Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Award Winning Advertising and What You Can Learn From a Talking Gecko

Each year the advertising industry magazine called Advertising Age nominates the very best advertising and marketing campaigns in corporate America. Of course the consumers are not stupid and many times they can guess who is going to win.

There's a lot to be said for award-winning advertising in corporate America and it is amazing what you can learn from a talking gecko. Consider if you will how many people have bought Geico Insurance or visited their web site for a rate quote due to their advertising campaign.

Small businesses can learn a lot from corporate America advertising and brand building. Just because Geico Insurance has millions of dollars to spend on their advertising does not mean those same strategies cannot work for you in your small business in your small community. Many small businesses have logos, which seemed to come alive and this strategy works quite well.

If you look at the theory and practice you can see that you can learn a lot from award-winning advertising in corporate America and specifically the Geico Insurance mascot; the talking gecko. It is memorable, funny and the message is simple; just call up or go online and ask for a rate quote. If enough people do this then odds are that many people will end up buying insurance from Geico. The strategy has worked and it can work for you to. Please consider this in 2006.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is an online writer in retirement.

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And What Do You Do? ... How To Know When You're a Writer!

It's the funniest thing. When someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them, "I'm a writer." The standard response is, "No, really, what do you do?" Somehow, I always flounder in the conversation because I never expect that type of response.

So, how do you know you're a real writer?

It has to be a certain look or smell that identifies a writer. Is it the turtleneck and mothball odor that gives it away? Perhaps it's the old blue jeans you wore for a week or two.

Generally, my rule of thumb is: if you can sell your ideas and make money writing, you're "a writer!" If you sit and write all day long and never sell anything, then "you write." So, in summary: "you write until you become a writer!"

But, this is very true! To become a writer, you have to write every day. You should think of a dozen or so topics and write about them. This will help you learn your style and develop your skills.

If you write, but are not yet a writer, here's an objective! Write, until you sell something. Once you get the money, pay your gas bill. Now, you're a writer! But, don't stop with just one article, keep going!

Hey Ed! Say something funny.

It just doesn't happen like that. I'm not a funny guy. If I sit down and design something funny, I can be hilarious. But, I can't just say something funny.

On the other hand, ideas are things that just happen. But, developing and writing that idea takes work. The act of writing doesn't "just happen."

When writing about an idea, you have to research the idea to determine if it's feasible. If it looks good, then you have to research it again to become an expert---or at least knowledgeable on the topic.

The other point to writing is that, even as a Technical Writer, you have to feel the writing. This goes back to one of my previous articles, "Natural Writing." You have to learn your verbal style before you can become comfortable with your written style. Once you understand your own style of communicating, stick with it as it's the most comfortable place to start. Let it evolve, but stay with it to ensure that the writing feels good and flows.

And, have I read something you've written?

I don't even know if they can read much less if they've ever read something I've written. If the name rings a bell, probably so! The point is that most people won't know about you unless you write!

Become a prolific writer and write for the sake of writing. The more you write, the better you become, the more you publish, and the more people will read your work.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for a writer is "fear." Don't be afraid to send your work out. People will compliment you and criticize you. In all cases, take the feedback, positive or negative, graciously. At least they took the time to read your work!

I write stuff, too.

When I was young, I wrote on the bathroom stalls in Catholic elementary school. I created some spectacular poetry! When Sister Mary Butch, of the Order of the Most Vicious Blood, caught me, that was the end of my career, and nearly my life. Everybody can write, but not everybody can be a writer.

Being a writer is not just putting words on the paper. It involves research, organization, thought, creative wordplay, and the ability to sit still long enough to put it all together.

This short article is a reasonable example. It started out in my head as "Why write?" and evolved based on some thought. Writing is the evolution of ideas into something between fact and fiction. It's the evolution of presentation into something coherent to the largest audience. It's a fantasy that turns into a reality once you figure out what it is that you're trying to say!

And, what made you write?

