Check out The Red Letter Archive, 2004-Present
The Red Letter – What’s It Mean, Anyway?
Volume 9, Issue 3 – May/June 2012
Build Relationships & Trust with Great Content
We’re all in the media business today, like it or not. Our businesses and organizations have websites, and smart ones use blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media to disseminate information and help drive traffic to those sites. The really smart ones go further, executing online Content Marketing strategies to more deeply engage today’s Internet- and technology-savvy consumers…. Read more…
The Confession of Mr. Brevity
Again and again in The Red Letter, over more than eight years, I’ve spelled out my philosophy – nay, the very necessity – for concise communication. I’ve positioned myself as an expert, an accomplished practitioner of less is more. I’ve preached, postulated and cajoled…. Then, two nights ago at the dinner table, I heard the following spill from my mouth:…. Read more…
Volume 9, Issue 2 – March/April 2012
Compelling Press Release Headlines
Write ‘Em or Lose ‘Em
Ten seconds. That’s how long time-crunched editors, reporters and website visitors are going to spend with your press release… unless your headline is clear and compelling enough to get them to dive in.
To get them to take the plunge, we need to get as much of the story, or at least as much about the main point, into the headline of your press release as possible. The headline will dictate whether editors or reporters consider using your content. As for website visitors perusing your news online, it may be the only thing they read. We need to use the opportunity to communicate, rather than simply introduce, the message.
So what do some of the “experts” think it takes to write effective press release headlines? Blog posts and online stories by Doug Farrick for the Search Engine Marketing Group, by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, and by Thomas Murrell, an international business consultant and speaker, offer several tips. Here are my favorites from all three -
Volume 9, Issue 1 – January/February 2012
10 Reasons to Hire FredComm
Small and large companies hire external marketing strategists, creatives and copywriters all the time. They do it for all kinds of reasons, from saving money to effectively managing the time of internal staffs. It makes sense for them; it can make sense for you, too.
Here’s why your business or organization should hire FredComm:
Strength Optimization – You’re great at what you do; hire someone who is great at strategic copywriting of advertising and marketing materials so it doesn’t take energy away from your core competency….
Volume 8, Issue 6 – November/December 2011
Print is Undead
“Print is dead,” Egon tells Janine in a classic scene from the 1984 film “Ghostbusters.” All due respect to Egon, but he may have been getting a little ahead of the wooden stake. Fact is, print is undead. And not just in the realm of newspapers and magazines and junk mail, but in marketing, too.
Print clearly isn’t alive in a thriving sense. Companies, organizations and individuals are moving to the global, real time, right now information access and distribution that technology makes possible. We have our smart phones, blogs, RSS feeds, tweets, Facebook notifications, friends, followers and followees.
But print isn’t dead, either….
Volume 8, Issue 5 – September/October 2011
Take It – And Build It – One At a Time
It’s all about one person.
The most effective advertising and marketing programs attract customers and
foster brand loyalty one person at a time.
It’s tempting – even with today’s world overrun with smart phones, texting and other personal modes of communication – to develop messaging directed at groups or, sometimes, many subgroups within a larger target audience.
In “Guerrilla Advertising,” Jay Conrad Levinson wrote about Claude Hopkins. He was “…a successful copywriter (who) cautioned writers not to think of people in the mass, but to think of a typical individual who is likely to want what you sell…(he) advised advertisers to talk to people one at a time.”
I’m sure Hopkins took this a little further…
