JD Solomon

Tech-rec: Easily mark up and share PDFs

2011-09-13T11:54:00.001-04:00

Do you share documents that need to be reviewed, annotated and edited? Try CrocoDoc, a free service that allows you and your collaborators to mark up PDFs and other documents online. It's a great way to reduce inbox and desktop clutter because you're sharing links, not attachments.

Ten Tips for Practicing "Safe Email"

2011-09-05T13:00:00.002-04:00

Here are ten tips that will help you avoid becoming a victim of your own email.

1. Keep your messages short; three sentences is a good standard.

2. Use email to convey information or requests. Use live conversations to discuss ideas and solve problems.

3. Don’t hit Reply All unless the message pertains to a group discussion and everyone needs to know your response. Never hit Reply All if you are pointing out an error.

4. Don’t cc someone unless they’ve asked to be cc’d. Never cc the boss on messages to others in your organization or unit—unless you are conveying a compliment.

5. If you are cc’d on an email, do not reply; it undermines the primary recipients.

6. If you are forwarding a message for the primary purpose of forwarding an attachment, delete all extraneous information first … especially unneeded attachments.

7. If a message calls for a response, try to provide it within 24 hours. To convey that a task has been completed, a simple "Done" should suffice. It’s rarely necessary to send an email solely to say, “Thanks.”

8. Is your entire message or request conveyed in the subject line? Then end it with eom (End of Message) and leave the body of the email blank. Now your recipient doesn’t need to open the email.

9. Before you hit Send, take a moment to check: Is it addressed to the right Bob? Have you included the attachment you referenced? Are you sending it from the correct account (personal or work)? Is there anything in the language or tone you may regret?

10. Keep your mail program minimized and turn off all desktop notifications of new email—sounds, pop-ups, new message counts, etc. Then check your email when it won’t distract you from something more important.

Good read: Smart branding leads to success

2011-08-25T09:16:00.001-04:00

My good friends at Princeton Partners, a savvy ad agency in NJ, recently posted an insightful guide to branding that talks about a neat concept called the Unifying Brand Idea. Check it out at http://bit.ly/fijlLF.

Monthly writing tip: Using hyphens with "like"

2011-08-17T10:23:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press Stylebook offers these guidelines: Follow like with a hyphen when using it as a prefix meaning similar to: like-minded, like-natured. When using like as a suffix, do not precede it with a hyphen unless the letter l would be tripled: businesslike, lifelike, bill-like, shell-like.

Tech-rec: How to store and organize receipts with Evernote

2011-08-09T09:32:00.001-04:00

The other day I couldn't find a receipt I needed to return an item to a local store. I'm just really bad at storing and organizing paper receipts. I wanted a solution that was simple, mobile and free. Here's what I devised:

For low-value receipts (items under $100 that are unlikely to be returned), and for receipts from return-friendly merchants like Staples and Target, I simply use Evernote on my iPhone to take a photo-note, and then edit the title to include the store name and product purchased for search purposes. Now it's available on my iPhone and my computer.

For high-value receipts, and for receipts from merchants or contractors who are likely to insist on seeing the full document, the process is a little different. First, I resurrected my old fax machine from the electronic morgue in my attic and plugged it into my home phone line. Then I signed up for an almost-free fax-to-email service from OneSuite.com. (For $1 a month you get a dedicated phone number; faxes to that number are converted into a pdf and sent to your email address.) Finally, I dove into my Evernote account settings to find the special email address associated with my account. Now I simply fax myself these high-value receipts and then forward the emails to my Evernote account. (I change the subject line to include the merchant name and product, for search purposes.)

Now all my receipts are stored online, fully searchable, viewable from my computer and iPhone, and printable when/if I need them.

You Are Not a Focus Group

2011-08-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

The client looked at the design comp and frowned. "Orange?" she said. "That has to change. I think orange is an ugly color."

Another client: "Are you sure we should do a mailing? I never read the stuff I get in the mail."

And another: "We shouldn't advertise in that publication. I don't know anyone who reads it."

When your marketing team comes to you with recommendations, it's tempting to react based on your own preferences and patterns, but it's a mistake. Your tastes in color, like your reading habits, do not necessarily reflect the tastes and habits of your audience. You are not a focus group.

