How a Poster Makes a Box Office Hit

How a Poster Makes a Box Office Hit

by: Julian Yale

A filmmaker creates a film for different purposes: some for money, others for charity, and others for the fulfillment of their childhood dream that one day, they will be able to create a movie. But there is always one thing common for every given reason making it to the box office.

But what makes all the difference? POSTERS. Advertising your movie through posters will definitely create a major effect to the result of your movie being a boxoffice hit. The reason is that posters attract attention. And attention makes the market respond. Posters are great media tools to share and introduce your film to the public.

A movie poster is not just a standard paper stuck to a board. An effective movie poster uses a totally different, visual language. It is one big showandtell medium. It expresses your points in graphical terms. It avoids visual chaos, with many jagged edges or varioussized boards that distract the viewer. Instead, it guides the viewer by using a visual logic, with a hierarchical structure that emphasizes the main points.

It displays the essential contentthe messagesin the title, main headings and graphics. It indicates the relative importance of elements graphically: each main point is stated in large typeface headings; details are subordinated visually, using smaller typeface. The main headings explain the points, rather than merely stating ‘resultsก and letting the viewer hunt foror worse, inventthe message within.

And the beauty of it all, because of its size, all elements, such as the figure legends, are visible from even four feet away. With larger prints, images are more visible even from miles away.

However, it is a fact that there are those that catch your attention immediately, and still those that do not at all. Thus, having posters does not assure a box office hit. You should remember that there are some principles in making a good poster that sells.

Promoting a movie through posters should always have the marketing objective. Take for example the poster of the 2003 animate movie กFinding Nemoก. Posters like these stir up a lot of attention for the younger audience since they are the target market. It communicates well to the kids and thus encourages the parents to go and watch the movie with their kids. Such is the effect of a poster making it to the box office.

กOcean’s Twelveก, the sequel of the 2001 hit, กOcean’s Elevenก, would not have made it to box office if not for the promotional merchandise like the movie poster. What makes this poster different is the highlight of the actors and actresses involved in the film. This is also a great approach to make the people watch the movie.

Did you ever wonder why the กLord of the Ringsก made it to box office? Aside from the movie trailers being shown on television, posters in movie houses add to heighten the interest of the moviegoers.

Different people react to different situations. Similarly, different people make different reactions to a poster. Your objective should then be to generate attention enough to encourage and tickle your target marketกs curiosity from the posters you have created for your movie. In order for your movie to make it to the box office, your posters should be able to draw attention and interest.

About The Author

Julian Yale

For comments and questions about the article and the author you may contact The Large Format Posters Moderator at 888 888 4211 or visit http://www.largeformatposters.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 20

by Julian Yale

How To Turn Freebies Into Sales

How To Turn Freebies Into Sales

by: Rudy Cline

You can increase sales and profits by offering freebies to people who buy your main product or service. They increase the over all value of your main offer and in return people feel they’re getting more for less.

Itกs important that you have a high enough profit margin so you can afford to give them away. Some freebies can be created without a lot of expense; like electronic information products. With these type of freebies thereกs no shipping or physical material costs.

Below are some popular types of freebies. In the examples are some other benefits and a tips for offering freebies to your buyers.

FREE COUPON/GIFT CERTIFICATE

Offer potential customers a free coupon or gift certificate for a back end product or service you’re selling. This will increase your chances for repeat purchases.

FREE BOOKLET/EBOOK

Offer a free booklet or ebook related to your main product or service. Inform potential customers that it is a limited time offer and it will only be available before a specific date.

FREE MEMBERS ONLY WEB SITE

Offer a free membership into your members only web site. Tell them what it normally costs for people who don’t purchase.

FREE AUDIO CASSETTE/VIDEO

Offer a free audio cassette or video to people who buy. Let them know this audio cassette or video can’t be found anywhere else, only through this special offer.

FREE EMAIL COURSE

Offer a free email course on a topic related to your product or service. Add your back end product ads to each email course lesson.

FREE CHAT ROOM SEMINAR/CONSULTING

Offer a free chat room seminar or consulting to give away as a freebie. You will become know as an expert on the topic by electing to do the seminar or consulting yourself.

FREE GIFT

Offer a free gift if they buy your product or service. Giving the value of the free give will attract them to purchase your main product or service.

Copyright 2004 Rudy Cline

About The Author

Rudy Cline publishes กHome Business Tipsก, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you`re looking for the *best rated* home business opportunities from an honest friend in the business, come by and grab a FREE subscription today at: http://www.homeworkforyou.org.

