by Kevin Nunley

Advertising and marketing are two of the most expensive and necessary parts of running a business. Whether you have a service outlet in a strip mall or a Website, getting people through the front door is never cheap.

Here are three simple ways to make your ad dollars go further:

1. Stay with a single ad campaign. Pick something that is important to customers, promote it, and stick with your message. Each time your ad runs it builds upon the last time.

2. Don’t waste money on fancy stuff. Make your ad no better than it has to be. There are plenty of designers, copywriters, producers and ad agencies who will push you to spend more. Make sure it really will make your advertising more effective, otherwise don’t spend extra.

3. Buy small ads regularly. That is better than plowing all your money into one big ad that runs only now and again. Consistency, even when it is small, builds sales.

Kevin Nunley has been a top writer of sales letters, Website copy, press releases, and ads since 1996. His talent and experience gets YOU results! Order his affordable writing and promotion deals at http://DrNunley.com

The Google™ Art Project began in February 2011 with approximately 1,000 works from 17 of the world’s most famous museums. The project allows art lovers to explore paintings, sculpture, street art and photographs with a few simple clicks – much like Google Street View allows you to see nearly any location as if you’re standing there.

Google Art Project expanded in April, and now counts 151 partners in 40 countries. Altogether, more than 30,000 high-resolution works of art from a wide variety of cultures and civilizations are represented.

Google also increased its technical capabilities:

• Individuals may browse content by an artist’s name, the artwork, type of art, museum, country, collections and time period.
• The “Create an Artwork Collection” feature allows users to save specific views of any of artworks and build their own personalized collection. Comments can be added to each painting and the whole collection can then be shared. It’s an ideal tool for students or groups to work on collaborative projects or collections.
• In addition, Google+ and video hangouts are integrated on the site.
• The Google Art Project is now accessible from a tablet, Android, or Apple phone.

Find out more about the Google Art Project on YouTube.

(Photo is of painting, “The Entrance to the Grand Canal,” by Canaletto, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.)

If there’s anything you know about me, it’s that I love to send virtual “hugs.” So imagine my delight when I saw this great article about “hugging” your customers!

The author explains how small businesses can always compete on service, something that doesn’t cost you an extra penny. So when your competition is scrounging for customers, you need to hold yours close with great customer service.

The article gives six specific examples of how you can learn from a GOOD company – Zappos.com – and it gives five examples of how to learn from a BAD experience he had with his local coffee shop.

How many times have I seen examples in real estate offices that could benefit from these customer service tips! Hope they help you!

Amy Chorew’s March Tech Tips included a Website Top Five list of things your site MUST have to capture leads. Remember, just like you have 8 seconds to grab a buyer’s attention when one drives up to your listing, you only have a few seconds to grab a viewer’s attention when one looks at your Website online.

1. Contact information – make it easy for people to reach you via phone, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and snail-mail. And don’t assume your visitors are solely from your local area. It’s the World Wide Web, after all, so make sure you indicate your city, state, area code, and your address if possible.

2. Colors & fonts – be consistent with your overall branding across both print and online media. Use no more than two colors and fonts – hopefully the ones already associated with your brand. And don’t use colored text on a colored background unless it’s a complete contrast.

3. Images – use your own images and make them clear. Either take clear photos or PAY for high-quality stock photos. NEVER use images from Google™ or someone else’s Website.

4. Use your prime “real estate” wisely – many folks will drop by your Website and look only at what’s on the screen without scrolling. That’s your prime real estate; don’t overload with text or images.

5. Tell visitors what to do – use call-to-action buttons, prompts and phrases.

Chorew reminds us to keep these five items in mind to ensure you capture more leads on your Website.

(Chorew has taken a new position with FrogPond/Pond Report sponsor Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate – congratulations to Amy! Her company, The Tech Byte, has been sold to Kim Wood, who has worked alongside Chorew for several years.)

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and I bet you have some family or business trips in your future! Here are tips to save you time and money:

      Pack light, travel happy
A CBS MoneyWatch article helps you choose a business-travel wardrobe and personal-care products.

      25 Ways to make travel easier
Wall Street Journal says to start with a shoe to ensure you don’t leave your passport in your room safe.

