How to Write Content Your Visitors Will Love to Read
Nobody can honestly say they’re a fan of bland, boring, corporate-speak. So why is it that most websites are absolutely drowning in the stuff? Even the company blog has become dry, stale and uninteresting. Here’s the truth – nobody does business with a company. They also don’t do business with a product or service. They do business with a value or something personal that they want to see in or for themselves. They don’t buy a television; they buy quality time with their family watching a great movie. They don’t buy laundry detergent; they buy softer, nicer-smelling clothes that keep their fit wear after wear.
Your content has to be able to engage readers on that same, deeper level. It has to connect and resonate with them in a way that doesn’t sound like a pressuring sales pitch. To do this, try incorporating these points into your writing:
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Website Optimization on March 11th, 2010
Lifelock settles with FTC over “deceptive” ads
By Bob Sullivan
LifeLock spent millions spreading its CEO’s Social Security Number all across America. Now the firm will spend $12 million settling claims that it engaged in deceptive advertising and failed to protect customers’ personal information.
The Federal Trade Commission and 35 state attorneys general announced on Tuesday that Lifelock is changing its business model to address allegations of unfair and deceptive business practices.
“They developed a market to capitalize on consumers’ fear,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said at a news conference. “They were exaggerating the service they offered to consumers. This was a fairly egregious case of deceptive advertising.”
Consumers who signed up with the service as early as 2005 — about 1 million customers in all — will be eligible for refunds. The fine is steep for the firm, said Leibowitz.
“We’re taking all the money they had on hand,” he said.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Deceptive Marketing, Online Social Responsibility on March 9th, 2010
Simple Redesign Doubles Social Sharing: 5 Insights
SUMMARY: Getting website visitors to share your content on social networks is a great way to boost traffic. But what’s the best way to promote social sharing to your visitors?
Find out how a travel insurance company doubled the amount of content visitors shared on third-party networks with a simple site redesign. We offer five insights they gleaned from this simple, eye-opening test.
World Nomads sells traveler’s insurance in 150 worldwide markets, and relies heavily on user-generated content to attract visitors to the site. Some 8,500 travel bloggers have published more than 55,000 stories and 600,000 images through the team’s platform.
The site’s blogs are free to create, and this content provides a wide funnel to introduce visitors to the company — typically through travel-related searches. But social sharing is increasingly helping them fill their funnel.
“We recently noticed that people were getting far more connected in their social media lives and their social networking, and we just did a tiny little redesign in how our share tools were displayed,” says Christy McCarthy, Community Manager, WorldNomads.com
A simple redesign — making social sharing a more prominent option — doubled the amount of the site’s content shared through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. If you’re offering social sharing tools on your site, you may have a similar opportunity to increase usage.
Here are five insights about how to encourage sharing that McCarthy and her team gained through the test:
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Social Media on March 2nd, 2010
Sustaining Customer Relationships in a Diminished Economy
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
When it comes to keeping your best customers, what methods do you use? The fact is, in a sluggish economy, cutting back on purchases and spending is what most consumers do first. Companies, on the other hand, figure they can afford to trim back their sales force, customer service staff, and their marketing budget. Those companies assume, without the support of sound statistical evidence, that they can manage search engine marketing, display advertising, and email retention programs in-house. They think they can handle it all themselves. Numerous case studies indicate otherwise while demonstrating that it is more cost effective and profitable to out-source to companies that specialize in a particular service.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Customer Centric, Tom Polanski, eBrand Interactive, eBrand Media on February 25th, 2010
Relationship Management – How To Build A Community That Will Spread Your Brand’s Word
Forbes CMO Network
Douglas Atkin, who wrote The Culting Of Brands: How To Turn Customers Into True Believers, observes that brand communities have mushroomed since he published his book six years ago, and social tools like Facebook and Twitter have exploded. But, he says, most brand stewards are confused about what “community” means.
“Being a fan or follower is not the same as being a member of a community,” he writes. “Membership delivers a whole higher degree of commitment. It also demands a whole other level of engagement from participants and, consequently, a deeper appreciation by the community leader of their responsibilities.”
Atkin then offers five different strategies for building a community along with examples of marketers who have done so. But the golden rule in the brand-community business, he says, is “BE USEFUL.” If you prove that you genuinely care about the people who are giving you their hard-earned dollars, “the social networks will enable people to tell others. If you don’t, they’ll also enable people to tell others.” – Read the whole story…
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter on February 22nd, 2010