Orange is not an inherently ugly color. (Just ask the folks at Home Depot and AT&T.)

Many people do read the stuff they get in the mail. (Why do you think you get so much of it?)

And while you may not know anyone who reads that magazine, plenty of people do. (Why do you think they keep publishing it?)

Next time you find yourself ready to veto a recommendation from your marketing team based on your own preferences and experiences, pause and ask questions instead:

"Did you consider using a bolder color than orange?"
"What copy and design elements will you use to get junk mail haters like me to open the envelope?"
"What is the circulation and readership profile of that magazine, and why do you think it's a good fit for us?"

If you get answers that are informed and reasonable, give your team the benefit of the doubt and move forward. And remember: good marketing, like good science, doesn't happen without trial and error.

Good Read: How to turn your company into a quoted source

2011-07-28T08:52:00.004-04:00

Stumbled on a valuable short article offering good advice for getting your company's leadership quoted as expert sources in the press. http://bit.ly/e5AtQW

Monthly writing tip: Introductory clauses

2011-07-20T10:21:00.002-04:00

When starting a sentence with an introductory clause that is meant to describe the subject, the clause must end with a comma and be followed immediately by the subject. Any other construction could confuse the reader, or at least make you sound silly.

Example: As a mother of four boys, the toilet seat was always up. This sentence means that the four sons were raised by a toilet seat. The sentence should have read, As a mother of four boys, I always found the toilet seat up.

Tech-rec: Desktop URL shrinker for Macs

2011-07-12T09:24:00.001-04:00

Shortly is a neat little program that sits on your desktop ready to shorten any URL at a click of a button to a small bit.ly link, ready to be pasted into any application. Available from the Apple App Store.

How to Use Advertising Specialties to Build Your Business

2011-07-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

My wife and I recently celebrated our wedding anniversary at a wonderful restaurant where the dinner was delicious, the service impeccable and the price tag appropriately high.

At the end of the meal, the credit card slip came back tucked inside a handsome leather-bound folder that was subtly embossed with the restaurant’s name. Inside the folder was a high-quality heavy-gauge pen—imprinted with the name of a popular arthritis medication.

The owner and his staff had obviously worked quite hard to create a memorable dining experience for me that night, but at the end of the evening here’s the message they left me with: “We’re so cheap we’re having you sign the bill with a pen we stole from a doctor’s office.”

This story illustrates the first tenet of marketing: It’s all about branding. The difference between leaders and laggards in business is that leaders understand the value of their brand. They work constantly to build and reinforce their brand’s image and distinctiveness in the minds of consumers. Laggards adopt a take-it-or-leave-it approach to brand management, and they eventually find that most people choose the latter when it comes to their brand.

Advertising specialties are a critical component of any company’s marketing program because they help cement brand awareness and identity. What are advertising specialties? Any item of perceived value that conveys a message about your company. Here are 10 ways that advertising specialties can be used to convey the message that your company is a leader:

Use No. 1 — Building your brand. To do this, you must always look for opportunities to promote your brand. Few opportunities are too small to ignore. Consider my restaurant experience. The average restaurant owner gives patrons a generic pen to sign their checks. Smart owners give patrons a pen imprinted with their establishment’s name. (Really smart restaurateurs suggest their patrons take those imprinted pens home.)

Use No. 2 — Thanking people for their business. Everyone likes to be thanked for their business. Thanking a customer or client is a sign that you value the fact that they chose you to provide the product or service they needed. The value or nature of the product or service should dictate what you use to express your thanks. But whatever you use, don’t miss the opportunity to promote your brand. Back to my restaurant story. I’d just spent over $150 on a dinner for two. It was a great dining experience and I thought I’d received good value for my money. Now, what if that handsome pen in the credit card folder had been subtly imprinted with the restaurant’s name and had come with a card that said, “Thank you for dining with us. As a token of our appreciation for your business, we would like you to have this pen as a gift.” I would have felt great about being thanked in that way, and probably would have told three or four friends about the experience. (By the way, thank-you gifts don’t have to be as expensive as a fine pen. They can be low-cost promotional items with high perceived value. They can even be as simple as a hand-written thank-you note—but just be sure to use cards tastefully customized to promote your brand.)