This article was posted on December 29, 2004

by Rudy Cline

Generating Website Traffic with Subdomains

Generating Website Traffic with Subdomains

by: Sarah Coles

Subdomains are websites that are located within a directory of your main site and have their own domain name. Because they use the same resources as the main website, they are normally much cheaper than getting another hosting account. Their low cost and flexibility make subdomains a great device for directing traffic to your site without breaking the bank.

*Subdomains as Portal Sites*

One of the best uses of subdomains is portal websites. Portal websites are sites that link to your main website and have a similar theme. Basically, they provide another portal, or doorway, for visitors and search engines to get to your main website.

Since creating content for a website takes time, often webmasters simply modify the existing text of the main site and reuse it on the portal site. It is important that the content is not exactly the same and the portals do not just redirect to the main site. Otherwise, search engines may not index them.

*More Portals, More Visitors*

Portal websites can be submitted to the search engines just like your main site. If your website is doing alright in the search engines, then imagine having five more websites out there for the spiders to find. Five more listings means that Web surfers have five times as many ways to find your network of websites.

*Search Engines and Links*

More and more search engine algorithms take into consideration the number and ranking of sites that link to you. By linking your subdomains to your main site and to each other, the ranking of all of your sites is improved.

*Banner Exchange Programs*

Banner exchange programs allow members to share advertising space on each other’s websites. They are a great way to generate traffic to your website, but you may not want to clutter your main site with ads. Portal websites provide a good place to test different programs and direct the resulting traffic to your main site.

*Alternative Markets*

Search engine spiders will pick up on content variations among your websites. Subtle differences could place a site in a category that you had not thought of and open up an entirely new base of visitors and/or customers.

*Product and Service Specialization*

Your main website may have dozens of different products and services. This is great for your business, but generality can hurt your ranking in the search engines. Using subdomains to create sites that specialize in one product or service increases your keyword density and improves your ranking. Plus, many consumers would prefer to work with a specialized business than a onestop shop. (You can still link to your main site with all of your products.)

About The Author

Sarah Coles is a webmaster and content developer for Jumpline.com Web Hosting, a budget host offering 6 websites for as low as $14.95/mo.

This article was posted on June 27, 2003

by Sarah Coles

web page building for beginners 3

web page building for beginners 3

by: Ted Dupuie

An inexperienced website builder must understand that free web hosting is a great way to get more than one site up and running quickly, and that www.articlecity.com is the fastest and easiest way to fill those sites with relevant material. For instance, my site at www.saquoyah.com has one hundred and sixty pages that were written by various authors and posted at ArticleCity by the writers. This arrangement fulfills five purposes to the satisfaction of everyone involved. First the writers of the articles get to help the readers and themselves by having links back to their websites. Second, ArticleCity gets many links to their index page and that in turn keeps their site in a top placement with search engines. Third, the little website owner saves an enormous amount of writing, yet gets his or her website full of pages that link back to their index page, so the search engines will place their site a little higher in placement. Fourth, the person doing a search gets to find a lot of points of view by various writers on the one subject they are poring over. Fifth, the search engines have more pages in their database for the searchers to look through.

While free web hosting has it’s shortcomings for a large corporation like General Motors, it is a Godsend to the little merchant or any webmaster that would like searchers to find their pages in a web search. The more sites a webmaster has to bring more links back to the initial or main site, the better. While most of the free sites may never get ranked with Google, the sites can still serve the purpose of adding backlinks to a site and increasing the main site’s rank. And since the small merchant, especially one working at home, has a limited amount of capital to invest, the free sites can be used to their full potential.

Each site that is linked to the main site should have the same type of articles written on them, so that the relevancy sought by search engine robots can help to increase the ranking of the main site. If one site is about potato chips while another is an adult site while a third is written on auto racing, the linking will be of little value. Keep in mind also that some of those sites may be viewed by searchers from smaller engines or directories, and you may get potential customers through those links to your main site.

Keep all links in working order, so check your sites often enough to know when one of the host’s servers may go down and lose all your pages. This just happened to me, and even though I keep a copy of all my pages on my harddrive, the server was down for many weeks while Googlebot and Slurp were checking my links every few days. As a small businessman, I cannot afford to upset the robots, so I do not link TO the free websites, but only FROM the free websites. In this way, the robots never get upset. All of the links lead to the index pages of sites I own as a safeguard from server and hosting problems.

