About Jodi Kaplan

The Connection Between Clients and Old Shoes

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

It is a truism of business that it costs more to find new customers than it does to keep old ones.

So, why do so many companies treat their existing customers so badly? The phone company and the cable company offer all sorts of incentives for new customers to sign up (lower prices, extra channels, bundled services).

Old customers? They’re old shoes, scuffed up, with the heels worn down. Not bright and shiny like the new customers. No goodies or discounts for them.

I just cut ties with an insurance company. I’ve been with them for 19 years. They didn’t even ask why. Nor did they try to win me back. All they did (two months later) was send a note acknowledging the cancellation.

Why not do something remarkable?

What if the cable company occasionally offered a freebie to its current customers. Like a surprise 25% discount on the anniversary of the day you signed up. Or a greeting card on your birthday.

It would build trust and loyalty. And, it would be remarkable. Customers would talk about it. They’d tell their friends. I mean, have you ever heard of the telephone company being nice?

We can do better

Large corporations, like the phone company or the cable company are often slow, bureaucratic, and sometimes a bit arrogant.

Since we’re agile and nimble and all that cool small business stuff, we can do better than that. Keep in contact with your clients. Email them or send them random surprises (the good kind) just because. If they leave you, ask why. . See what happens.

Three Quick Ways to Write Great Headlines

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Men and a woman reading headlines posted in st...

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

David Ogilvy said that ““On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

When writing copy, he spent most of his time writing the headline.

Why spend so much time on a few words?

Because the headline is the most critical part of your article or ad. That’s where the money is.

Write a crummy headline and nobody will look at the rest of your content.

Write a great one, and people will eagerly keep reading.

But how?

How to easily write great headlines

Luckily, there are some formulas for this. All you have to do is take one of them and fill in the blanks.

Use an extreme:

The 10 Worst _______,

The Five Biggest _______,

The Best ________

Use a number:

10 Ways to _____________,

27 Secrets of ___________,

101 Free ____________.

Larger numbers are more likely to be bookmarked (who can read 101 Blogging Secrets all at once?)

Promise something useful:

How to ______________,

The Complete Guide to _____________.

While I was looking for a photo to illustrate this post, I found a photo with images of newspaper headlines trumpeting the success of the Salk vaccine, “The Salk Vaccine Works!”, “Polio Vaccine is Safe and Effective!” That was certainly great news, but it was poor headline writing. Those headlines give the entire story away. Once you see the headline, there’s no need to pick up the paper, or click the post to read the rest of the article. There’s no suspense!

Have you struggled with writing headlines? Which do you spend more time writing? The headline or everything else?

How to Turn Problems Into Cash

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

: Image by tauntingpanda via Flickr

You may have heard that New York has gotten a lot of snow this year.

Heck, we’ve had more snow this season than Winnipeg, Canada (and there’s more coming).

It’s getting hard to find places to put all of it.

If you have to go out, or if you have a car, you’ll have to face huge piles of dirty snow, and trying to figure out exactly which vaguely car-shaped lump is yours.

A big problem

Yesterday, I went out to run some errands and saw a woman starting to shovel her car out. I came back over an hour later, and she was still working on it (now with someone helping her).

Some of the more enterprising among us have turned this problem into an opportunity. I passed another car with a little flag-like sign stuck on the roof. It said, “If you want to free your car, call 212———.” Bet that guy is cleaning up (sorry, couldn’t resist).

What can you fix?

When you’re thinking about a new product or service, look around. See what other people are complaining about. Or struggling with. What frustrates them? Is there a way to profit from those frustrations?

Someone decided to use a big snowstorm to make money. I saw people asking for website critiques over and over – and making the same mistakes repeatedly. So, I created a website review ebook. I also offer a personal website review service.

Have you done this? What services do you offer based on common problems?

The Worst Marketing Idea Ever

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

Have you heard about the new Facebook feature? It’s called sponsored stories. Facebook has a reputation for shall we say “aggressive” marketing. But this is one of the worst marketing ideas ever.

Here’s what it does.

It takes something you post to your friends, check-ins and likes from other websites and highlights them in the right-hand column of their pages. They call it a “sponsored story.”

It almost sounds useful, but it’s actually a terrible idea.

So wrong. On so many levels.

First, they take your content, without permission or compensation of any kind. They don’t notify you that they are doing it. And, in fact, there was also no advance notice of the new feature.

Second, you cannot block your content from becoming an ad. There’s no opt-out.

Third, it works for anything you “like” on the web (not just on facebook). So if you “like” something on “Wired”, and “Wired” buys advertising, your “like” becomes free advertising. If you mention you just had a Budweiser beer, your post becomes a Budweiser ad (they’re one of the early sponsors).

Fourth, they’re using your posts to spam your friends. The content goes out with your post, and your name on it.

Fifth, they’re charging advertisers money for this.

It’s theft, it’s interruption, and it’s spammy.

Have you heard of this? What do you think? Am I right? Or doesn’t it matter?

The Three Building Blocks of a Successful Marketing Campaign

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Yesterday’s post talked about a dumb marketing mistake. Today’s post will turn around and focus on the three building blocks of a successful marketing campaign.

Image by nerissa’s ring via Flickr

Every campaign and every business is different.

However, every successful marketing strategy has these basic ideas in common, no matter what your business, who your audience is, or what you are trying to sell.

First, you must know who your audience is. The more detail you have (in your head, or on paper) the better.

Next, you need to know what they are thinking: what are they worried about, what are their goals?

Finally, you have to know why they should choose you (instead of anyone else) to help them with those problems.

Who is your audience?

Who are the specific group(s) of people you want to reach? Be able to describe your ideal client, whether they are new moms who want to lose weight or owners of crossfit training centers. Give them personalities and names if you like. If you offer services to two different kinds of people or companies (say both brides who want help choosing lingerie or men who want help buying a gift), then separate them. Don’t write the same stuff for both.

What are they thinking?

Taking the example above, the brides will have different concerns than the men. The brides will want to know: will it fit? will it show under my dress? how hard is it to put on? is it pretty?

The men want to know if she’ll like it, if it’s too sleazy, is it the right size?

Two completely different sets of concerns.

Why you?

Be clear about how you’ll help and what problems of theirs (not yours) you solve. Spell out why your approach is special or different, and show your personality when you do – be the person who offers overwhelming value or insanely great service or personal advice on selecting exactly the right lingerie for brides-to-be. Detail the reasons they should hire you, rather than someone else. Pile on the value. Make buying a “no-brainer.”

So, what’s your strategy? Are you focusing on a particular audience? Not sure? Want an opinion (I have lots!)? Just ask.