… these proposed laws would effectively give the government an Internet kill switch according to most legal scholars. The backers of SOPA are huge entertainment companies such as Disney, AOL, CBS, MSN, and many others.

These companies complain that there is too much piracy going on and people are stealing their copyrighted content. But, on the following video (a link to YouTube is provided below) there seems to be a body of evidence which shows that the same companies that are pushing for SOPA protection, are the same companies that distributed the software needed to download online content, and even encouraged  innocent consumers to download their own material in the first place…!

Most reasonable people agree that these proposed laws stink because it sounds like a set up to scam innocent consumers by suing them and threatening to put them in jail for felonies. In some circles one would say this is like a form of entrapment. The corporations gave away the software needed to download the content, then taught and encouraged millions of innocent consumers worldwide to download their copyrighted content. And now they want to create a law that enables them to hunt down everyone and get ‘em.

The attack on free speech is a strong enough case to stop the passage of SOPA and PIPA.

Most arguments against these proposed laws focus on the fact how your freedom of speech and the freedom of speech found on the Internet would be controlled by big business and big government together.

SOPA and PIPA are bad because they would censor your free-speech, and give the government and large companies the ability to shut down the Internet as we now know it. It would affect your online business, how you market online, your website, and how you share information online.

Being “affected” is too soft a word. Here’s one scenario given by experts:  You play copyrighted music at your wedding, then play the wedding video on YouTube… that could be enough to land you in legal trouble and face a felony as well as a multi-million dollar fine!

By the way, SOPA is modeled after China’s Internet censorship procedures.

What’s worse, however, is fact that the same corporations who support SOPA and want to use it to sue you and others for copyright infringement, are the same companies that gave you the software needed to download their content, taught you how to download their content, and then encouraged you and millions of others to download their copyrighted content.

Many sensible people would say this is con that allows a few politically connected corporations to use the “bully club” of the law to enrich themselves at the expense of innocent consumers.

Watch the video and decide for yourself.

The video is produced for a mass audience, however the evidence brought up is sharp and to the point. It’s worth watching the whole video and sharing it with others, and especially to your elected officials who will be voting on these kinds of laws.

You should review the accompanying website and see the hundreds of pages of text, screen shots of the offending web pages, and links:

http://onecandleinthedark.blogspot.com/2011/05/cnet-fueled-piracy-phenomenon-before.html

Note: even if you read this and don’t live in the U.S. you should share it with your own elected officials because the U.S. has tried to extradite individuals who have downloaded, or simply linked, to copyrighted material, even if this was not illegal in their home country.

What’s your opinion of SOPA and Internet censorship? Leave a comment below.

BUT…

…your online business foundation must be your own, private, proprietary web presence.

A web presence that is under your direct control and no one else. Typically, this means your website and its quality content.

I often tell clients considering a social media marketing (smm) strategy to use companies such as YouTube, Twitter, and especially Facebook as tools to lead traffic back to their own website.

Never, or at least be very careful, about focusing a lot of attention, budget, or time building content on these kinds of social networking websites.

Why?

When you build valuable content on these sites – quality articles, photos, videos, etc. you are in effect building content for these sites and making them more valuable, not your own company.

Most entrepreneurs don’t understand this and that can be a mistake.

A recent example…

Facebook: Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Facebook shut down a popular Facebook Page that had over 16,000 fans. Why did Facebook do it?

As of this writing, no one knows.

Facebook has not given any clear explanation why it did so. It did not give the company any warning before pulling the plug on their page, which took them many months, resources, staff, and money to build it to over 16,000 fans. And it did not give the company any chance to respond before shutting them down.

Apparently, Facebook took it upon itself to be judge, jury, and executioner and felt it was their right to shut down this company’s Facebook Page.

Facebook can do whatever it wants and there isn’t anything you can do about it

If you think about it clearly Facebook has the right because Facebook belongs to Facebook and it can in fact do what it pleases.

I’m not saying this is right, or fair, or just… I wouldn’t be happy if it happened to me.

But this is the truth with all social media networking sites and social media properties. Stumbleupon, Digg, Twitter, Blogger, this public WordPress page you’re reading now, YouTube, Myspace, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Facebook… all of them.

Hopefully, Facebook and all other social media companies change their policies and — ahem… customer service procedures to avoid this kind of situation in the future.

Even if they do, make sure you understand these are independent companies just like the one you own.

Build YOUR value!

When you create quality content on these sites, you make them more valuable. So be aware of this. Don’t bank on or bet the farm that they will make you a success.

Instead, use them to help build your business. Let them send targeted traffic to your website. Spend most of your energy building and improving the content on your own online company so when the traffic arrives they’re ready to engage your company. This is a more prudent business move.