      The best credit cards for travel
“Best initial bonus” and “best ongoing reward” are covered in another MoneyWatch article.

      Navigating hotel power outages
In a dark shower, which bottle is your shampoo? What if your electronic room key doesn’t work? Power can go out in the U.S. or abroad without warning.

      Airports bring power to the people
The Airline Passenger Experience Association’s blog talks about finding power outlets in airports.

      Going off the grid
Read how Katie Lance of Inman|Next Agent went off the grid during a weekend in Arizona. Pond Report editor CJ Yeoman says, “It’s hard to get caught up after spending a vacation week with my husband and only checking e-mail and Facebook twice. But it was worth it to reconnect with him, our family and friends.”

Time management app: Timewerks

Heidi Tobias from the ConstantContact® Fresh Insights blog says the app Timeworks allows you to track various tasks associated with projects AND integrates a timer so you can see how long the tasks actually take.

Also, if you’re billing clients on an hourly basis, you can see if you’ve over- or under-budgeted your time and even create and send an invoice via e-mail. You can even customize different rates for different types of tasks. Click for info on Timewerks, including a video tutorial and support.

      iPad apps for Microsoft compatibility
While the iPad doesn’t (yet) replace a laptop for heavy work sessions, several apps enable working with documents in Microsoft® Office word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.

Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail offered suggestions from an independent technology analyst who urgently needed to work on a Word document on his iPad.

The traveler used Documents To Go to allow viewing and editing of documents – it works on both iPads and various smartphones. The article also cited Quickoffice Pro and Microsoft’s Office 365 as other choices.

      Crop a cover photo for Facebook Timeline: Aviary
Aviary offers photo-editing solutions for Web and mobile applications and has designed a cropping tool specifically for the Timeline cover photo. Mashable’s article about Aviary’s new Timeline tool includes valuable comments about other tools and sites that do the same thing.

      Top 6 Facebook Timeline features
Your brand’s Facebook page is now the new Timeline format, but are you optimizing Timeline’s features to better drive your marketing? Learn how to update your cover photo & profile pic (like Hostess), pin & highlight, use milestones and more.

      10 Top trends in social media
Jeff Bullas has become one of my favorite bloggers. He hits a home run with this presentation on how businesses can adapt and use social media trends to their commercial advantage. This one makes you think … and hopefully act.

      4 Steps to building a more interesting brand
“What can I write on Facebook that people would care enough to ‘like’?” Great question. And the SmartBlog on Social Media has a great article about four steps to take to improve your brand’s engagement and interest level.

      20 Twitter business tips
For 3,000 UK business tweeters, habits such as sharing business tips and helping others with problems enable them to engage effectively and efficiently with their customers. Excellent Twitter tips!

      Humanize your brand with cause marketing
Get connected using your social media channels to share news about holidays and events. This article about cause marketing – specifically how companies used Earth Day – should get your brain working about using cancer walks or other local/national/global events to build relationships with your fans.

      10 Tips to use Facebook to boost business
Because Facebook itself is free, your marketing cost to use it consists mainly of the time spent to update content and find ways to make it work harder for your business. Here are 10 excellent Facebook tips on integrating with your Website and making it a great resource.

      Looking for leads? Try LinkedIn
Trying to find leads via social media? LinkedIn is still the best for generating visits and leads, 7 times better than Facebook and 4 times better than Twitter as found in a study of HubSpot B2B customers. The article also includes a link to an e-book on how to use LinkedIn to grow your network and business.

      What is “Klout” and why should you care?
Klout.com is a service measuring your social-media influence. Learn 6 ways to legitimately raise your Klout score – and get better at connecting with your customers and prospects.

by Donnie Bryant

In the town I grew up in, anyone who wanted to get a driver’s license was required to take a defensive driving class.

More than anything else, defensive driving is a mindset you adopt before you hit the asphalt. The purpose of the class is to teach you how to stay safe while traveling from Point A to Point B. After all, there are plenty of crazies to watch out for.

