Archive for February, 2007

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Raising the Bar: Required Reading for Entrepreneurs

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Clif_bar_book
Back in 2005 I saw Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar, speak at one of MEBSR’s Fall Conferences. At the time I didn’t realize there was a philosophical difference between Clif Bars and PowerBars; they were just unyielding blocks of calories presented in the shape of a bar.

By the time I had left I had a new found respect for Clif Bar and Gary, the man who had declined a $120 million offer (split two ways) to buy him out because he felt he still had things to accomplish with Clif Bar and that he could compete against the big guys.

His book (co-written by Lois Lorentzen), Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business, goes into greater detail about his decision to walk away from $60 million and how he had to buy out his partner (who didn’t agree that they could compete against PowerBar and other competitors) and get his company back on track.

The book touches on a lot of the themes that have become interesting to me as we creep up on our ten year anniversary, including profitability (it’s not a bad word), sustainability, environmental impact, and the purpose of one’s business.

I found myself turning down a number of page corners, and pulling out my pen on especially inspirational bits that I felt could translate well to flyte’s business practices.

While Clif Bar is very aware of their environmental foot print, how they treat their customers, vendors and employees, and their social responsibilities, it’s still a very competitive company that hates to lose and loves to make a profit.

This book is a must-read for all small business owners no matter what business you find yourself in. It’s going on my office shelf right between Good to Great and Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big.

Rich Brooks
Taking Flyte (the working title of my book which I’m not currently working on)

Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business | 2 Comments »


Email Marketing Horror Story or Success Story?

Monday, February 12th, 2007

A week or so back I sent an email to my Maine contacts (about 540 people) with the subject line  "You Won’t Be Hearing From Me Again!" It was promoting my upcoming Working Lunch Seminars, but letting people know that I didn’t want to be sending out mass email blasts. If people were interested in getting updates, they should subscribe to our new opt-in mailing list: flyte’s Web Marketing Alerts (available on the confirmation page once you sign up for our email newsletters.)

Unfortunately, two people replied telling me that the tone was offensive to them. One contractor freaked out, thinking I was firing her. And one prospect emailed apologizing; she thought I was upset because she hadn’t made a buying decision yet.

Yikes!

Despite my misgivings about sending yet another mass email and adding fuel to the fire, I decided to write a second email with the subject line, "I’m Sorry."

Amazingly, this email received over 100 responses within 24 hours! Most were supportive, and even a few poked fun of the people who didn’t get it. A few mentioned the problems Turner Broadcasting was having down in Boston with their bomb scare and a couple mentioned Joe Biden’s most recent gaffe.

In the end, I got about 20 more people onto our Web Marketing Alerts email newsletter and 7 or 8 seats reserved for our upcoming Working Lunch Seminars. (Since attendance is capped at 10 people, that’s pretty good.) In addition I got 3 blog posts out of it, and even got my face on the home page of MaineToday.com (albeit with the tagline: "The Votes Are In…I’m a Jerk!") and learned a lot about email marketing and people’s response to it.

Some of my favorite quotes include:

I cried all morning. ALL morning.

What a riot! When I first read it, I wondered about the subject line,
but after reading the email, figured it was meant to be funny. But, ya
know, it worked!!! I immediately signed up for the email list. You may
be offending people, but you’re a promotional genius!

—

Rich, I thought it was a clever way of getting my attention. We ad types call that a headline.

Just be happy people are reading your stuff.

—

Rich,

Out of all this you get to send out two e-mails, and keep people thinking about you and your business.  Not bad.

Best regards,

—

Hello Rich,

You just stumbled upon a great marketing strategy! When I got this
email below, I couldn’t even recall the email you were referring to
("You Won’t Be Hearing From Me Again.") Like most people, I get so much
junk every day that if the subject looks the least bit suspicious, I
just delete it. So I guess that’s what I did with this one. (You might
want to add your business name after "Rich Brooks" – I may have taken a
closer look if I had seen Flyte in the "From" bar.)

