I once attended a networking meeting where the topic of the day was copywriting. One of the attendees raised her hand and said something to the effect that she understood why you would use conversational copy for consumers, but why business owners?

The speaker, in reply, asked her a series of questions. Do you brush your teeth in the morning? Eat breakfast? Put your pants on one leg at a time?

She answered yes to all.

So, the speaker said, does all this change once you get into the office?

She was stumped. It had not occurred to her that business people are people, too.

“In an age of social media and social networking, conversations are more valued than commanding corporate pronouncements,” an article in BtoB magazine once started out. It continued to say that “it’s vital to converse with communities rather than lecture to a target audience.”

And this is so true. If you’re reading this, you probably own a business or are looking at owning one. Is there any reason to believe that when you read something aimed at you the person and something else aimed at you the business owner that you are somehow a different person?

This is why, whether you are marketing to consumer or to businesses, you always keep in mind that you are marketing to people first. And people do business with people they know, like and trust. They buy benefits before they buy features. Even if they say they are buying features, they are still buying the benefits they believe those features will give them.

So, the next time you post something to Facebook … the next time you put together a marketing piece … keep in mind who you are communicating with … not what.

Business to Business Copy Should Be Conversational is a post from Marketing Turbo-Charge

MARKETING DEFINED: Marketing is about building relationships, attracting the best people to your commodity, connecting with others, and telling others how your service or product adds value to their lives or the lives of their friends and family.

To market wisely, it is imperative that you clearly can tell others about the benefits of your product and how it can help them – and do so in one sentence! It’s also important that you consider your ideal client, your best fit or target market, when you are marketing. You can create the best marketing plan ever; if it doesn’t attract your ideal client, you are wasting your time and money!

‘Marketing with Integrity’ means using marketing techniques and concepts that truly reflect your business and your personality. It’s a step away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing campaigns.

Marketing with integrity brings us freedom and energy! If the type of marketing you’re doing now is draining, overwhelming, annoying, a task or a bother – or if you’re doing it because other people are doing it – then for goodness sakes – CHANGE what you’re doing!

With so many marketing venues (in person, Internet, on the phone) to choose from, pick the marketing tools that best fit ‘YOU.’

That doesn’t mean that you don’t stretch yourself sometimes. It does mean that when a certain type of marketing you’re trying is ‘zapping your energy,’ it’s time to re-evaluate.

Sometimes, re-evaluating means changing the task to suit YOU more. Other times, it means letting it go. If it’s not comfortable for you, that’s the message others will hear too. Would you want to buy from someone who seems nervous or uncomfortable with what they’re selling?

My recommendation: pick a time of the year – each year – and re-evaluate your marketing program. Don’t be afraid to take a marketing idea and adjust it to fit you – nothing’s set in stone.

I also suggest that folks take a look at their One Page Business Plan on their company’s anniversary date. The One Page Business Plan®, which includes a marketing plan, business plan and monitoring system, is a gift you give your business!”

It’s Time to Market With Integrity is a post from Marketing Turbo-Charge

Online audio can enhance your business, from increasing sales conversions to the number of opt-ins your squeeze page gets to improving customer service. Here are five ways you can use online audio in your business.

1. Dowloadable Audio Products
Did you record a particularly informative teleseminar? Why not turn it into an audio product available as a downloadable mp3? Add in supporting material and you can create a wonderfully robust product. And, I’ve heard that audio products sell very well.

Example

2. Podcast and Internet Radio
Always wanted your own talk show? Now you can. Record yourself sharing information, interviewing experts, chatting with fellow business owners and you’ve got the makings of an audience building podcast or Internet radio show.

Example

4. Instructional Messages
On your squeeze pages, at the point where you include a call to action, you can also include a short audio message that emphasizes that call to action. This can be helpful on squeeze pages where you encourage the visitor to enter their name and email address in the form.

Example

5. Audio Samples
If you’re selling products that include audio downloads or CDs, including short samples of the audio recordings can help people make the decision to purchase. This works well if the audios are instructional or musical.

Example

Online Audio and Your Business is a post from Marketing Turbo-Charge

There are many ways that recording audio can help your business. Here are just the first four I could think of:

Better Productivity

It is often easier and quicker for you to create an audio product than a written one. Therefore you can provide more information products to serve your market in less time if record them in audio format.

Business Promotion

There are many ways you can use audio to promote your business, grow your list and sell more products and services. You can do free teleseminars, you can be a guest on other people’s teleseminars, you can engage in audio article marketing, or you can produce a regular podcast or Internet radio show.

Increased Conversions

Audio messages posted on your sales page can increase sales. You can also send quick audio messages to your subscriber list to attract them to your sales pages. Another way to increase sales is to provide sample audio clips from your audio products on the sales page.

Increased Traffic

When I launched an podcast for my Examiner.com column, I noticed an uptick in page views. So, it is quite possible that producing an regular podcast can increase traffic to your website.

How Audio Can Help Your Business is a post from Marketing Turbo-Charge

The fifth deadly mistake of home page design is poor use of copy and copy optimization techniques.

You see, one of the ways you can attract ideal clients to your website is through search engine optimization. But if you aren’t maximizing the use of SEO opportunities on your website, your pages won’t rank high enough in the search engines to get noticed.

Here are some tips to help you leverage the power of “on-page” SEO to attract your ideal clients.

Step 1: What key words are your idea clients using to find products and services like yours?
You’ll need to do some keyword research … don’t just guess. Find out the actual words and phrases that are being use by your target market to find businesses like yours.

Step 2: Use those key words and phrases strategically throughout your website.
Your keywords should be used appropriately, strategically and with restraint (you don’t want to be dinged for key word stuffing), in several places:

• Meta tags: These are tags used by search engines to understand what your page is about and how (or whether) to index it. One of the meta tags should include an appropriate list of key words.
• H tags: These are the tags that specify your headers and sub-heads. H tagged phrase are given more weight that bolded text, which is given more weight than standard text, in search engine algorithms.
• Image tags: One of the attributes of an image tag is “alt.” This is used by readers for the blind to describe the image. It is also used by search engines in image searches. Having your key word descriptions in the alt tags can increase the number of places your website shows up.
• Your copy: Of course your website copy should also have an effective key word density of about 2% to 3%.

Want to know what all five deadly mistakes are? Grab a copy of my new book, Home Sweet Home Page: The 5 Deadly Mistakes Authors, Speakers and Coaches Make with Their Website’s Home Page and How To Fix Them! at www.homesweethomepagebook.com. Stop by the website between March 15 and 19, 2010, to join the launch and housewarming party, and download a plethora of free gifts!

Attracting Ideal Clients with Home Page SEO is a post from Marketing Turbo-Charge