Dominate Your Local Market!

By DAVID POGUE
Published: January 11, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO

Remember the fairy godmother in “Cinderella”? She’d wave her wand and turn some homely and utilitarian object, like a pumpkin or a mouse, into something glamorous and amazing, like a carriage or fully accessorized coachman.

Evidently, she lives in some back room at Apple.

Every time Steve Jobs spies some hopelessly ugly, complex machine that cries out for the Apple touch — computers, say, or music players — he lets her out.

Read the rest of this story in the New York Times Technology section »

[tags]Apple, iPhone, MacWorld, Pogue, New Your Timies, technology[/tags]

I love the process of how we learn from our [tag]observations[/tag]. As an example, I would like the use the fact that we humans have an urgent, pressing need for [tag]closure[/tag]. When used in the process of selling, this need is often exploited to sharpen the readers attention on the message.

For instance, we begin to build on an idea, but before completing it, we move onto another idea. “Our top news story tonight - giant ape climbs Empire State Building, but first…” Our attention is captured until the original idea is completed.

This phenomenon was observed by a psychologist in 1927 when she found that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones. By noticing how waiters and waitresses remembered orders that were uncompleted, but quickly forgot them once they were finished, Bluma [tag]Zeigarnik[/tag] discovered what is now known as the “Zeigarnik Effect.”

Try using it when writing or telling a story and I think you’ll be amazed at the results, but first…

OrangeCat.com and OrangeCat.net are sporting a new look for the New Year. Not a radical change, but I am very happy with them. I have always been an advocate of freshening up a website every year or so – after all, I don’t want to bore my visitors. But I have also been much less favorable to radical changes in web design for the same reason that the US Treasury shuns radical change to currency. You want previous visitors to recognize your design. Planning a radical change to the “look-and-feel” of a website is a lot like planning any other major change in a marketplace – the more radical the change, the more necessary it is to make it incrementally. In my years in the business, I have seen some big faux-pas by businesses large and small. Making a radical change to both the look and the content of a website all at once can confuse your visitors and have a very detrimental effect on your goals. So, if one of your New Years resolutions is to freshen up the look of your website (and it probably should be), just remember to keep your ego in check, go easy on the changes and keep the customers satisfied.

[tags]OrangeCat.com, OrangeCat.net, redesign, design, website changes[/tags]

A friend in Ottawa, Ontario named Michel Fortin is one of the premier copywriters in the world. At the recent Big Seminar, Michel and I were the last two left standing when Armand Morin asked “How many people have been on the Internet for over twelve years”?” Last evening, he gave this PDF away on his blog and urged that I send it on to my readers. I started reading it immediately and couldn’t pull myself away from it. I knew I had to share it with you immediately, even if it meant sending it on Sunday morning. Here are a few quotes from the Death of the Salesletter:

“If you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get: We are not seats or eyeballs or end-users or consumers. We are human beings — and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”
— From “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” Harper Collins, April, 1999.

“In this case, the prevailing UPA is that the salesletter, if it looks as if it was put together hastily, poorly and clumsily, with no care given to its quality or presentation, then the product must be just as shoddy.”

“We are constantly being pinged. But if the ping factor isn’t enough, Web 2.0 makes it even more complex. Just as satellite TV has pushed standard cable TV to new level, so is Web 2.0 pushing the “ping factor” to a new level as well.”

…I’m seeing long-copy salesletters losing their effectiveness, and shorter copy starting to outsell them. As a proponent of long-copy salesletters myself, you can imagine how much of a wakeup call this was for me. And if you’re a copywriter or a marketer, it should be your wakeup call, too.

Visit Michel Fortin’s website.

Download your free copy of the Death of the Salesletter here.

Big Lessons From 30 Years’ Freelance Copywriting:
HOW TO WIND UP WITH COPY THAT REALLY SELLS
by Dan S. Kennedy

I got my first paid, [tag]freelance[/tag] [tag]copywriting[/tag] job 31 years ago. I have since written copy consuming a forest of paper, for product from the mundane to the weird and bizarre, for every media, including print ads, direct-mail, TV infomercials, and the internet. Here are a few of the most important things I have learned.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t seen this already, it is certainly worth a few minutes of your time - eight and a half minutes to be exact. It’s a story how Kyle, a young man from Canada took something worth virtually nothing and turned it into something much, much bigger (including an exciting adventure) with nothing more than an idea and a “clear mental image.” The video clip is from a little while ago on ABC’s 20/20, but the message is still timely. How can you apply the principles that Kyle used to make your dreams come true?

Click here to watch this inspiring video.

[tags]video, ABC, 20/20, clear mental image, goals[/tags]

We here at BobStovall.com want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

We are planning a big year for 2007 and we want you to be a part of it and benefit from some of the new products and features we will be bringing to our clients and our visitors in the coming year.

Just to name a few of the projects nearing completion are new web server packages with real estate listing software, WordPress blog software and shopping cart integration for those who need one or more of those. We will also be producing web-based, audio and video support materials so you will be able to use our products more easily. We are also planning tele-seminars and/or podcasts on a wide variety of subjects.

There are even more projects on the drawing board to help make your online marketing efforts, easier and more effective so make sure we have your primary email address so we can keep you informed.