This article can be copied and reprinted anywhere as long as it is intact and includes the author’s bio

About The Author

Ted Dupuie owns a home based publishing company that only publishes his work, which includes diets, an investment strategy, and 8 websites, plus a family newsletter. He is also a writing critic with top ten placement on Google and Yahoo!

www.saquoyah.com www.homewriters.com www.freediet.biz

This article can be copied and reprinted anywhere as long as it is intact with the author’s bio.

This article was posted on August 21, 2004

by Ted Dupuie

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website

by: Mario Sanchez

When designing your website, remember to avoid useless and confusing features, however ขcoolข they may seem to be. Usually, keeping things simple and consistent are the best way to go. Here are five easy ways to improve your website and make it more appealing to your visitors.

Put your logo on every page of your site, and in the same location. Usually, the best place to put it is in the upper left corner of the page. Remember to make your logo clickable, linking to the main page of your site (an exception is the logo of the main page itself, since you are already there). The benefit of doing so is that if your visitors get lost they can always come back to a familiar location.

Don’ t use a splash screen. Splash screens are seen in many websites before they give you access to the main page. They are usually slowloading Flash animations that only delay and frustrate users. Remember, when your users want animation, they can turn on the TV. When they go to your website, they usually want information, and they want it fast. Some sites that use splash screens now provide a ขSkip the Introductionข link, which most users click anyway, further validating the uselessness of flash screens.

Avoid using heavy pictures. They unnecessarily delay the page upload process. It is OK to use graphics, but they have to be optimized for the web. Use only .gif and .jpg formats. If the pictures are too heavy, try using some of the online graphic optimizing tools. They can reduce the weight of your pictures by more than 50% with no noticeable decrease in quality. Another thing you can do is to use thumbnails (clickable miniature versions of a picture). If a user is interested in the picture, he can click on the thumbnail and wait until the full size picture is displayed.

Try not to use animated banners or fancy icons. Just because you can is not a good reason to load up your site with neoncolored, flashingandpopping, Vegasstyle graphics. They usually take away from the content of your site and distract users. Plus, it has been demonstrated that less and less users click on banners every day.

Don’t make your pages too long. People don’t like to read from a screen. Instead, try to use the advantages of hyperlinks to present a summary of the topic or article, with a link to the full article in another page (similar to what newspapers do in their main page, with the added benefit for web users that it is easier to click on a link than to turn a page). If what you have to say is too long, break the discussion in several parts, each of them with a link to where your visitor can continue reading.

Remember, the goal is to give your visitors fast access to your information, through an interface (website) that is visually appealing and easy to use.

You can freely reprint this article. Just include the following resource box at the end:

Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest (http://www.theinternetdigest.net) a website and newsletter that gives you useful advice on web design and Internet marketing, one free tip at a time.

About The Author

Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), a website and newsletter that gives you free advice on Internet Marketing, Web Design and Small Business. To subscribe go to: http://www.theinternetdigest.net/newsletter.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on May 03, 2003

by Mario Sanchez

The Buzz About Links What About Yours?

The Buzz About Links What About Yours?

by: Martin Lemieux

These days, if you pay any attention to even a small portion about what goes on with web advertising, you’re sure to hear about getting more links for your own web site.
I want to discuss a little something called internal links:
See, most sites that I visit are well on their way to getting a great (GPR) Google Page Ranking for their site. Whoops, wait a minute, I mean their main page! Only: www.yoursite.com/index
More times than none, many sites don’t even provide a กsite mapก which simply indicates all the pages for their site. Itกs even writen within the guidelines from google! They even TELL YOU to provide a site map! If youกve never read the google guidelines, don’t be foolish as to think you know what it says, go read them here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Pay special attention to what you should, and especially what shouldn’t do!
On another note: The whole point of this article is to explain to you that you can raise your internal rankings simply by changing your web site structure.
It seems that in order to get a page to PR4/10, you need to have that page on 46 pages with 4/10 or better.
Letกs say for instance, your main page is finally pr4, and letกs also say that most of your pages are pr3. What you want to do is promote 3 of the pr3 pages in order to get them to pr4 as well.
Once you finally have pr4/10 for 4 of your pages, now you can finally raise your ranking. Hereกs the fun part…
I want you look at your site and see if you actually list all your pages on all your pages. If you don’t, do this step right away and keep it clean. I know some of you might be thinking, well I have too many to list, or some of your might be thinking, I am already doing that.
Just stick to that formula because once you have 4 of your pages with pr4/10 it won’t be long before your entire site goes to pr4 (Given that all your pages are listed on all your pages).
Once this happens, the next step is PR5!
The norm for pr5 is to get about 5070 pr4 links. Whether they are internally or externally. Please note that you need 5070 pr links for one page alone in order to raise that specific page to pr5. So if you want to raise your main page to pr5, get 5070 pr4 links to that page.
I hope we all know what happens to pages that are ranked 4/10 or better don’t we? Our search engine rankings get better!
Have fun with this one and always remember to keep tweaking your structure in order to get the most out of your entire web site, not just your main page!