Read what happened to this company and follow their updates as they try to get Facebook to put their Page back up and get an explanation as to why they were shut down in the first place.

http://su.pr/55oI9k

Recap:

– Use social media marketing for what its worth. Exploit it.

– However, be aware when you build content on these sites you are building their value.

– Be careful about placing all your bets on just one form of social media (that goes for any marketing media – telemarketing, ads, radio, mail, email, etc).

– Always have your own web presence that you control and spend most of your effort building quality content directly on your own business website(s).

– Use social media marketing to “get found online” and send targeted prospects and traffic to your company or website.

– Make sure the content on your web property is high quality – helpful, useful, informative, exhorting, and asks to either make a sale or extend and deepen the relationship (on your own territory).

– To balance your time use rough ratios: i.e. 90% of content building effort (budget, time, etc) is “for keeps” 10% is for social media marketing purposes. Use a ratio that makes sense to you and your business.

How about you? Have you been working too hard building the value of these social media companies and not enough building your own website’s value? Leave a comment below.

Are you looking for help developing content and marketing messages to pre-sell your prospects, close sales, or generate hot leads? Call me today.

“… we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites … with low levels of original content… In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites…” [Emphasis mine] — Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer

Google’s change affects all sites including B2B related websites. However, if you do the opposite and offer high quality content the search engines will reward you because, Google wants quality sites.

Google knows that searchers, people like you and me (and your prospective clients), need and want quality information, which is original, helpful, useful, solves their problems and answers their questions. Do this and your company will be rewarded with free, non-paid organic traffic to your website.

Content is NOT king! QUALITY content is king

I’ve always disagreed with the brain-dead mantra, “content, content, content”. Too many online marketers and SEO/SEM companies focus too much attention on content for content’s sake.

The main reason is because it’s been relatively easy to “reverse” engineer the search engine algorithms (software) and game the system. So many websites would have very superficial content, but hundreds of pages of it, and that would often be enough to rise in the search engine rankings.

However, the search algorithms at Google (and also Yahoo and Bing) are much more sophisticated today. Low quality and superficial websites (and internal website pages) isn’t enough to rank highly on search engines. A mass quantity of content, content, content is useless. And good riddance!

Great content is an investment in your company’s success and future

Many companies fell into the trap of creating mass content because it worked, to a point. They could see their website rise up in the rankings. But with the new changes, that’s not going to happen any more.

The problem with this method, even before Google made its upgrades, is when a real life human visitor (potential client) arrived to the site, he or she found it useless and clicked away.

So it was never a prudent long-term business strategy. And now that the search engines (starting with Google, and Yahoo and Bing won’t be far behind) will skip pass these kinds of sites and lower their rankings, or not rank them at all, this strategy will be shelved and indexed in the history books.

It’s much harder to create high-quality, unique and thoughtful content. But that’s what your site visitors and prospective clients want and need from you first.

They need this before they decide to take the next step in establishing a business relationship with you and are comfortable giving you money for your product or service.

Here’s your competitive advantage!

Many of your competitors and their mathematical, reverse engineering SEO/SEM-only consultants are going to ignore this warning, or worse, they’re going to look for another way to game the system. And they’re going to end up disappointed because the search engine software programs (algorithms) are getting more and more sophisticated – faster and faster.

Oftentimes, it’s the only thing they’re capable of doing because it’s “easier”. Creating mass content is a by-product of feeding the “Internet Monster”: Any firm that markets online (which is all companies that want to have a future today) is under real pressure to stay relevant and on their prospect’s radar via email, web content, online articles, online press releases, and now online video, mobile marketing and social media marketing.

Fortunately, mass content for content’s sake, is not going to be the driving force behind online success, no matter what industry you’re in. The search engines won’t stand for it. And your human visitors never appreciated it.

Instead, making each piece of communication good, even great, is what it takes to win organic search results today. That takes dedication and thought and real ingenuity.

And that’s your competitive advantage.

Deliver quality content and your market will appreciate it. The search engines will realize that human searchers find you relevant and useful, so the engines will send you even more targeted traffic. And with targeted traffic, your company will realize higher conversion ratios and better ROI. That’s a positive cycle that rewards authentic marketing practices that provide quality products and services.

You can read Google’s announcement here.

If you’re challenged by creating quality content that pleases both the search engines and your prospective clients, call me and learn how I can improve your website and online marketing strategy to generate more leads or sales for your company. There’s no obligation and no risk. Contact me now.