In any event, your "I’m sorry" email sparked my interest, so I dug
through my deleted mail to see the email you were referring to. Read
it… thought the Lunch seminars sounded interesting… and dragged it
back into my Inbox for further consideration.

Had you not sent the "oops" email, I would have never read the first one! Or was this all part of the big plan?? ;)

So what did I learn here? What I’m going to take away from all of this is that effective marketing can’t be dull. And if it’s not dull, it’s probably going to piss someone off.

Now, looking back on my initial email, my biggest concern is that although it may have been attention grabbing, it wasn’t necessarily clear. Was it to promote the Working Lunch Seminars? Our new email list? Or was I sick/fired/cranky?

If you’d like to see the full list of people’s responses to my email posts, read on…

Rich Brooks
I Snafu So You Don’t Have To

(more…)

Posted in Business Philosophy, Email Marketing, flyte news, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »


Does Your Site *Deserve* to Rank Well?

Saturday, February 10th, 2007

I see dozens of search engine marketing come-ons each day. Often, the come-on tells me that this "expert’s" services can give me the page one results I so richly deserve.

Now, perhaps I’m a bad example, because I truly do deserve page one rank. ;-) But how about for the other hundred thousand people who got that particular piece of spam? Do we all deserve to be on page one?

We all want to be on page one for the keyword phrases we target. But wanting page one ranking and deserving it are two vastly different things.

If you want to rank well you need to provide unique, quality content that your prospects will be interested in, and prepare it in such a way that the search engines will return your page as a relevant  result. (For more on how to prepare your content for maximum search engine results, read the article "The Secret to Great Search Engine Rank.")

You’ll also need to get quality incoming links which help the search engines determine how valuable your content is. (For more on that, check out "Boost Your Search Engine Rank: Proven Methods to Increase Incoming Links.")

Anyone promising an easy shortcut to long-term search engine success better be wearing flame-retardant pants. That’s not to say that there aren’t methods to improve your search engine rank, but they all require time, energy or money…or some combination of the three.

If you want to rank well at the search engines, start crafting some keyword-rich copy that targets your prospects’ most compelling problems.

Rich Brooks
Maine SEO

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | 2 Comments »


25 Apps for the Entrepreneur

Friday, February 9th, 2007

Aviva has published a list of Web 2.0 applications that can help the small business owner or entrepreneur grow their business.

They’re broken in to several categories including:

  • Finances, Money Management, Payments
  • Timesheets, Invoicing, Billing
  • Communication and Collaboration
  • Organization
  • Networking, Social Spaces
  • Content Creation, Office and Productivity Tools, and
  • Promotion, Marketing, Sales and Support

Some of these I’ve seen before (Google Calendar, Meebo), some I use (LinkedIn, Basecamp), and some I wonder about (Remember the Milk.)

If you’re an established business, some of these Web 2.0 tools may be redundant. However, if I had these tools when I was just starting out I would have been much more productive.

My experience with some of these and other "Web 2.0 tools" is that they’re not quite ready for prime time. If you’re a solopreneur or an especially small business they may work, but I’ve yet to find a spreadsheet program that’s as easy to use as Excel, including anything from Google. This will change over time, I’m sure.

Rich Brooks 2.0

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business | No Comments »


XBox 360 v. PS3 v. Wii

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

For those of you that didn’t catch my segment on the new gaming consoles (PS3, XBox 360 and the Wii) on 207 the other night, take heart. WCSH has posted a streaming video of the segment. If you have trouble with that link, just go to the 207 home page and scroll down to 207 Video; my segment is called 207 Gaming.

207gaming

That’s me and Rob Caldwell opening a can of whup ass on some of Dr. Doom’s henchmen.

What do I recommend: I own and enjoy my 360, but after playing all three, I covet the Wii.

Rich Brooks
Wiiiiii….

Posted in Off Topic | No Comments »


How to Inspire Your Web Designer to Greatness

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Backcove29
Obviously to get our creative juices flowing, one of our newer clients, Back Cove Yachts, left a free sample right outside our offices in the parking lot.

