Straight to the Point

It's OK if You're No Good!

I often wonder why so many of my clients feel that they need to reassure me that they aren't awful writers. They hire Kaszas for help with their marketing writing and then seem to feel guilty that they need the help. Why? We don't try to reassure our doctors that we'd perform surgery on ourselves if only we had the time.

There may be a misconception that because a person can speak and write in the English language that they should be able to do all their own writing and communicating. In fact, even among professional writers you will find that not every writer can or will be able to fill every requirement for writing. Some are great technical writers but not marketing writers; others are great marketing writers but awful fiction writers. Likewise, you wouldn't necessarily hire an excellent house painter to paint your family's portrait.

So relax! It's OK if you aren't great at doing your own marketing writing ... that's why professionals like us exist!

A Website is Never "Done"

At Kazas, we often help clients update the content, architecture and/or layout of their websites. In the months following the launch of a new site, we like to analyze web statistics to see how the new site is performing. In doing so, we've noticed a troubling trend: new websites are rarely updated after their initial launch.

Online Conferences and Trade Shows

This month, Kaszas attended the MarketingProfs B-to-B Marketing Conference. Like most conferences, this event had a number of speaking tracks and a trade show hall with a variety of vendors. What made this conference unique, however, was that it was held entirely online. Cool! But ... not cool enough ...

Pet Peeve: Empty Web Pages

"Coming Soon!"

"Under Construction!"

Every time I click to a web page with fateful words like these - usually accompanied by a cutesy picture to fully convey the message - I cringe. It's very interesting for your competitors, customers, and partners to know what you INTEND to do with your website ... one day, if only you could get your act together ... but is it necessary for them to know? No.

Simple rule: if you don't have the content for a web page yet, hide the page from the website navigation. Why? Because nobody cares about what you haven't done.

For a light-hearted take on this topic, along with translations of what various "under construction" icons actually convey about the company and/or its webmaster. check out this web page.

AS SEEN ON TV - Part II: What Marketers can learn from K-Tel

This is the second in a series of posts examining what marketers can learn from K-Tel, the Canadian company that pioneered the infomercial and hit it big in the 1960s and 70s promoting low-priced gadgets and music compilations through TV advertising.

After watching the documentary “As Seen on TV: The K-Tel Story” we jotted down some positive and negative takeaways we thought would be of value to our clients. This post explores the importance of focus and the dangers of diversification.

AS SEEN ON TV! What Marketers Can Learn from K-Tel

This is the first in a series of posts that will examine what marketers can learn are from K-Tel, the Canadian company that pioneered the infomercial and hit it big in the 1960s and '70s promoting low-priced gadgets and music compilations through TV advertising.

After watching the documentary “As Seen on TV: The K-Tel Story”  we jotted down some positive and negative takeaways for marketers. This first one involves a very clever guerilla marketing tactic that K-Tel used to help expand its business to the UK.

GOOGLE GETS BLOG-FRIENDLY?

It used to be that a blog or RSS feed usually didn't register very high on a Google search, but things seem to have changed. I recently launched a small website and used Typepad (the same RSS service I use to create this 'blog) rather than a traditional HTML format. I mapped a domain name to the new site and registered it with a few key search engines. In just a couple of weeks, the new site/RSS feed actually appears on the first page of organic search for some relevant key phrases.

Google recently changed its search - now, Google's results include videos, maps, HTML sites - and, it appears, RSS feeds, too (although that's just speculation on my part). The same relevance scoring applies - i.e. Google evaluates search results based on its proprietary algorithm and organizes based on a "relevance" score. The difference, now, is that Google includes a wider variety of types of online content in its calculations.

This is great news for marketers who create a variety of online content ... but it's also a new challenge because competition has increased in a new way. This blog posting from Google explains the recent changes to its search in  more detail. 

WHAT MAKES PR WORK?

Although Kaszas doesn't provide public relations (PR) services, we do work with PR practitioners and agencies, and we often generate PR content for our clients. So, this article from Guy Kawasaki's blog struck us as very useful:

The Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work

Google Analytics Updates its Interface

If you’re a Google Analytics (GA) user, you’ve probably noticed that your dashboards changed dramatically in appearance last week. Google has launched a new version of the GA reporting interface complete with a new look and added features. We’ve played with the updated interface over the past few days and we're impressed! To help you navigate through the changes and learn what’s new, we’ve put together this short review of the new Google Analytics interface.

Are Your Engineers Illiterate?

Although most companies pay attention to ensure that their web pages are well written and properly messaged, they often overlook confirmation and error messages. I see grammar and spelling mistakes all the time in these kinds of communiques:

• Email confirmation notices - those automatically generated notices that a website sends out to new subscribers to ensure that the email account holder is the same person as the one who subscribed.
• "Thank you" and other confirmation pages that website users see after completing an online transaction such as a download or a purchase.
• Receipts sent via web page or email to confirm a purchase.
• Error messages, be they in products or on your website. (Test URL error messages by going to a non-existent page on your website. e.g.: www.yourdomainname.com/fakepage - what do you see? Did you know that a website can be coded such that any non-existent page is still branded? For example: www.pureshare.com/fake. Test transaction error messages by improperly completing forms on your website.)

When was the last time you read the system-generated notices that YOUR customers receive?

I imagine that these pages often fall through the cracks because they may seem unimportant. Perhaps they are punted to the software engineering team and never given a second thought. After all, it's "just" a system-generated notice. But everyone knows that some person somewhere was responsible for writing the text. I'd want the world to believe that my entire company, including my engineers, is articulate and literate.

So what are you waiting for? Track down ALL your system-generated notices and be sure they are on-message and copy edited. They also provide good opportunities to make special offers or push people to other web pages of interest.