Use No. 3 — Meeting expectations. Here’s another personal story. On a recent trip to my bank’s drive-up window, my son was tremendously disappointed when the teller neglected to include a lollypop with the deposit receipt. “This bank is cheap,” he announced. “We should use another one.” The story illustrates another important use of advertising specialties. Sometimes you need to give them away simply to meet the expectations of your customers and clients. For instance, I expect to get a pocket calendar from my accountant every year, and when I go to a trade show I expect to leave with a trinket or two. If I don’t get them I’m disappointed and, like my son with the bank, inclined to look elsewhere for my business.

Use No. 4 — Turning people into walking billboards. So many of us go to the mall, the ballpark or the soccer field as a living advertisement for our favorite apparel company. Unless you’re Tiger Woods and you’re getting paid to wear that Nike cap, why not be a walking billboard for your own company? Get some sweaters, jackets, shirts and caps with your firm’s logo on them and wear them when you’re out and about. Give some to your employees, and good customers too, and turn them into walking billboards also. One day someone may ask about the hat and the next day turn into a customer.

Use No. 5 — Building employee morale. It’s no secret that happy employees are productive employees. And since gifts make everyone happy, why not make your employees happy with gifts of branded wearables? In addition to turning them into those walking billboards, it will foster loyalty, workplace pride and team spirit that, in turn, will give morale and productivity a boost.

Use No. 6 — Stimulating repeat sales and referrals. Why do you think contractors give out refrigerator magnets? Because they know the next time you need their service, or the next time a neighbor calls for a referral, you’ll never be able to find their business card in your utility drawer. It’s the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” principle of business. If you don’t keep your brand and contact information in front of your customers, their repeat business and referrals will go to your competitors who do. That means you need to give out useful items that will remain visible over time, ranging from basics like pens and memo pads to higher-value items such as mugs and desktop accessories.

Use No. 7 — Converting generic deliverables into statements about your business. Every day, your firm sends out information—memos, press releases, instruction manuals, product specifications, order sheets, catalogs, quotations, brochures, reports. How you package that information sends a distinct message about your company. Store-bought folder: cheap and generic. Store-bought folder with an imprinted sticker: a company with aspirations but no money. Custom-printed folder: an established firm that’s a leader in its field. So what statement are you making about your company?

Use No. 8 — Wooing prospects. I used to work for a company that sold high-priced educational technology programs to schools. Whenever the sales representatives delivered a proposal to a customer, they inserted it into a lovely leather-bound portfolio embossed with the company name. The prospects got to keep the portfolios, regardless of whether they ultimately accepted the proposals. Were we attempting to “buy” the prospect’s acceptance of our $25,000 proposal with a $25 gift? Of course not. But what we were doing was fostering an obligation on the part of the prospect to take our proposal, and our company, seriously. Customers who received our proposal in a portfolio were far more likely to share it with fellow decision-makers and return our follow-up calls than customers who got a proposal in a simple folder. If you’re in a business where it takes time, attention and repeated contact to close a sale, you too should woo your prospects with branded specialties.

Use No. 9 — Showing off your creativity. If you’re in a creative business—consulting, design, art, architecture, photography and the like—or if you just want to set yourself apart from the crowd, you can use smartly designed advertising specialties to make people stop and say “Wow!”. The trick here is to use your creativity (the very skill you’re trying to sell) to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Even if it’s just a pen, a mug or a folder, cutting-edge design can turn the mundane into the “must-have.” And that will keep you and your key message (“We’re creative!”) in front of your prospects and customers.

Use No. 10 — Surpassing expectations. Everyone likes surprises, and the best way to surprise a customer is to surpass his or her expectations. I recently ordered a box of imported tea from an online tea merchant. When the shipment arrived, there were two “extras” inside the package. One was a refrigerator magnet. The other was a small tin of mints, with the company’s logo imprinted on it. By including that little surprise, the merchant surpassed my expectations and ensured that when I run out of tea I’ll re-order from them.