It wasn't some miracle or premonition. Honestly. Someone made me madder than a hornet. To make a long story short, I designed and developed an idea for a product that would save a previous employer a lot of money. I did all of the financial work, software engineering, implementation, and testing to prove the idea.

During my presentation, the senior engineers scoffed at the idea. So I took my notes, wrote a manuscript, and submitted it to various publishers. A month later, a publisher picked up the manuscript and we signed a contract to publish it. It all took off from there! That's it!

There are a million reasons to write, but I found later that you don't need a reason if you love it. It takes just one situation to get you started into the addictive world of writing! But, all you really have to do is ...

Just write!

I don't write on bathroom walls anymore because it's too hard for our housekeeper to keep up with the work. But, I do carry around a palmtop just in case I get an idea! For now ... just write everything you can as often as possible. Once you get the hang of it, writing becomes an addiction. Write because you can take an idea and tell it to the rest of the world. Write because your wife has another headache. Write because you can make money. Write so that the next time someone asks what you do, you can say,

"I'm a writer!"

Edward B. Toupin, Ph.D., is a published author, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, and technical writer living in Las Vegas, NV. Edward works with people to help them strive for a richer life. He also authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics! Contact Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.make-life-great.com.

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What Works and What not Works for Your Internet Business

"Build it and they will come."
--Filed of Dreams (1989)

If you are working on an Internet business, you may read a lot of information for how quickly you can make money online. The truth is that running online business is same as running traditional business. You need spend time to learn, to build your business. There is no "magic button" you can push and get quick money. But Internet business has larger potential compare to traditional business since you have global customers. If you follow right roadmaps, you can be very successfull.

Here are a few suggestions for your reference:

If something promised fast and easy results, if all you have to do is copy-and-paste something...don't bother.

Why?

Because, even if it works well at first (and usually it won't), it will stop delivering results very soon.

They may deliver some traffic at first. If people started seeing it so often, and started feeling so manipulated, that the response rate soon dropped to near-zero.

And FFAs were easy to do, and that everyone started doing them, and the funny thing is that everyone stopped reading the messages. Just imagine, if you got over 500 emails a day in your inbox, will you read them through? If you inbox is full and cannot send anymore messages out, what will you do for the old emails? "DELETE" them, right? So if you send advertising through
FFA pages, can you imagine what your advertising ends at? Maybe at the someone else's junk mail folder or "trash can".

So what works?

Techniques that take some time and creativity.

The question in your mind is how to realize your dream?

The good news is that you can find good tools at cheap price - it is easy for you to work with as long as you have "Motivation". It is called Sitebuilder.

Motivation plus SiteBuilder will seperate you from those who fail on the net.

At beginning, you may need spend 10 days for extensive reading (over 600 pages) and learning the tools and knowledges for how to build a site that gets clicks, it is worthwhile in the long term.

A lot of people tends to build a site within 24 hours, then spend the rest of his life and money to promote it -- then quit if do not see results.

If you have time to promote your site without knowing whether you are on the right track, it is strongly suggest that you'd better spend your valuable time to learn the tools that work and get life time "free" traffic. You can get free valuable traffic from search engine, and get clicks-- get sales.

In millionair Mike Litman's CD, he said "successfull people is doing something he does not like to do" - If you feel that you do not want to spend time to build a good theme based websites by researching good contents and deliver good information or products, actually that's exactly what you should do - then you will be belong to the successfull people for your online business.

If you are looking for more information of how to make your site sell, how to build a good website or revise your website to get free traffic, you can visit http://www.best-internet-businesses.com and get 10 days roadmaps (over 600 pages of free ebooks) for your online success. It may be your turn point for your entire Internet business.

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Julia Tang publishes Smart Online Business Tips, a fresh
and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people
like you! To find out the best online business opportunities,
and to discover hundreds more proven and practical internet
marketing secrets, plus FREE internet marketing products
worth over $200, visit: http://www.best-internet-businesses.com
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