Marketing in it’s purest form is not about selling, it is simply a form of communication and as such is a neutral concept that can be used for good or for evil.

I’ve had newsletter subscribers tell me that even though they are not in business or marketing, they read my newsletters cover to cover and always find something that helps them. From the librarian who wants kids to know about the many fun, educational programs they can become involved in, to the kindergarten teacher who needs parents on board with her classroom policies, they find ideas on improving communication and getting better buy-in whatever their valuable, beneficial message.

Have you used a “marketing” tool or idea in a non-marketing context? I’d love to know about your experience. Leave a comment.

We’ll be talking about how to use your website, blog, newsletters, sales letters, press releases and more to promote your business.

This upcoming session is already sold out. Of course, if you didn’t manage to register for this back in February but want to learn more about how we can help your business with professional copywriting services, give us a call for a consultation

Here’s how the program works:

1. You’ve got a colleague who wants their business website content updated and search-engine optimized. Or maybe they’re just starting out and need website content written from scratch. Either way, this is someone you could refer to us.
2. The client contacts us and lets us know that you referred them, passing along your contact info.
3. After a consultation to lay out the scope of the SEO website copywriting project, if the client decides to proceed, the contract is signed.
4. The client sends us a deposit (typically 50 per cent of the value of the contract) up front. As soon as their payment clears, you get a referral fee via a check in the mail.

The first-time referral fee is $100. A second referral and all subsequent referrals earn you $200. Easy money, right? Aw yeah.

Clients Referring Clients

Are you already a WRITEIMAGE client? If so, you start off at the $200 referral fee. Cha-ching!

SEO Website Copywriting That Works For Your Business

If you’re not familiar with WRITEIMAGE, we don’t expect you to point your friends in our direction without doing a little due diligence first.

• Learn more about our SEO website copywriting services process
• Read our case studies of successful copywriting projects
• Have a look at our copywriting portfolio and see our full range of services
• Check out our Clients and Testimonials

The WRITEIMAGE Affiliate Marketing Rewards Program In Action

Bob is a mover and shaker living in Vancouver. He’s got plenty of friends running all kinds of businesses; software, hardware, B2B consulting, construction, financial services, you name it. He’s what you call “connected”.

Bob got new SEO-friendly content written for his website by WRITEIMAGE a little while back and he was pleased with the results. But he’s noticed that his friends’ business websites suck. The content is boring and unreadable. Even worse, they’re not SEO-optimized, so they’re not ranking first in Google searches for their kinds of businesses. They’re all complaining to Bob.

Being a good friend, Bob recommends that they contact WRITEIMAGE and get them to do their professional SEO website content copywriting. Sally, George and Fred decide to take action based on Bob’s recommendation and get in touch with WRITEIMAGE. They all get a free consultation to look at the scope of the project and decide what sort of content they need.

Sally and George decide to move ahead with their projects. They sign contracts with WRITEIMAGE and know that very soon, they will have some awesome content for their websites. Fred decides to hold off for a bit because, well, that’s the kind of guy Fred is. Instead of updating his website content, he decides what he really needs is a vacation in Guadalajara.

Over the next month or so, Sally gets new SEO-friendly content for her website that is going to help drive her software company forward. George gets similarly great results for his landscaping business website.

(Fred never did get his website content updated, but he’s got bigger problems to deal with because he’s been kidnapped by a drug cartel. Perhaps he’ll get his website SEO-optimized as well after the police rescue him in six months.)

As for Bob, after Sally and George paid their deposits, he got a check for $400. He used half to take out his wife for a fancy steak dinner. He donated the rest to his favorite charity, for which he received a bronze plaque and the eternal gratitude of a small village in Malaysia.

YOU COULD BE BOB. Start referring your friends and colleagues to us for SEO-website copywriting services. They’ll be grateful. You’ll get paid. It’s win-win!

Linda is not just an expert business person, but a wonderful person whose charm and wit always shine through. She’d make a wonderful TV personality. Please vote for Linda as the Wild Card on the Marilyn Denis show

Quick shout out to my fellow Vancouver Entrepreneurs. Peace out, y’all.

Thus, the acid test:

Can a competitor’s product name be substituted? If so, you haven’t differentiated yourself.

The seminar also included some excellent overviews and self-assessments entrepreneurs ought to be taking while refining their messaging and taking their product to market. Definitely worth a read.

On related news, here’s a quick shout out to a few of the very cool entrepreneurs I’ve met at the NVBC seminars over the past month. All of these people seem to have big ideas, solid business plans and bright futures (Angel investors, where are you?).

Bradley Coleman, co-founder of ProxyDemocracy. Think “corporate governance”. ProxyDemocracy provides a set of tools to help investors use their voting power to produce positive changes in the companies they own. Seems timely, eh?

Eric Brooke, owner of Ignitia. Eric is frequently engaged in a leadership capacity or as a strategic adviser to executives, as well as to offer his wealth of expertise in communications and marketing. Very smart guy.

John Gray, CEO of SKRIPT Foundry. SKRIPTfoundry specializes in multifaceted solutions using Web standard coding practices. John’s got serious ambitions for this company and it sounds like they’re on the cusp of big things.