About The Author

Martin Lemieux

Smartads President

Affordable Web Design & Web Advertising

http://www.smartads.info / http://www.smartads.ca

Eye Catching Print Design

http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com

Marketing Tools

http://www.smartads.info/newsletter / http://www.thewebclinic.com

This article was posted on May 25, 2004

by Martin Lemieux

How to Turn Freebies in to Sales

How to Turn Freebies in to Sales

by: Paul Jesse

You can increase sales and profits by offering freebies to people who buy your main product or service. They increase the over all value of your main offer and in return people feel they’re getting more for less.

Itกs important that you have a high enough profit margin so you can afford to give them away. Some freebies can be created without a lot of expense; like electronic information products. With these type of freebies thereกs no shipping or physical material costs.

Below are some popular types of freebies. In the examples are some other benefits and a tips for offering freebies to your buyers.

FREE COUPON/GIFT CERTIFICATE

Offer potential customers a free coupon or gift certificate for a back end product or service you’re selling. This will increase your chances for repeat purchases.

FREE BOOKLET/EBOOK

Offer a free booklet or ebook related to your main product or service. Inform potential customers that it is a l.imited time offer and it will only be available before a specific date.

FREE MEMBERS ONLY WEB SITE

Offer a free membership into your members only web site. Tell them what it normally costs for people who don’t purchase.

FREE AUDIO CASSETTE/VIDEO

Offer a free audio cassette or video to people who buy. Let them know this audio cassette or video can’t be found anywhere else, only through this special o.ffer.

FREE EMAIL COURSE

Offer a free email course on a topic related to your product or service. Add your back end product ads to each email course lesson.

FREE CHAT ROOM SEMINAR/CONSULTING

Offer a free chat room seminar or consulting to give away as a freebie. You will become know as an expert on the topic by electing to do the seminar or consulting yourself.

FREE GIFT

Offer a free gift if they buy your product or service. Giving the value of the f.ree give will attract them to purchase your main product or service.

Copyright 2005 Paul Jesse

About The Author

Paul Jesse is a small business owner and the author of several articles on homebased business. Visit his website at: http://www.besthomeremedies.com.

This article was posted on March 28

by Paul Jesse

Spam: The Tasteless Internet Meat of Criminals

Spam: The Tasteless Internet Meat of Criminals

by: M6.Net

Spam. You’ve all heard of the crazy pink meat in a can, but what’s it got to do with the Internet? Well, it’s also the namesake for a major problem in the World Wide Webunsolicited junk email. Problem! We’re talking serious pain in the butt both as a waster of time, space, and money. It is estimated that around half of all email received on the Internet is this sneaky illegal attempt at selling fake consumer goods, pornography, and a whole plethora of ‘helpful’ services. It’s taking up half of all email on the Earth, and it’s costing businesses’ billions in wasted time, as well as filling personal email accounts to the limit so important messages aren’t received. It seems everywhere there’s a leap in technology for humanity, there’s also a group of people who want to stretch the realm of criminal activity to another level.

The good news is that as it’s such a prominent problem, the ‘good guys’ have made it a main priority on their ‘To do’ lists. Software has been created to block Spam and is being updated constantly. Recently Bill Gates, richest human on Earth and selfmade mogul of software masters’ Microsoft spoke of his aim to eliminate Spam by the year 2006. Obviously a lot of people would be quite appreciative if they could achieve this goal.

Supposedly most of the billions of junk emails originate from about 200 people who are intelligent enough to cover their tracks. They have multiple ways of finding out email addresses and then sending thousands upon thousands of unwanted messages to you and I. It usually costs them next to nil so if even one lowquality product sells they receive a profit. That’s why they do it; just another greedinduced means of getting rich quick without working for it like the rest of us.

Well, there’s a couple main ways of dealing with the Spam dilemma. The main one, and most easy, is to just delete the messages or empty your folder (after moving desired messages to another folder) straight off the server without downloading or ‘looking’ at the messages. This gives the ‘evil’ sender the knowledge that you’re not reading the mail and therefore the traffic you receive goes down dramatically.