Workshop workbook, ticket and free bonus CD

As you can see from the photo, this workshop was given all in Spanish. All the advertising and marketing used to fill the conference hall (over 1,000 seats) was aimed at the Spanish-speaking community in Los Angeles.

In other words…

They had a niche product aimed at a niche market

You need to think in the same way.

Carving out a niche is practical and efficient. Besides, it’s the only way I know where you can legally create a monopoly.

A workshop like this is too common and easy to find in the English-speaking market. But for Spanish-speakers, this company may be the only game in town in Los Angeles, and probably all North America.

I did an informal survey with the attendees that sat around me and was surprised to learn that no one I asked knew who Tony Robbins or Brian Tracy were. Robbins and Tracy are giants in the personal development industry, but they’re nobodies in this niche.

Owning a niche is really like having a legal monopoly.

“But I don’t want to leave money on the table”

That’s probably the biggest concern about niche marketing. Many people believe the shotgun approach is best because they have the most chance of success if they go after everyone.

Aiming directly at a small niche feels limiting. And it is, but that’s why it works so well.

The better you connect to your market on an emotional level, a psychological level or on a personal level the better your results will be. Which means more sales.

By focusing on an easily defined market you can cut marketing and advertising costs while getting more sales per dollar or time invested (or both). Which means a better ROI.

You can’t be all things to all people so the shotgun approach is inherently weak. However, you can get intimate with a specific market.

If “leaving money on the table” still concerns you …

You can have more than one niche

For instance there’s a nutritional company that sells a product that helps strengthen eyesight. With the same product they’ve created multiple niches.

Strengthen your eyesight – for senior citizens, for students, for pilots, for athletes and for professionals who spend too much time in front of a computer screen.

Each marketing piece is aimed at very different markets with unique needs and concerns. If this company just used a general marketing piece for all these markets, their results wouldn’t be as good. They wouldn’t be able to create a deep and personal bond with each of their markets.

How about you? How have you successfully niched your business or product? What are your challenges in creating a niche? Leave a comment below.

How to Get More Sales From Sales Brochures

I picked up this brochure from a local auto parts store. It’s meant to be a “helpful” educational marketing piece, which gives you quick tips to maintain your car.

That’s nice… and it got me thinking about how well I treat my car. But, does it do enough for the company?

I don’t think so.

As a branding piece this brochure gets an “A” for GOOD — It’s pretty, glossy and has good tips. I can find their name on it and it’s co-branded with the Be Car Care Aware (www.carcare.org) organization, which gives it credibility.

But as a sales tool it gets a solid F for FAIL.

This sales brochure educates well

This brochure is not meant to be a sales tool, I get it. But that’s besides the point since most brochures make these same mistakes.

For instance, it could be more exhorting, without being pushy. They could have easily dropped a few seeds along with the tips such as, “ABC Auto Parts has all the auto parts and products you need to maintain your car.”

There was No Offer. Why not?

Leaving that out leaves to much money on the table, and it’s a common mistake in sales brochures.

Educating your market is a proven method to stay on your market’s radar whether you sell to businesses or consumers.

But with a sales brochure, even if your primary concern is to be helpful and “educate” your market… you should make an offer.

The offer itself can be a direct sell or an exchange to further the relationship.

Here are some options to consider. The first two are direct sells, the last two ask to further the relationship:

• Use a coupon.
• Offer a gift with the next purchase, if the brochure is brought in.
• Offer an online gift in exchange for the customer’s email.
• Offer another educational piece like a case study or report if they call in or go to a special website landing page and request it by email.

Using the brochure to further the relationship by receiving their email address or other contact information is a good move. This enables you to nurture the relationship well past the point the customer throws it away. In my case, that happened in less than 48 hours. And what’s more…

Don’t educate your market with a sales brochure and then let them buy from your competitor!

Don’t you hate it when that happens. You do all the hard work, and then, the client buys from someone else.

I picked up this brochure from a retail store, so let’s assume 100% of the people who picked it up live nearby.

This store has a lot of competition. Just one block away is a competing auto parts store. Within a three mile radius there are at least five more auto parts stores. Plus, there’s another five department stores/shopping malls with auto parts departments!

Don’t leave it up to the customer to choose where to buy your products. Give them an incentive to do business with you.

Make an offer that directs him to return to your store and do business. Or offer them something of value, which allows you to nurture the relationship.

Recap:

• If you’re going to print a brochure, make an offer.
• If you’re going through the trouble of educating your market, remember you’re in business for profit.
• If you’re going to do all the hard work of educating your market, don’t make your competitors rich.
• Make sure your printed sales and educational pieces do a little selling to help your sales people close more sales.

