Archive for April, 2010

Attraction Marketing – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

It’s all about arousal. It’s making people forcibly aware of just how alluring you are. And this is a serious business.

Such is the dangerous state of the dating scene today that it would take an unbalanced individual to even think about opening up negotiations with a potential mate, who may be:

a)  a spotty giggling schoolboy
b)  a flatulent pension fund manager
c)  irrational and inebriated.

So it’s easy for any sober marketing professional to see the problem.

Obviously what is required is a systematic approach to overcoming a natural opposition towards engaging in any sort of silly sex-talk or crouching outside someone’s bedroom window in the fork of a handy tree. In the normal course of things, this sort of behavior will lead only to disappointment and athlete’s foot, not to mention a citation.

Therefore, what is needed is a multi-media campaign that clearly demonstrates the benefits of being attracted to someone, while drastically minimising the afore-mentioned drawbacks.

It’s beyond the scope of this forum to elucidate further upon how exactly this would be achieved. And I’m bloody glad I don’t have to come up with it.

SERIOUSLY:

Attraction marketing is a technique where you create a relationship with the prospective customer well in advance of the sale.

Your online business can do this by providing informative, engaging content so the potential customer starts trusting you in advance of considering a purchase.

An updated, informative, engaging business blog is an effective attraction marketing tool. It establishes your reputation and encourages the visitor to revisit your website.

Attraction marketing can turn your business into the buyers’ natural choice when they’re ready to buy.

(Yes, you’ve guessed it. The Wittery ghostwriters have interfered again.)

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati;  PageRank;   SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

This is The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.

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Buzz Marketing – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Buzz marketing is a cutting-edge marketing technique executed by ex-US Marines turned marketers. The technique’s name has its roots in the traditional marine hairstyle, the buzz cut.

The highly successful strategies used by marine marketers include:

1) The Stubbly Strategy

Here the prospect is invited to run their hands over the marketer’s bristly head. Marketers report this stimulates the prospect’s interest in the product.  An online home improvement store sold its entire stock of toilet brushes and sandpaper within minutes of one such marketing campaign.

2) The SWAT Strategy

Here groups of marine marketers ambush unsuspecting prospects as they go about their ordinary business.   The innocent prospect is surrounded and the product is thrust into her face. The prospect’s knees turn to jelly and she is overcome with an irresistible urge to part with all her money to make the marines go away.

Immediately after the trauma the prospect shares the experience with all her friends on Facebook and Twitter. This is followed by a stampede of friends, family, fans and followers who rush out to buy the product. This is the only known way to avoid being the victim of a similar SWAT attack.

A hemorrhoid cream retailer has reported skyrocketing sales after a recent SWAT campaign. People, young and old, who had never suffered from piles before, were seen leaving the store with trolleyfuls of the product.

A reliable source has revealed that The US Marine Corps is conducting an in-depth review of its staff retention policy due to the recent mass exodus of personnel into stellar marketing careers.

SERIOUSLY:

Buzz marketing is a technique designed to ensure that those who receive the message get a buzz from it and pass it on. It’s a calculated marketing technique which, when it works, is very powerful.

Because the information is passed from person to person, this lends extra credibility to the product or service behind the strategy.

The campaign creator designs a campaign which they believe will spread. The success of the campaign depends on whether recipients feel the buzz enough to pass the information on.   Word of Mouth, Word of Mouse and Viral Marketing are related terms.

[Note from Witto: It appears that a Wittery Writer may have interfered with this article prior to publication. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.]

Additional Resource:  Check out DeanHunt.com, a buzz marketing guru who ranks very highly on my likeability scale.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati;  PageRank;  SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud;  User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.


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Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witty Content | 2 Comments »

8 Reasons Why Wit is IT for Your Business

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

The Wittery (Not so serious) Guide to Why Wit is IT

1) Wit SELLS

If WIT were a person they’d be shaking your hand and congratulating you on the wonderful used car you just bought. You’d take the keys and drive away before you realized that when you left the house you were only planning on buying a bag of milk.

And then you’d remember you left your new car at Witty Will’s Used Car Emporium. Wit is that good a salesperson.

2) Stand Out from the Crowd

Although the Wittery Writers prefer to stay holed up in their garrets with their quills, bottles of ink and parchment, their words like to walk the streets wearing a big yellow bird costume, shaking their tail feathers in the faces of everyone they meet.

Big yellow birds and witty words have an uncanny knack for getting noticed.

3) Humor is Viral

Like the flu you pretended to have to avoid that work meeting, people find it hard to build up an immunity to WIT.

Symptoms of exposure to Wit include, but are not limited to:

  • laughing to the point of severe stomach pains
  • an uncontrollable urge to share the pain with others
  • a frenzied obsession with finding the share button on web pages
  • spraying commonly ingested liquids out of noses

4) Make Google Happy

Google is a beast with a big magic search box plastered on its forehead. To keep Google happy, you must feed the beast premium meat.  It also helps to scratch its back. If you do this it’s more likely to spit out your business name when a Googler pops a query into its box.

The beast is best kept happy by letting it gorge on engaging fresh content. The next time a user rushes to the beast with the box to find out about the many uses of yak spit or how to build a lawn chair out of compost (and waits the 0.067885 seconds for the 1,765,987 relevant results), your business could end up being the chosen clicked one if you follow the happiness rules.

This will of course only be relevant if you are a yak spit reseller or a purveyor of compost, but the same theory applies no matter what your business.