Another way to block the Spam is to use software like Magic Mail Monitor (http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/) or Mailwasher (http://www.mailwasher.net/), which work well at destroying the unwanted, pink, tasteless, unworldly email meat by showing you the mail straight from the server without downloading it.

So, show the criminals you’re aware and not ignorant and take the first steps to bringing the Spam Empire down. Protect yourself and eventually the Spam will go where all filth is destined, into the trash.

About The Author

By M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

This article was posted on September 09, 2004

by M6.Net

SEO #2: Onpage optimization

SEO #2: Onpage optimization

by: Ahmed Omran

Yesterday you should have read the first course out of 6 courses that will help you get a TOP rank in the search engines and get EXPLOSIVE LASER TARGETED TRAFFIC for Free. Today we move on to course #2 and study onpage optimization. Please read todayกs course very carefully and take some time to test what Iกm about to tell you on your own webpage. Alright let’s start!

Onpage optimization

1) Now we have selected the keywords that we want to optimize for. If you remember from yesterday, the keywords we selected were yo mama joke, blonde joke, and joke online prank.

2) The first part of optimizing your website is to pay close attention to the title on your webpage. The title which appears at the top of the internet explorer page is essential to ranking well in search engines. You must choose a title that contains the MAIN keywords that you want to optimize for. Here is a list of possible titles and which one works BEST.

A. Welcome to our website! (This title doesn’t contain any of the main keywords and is the worst thing you can put. DO NOT use this!)

B. yo mama joke blonde joke and joke online prank (Although this title contains the keywords it contains too much words and makes no sense to the visitors. DO NOT use this!)

C. Yo Mama Joke | Blonde Joke Online (As you can see there are less words and I have replaced one of the กandsก with a ก|ก. I have also combined words. This keyword rich and understandable title is what you SHOULD USE!)

3) The second step in onpage optimization is making sure you have metatags on your page. The description part of your metatags are used by google so make sure to include a good description of your website and throw in the MAIN keywords that you want to optimize for. Hereกs an example description:

กA website bringing you lots of jokes including yo mama joke, blonde joke, joke online prank, and more.ก

If you want a free metatag generator then visit:

http://www.htmlbasix.com/meta.shtml

4) The third step is the BODY of your webpage; if your webpage has a good keyword density then you will rank well. Keyword density is the number of times a keyword is used in your page. Letกs say your webpage has 500 words and you use the keyword กyo mama jokeก 25 times then you have a keyword density of 5%. A keyword density of 510% is good. So you should try to throw in your MAIN keyword a few times every now and then BUT make sure it makes sense because people will be visiting your website!

5) Now there are many other factors that will help you to rank well in search engines. These factors are header tags, header tags, Bolding, italicizing, underlining, and image tags. If you include your keyword in a tag then you will tell the search engines that this keyword is important and you will boost the strength of that specific keyword. Using the keyword in tags and bolding, italicizing, etc will also give the keyword strength.

Last tip for the day is that search engines read pages from the top left hand side of the page to the bottom right hand side of the page. So make sure that your MAIN keywords are at the top of the page as well as at the bottom.

Tomorrow I will teach you to Get Listed In Google in Under 24Hours! This will be an exciting day for you I promise!

If you would like to contact me anytime and either complain (why would you!) or give me your testimonial then feel free to do so anytime. Iกm there if you need any more help also.

About The Author

Ahmed Omran is an experienced webmaster and marketer who owns http://www.vdesignonline.com and http://www.homebusinessrevo.com.

This article was posted on August 29

by Ahmed Omran

How to Create an Online Newsroom the Media will Lo

How to Create an Online Newsroom the Media will Love

by: Bill Stoller

From time to time, people ask me how public relations has changed during the two decades in which I’ve been seeking publicity. My answer: technology. Twenty years ago, the fax machine was a newfangled novelty. Our primary means of communicating with journalists was the telephone and the US Mail. The advent of e mail and the web has made life easier in many regards and tougher in others namely, thanks to hordes of clowns with money making schemes and software that กblastsก press releases indiscriminately to reporters, it’s become very hard to get your emails through to spamweary reporters.

But there’s another great advantage provided to publicity seekers by the Internet the ability to create an กonline news roomก. In the กold daysก, the press kit reigned. Big bulky folders loaded with press releases, glossy photos and slides were standard. They were expensive to design, costly to reproduce and required lots of manpower and postage to assemble and distribute. Today, you can simply direct a reporter to a web URL, where all your press materials and high definition artwork awaits, ready to be used. It’s a huge time and money saver.