Good read: Tips on magazine advertising

2011-06-27T12:20:00.002-04:00

Came across a good primer on magazine advertising, by Traci Hayner Vanover. (Remember, print is NOT dead!) http://ow.ly/3oXx9

Monthly writing tip: Edit twice, first with a hatchet, then a scalpel

2011-06-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

First, edit with a carving knife by cutting entire paragraphs and sentences that don't belong in your document. Look for paragraphs that don't relate to your thesis; when you find one, delete it. Within each paragraph, look for supporting sentences that don't relate to the topic sentence; when you find one, cut it.

Next, edit with a scalpel by eliminating unnecessary words and phrases. For each paragraph, get a word count and then try to trim it by 20 percent. The result will be leaner, cleaner sentences that drive home your points.

Don't forget to leave enough time for this two-step editing approach. It's the key to successful writing.

Tech-rec: Free & easy screen sharing

2011-06-08T14:32:00.002-04:00

Check out join.me for reliable, roll-off-a-log-simple screen sharing and web conferencing. I use it for software demos, meetings and family tech support.

Avoid the "We're Special" Mistake

2011-06-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

I was discussing public relations with a prospective client, who was launching a new technology product for schools. He asked what publications I would target, and I listed several highly regarded magazines that circulate to district administrators.

“That’s not going to cut it,” he said. “I want coverage in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA Today.”

I explained that major national newspapers don’t cover product announcements by small, privately held companies in niche markets.

“But this product is a game-changer,” he said. “It will transform education. It’s newsworthy!”

Newsworthy to educational trade publications, I replied, but not to the Journal or the Times.

“Well how about getting us featured in Redbook and Good Housekeeping?” he countered. “Their readers care about education.”

“They write about recipes and home decorating,” I said. “Not educational technology.”

At this point the prospective client was clearly irritated. “You’re not getting it,” he said testily. “We’re special!”

Every entrepreneur thinks his product is special, and it may be so. And every entrepreneur wants her product covered in a national newspaper or magazine. But that’s not going to happen, at least not right out of the gate.

If you want the attention of national publications, start small, with PR aimed at the trade publications and influential bloggers in your industry. Then go after the local media in your home market, and continue to build the buzz with social media, blogging and speaking engagements. Keep up the PR so that it snowballs, and eventually you just might find your company special enough to warrant coverage by those prestigious newspapers and magazines.

And that prospective client? Needless to say, I did not get the account. Also needless to say, whoever did win the business did not get the company coverage in the national publications that the executive was eyeing. And, of course, the company probably paid a pretty penny for a PR campaign that went nowhere—all thanks to the “We’re Special” mistake.

Good read: How to get customer testimonials

2011-05-23T11:53:00.001-04:00

Recently stumbled on a helpful article about getting customer testimonials, by David Frey http://ow.ly/3oWd5

Monthly writing tip: Pity the French?

2011-05-19T09:49:00.000-04:00

So how come it’s English muffins and Russian dressing, but french fries?

Here’s the rule, as described by the Associated Press Stylebook: Most proper nouns are capitalized when they occur in a food name. Lowercase is used, however, when the food does not depend on the proper noun or adjective for its meaning (e.g., french fries).

In other words, if you went to a restaurant and ordered eggs with a muffin, a salad with dressing or a hamburger with fries, there’s only one meal that would come back exactly as you expected.

Tech-rec: Digitizing old snapshots

2011-05-11T09:38:00.015-04:00

Recently digitized a couple thousand old snapshots thanks to scanmyphotos.com, and have been viewing them with the family on my iPad and TV. It's a terrific service, with a price that comes out to about 10 cents per photo. The process does require several hours of selection and sorting to properly organize and pack the photos for scanning, but it's well worth the time.

Are You a "Leading Provider"?

2011-05-03T09:00:00.001-04:00

Have you described your business as the “leading provider” of whatever it is you provide?

If so, you have lots of company. Search the sites of the big press release distributors—Business Wire, PR Newswire, Marketwire—and you’ll find thousands of releases from companies proclaiming themselves to be leading providers in their fields.

Can there really be so many leaders? Of course not, and guess what—customers know it. The smell test is simple: If I haven’t heard of you, you’re probably not a leader.

