10 Steps To Getting Paid For Your Marketing Materials
How many times have you heard the same sound bites come out of your mouth to your clients, prospects, and audiences, almost boring yourself to tears in the process? Imagine generating money directly from those sound bites, from those pearls of wisdom that effortlessly trip off your tongue. Yes, it is completely possible, and here's how to do it. 1. Capture those tidbits of information as soon as they come to mind. Jot them down in a notebook or get them into a Word document. They can be in a raw format, with just enough information to jog your thinking about what you mean. There will be time to refine them later. 2. Let a couple weeks go by, allowing most of the information to surface in your thoughts. It rarely happens by declaring two hours on a Thursday afternoon to sit at your computer to think of it all. 3. Refine and organize the tips. Divide them into categories and edit the text. Use a writing style similar to what you are reading here. 4. Be sure to include your contact details so readers can easily reach you. Add a brief section about your background so people will know your qualifications for presenting the information. 5. Hire a graphic designer to make the words look good on the page. Your completed product will be a tips booklet measuring about 3 ˝ inches by 8 ˝ inches when printed. The designer will create their part of the finished product as a PDF file. 6. Send the PDF file from your graphic designer to a printing company. Do an initial print run of 1,000 copies. 7. Think about who can benefit from using your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause. Send them a sample of your booklet and a cover letter describing some of the ways they can increase their sales or further their cause by using your booklet as a promotional tool. 8. Consider corporations, associations, publications, and any other group that seems appropriate for the topic of your booklet. Reach out to as many of them as you can, on whatever budget of time and money you have available to you. 9. Realize that every time one of the large-quantity buyers sends out your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause, they are also marketing your business. Your contact information in the booklet allows the reader to reach you directly. 10. Enjoy the expansion of your customer base and your checking account. You are now reaching a larger audience than you are likely to do single-handedly, thanks to the large-quantity buyers of your booklet. And you have been paid by your buyers to reach those new people. Those sound bites you have been saying for years are now reaching far beyond your current clients, helping your buyers, their clients, and your own business. It doesn't get a lot better than getting paid for your marketing materials. Paulette Ensign has sold almost a million copies of her own tips booklet without spending a penny on advertising. For information on creating your own tips booklet and leveraging a booklet manuscript into other products, contact Paulette Ensign, Tips Products International 858-481-0890, San Diego, CA http://www.tipsbooklets.com Paulette@tipsbooklets.com
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The idea of disruptive technologies comes from Clayton Christensen's 1997 book, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. A disruptive technology is a method, procedure, skill, device, or material that redefines the competitive standards. Note that the technology doesn't have to be a physical item and that it often forces us to re-examine the way we work.
InfoWorld's list of disruptive technologies for 2003 included open source, self-service CRM, digital identity, and my personal favorite, Weblogs. How can a simple, Web-based journal be disruptive?
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At first glance, it doesn't appear that blogs would be at all disruptive. So why all the hype? If we look closely at the structure and intent of blogs as a communications tool, we can see some powerful ideas at work.
Blogs are a direct, one-to-many vehicle for communicating ideas. They expand an individual's ability to communicate. They are fresh and timely. The blogger, in order to maintain interest, must communicate often. Blogs enable a single person to share ideas, insights, and useful knowledge with an audience. Thanks to the Web, the audience can be a global one.
Whenever a new tool or process-such as e-mail- expands communications, the effects are far-reaching and dramatic. Even though blogs have been around for 3-4 years, they could be the next big thing.
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Two important characteristics of blogs are that they are written by a person who is knowledgeable and passionate about the topic, and that they are written in a "real voice." This is a cosmic shift from the marketing and public relations materials that are the staple of business communications.
Often, when information goes through a formal marketing or PR process, the end result is an attractive, expensive, stale, diluted document written in corporate speak. This result is generally due to the processes that evolved to accommodate the costs and standards of print technology, rather than to the incompetence or malevolence of corporate communicators. The edge, the authenticity, and the voice of the professional speaking to his fellow professionals is lost.
Blogs offer the human voice that can be loud, controversial, and even wacky. But the realness of the blog inspires trust and piques people's curiosity. A blog can create a community and a dynamic discussion.
If you are a product manager working in the chemical products industry, chances are that you would rather hear about the real experiences of other product managers in your industry than read a glossy marketing piece put out by the marcom department. Blogs fit this communications requirement perfectly.
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Weblogs are easy for people to publish, read and respond to. They can foster a community of like-minded individuals and be the catalyst for spirited discussions. Blogs are an inherently proactive form of communications. Weblog participants can subscribe to receive scheduled postings to the blog. Weblogs are inexpensive to produce and they can include a variety of multimedia content (audio, video, files, etc.) and hypertext links that add value to the discussion.
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Blogs empower the knowledgeable people within a company to share their insights, know-how, and expertise. The value to a corporation is that this knowledge can be organized, distributed, and leveraged to increase the value of different product and service offerings to the customer.
If a corporation is going to use a blog, however, it should understand that controlling the content of the discussion is difficult. If you want an authentic exchange, you have to be willing to accept the stone-throwing and critical comments that often occur in a blog. This requires extending trust and giving up some of the control a company would normally have when it publishes a press release or hosts its own online forum, for example. The upside is that people will listen to a real voice.
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* Publish a small amount of well-organized information frequently and regularly
* Include content from individuals who are knowledgeable and passionate about their work
* Make it easy for your employees to communicate directly in their own, human voice
* Respect the reader by making sure your e-newsletter provides value and that he/she wants to receive it.
E-newsletters geared towards educating a marketplace, rather than those focused on advertising or marketing, turn out to be particularly effective. E-newsletters offer an affordable, direct way for the experts in a company to communicate with an audience. This means that a product manager or an engineer can enhance the flow of information and make it more accessible to those who want it.
Think of your channel and the information needs of your partners. Your company has a wealth of information that would help them sell your products more effectively. There is much insight within your partner community that could be leveraged throughout the channel. And your technical experts and engineers have critical knowledge and understanding that everyone could utilize.
What's often missing is an easy way for the "know-how" keepers to capture their knowledge, organize it, and deliver it. The best e-newsletters are written in a real voice, not in corporate speak.
Two years ago, the book The Cluetrain Manifesto shook up the business community (see http://www.cluetrain.com/book.html). The revelation? That business is about humans. As Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Petzinger Jr. writes in the foreword: "I was dumbstruck. There in a few pages, I read a startlingly concise summary of everything I'd seen in twenty-one years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief and columnist for my newspaper. The idea that business, at bottom, is fundamentally human. That engineering remains second-rate without aesthetics. That natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce. That corporations work best when the people on the inside have the fullest contact possible with people on the outside."
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References
Blogs As Disruptive Tech: How Weblogs Are Flying Under The Radar Of The Content Management Giants, By John Hiler, CEO, Webcrimson, http://www.webcrimson.com/ourstories/blogsdisruptivetech.Htm
Making Room For Disruptive And Emergent Technologies, By Hugh Blackmer, Science Librarian, Washington & Lee University, http://home.wlu.edu/~blackmerh/sabb/nitle2.html*
Blogs As Disruptive Innovation: What A Brave New World Blogging Is Building!, by Dr. James V. McGee, Professor, The Kellogg School Of Management,
http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2002/05/15.html
Weblogs At Harvard Law, Bookmark List For ABCD Weblogs Meeting, By Dave Winer,
http://Blogs.Law.Harvard.Edu/Stories/Storyreader$199
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