A quick note: the traditional press kit isn’t dead. It’s still handy to create some physical kits to use with key journalists, as the very novelty of printed material can give you an edge at times. Also, some journalists still prefer a physical kit. Press kits are an important tool at trade show booths & press rooms, and special events. However, gone are the days of sending out large press kit mailings. Keep the kits for targeted use only.

Creating a useful online news room is really pretty simple. One of the main things a busy reporter wants is easy access to press releases, corporate and executive info and artwork. A well put together media room should provide a seamless walkthrough.

Where Should the News Room Go?

There are two schools of thought on where to put your online news room. Some companies prefer to have it as a section on their main site, visible to all as a link on a menu bar or other navigational element. Others build entirely separate sites just for the media.

There are pros and cons to each. Putting it as part of your main site allows a journalist to กpoke aroundก your site, absorbing more of the feel and culture of your company and its products. It also makes it easier if the reporter wants more information about a particular product than can be found in your media materials. Of course, since you’ll need to provide clear links to the online news room to help such reporters find their way back, anyone visiting your site can access your press materials. This is probably not an issue but, if you feel potential customers may become confused if they wander into the online news room, this could be worth considering.

Creating a separate site allows you to tailor everything to suit the needs of the reporter and prevents the possibility of confusion for potential customers visiting your main site. The reporter however, will be unable to quickly กpoke aroundก the main site as described above, so you may consider that in your decision. If you do choose a separate site, give it a name that incorporates your company (if you’re the Acme Company, go for acmepress.com or acmeonlinenewsroom.com). Also, provide clear links to your main site throughout, and code them so that they open in a new window, allowing the reporter to see your main site without having to backtrack to the online news room.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

DON’T force journalists to register or sign in for access. They’re busy folks and may very well decide not to bother. Make life as easy as you can for them.

DO offer the opportunity for journalists to enter their email address if they wish to be kept abreast of the latest news from your company, but don’t link it in any way to the ability to access any portion of the site. DON’T confuse nonjournalists who may wander into the site. Make it clear at the top of your main page of your online news room what it and who it’s for.

DO provide a link to your consumer FAQ page and an email link for customer service to give nonjournalists a place to go to get their questions answered. This will save you a great deal of time responding to messages from nonjournalists asking กwhy am I looking at a press release? How do I download a new driverก or some such thing. Hereกs what Gateway says, กGateway press contacts are only able to provide assistance for qualified members of the news media. They are not qualified to respond to product or technical support needs…If you are not a member of the news media, please feel free to visit our pages for Product Service and Support.ก

DON’T try to lay out the online news room if you’re not a talented web designer. Don’t use flash, heavy java scripts and other doodads. The face you put forth to the media must be highly professional, and the ease of navigation and logical flow of the news room is vital.

DO hire a professional designer who has a portfolio that includes simple, easytonavigate, cleanlooking sites.

What To Include in Your Online News Room:

Personal Contact Info. The name, address, email, phone number, fax number and cell phone number of your primary media contacts must be front and center. If you have an Instant Messaging ID, put it in there, too.

Press Releases. Place press releases in chronological order (most recent at the top). Keep traditional press release formatting and use easytoread fonts.

Executive photos, product photos, charts, graphs, and other appropriate artwork. Provide multiple versions 72 dpi (lower resolution) for online publications and websites, and 300 dpi (higher resolution) for offline publications. Put instructions such as To download, rightclick and choose กsaveก next to the graphics. Make sure your pitch letters and press releases provide links to the appropriate artwork on your site.

Backgrounders, executive bios, white papers, investor relations info (if applicable), fact sheets, speeches, awards, streaming media of: press conferences, product demonstrations, presidentกs speeches, etc.

Search Tool. Make it easy for journalists to find just what they want, by making all your press materials fully searchable.

Online News Rooms to Study:

The best way to learn how to put together an online news room is to see how some very smart folks have done it. Here are three outstanding examples….

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/default.asp

http://www.google.com/press/index.html

http://www.crayola.com/mediacenter/

About The Author

Bill Stoller, the กPublicity Insiderก, has spent two decades as

one of Americaกs top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine

and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for

PRHungry Businesses http://www.PublicityInsider.com/freepub.asp

heกs sharing for the very first time his secrets of scoring

big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and

much, much more, visit Billกs exclusive new site: http://www.PublicityInsider.com

This article was posted on August 02

by Bill Stoller

Writing Effective Emails

Writing Effective Emails

by: Graham Jones

Sometimes email messages can get quite long, especially when you quote much of the material that has been sent in previous emails. Also, emails often get long if you have a lot to say or you need to give a comprehensive overview of a particular business situation.

