The Clean and Green Club

–> Triage Webpages
A lot of marketers think the one-page salesletter website is the one solution for all kinds of businesses. Other marketers believe every website should be a full-blown info-portal, with lots of links and menus. But I’m not in either camp.

–> Another Recommended Book: Truth: The New Rules for Marketing in a Skeptical World by Lynn Upshaw

–> How to Get Grassroots Marketing for Half-Price
Over 300 pages of solid information on lowering your marketing cost and boosting your return.

–> How to Make a Major Impact
JV maven Ken McArthur’s long-awaited book, Impact: How to Get Noticed, Motivate Millions and Make a Difference in a Noisy World is being launched today starting at 1 pm US Eastern Daylight time, with a ton of bonuses including one from me–and 100 hours of no-cost top-level audio training on the Impact Factor site. I haven’t seen the book yet, but I’ve followed Ken’s process of writing, and the amazing way he turned this launch into a months-long internship on Internet marketing, imparting skills to others while building the launch in the best win-win People first fashion. The quality of information he provides is superior, plus he’s a really nice guy; I fully expect the book to be worthy of him. When the time comes for me to update Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I expect to include his story, as I just love the way he embraced the idea that he can profit by making everyone he knows into a better marketer.

–> A Book and A Seminar from Rick Frishman
Rick Frishman is a busy guy; he’s got two things going on that you want to know about.

First, his newest book, “Where’s Your Wow! 16 Ways to Make Your Competitors Wish They Were You” (co-authored with Robyn Spizman). I’ve read the whole thing and I think it’s an excellent introduction to branding. https://www.wheresyourwow.com/.

And second, Rick is organizing a big one-day conference just before Book Expo America. He writes,
“Hold the date Thursday May 29. Author 101 University is coming! It will be at the Westin at LAX for one day. This is the day before BEA starts in Los Angeles. This will be an amazing event that will be very exclusive. Only 200 people. I will bring a Publishing Panel of editors, agents and editors. Mark Victor Hansen, David Hancock, Brendon Burchard, Alex Carroll, and the amazing Barbara De Angeles.”

I’ll be attending this event (as well as the Advanced Track at PMA-U the day before). If you’d like to go, please visit https://snipurl.com/25r7o

–> Myanmar Cyclone Relief: Make a Donation to Doctors Without Borders
Sharon Tucci put together a site to funnel donations directly to groups on the ground doing cyclone relief in Burma/Myanmar. Her preferred charity is Doctors Without Borders, but she offers several other choices as well. Note: Donations through this site are administered by an organization that takes a small administrative fee, but makes the process very smooth. If you’d rather give directly, that’s fine too.

–> A No-Cost Way to Connect with Reporters Seeking Stories
My friend Peter Shankman, a very well-connected PR guy in NYC, has started a no-charge service called Help A Reporter Out. He sends queries from reporters a few times a day, and if there’s a good fit, you answer the journalist. And he gets some leads that never make it to Profnet/PR Leads. This should be a no-brainer–but don’t abuse it. Only answer if you’re approrpiate for the query, or else you’ll spoil it for yourself and everyone else . If you get one good lead in a year, it’s worth it. He has passed on leads from the NY Times and Washington Post, as well as lesser venues. Sign up at www.helpareporter.com

–> Finally–An E-Book Site Puts Authors’ Needs First
Writers: Mark Victor Hansen (of Chicken Soup fame) has just launched a very author-friendly e-book/multimedia content distribution site at https://www.youpublish.com/referredby/shelhorowitz. No fee to set up, no fee to upload your files (wide range of types), 50% commission.

–> Which of Shel’s Books is Right for You?

–> Want a Free E-Copy of Mark Joyner’s Classic Book, The Irresistible Offer?
This amazing book has a prominent place on my bookshelf–but I had to pay for my copy. You can get the e-book at no cost by following the above link.

–> Also from Mark: the re-release of his infamous “Mind Control Marketing,” the book that built his reputation years ago as one of the most focused and creative marketers in the world. I confess, I haven’t read this one-but I’ve heard about it for years.

–> Facebook Teleseminar with Mari Smith
If you’re not on Facebook yet, you may be missing valuable business opportunities. If you are on Facebook, are you getting the most out of it for your business? Recently, The Blog Squad grilled Mari Smith about why you need to be on Facebook and how to use the social networking site to be smart about building your business. Now you can get access to the audio program from the live teleseminar for an investment of only $20.