Do you think you’re leaving money on the table with your promotions, business development programs or marketing campaigns? Call me. Let’s discuss how we can create a flood of qualified leads, sell to them and nurture those who don’t buy… until they do.

Oil did a great job on this promo, and are doing a better job by stretching it out for as long as they can…

In addition to using a premium to increase sales, you can also use them to expand your sales and reach long-term

Free DVD offer with motor oil purchase

The DVD is a “feel good” piece about Castrol Oil’s sponsorship of the John Force Racing dynasty.

They’ve had a 25 year relationship and John Force is a drag racing champion. Plus his three daughters, all gorgeous, followed dad into the family business and are racers too.

I’m not a fan of drag racing, never heard of John Force until I watched the DVD and I’m not a Castrol motor oil customer.

I just wanted the Free DVD because it was there. Premiums work.

You may think I’m a sucker, but that’s not the point

The Free DVD offer stood out. No other motor oil on the shelf had any “special offer” that helped it stand out from the crowd. In Castrol Oil’s case their market is racing fans and those who care about their car’s performance. This DVD offer is a great way to connect and drive a deeper bond with their customer base. Isn’t that what we all want with our customers?

DVD packaging

Because DVD’s don’t cost much, adding this premium to each bottle of motor oil is negligible, especially if it increased sales and won over new customers to try their brand.

There were cheaper brands of motor oil and more “advanced” brands of synthetic motor oil, but I chose this one for the Free DVD. Many times it’s good enough to use a premium for this purpose and stop there. But…

Castrol used the premium as a hook to also start something bigger and deeper

The DVD and packaging drove purchasers to a specific website (http://www.castrolforce.com) that’s tied in to the promotion and the John Force story.

The website continues building a deeper bond with customers and connect their brand to the John Force Racing team. There’s plenty of fan-candy: videos, pictures, more background stories… and if you register as a member you can even chat and ask questions directly to the John Force Racing team.

All of this is tied to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, flicker and YouTube.

Along with racing facts, tips, recaps, schedules, news, gossip, and sweepstakes… you’ll receive emails with special promos on Castrol motor oil.

Recap:

— Use premiums to set your product or service apart and increase response and sales.
— Tie-in your marketing promotion to an online component to deepen the relationship.
— Collect contact information so that you have permission to speak directly to your most enthusiastic customers or fans.
— Continue dripping on your fans with great content and sprinkle in direct promotions.

If a commodity product like motor oil can make engine oil cool and sexy, couldn’t you do something to spice up your product or service too?

Cross pollination in Marketing

If you need help writing the copy for your promotions, let me know… that’s what I do.

I thought it was interesting since most questions on these kinds of forums (other than the spam?!) revolve around lead generation, not nurturing.

Lead nurturing, by the way, is probably more important than lead generation. Why?

It’s the linchpin between generating a cold lead and closing the sale. If you drop the ball during the nurturing phase, especially in a B2B sales environment… you have to start all over.

Mistakes here can be very expensive.

Here Are Some Lead Nurturing Ideas

In this case I’m defining lead nurturing as staying top-of-mind until they’re ready to purchase… and your company being the only obvious choice to buy from.

Nurturing doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t always be, boring “business-only” material. It’s okay to have fun with it. In fact, it usually works better that way:

• Webinars
• Tele-seminars
• Newsletter/ezine
• Live events: social and/or business (invite only)
  >> workshops
  >> cocktail parties
  >> special invite-only breakfast during an industry convention/function
• Interviews
• Direct mail
• Personalized mail
• Surveys
• Cards (more mail) on their birthday, kids birthday, anniversary, congratulations for special events (a promotion), holidays.
• Send gifts, if appropriate
• Hold a raffle or give-away

Nurturing should be defined as involvement and relationship building, while sprinkling in the “push”, getting the client closer to the “close”.

How you decide to do it, or which tactic(s) you use, depends on your budget and the value of each closed deal.

You can, and should, segment you prospect list. Spend more business development money on higher potential prospects/key clients and less on others.

The personalized (especially for the higher potential value deals) the deeper and more meaningful the nurturing.

Ideally, you should have multiple lead nurturing campaigns running at the same time. One size DOES NOT fit all.

How about you? What other channels do you use for lead nurturing? Leave a comment below…

And, if you need help writing your lead nurturing campaigns, let me know… that’s what I do.

How we sell things to women?

I was doing some research for a project targeted to professional women.

And I got served  this interesting online banner ad to the right —>

The things we sell to woman are not the same as to men

What got me is how how this whole ad is really just a huge warning sign?!

If I was a woman, I don’t think I’d want to click on it for more information.

If you have any analytic data on how this ad performed, please let us all know.

I can’t imagine that it’s doing well.