Most people tend to find that the letters and emails they receive that are short are the ones they responded to most positively and had the best feelings about. Long letters do get a positive response — however, almost invariably, long communications are only given a positive rating if we have a very close and warm relationship with the person who has written to us. We rarely feel positive towards acquaintances and people we do not know, who send us long letters or emails. This has important implications for people using email in business. The vast majority of your emails at work are going to be sent to people you do not know or have only the slimmest of relationships with. Hence anything other than a short email is likely to lead towards a negative feeling in your reader. Play safe; keep it short!

This is all very well in theory, of course, but in practice, particularly at work, you need to include a lot of material. The answer is to treat the email as though it were a covering letter. Then attach the main text as a separate word processor document. All email programs can attach files to them, yet vast numbers of emails are sent without using this facility. The advantage of putting your main material in an attachment is that your recipient immediately views your message in a positive light because it is short and to the point. You should summarise the content of the attachment in a sentence or two — in that way your reader can gain all they need to know, without having to open the attached file. However, if they need more depth you have provided it for them.

One technique you can use for shortening your email is to write the main message in your word processing software, with all the detail you need. Then take a break, do something else and later on, read through your text. Now try to summarise it in a few sentences – that summary should be the main part of your email. Trying to summarise something you have just written is difficult as all the detail will still be in your mind. That’s why taking a break can help you as you leave your mind uncluttered and make summary writing much easier. Your summary email, together with the word processor document as an attachment is much more likely to please your recipient. This means there is considerable value in taking time to construct your email properly, rather than just dashing something off.

Another way in which you can be sure of keeping emails short is to avoid ‘quoting’ vast amounts of previous emails. One of the benefits of the ‘reply’ button on email programs is that you can quote the previous email. In this way the recipient can easily see what you are responding to. However, since many emails go back and forth between various people, the message can quickly become very long indeed — even though most of it is material from previous messages. The answer to solving this is to only quote what you need to send someone in order to make your reply understandable. By all means, press the ‘reply’ button to quote the original email, but then go through the quoted text and delete everything that is irrelevant to what you are going to write about. Doing so is seeing the message from your reader’s viewpoint — they don’t want to wade through the original text (their own!) just to see which point you are commenting on. It is much easier from their viewpoint if your reply is clear. In other words, only use selective quoting — not wholesale quoting of emails as is the most common practice.

An additional reason why some emails are so long is because the author is trying to cover various topics. They are almost ‘brain dumping’ everything they can think of that is important or relevant to the reader. Meanwhile, the poor recipient has to work their way through this mess to try and find out what is important. Good communication, particularly to people we don’t know, is focused communication. That means, in essence, that each email should be about one topic and one topic only. A hint to this is given in the email software itself where you have to type a ‘subject’ for your email.

If your emails are about more than one subject – stop! Each email should only be about one subject. Your recipient will react far more positively if you sent four separate short emails about four subjects than trying to cram all the material into one, inevitably longer message. Also, when these separate messages get replied to, the quoted material is shorter. Hence, think always, one message — one email.

About The Author

Graham Jones is the author of Effective Email an ebook priced at £9.99. For more details or to download a copy now go to: http://www.effectiveemail.biz.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 23, 2002

by Graham Jones

Print Ads – Alive and Still Selling to Readers Nea

Print Ads – Alive and Still Selling to Readers Near You

by: Julia Hyde

The print ad is not dead. Although some people will tell you otherwise. If they do, they’re wrong. In 2003 advertisers spent nearly $60 billion to place ads in magazines and newspapers – more than five times the amount spent on Internet advertising in the same year. And if that’s not confirmation that the print ad is alive and still selling, I don’t know what is.

So how come many business owners shy away from print advertising? Part of the problem is that they mistakenly believe people don’t read much anymore, and that a print ad will be a waste of their time, and their money. They’d be wrong, again.

If you don’t believe me, consider the following:

63 million newspapers are distributed in the U.S. every day. In fact more newspapers are published today than at anytime since World War II.

In the first half (January to June) of 2004 the top 10 magazines in the U.S. reached a total circulation of more than $72 million.

And a recent survey by the Magazine Publishers of America shows that the proportion of Americans with a favorable opinion of the magazine industry is much higher than for any other media industry, including the Internet.

With facts like that you’d be a fool not to rush out and spend some of your advertising budget on a targeted, print ad today. So what are you waiting for? Get started now. These stepbystep guidelines will help you produce powerful a print ad that sells.

