Recently I read a tidbit in Bob Bly’s ezine on the the best day to send email, specifically to executives.
According to a new survey by eROI, Inc., high-level executives read most of their e-mail messages on Mondays and Tuesdays. Best time to send messages on those days: during lunch hour.
Source: What’s Working in Sales Management, 1/10/07 , p. 4.
The Blog Squad will be in New York City for the BlogHer Business conference at the end of this month – March 22-23. Will we see you there? We’re part of the Ask the Experts segment, talking about how to monetize your blog.
From BlogHer: "We also want to let you know there are 12 more days to register for BlogHer Business. If you’ve been following the conference as we add speakers and populate our Ask the Experts segment, you know it’s shaping up to be the business blogging event of 2007! We look forward to meeting you in NYC."
Newsletter Nuggets – March 8, 2007
…tips and tricks for writing great ezines and blogs
Table of Contents
1. A Note from Patsi –New Rules for Writing a Press Release
2. March 07 Featured Article: Good Boss, Bad Boss: 20 Habits Leaders Should Stop Doing Now
3. What’s New on the Blogs?
A note from Patsi –There are new rules for writing a press release. Here are a few tips from Joan Stewart, affectionately known as the Publicity Hound. She’s an expert on writing press releases that work.
She shares these “new rules for writing a press release” with our listeners on our Blogging and Beyond radio show (the audio file is posted by Thursday afternoon).
• Press releases no longer have to announce legitimate news
• They no longer have to be only one page
• We can distribute them online as often as we want.
• They can include links so consumers can click through to a landing page or a sales page.
• We no longer have to use the "who, what, when, where and why" formula high in the press release.
• No longer do we have to consider a press release a failure if it gets no media attention. If it brings people into our sales funnel, we can proclaim the release a success.
• Under the new rules, we don’t measure the success of our releases by the number of clippings it has generated but by whether the press release has been able to change people’s behavior
To read Marketing with Press Releases: 10 Steps for Writing Internet Press Releases, visit
http://www.coachezines.com/2007/03/marketing_with_.html
How to Write an Internet Press Release to Attract Media, Customers, and Google Juice
©2007 Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. & Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad
To leverage the Internet effectively for your business, you must learn to write press releases. Submitting frequent press releases to the online distribution services will get you exposure to media, customers, and improve your search engine rankings.
Press releases are relatively simple, but not easy to write. They take some time to craft because you must tell your story in a compelling way, and deliver the facts in the fewest words possible. In addition, like a news story, they should follow basic journalism standards. Oh, and did I mention, they need a clever hook to really work? All that in only 350-500 words.
The following is what I do when I write a press release for The Blog Squad. I trained as a journalist years ago. However, standards for writing press releases are evolving for the Internet.
I just finished posting about Joan Stewart’s "New Rules" for press releases when my feed reader let me know that Lee Odden also posted similar news about the way press releases play into your marketing mix.
His great post goes into more details and gives 10 tips on how to write a release for search optimization, so you won’t want to miss it.
Joan Stewart is affectionately known around the Internet as The Publicity Hound. And there’s a reason…Joan has a nose for news and she sniffs out trends for evolving Internet marketing strategies.
You won’t want to miss our interview with her Thursday March 8 at 11 a.m. EST on Blogging and Beyond, our Internet radio show. She’ll reveal the new rules for writing press releases for posting on the Web.
Here are a few tips she’ll explain:
• Press releases no longer have to announce legitimate news
• They no longer have to be only one page
• We can distribute them online as often as we want.
• They can include links so that consumers can click through to a landing page or a sales page.
• We no longer have to use the "who, what, when, where and why" formula high in the press release.
• No longer do we have to consider a press release a failure if it gets no media attention. If it brings people into our sales funnel, we can proclaim the release a success.
• Under the new rules, we don’t measure the success of our releases by the number of clippings it has generated but by whether the press release has been able to change people’s behavior
I came down with a raging head cold over the weekend, so bad I missed my tennis games. Which got me to thinking about "sneezers" and how they can spread the word about your products or services.
We have a teleseminar Tuesday March 6 about Viral Marketing, or how Greg Pincus went from 30 to 32,000 blog visits in two months and landed on Slashdot, the NYTimes, and got a 2-book contract.
That’s "sneezing" at its finest. Greg knew that to get the word out he’d need a little help from his friends on other blogs and in the media. First he had to find a "hook" or something that people would want to pass around to their friends. (Would you believe that poems were what he used to capture people’s imaginations?) To register for the teleseminar, click here: www.blogsquadteleseminars.com/viral.
I got curious about where the whole viral marketing thing got started and did some research on Wikipedia. Read my post over at BizTipsBlog for a brief history.
The point is… what king of viral hook can you think up? A game, a video, a puzzle…what will capture the imaginations of the sneezers in your database? Go on, don’t be afraid…infect a loved one and spread the word.
I got an email last week that I want to share with you, because it is this kind of note that makes me stay in the newsletter business, more than the money, more than anything.
This particular client, David Herdlinger, is an extraordinary coach. The number of people who have called me and mentioned how much respect they have for him is unbelievable. He is coach to many of the best consultants in the business. So of course, I was thrilled to hear this from him!
From: David Herdlinger
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 10:14 AM
To: Patsi
Subject: Re: March Newsletter
Hi Superstar!
As bright and wonderful and you truly are–you just to seem to get it. YOU are a gift to me. I have a wonderful practice that stays full and makes me more money than I had EVER dreamed of making. SO MUCH of that practice has been built on the back of your great newsletter and the huge list they have amassed for me.
I love this current edition and look forward to all the comments I’ll receive when I send it out next week.
Life is good,
David–
_|_|_| David Herdlinger
_|_|_| Herdlinger Associates www.herdlinger.com
_|_|_| http://www.TheCoach.biz
"Turning Potential Into Performance"
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I just ran across this site by Ted Montgomery, with useful pages about punctuation. It’s easy to look things up and get good examples of correct usage.
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/punctuation/index.html
Believe it or not, some readers will judge you on your commas and colons. So it doesn’t hurt to get them right. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over them, but still, when all you’ve got are your words on a computer screen to build credibility, go for perfection.
We recently learned from Dave Taylor (www.AskDaveTaylor.com) that Google gives more weight to domains that have been registered a long time. So instead of renewing over at GoDaddy.com for 1 or 2 years at a time, it may make more sense to renew for 5 or 10 years.
I have always registered my own name, Patsi Krakoff, even though I don’t use it as a web site; I have it forwarded to one of my company websites (www.customizednewsletters.com) so people can find me. I also took out Patsi Benter, which was my former name for the 25 years I was divorced, and forwarded to my site if anyone from my past cares to look me up on the Web.
I recently renewed these names, and was thinking that renewing your domain name is tantamount to renewing your wedding vows… paying for 10 more years of the Krakoff name is sure proof of my intentions and fidelity! It’s sort of like a modern day anniversary, no?
Happy domain-a-versary, Hubby!
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