Also, is this ad written and designed this way because they’re forced to by law? Or did they make a huge and costly mistake? Or are they testing something sneaky?

If you know say so in the comment box and share it with all of us.

• Do you sell to businesses?
• Are you running a business development or marketing campaign using websites, email, autoresponders, social media, SMS-text, landing pages, online video or audio, PPC ads, SEO copy or other digital media?
• Looking to generate more qualified leads?
• Need to increase subscribers, downloads, trial versions, free demos to your products or services?
• Maybe you want to drive traffic to your sales pages or have a sales page written to sell more appointments, products or services?

Fellow marketer and business development executive,

Why don’t you let me help you?

I specialize in projects like these. In one assignment I made a few simple suggestions to a client’s website and it jumped opt-in conversions for a “Free + $5 for shipping” trial by 300%!  In another project, I created an A-B split test for an in-house autoresponder sales email (with a price point between $400 to $1,000) that raked in a 667% ROI. Would you like me to hit a home run for you too?

In the B2B market campaigns are not always sales or response driven — They’re Position Driven

I can help here too…

Grabbing mind share, staying top-of-mind and positioning your company as an industry expert is vital in today’s over-hyped market. Some call it Pre-selling.

You may not realize this but prospects buy when they’re ready to buy. So, Pre-selling is important because it allows you to be the vendor of choice when the prospect is ready to buy.

What tools do you use to pre-sell? They include ezines, newsletters, press releases, case studies, white papers, special reports, feature articles, corporate blog posts, informative and useful websites and web pages and much more. Pre-selling tools and campaigns allow you to build a meaningful “professional” relationship and monopolize your market’s awareness.

Have questions?

Call me: 1-818-887-8898

Email me: tmjhero (at) gmail.com

Don’t be shy … I keep things professional and level headed. There’s no obligation, I don’t bite and there’s no hard sales pitch.

Are you just stopping by researching potential
copywriters for your next campaign?

Great! Download my free Information Kit here http://RobertNomura.com

There’s no cost and it includes background on my experience and services, sample fee schedule, testimonials, a couple of reports to help improve your business and answers to the questions clients like you ask all the time.

Rob

P.S. Feel free to look through this website. It’s full of free articles on sales, direct response marketing, B2B business development, direct selling, small business marketing, even a few rants on the general economy. If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed here, just let me know.

About a year ago, I wrote a blog article called Direct Marketing in One Word. It described the one most important word for direct response style marketing you should know. In fact, it’s probably the most important word you should know no matter what kind of marketing you use.

If you sell products or services to businesses, rather than directly to consumers, there are two words that you should know, remember and use at all times.

Follow up!

It’s been said that all qualified prospects will buy. All of them.

The question is: Will the prospect buy from you or your competition?

There’s typically a long sales cycle when selling to businesses.

The item you’re selling may require a large investment to purchase, it may be complicated or technical, it might require more than one person to approve the purchase, your client may need to disrupt their normal operations or spend many hours learning how to use and implement your solution. Oftentimes, it’s all of the above.

If you’ve taken the time and money to identify and qualify a prospective client, it’s crucial to finish the job and Follow Up.

The worse that can happen, which you want to avoid, is spending time and money warming up a prospect, then not follow up properly and learn that the prospect bought from your competition because you didn’t finish the job.

Haven’t you, as a customer, done this?

You learn about a new product or service that you’re interested in. The salesperson is knowledgeable and explains all the benefits and features. You’re not ready to buy it right on the spot. But you go back and buy it later.

Not from that helpful salesperson who spent the time educating you, but from someone else.

It happens all the time.

Follow Up Is The Key To Success

Clients buy when they’re ready to buy. And …

More companies will buy from you if they know:

1) You exist

2) How you can solve their problems

And

3) Are consistently reminded about number 1 and 2 above!

In fact, many times it doesn’t matter how good your product is, how useful your service is, how excellent your offer is, how generous your price or terms are, how responsive is your customer service, or how nice and professional you are … clients buy when they are ready to buy.

Follow Up enables you to be the vendor of choice

The interesting thing is that when a client is ready to buy, he wants to buy right now!

Don’t make him wait. Clients with money to burn are impatient and want it “yesterday”.

Make sure you’re the person he calls to satisfy his urges.

Follow up and market consistently. When you market to other businesses use different devices, or methods of communication such as: Case studies, press releases, sales letters, post cards, webinars, phone calls, white papers, emails, newsletters, special reports, samples, demos, beta-tests…

Finish the job!

Someone said, “The Fortune is in the Follow Up.” Yes it is.

And that’s why Follow Up are the two most important words when selling to businesses.