In fact, if you feel compelled to claim you’re a leader, you most likely are not a leader.

Could you imagine reading a press release that starts, “Coca Cola, the world’s leading provider of soft drinks, announced today…”? Or how about, “Disney, a leader in the field of family entertainment, today announced…”?

As in all fields, true business leadership is demonstrated, never claimed.

If you want to be seen as a leader you must act like a leader. First of all, that means you have to provide products and customer service that truly set you apart from your competitors. But it also means you’ve got to:

Advertise in your trade publications and online, heavily.
Exhibit at trade shows, with a large booth.
Have a state-of-the-art website, with fresh, multimedia content.
Maintain an active social media presence.
Use PR to generate buzz about your company.
Demonstrate thought leadership with speaking engagements and opinion articles.

Do all this and you’ll be able to strike that hollow claim “leading provider of” from your marketing materials.

Moderating web seminar tomorrow

2011-04-27T12:07:00.001-04:00

Moderating a higher-ed web seminar tomorrow about how to improve recruitment with CRM. http://tinyurl.com/3w2w922

Moderating web seminar tomorrow

2011-04-25T12:04:00.001-04:00

Moderating a webinar tomorrow on a new alternative for college student refunds, the preloaded debit card. http://tinyurl.com/3p4nxah

Good read: Six questions sales winners always ask

2011-04-23T10:39:00.001-04:00

Found some good tips on selling by Peter Lawless: 'Six questions winning sales people always ask.' http://ow.ly/3oVP2

Monthly writing tip: And so on...

2011-04-21T09:48:00.000-04:00

Technically, et cetera (and its abbreviation, etc.) means “and other things of the same kind.” It is typically used at the end a list of items by lazy writers who think there might be other items they should add, but who don’t want to go through the trouble of doing it.

Moderating web seminar tomorrow

2011-04-20T12:01:00.001-04:00

I'm moderating a web seminar tomorrow on McGraw-Hill's new platform that provides professors with free, unlimited access to the company's entire higher-ed library of online content. http://tinyurl.com/3d9bupn

Tech-rec: Another Instapaper fan

2011-04-13T09:44:00.000-04:00

Count me in as another huge fan of Instapaper, a terrific app. Turns my iPad into a personal general-interest magazine. http://ow.ly/2VqwV

When is an Ad 'Ineffective'?

2011-04-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

Recently, a former client emailed me with a question about an ad he had run in a trade magazine. It was a synopsis of a research report about his company’s K12 product, and it ended with a URL where the entire report could be viewed and downloaded. A month after the ad’s publication, he said only 30 people had visited that URL.

“I guess that means the ad wasn’t effective, right?” he asked.

“Well,” I replied, “it appears that the ad didn’t generate as many visits to that Web page as you had desired—but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was ineffective.”

What if three of those 30 visitors took another step in the sales process based on the research report? Would the ad have been effective then? And if just one of those three ultimately became a customer, the ad certainly should be judged a success. Unfortunately, this company—like most its size—had no ability to identify the visitors to the URL and track their ongoing relationship with it.

And what about repetition? Judging an ad’s effectiveness after just one insertion is hardly reasonable. Maybe a second insertion of this research ad will generate another 40 visits to the URL, and a third might generate 60 more. Perhaps after a year of monthly insertions the ad campaign will have generated a total of 500 visits. That sound like a success to me.

Clicks aside, how effective was the ad in building the company’s brand awareness and informing its audience about the value of its product? There’s no way to answer that question with certitude. However, we can say this: after even just three or four insertions, reader awareness of the company and the effectiveness of its product would certainly be greater than what it would have been had the company not run the ad at all.

The problem here is the client’s definition of “effectiveness.” In an age where marketers are constantly asked about the ROI of their efforts, clickthrough reports have become a kind of gold standard for judging a campaign’s effectiveness. After all, clicks are one of the few quantifiable metrics available to marketers today.

But even if this particular ad ultimately fails at generating clicks, awareness and sales, it still shouldn’t be judged as completely ineffective. Why? Because in marketing, no metric can substitute for good judgment, which only comes from a long process of trial and error.