5) Create the buzz… get people talking

Unless you’re being held captive and submitted to some kind of perverse dry content torture, you probably haven’t heard the story about the guy who sat down on a chair and stayed there.

But if the guy fell out of his chair in a rum induced stupor, splitting the crotch of his three-sizes-too-small pants and showing his in-laws just how well endowed he is, you’ve probably heard the story a hundred times.

6) Big Brands Do Wit

Big brands have nothing that you don’t have… aside from loads of money.

Luckily, words can be cheaper than your Great Aunt Hilda, and the Witty Writers sit fingers hovering ready to make your customers forget that you sell hand-knitted vests for cats from your basement and Walmart does not.

7) Ban the Bland

On joining The Wittery, each writer is presented with a powerful bland banishing stick. Following the completion of a strict training regime (consisting primarily of watching cartoons and eating bowls of cereal) they are permitted to go forth and banish the bland.

Which means, right now, Witty Writers are sitting in their garrets playing with their sticks and thinking of ways to beat the greyness out of your brand.

8) Sticky

Like the time you bonded your fingers together just to see if crazy glue was in fact crazy, people get stuck on witty content and find it hard to leave.

Businesses who use witty content as a sales tool often notice a surge in emails from customers’ close relatives begging them to cease and desist with the witty content so that normal family life can resume.

Relatives complain that witty content is wreaking havoc at home because the sticky individual has spent the last three months on the one website, has a permanent silly smile plastered on their face and is beginning to smell bad.

Best advice to deal with this? Include a “stickiness” disclaimer on your site and direct disgruntled relatives to it.  Of course, once the relatives visit your sticky website, they’re likely to get stuck too. Happy Days!

[This article was ghostwritten for Witto by a Wittery Writer.  Just to prove we take your funny business very seriously, you'll find the "serious sister" version of these tips here.]

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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8 Tips for Writing Killer Job Posts: The Wittery Guide

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

A light-hearted look at the serious business of commissioning witty content

1) Size Matters:

As in other walks of life, size does matter. If yours is big, all the better. Give the writers an estimate of its size. (We’re talking about your word count and project size here - did your mind wander off there?)

2) Shout it Out:

Regrettably The Wittery Writers don’t have psychic, mind-reading powers and we need to live with that (for now). You know what you want from your project. They don’t. Spell it out for them. Be specific. They love details, the more the merrier. Shout it from the rooftop. Earplugs are supplied at The Wittery and our insurance covers hearing damage claims, so shout as loud as you like.

Classified Information: we are currently working on a revolutionary drug to cure the psychic malfunction in witty writers and you’ll be first to know when it gets FDA approval.

3) Technobabble:

“Just write something really witty on reconfiguration of semi-postulating low rotatory energizing data modules – do all the data modules research yourself (I know all about them but I’m not going to tell you.)”

It may come as a surprise that this type of job post doesn’t tend to get responses. If your content is technical in nature or business-specific, offer a rough draft to be “wittified”. This is a realistic, cost-effective way of getting witty business content.

You know the raw business better. Give the writers the ingredients and they can mix in the mirth. There’s humor everywhere, even in semi-postulating low rotatory energizing data modules, and The Wittery Writers are skilled at sniffing out the wit.

4) Cheap as Chips:

“Write all the content for my 20 page website and make it really witty. Experienced award winning advertising copywriters or creative directors only need apply. Budget $100. Delivery Date - by 4pm today”.

What’s wrong with this job post? Answers on a postcard please to:

The Department of Great Expectations, The Wittery.

The WINNER will receive: A Card Every Year on their Birthday. We won’t send it to you. We just assume you’ll receive one from someone somewhere. The prize is more of a prediction than a promise of any commitment on our part.

A few hints to get you started: we don’t have monkeys looking for peanuts at The Wittery. When assessing the value of fresh witty content remember it’s your content that reaches your customers’ souls and it’s easier to reach into their pocket from there. By naming a realistic budget, writers will know whether to bid on the project or continue to sit starving in their garrets sticking pen nibs into photographs of Bill Bryson.

5) Define your Target:

If your online store sells religious clothing to Roman Catholic nuns, witticisms about boozy nights out, extra-marital affairs and heavy doses of expletives may not suit. Spell out who you’re targeting with your witty content so the writers can aim accurately for the correct Wit bulls-eye.

6) Go Public:

Select a Public Profile and give some details about your business. It’s guaranteed you’ll receive more pitches. Witty writers are like nervy little squirrels. Show them your nuts and they’ll scamper towards you. In short, writers like to know who they are dealing with.

7) Name a Date:

Specify a delivery date (if possible). A good lead-in time can work to your advantage as it helps the creative process. The writers prepare for the challenge in the way a professional athlete prepares for his or her physical performance. Some are even on special wit-boosting diets and avoid ejaculation as a means to keep their brains in peak comedic mode.

8) Love your Witty Writers:

We don’t expect you to marry them but, being a rare species, they do deserve your respect. Don’t feed them or wave sticks at them either. They thrive on a good relationship and you’ll see the results in their copy. Collaborate and Conquer the Competition creatively together. Enjoy the experience while you’re at it. They don’t bite.

(This Blog Post has been ghostwritten for Witto by a Wittery Writer. Commenting on the experience, Witto provided this exclusive: “OMG, it makes me look so good – do I have to admit it has been ghostwritten?” Witto would like to remind you that we take your funny business very seriously at The Wittery. We even have a ’serious sister’ version of this guide to prove it. It’s here.)

You are visiting The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit us to source Witty Content for Your Business.

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