Ian Clark, President of RealSpace. His company creates innovative solutions for interactive 3D. Good for training in a virtual 3D world for employees in a range of industries. Their offering sounds awfully useful.

Positioning: How to Stand Out in a Cluttered Market

This was in response to Vancouver Sun Managing Editor Kirk LaPointe’s remark that bloggers, Tweeps and Facebookers seemed to be missing niche opportunities. He pointed to the lack of resources “traditional” media outlets were throwing at the Vancouver Paralympic games, seeming to suggest that bloggers ought to fill the vacuum. A participant from the audience suggested another example, where coverage of the Olympics protests petered out significantly after the first day.

With all due respect to LaPointe and the lady from the audience, I think their critique misses the point. It’s true that some social media creators, a very slim minority, do develop entirely original investigative pieces that are on par with reporting by paid journalists. But the vast majority of social media content developers prefer to piggy-back on the efforts of traditional media, focusing on offering alternative opinion rather than alternative raw data. Individually and collectively, social media makers largely don’t have the resources to do anything else.

Sure, we create all kinds of original content, from photos and videos to really thought-provoking essay-type blog posts. But as a rule, we don’t pick our themes from whatever the newsmakers have deemed unworthy of their attention — at least, not if we want people to actually see what we’re creating.

Why didn’t more bloggers cover the rest of the Olympics protests? I suspect it was because most realized that the real story was the hundreds of thousands of happy patriots gathered in our public spaces and an outpouring of positive feeling — not a few hundred increasingly fractured and inarticulate protesters accompanied by masked thugs intent on useless violence.

Why aren’t more bloggers covering the Paralympic Games (NOTE: the lack of coverage is only relative to the Olympic Games that preceded it. Bloggers, like regular media, are covering these Games)? The stories of courage and overcoming adversity are there to be recorded in spades, perhaps even more than with our Olympic athletes. In their absence, sponsors, reporters, bloggers and the general public have once more indicated something a little bit ugly about our society. Perhaps that is the real story here.

The bottom line is that when traditional media does its job well of investigating and providing the raw stories, social media makers can then do their job of being the gateways to that content through hyperlinks and also providing alternative opinions. There are benefits going both ways.

The basic philosophy applies very well to written content as well. Less is more. Get to the point in the first line because if you don’t grab your audience’s attention instantly, they’re clicking on to the next website.

I heard a number of excellent elevator pitches this morning while attending a High Output Business Networking session at Buzz Coffee in downtown Vancouver early this morning. But the best one was delivered by Craig, the founder of Under the Piano, as he introduced himself to the group of business owners and professionals. Going from memory, I believe it went like this:

Hello, I’m Craig and my company is Under the Piano. I provide a unique form of relaxation… I play a grand piano and my customers lie under it while the music is playing for about 45 minutes. They feel the vibrations of the music go through their bodies as they listen to a unique composition that I’ve created just for them. It’s very relaxing. Most of my clients lately are couples and as you know, the spring wedding season is coming up soon, so if you or friends would like to experience something very unique, I recommend that you call me at Under the Piano to schedule a session.

Just as Craig finished, a colleague stood up and delivered a fantastic testimonial for his service, emphasizing that it was an unforgettable, romantic and positive experience. I could tell from the reaction of the other attendees that Craig was going to get a lot of direct and referral business from this one event.

It wasn’t just Craig’s fine delivery or the testimonial that made the attendees lap up his presentation. The words themselves were important. They could translate with very little adaptation onto a web page.

You’ve got a concise description of what Under the Piano does: “I play a grand piano and my customers lie under it while the music is playing for about 45 minutes.”

The value proposition: “They feel the vibrations of the music go through their bodies as they listen to a unique composition that I’ve created just for them. It’s very relaxing.”

A definition of the target market: “Most of my clients lately are couples and as you know, the spring wedding season is coming up soon…”

The call to action: “If you or friends would like to experience something very unique, I recommend that you call me at Under the Piano to schedule a session.”

Brilliant. My hat’s off to Craig.

Craig had to leave before I got a chance to meet him, but I did get to talk with many excellent entrepreneurs who offer a wide range of services. Hat tip to the following local business owners and experts:

* Bonnie Sainsbury, Duet Media. Bonnie brings creativity, new imaginative concepts and the most effective best practices in the social media world right to your door.

* Des Dougan, Dougan Consulting Group Inc. An affordable solution for planning, supporting and implementing information technology to meet your business needs.

* Jamie Graham, Vertical Grain Design. Vancouver-based web design and programming.

* Jen DeTracey, Lift Strategies. Assisting organizations in becoming more distinctive and more profitable through strategic marketing.

* Julien Fontbonne, Virtually Canadian. Providing guaranteed search engine results or your money back.

* Kerry Plowman, WestCoast Internet Marketing. Build your future with lead generation strategies.

* Lara Hildebrandt, Quadrus. Lara works with individuals and businesses to build the financial security plan that best fits their needs.

* Michael Koro, Financial Design Group. Insurance and investment planning.

Business Networking Done Right?