Thanks, Bentley. However, I couldn’t find the key. Is it under a rock or something?

Rich Brooks
A.K.A. Gilligan

Posted in Web Design & Development | 2 Comments »


Choosing the Right Domain – A Survey

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Choosing a domain name for a new Web site is often a daunting task. Unless you’re company name is Flz37kaharj Inc., you may find your first few choices taken.

Then there’s the whole .com, .net, .biz question. That’s the question I got asked the other day. A company we’re talking to was having internal discussions on the best possible top-level domain to go with. Specifically, were there any surveys that had been done.

Since I didn’t know of any, I came up with a quick 3 question survey myself called Business Top-Level Domain Survey. If you’ve got, say 30 seconds, would you mind taking it?

I’ll follow up with results in a couple/few days.

Rich Brooks
Top-Level Domain Poll Taker

Posted in Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Tracking Conversions Using Google Analytic Goals

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

This month’s issue of flyte log is entitled Tracking Conversions: Does Your Web Site Turn Suspects into Prospects?

With the price of a Web site ranging from near-zero to tens of thousands of dollars for a small business, it’s often difficult to determine whether or not your site is a good investment.

An inexpensive site might prove to be wasted money, while an expensive site may be bringing in twice the revenue you laid for it. Or vice versa.

By using Google Analytics and setting up trackable goals, you can start to measure the results you’re getting from your Web site. In this email newsletter, now archived at our site, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up goals and tracking them.

Rich Brooks
Measure Twice, Redesign Once

Posted in flyte news, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Putting the “Copy” in Copywriting

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

Apparently, my earlier post on what to do when someone rips off your Web site got a few people doing some research.

Barbaraalfond
For example, Barbara Alfond of Preview Properties liked my client’s copy so much, she took it for herself!

Barbara, here’s a hint: when you steal someone’s copy word-for-word, it’s a good idea to remove their name from the copy and replace it with your own.

From Barbara’s page:

6. Whitten Properties (emphasis mine) guarantees the fastest same-day response times to
all buyer and agent inquiries on your property.  Many agencies take
more than 48 hours to respond to inquiries resulting in significant
lost opportunities.

Also, when stealing from others it’s a good idea to check grammar if you’re switching from the plural to the singular, as in your first point, "I am property marketing expert." Apparently, you are not English speaking expert.

Without actually giving up any link love, feel free to copy and paste Barbara’s URL in your browser. (Please note that my client has asked her to remove the copy, so it may be gone by the time you read this.)

http://www.barbaraalfond.com/index.php?page_id=25

Here’s the original page from Whitten Properties on Southern Maine and Portland, Maine Real Estate. Judge for yourself.

Rich Brooks
I Call ‘Em Like I See ‘Em

Posted in Web Copywriting | 14 Comments »


Maine Biotechnology Services: Got Antibody Development?

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

Mainebio
Are you looking for polyclonal or monoclonal antibody development? How about ascites and in vitro production?

If so, you’ll want to check out flyte’s most recent launch, Maine Biotechnology Services.

MBS has a long history of strong working relationships with customers, providing excellent technical advice, and superior support.

In approaching the MBS Web site, we needed to show a lot of information on the home page without cluttering the design. Our solution was a three tab home page with a nice fade effect you can see in this movie or at the site.

Flyte also built MBS a document management tool that allows them to add/edit/delete documents throughout their site. Along a similar vein we built a custom tool that allows them to add/edit/delete products from their site without any HTML knowledge. Visitors can search products A-Z or by keyword.

MBS’s lab and clients can interface through the Web site as well. The lab posts results and documents to the computer in the laboratory and those documents are automatically posted to the appropriate projects and categories on the clients project page. Client can then access them through a secure login.

That secure login is username…wait. Never mind.

We’re also working on a new logo for MBS, coming soon.

Rich Brooks
More Maine Web Design for Maine Companies

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

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