog, most of them are converting your content to html code in the background.  When you copy in text that is already formatted, you're possibly creating problems behind the scenes .  As well, you'll end up with differing fonts and sizes that all have to be corrected before you publish. You can avoid the potential for problems by stripping off all formatting before you paste into the application.  An easy way to do this is to use Notepad (or similar).  You simply open a blank notepad document, paste your con...
Keep reading »

7 Out Of 12 Small Business Bloggers Agree On This

Image
When I teach marketing courses, the group eventually tires of seeing this list come up on the screen in every class: Build relationships, community Grow your reputation, sphere of influence Be seen as an expert Share valuable info, products, services Increase your social media following Give value to your customers, prospects and colleagues on a regular basis Get found - SEO The items on this list are key reasons for publishing a blog or newsletter . Yes, of course, the ultimate goal is sometimes - but not always - an increase in sales. The problem is, you (and me) can't meet all the goals on that list at the same time. We'd become unfocused and demotivated. So I 'force' these small business folk to pick only two goals  to focus on. Last week I noted the two goals each person called out as we went around the room. I added my own two goals, as well, to round the group off at a dozen. Seven of us chose #2 - growing our reputation - as one of our two ...
Keep reading »

Oh, Look! There Goes My Goal

Image
I don't need to tell you how hard it is to stay focused. And that's why it's so important to have goals that we can refer to that will keep us on track. Goals are sometimes quite removed from our daily activities. Once they're determined , a strategy is built around them. And then plans are made to execute the strategy. Next plans are broken down into action items and finally, we do or delegate specific tasks. When we're in "task mode" our goals may be completely out of mind. That's not a bad thing... as long as we're doing the things we planned to implement the strategy that will achieve our goals. Deviating from our plans is where we can get into trouble , and one way that happens is called "scope creep". That's a project management term - what is running a small business if not an ever-evolving project? Scope creep can happen accidentally but also "on purpose" and we need to be cautious of either. It's ea...
Keep reading »