1. Have a Plan

I know I’ve said it a thousand times before but without a plan you risk spending thousands of dollars on a useless, ineffective and costly campaign that fails to bring you any new business. I get a creative plan for every job I take on. That way, I make sure I write an ad that’s targeted to the right people, written in the right tone of voice and published in the right media.

Here are the main points a creative plan should cover:

Objectives: What is the ad trying to do? Sell more products, generate awareness or launch a new product or service? First, determine the ad’s objectives. Then quantify them. For example, I want to attract potential buyers who don’t have an immediate need for my product, or I want to achieve 50% more awareness among my target group.

Target Audience: Who buys the product? For years advertising agencies have based their client’s advertising campaigns on demographics because certain approaches appeal to different groups of people. I won’t start trying to explain the ins and outs of demographic profiling but before you start your campaign you should consider whether your target prospect is a man or a woman, young, middle aged or old, rich, poor or average. Because determining this will drive every aspect of your ad.

Proposition: What is the main benefit you want to convey? If you’re selling insurance the main benefit could be peace of mind and security. If you’re selling a car the main benefit could be sporty yet economical. It’s important to find the right benefit for your target market. Value for money may be a great benefit for someone on a tight budget but if your target market is more concerned with quality it will have a negative effect.

Supporting Evidence: Can you justify your proposition? Do you have facts, figures and research to back up your claim? You have to give people a reason to believe in your product. You can’t just say ‘Our socks will keep your feet warmer’, you have to prove it. Perhaps your socks are hand knitted with wool shorn from sheep that roam free on the Scottish highlands. If so, use facts and figures, market research, testimonials or endorsements from people who are experts in their field to prove your claim.

Other benefits: Apart from the main proposition, what are the other benefits the ad should mention? Here’s where it can get a little tricky. But there’s always more than one benefit. There’s always more than one. Try making a list of benefits and ranking them in order of importance.

Tone of Voice: If the ad were a person, would it be young or old, efficient, whimsical, happygolucky, highpowered or homely? You must write the ad in a language that appeals to your target audience.

Media: Where will you place the ad? Your choice dictates the style of the ad because each media is read by a different demographic group of people. An ad designed for a science magazine is going to look different from one placed in a parenting magazine.

2. Create the Concept

Once you have a clear idea of the ad’s focus it’s time to move on to the next important step: the concept. A concept is essentially an outline or rough idea of the ad that helps you get your ideas down on paper. I like to draft about 15 concepts for each ad I write because each one triggers an afterthought that may just produce the concept I’m looking for.

Once you’ve decided on a concept that works, you need to ‘work it up.ข In other words begin working on the three main components of the ad: the headline, the visual and the body copy.

3. Write the Headline

The headline does two very important jobs. First, it attracts the reader’s attention. And second, it persuades him or her to buy. You can use a headline to get your reader’s attention in several ways:

Make it big and bold. And make the words jump off the page yet be simple enough for a passing reader to understand.

Make the reader stop and think.

Offer an important benefit

Promise a reward for reading the copy

Make it newsworthy

There’s a tendency when writing a headline to try and make it amusing or clever. Or place it in smallish print low down on the page. This is particularly true of some corporate advertising you see in magazines and newspapers today. Don’t be fooled by this ‘corporate chic’ approach. A straightforward informational headline works better. There is absolutely nothing wrong with ‘20% off all bedding now’.

3. Write the Body Copy

There’s a chance that if your headline and visual have attracted the reader he or she may be compelled to read body copy. Consider this a bonus because if people read the body copy, you’ve got a better chance of selling them your product or service. To encourage people to read the copy, try breaking it up with small illustrations and sub heads. Or lay it out in a visually interesting way.

Writing the copy itself presents its own challenges, especially if you’re not accustomed to writing in a friendly, normal tone of voice that shows your natural enthusiasm for the product. Try to imagine someone has asked you about your product. How would you talk to him or her? You’d probably speak with a quiet conviction, telling him about the product’s benefits and demonstrating how it works.

Whatever you do don’t try and explain every little detail about your product. Keep it simple and benefit oriented.

About The Author

Julia is an independent copywriter and consultant specializing in print advertising, search engine optimization and search engine marketing services . To learn more about how Julia can help boost your companyกs profits visit her site at www.juliahyde.com. Or email [email protected]. You may also like to sign up for Marketing Works! Juliaกs monthly ezine. Visit www.juliahyde.com/form.html to sign up.

This article was posted on April 08

by Julia Hyde