Let’s compare driving to selling for a moment. Traditional sales training dictates an aggressor mentality – a take-charge, “never settle for no” attitude. This kind of salesperson is very similar to a driver suffering from road rage, when you think about it. Driving like an out-of-control maniac is not wise. Neither is trying to sell with an aggressive frame of mind.

In Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins says that “any…attempt to sell, if apparent, creates sales resistance.” This is as true for anyone involved in any kind of selling, from copywriters to door-to-door salespeople. If you’ve tried to persuade someone to buy your product or service, you already know how real that sales resistance is.

You have a choice: you can try to drive through the barrier like a car charging through a closed gate, or you can go around it. Most salespeople choose the former. That’s how they were taught to sell. Arguing. Filling in-boxes with spam. Trash-talking the competition.

Hopkins would suggest that you find a way to circumvent the mental friction entirely. To get around this resistance, you have to take a different approach. Applying the defensive driving perspective makes a lot of sense. Here are 7 defensive concepts that will help overcome obstacles to closing deals. They may even prevent those hurdles from popping up your readers’ minds.

1. Express genuine interest in and empathy for your prospects’ desires/needs. This can be challenging, especially in print. You may have to edit until you get the tone and language just right. Do the research. Talk with your target audience. Find out what’s really important to them. If you listen closely, they’ll tell you how they want to be sold to.

This goes a long way to removing the resistance. Your reader feels valued and appreciated. He’ll feel like you’re treating him like a person, not a customer. That can make all the difference in the world.

2. Avoid hype. Your audience gets enough of that already. So be careful with the caps lock key and exclamation points. Phony deadlines and other scarcity tactics, and overt pressure in general are counter-productive more often than not. Be creative and produce real urgency.

By the way, bold promises (you should make the biggest claims you can honestly make), require big proof. Don’t make any claims without explicitly backing them up. Otherwise you just sound like another huckster.

3. Demonstrate. Show your reader that you provide something valuable to them. Give them a peek at some of the substance within the copy itself. Or use video, audio, pictures to demonstrate the product or service.

A free trial of your product or service is a great way to give your prospects a small taste of the benefits they’ll reap by hiring you. Your initial investment nearly always pays off in a major way.

4. Tell a story. Good stories naturally break down barriers, arouse curiosity and form a personal connection to the product, service, and/or the storyteller. All are good for your conversion rate. That means don’t sound like a salesperson.

5. Make the strongest offer and guarantee possible. Make it known as early as possible. Your readers get more risk-averse by the day. Assure them that you’re not going to take their money and run.

6. Build credibility. Use testimonials, endorsements, customer satisfaction awards, and other facts about the company that show you’re trustworthy, worthy to be the obvious choice for the prospect.

Terminix ran a direct mail campaign earlier this year that emphasized quotes and statistics from the Center for Disease Control. Talk about an authoritative, albeit implied, endorsement. That’s just one example. Make it clear that your goal is to improve the lives of people you serve, not just get sales.

7. If possible, make multiple contacts with your target audience. The more they hear from you, the more they’ll trust you. Get their permission to contact them. Gain “invited guest” status by continually providing real value.

Your prospects get dozens (or more) of e-mails and envelopes every day. Break through the clutter by approaching them differently than anyone else.

Everyone is driven by his or her own motivators. Your motivations as a copywriter or salesperson must not collide with the motivations of your potential customers. Use your defensive driving skills to prevent these kinds of accidents.

©2012, Donnie Bryant, author, speaker, and copywriter. http://donnie-bryant.com (Text via John Forde)

If you have to put together an annual budget for your department, your compensation may depend on your ability to stick to it. Here are three tips for creating a manageable budget:

• Stay goal-oriented. If you aim to increase sales, make that your overriding concern. Don't let other issues sidetrack you.
• Don't do it alone. Include your team members in developing the budget — they may have knowledge about certain line items that you don't.
• Question your assumptions. A budget should take current data, add assumptions, and create projections. Be careful about the assumptions you make and question how likely they are to come true. When you present the budget, you'll need to be prepared to defend them.

Source: Harvard ManageMentor Online Module: Financial Essentials.

Hugs, The Frog

Susie Hale, President
Frog Pond
FrogPond Publisher
800.704.FROG (3764)
susie@frogpond.com

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