–> You’re invited to join Foundercontact
Christophe Poizat, founder and chairman of the International Network of Social Entrepreneurs (INSE) has invited you to receive a free membership with Foundercontact. Foundercontact International Ltd is a web 2.0 online marketplace designed to bring entrepreneurs into contact with 3500 investors for seed, early stage, or growth capital. With members from 5 continents and 93 different countries, it opens up international business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Sign up at https://www.foundercontact.com/user/register

–> Latest Additions to the Websites–> Administrative Information
Subscribe, unsubscribe, back issues, etc.

–> Don’t forget to play our games, at the top of any page on FrugalFun.com— no fees to play, prizes to win, and you help me continue to bring all this good information to you.

Published monthly since July, 2007 by Shel Horowitz
16 Barstow Lane, Hadley, MA 01035 USA
413/586-2388

A lot of marketers think the one-page salesletter website is the one solution for all kinds of businesses. Other marketers believe every website should be a full-blown info-portal, with lots of links and menus. But I’m not in either camp.

I believe firmly that different products, offers, and audiences lend themselves to different approaches. In fact, in my seventh book, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, I describe seven different types of websites and suggest good situations for each.

One of those seven that you probably haven’t come across elsewhere is the “triage website”: a concept that I’m pretty sure I invented, and that’s very helpful selling the same product to different audiences (something that fits many books), or sells different products. Ironically enough, if you’re using a one-page salesletter site and driving traffic through anything other than extremely specific campaigns such as pay-per-click, it might be the perfect front end to show visitors before they get to your salesletter.

A triage website uses the home page to identify and separate different categories of visitors, and to present content that resonates with those specific people.

So, for instance, if you visit https://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com/, you’ll see some introductory text about the book industry overall, and then these choices:

• Click here if you’ve already written and published your book
• Click here if you’re a publisher of more than one author
• Click here if you have written or mostly written your book and you’re trying to figure out how to get it published and marketed
• Click here if you have an idea for a book but haven’t written it yet
• Click here to read what Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Fern Reiss, and other experts say about Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers
• Click here if you love facts and statistics and want sources for all the numbers cited in this report
• Click here if you’re ready to order

Each leads to a slightly different page, tweaked to provide maximum impact to those particular visitors.

Note that it’s helpful if the categories are at least somewhat related. I noticed that publishing guru Dan Poynter has actually moved away from a triage homepage at parapublishing.com. Previously, his home page offered four widely disparate choices: book publishing/marketing, expert witness, cat lovers, and of course, parachuting. (You can see an archived version here.) Now, the home page is about publishing, and if you know where to look (bottom of the left column) you can find links to the other sites (subsections of the main site).

I’m guessing he changed because the four topics just had too little to do with each other , creating challenges for things like search engine optimization, not to mention possible confusion. However, from a user interface point of view, the transition wasn’t all that smooth. If I were him, I’d probably set up different domains for each major area, and go through the whole site to make sure that key pages reflect the new architecture.

What’s the best kind of website to promote *your* book? You might just find the answer in Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers. And remember–if you order either that book or Principled Profit, you can currently get the original Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (which has very little overlap witht he Grassroots for Authors and Publishers) at half price.

How Green is my web host? If you host with Affordable Internet
Services Online, of California, a/k/a AISO.net, the answer appears to be very green indeed. For starters, the company claims to be 100% solar powered–including the servers, the office, and tools like its shopping cart, mailing list manager, and calendar, all provided to hosting clients. The company has also switched to mercury-free (and very low-consumption) LED lighting, which is far more ecological than compact fluorescents (to say nothing of regular lighting)..

From AISO’s home page:

We have made a strong commitment to help fight
pollution and preserving our natural resources. Solar panels
run our data center and office, not energy credits.
Solar tubes bring in natural light from the outside providing
light during the day. AMD Opteron powered servers use sixty
percent less energy and generate fifty percent less heat.

And here’s the information their solar vendor gave them:

Our 120 solar panel system will eliminate the production of
– 19,890 lbs of Carbon Dioxide (CO2/GHG) per year
– 5.9 lbs of Nitrous Oxide (NOX/smog) per year
– 0.45 lbs of Sulfur Dioxide (SO4/acid rain) per year
This is the equivalent of planting 3.5 acres of trees per year

Proof that Green is good business: Client list includes the Indianapolis Zoo, the Oceanic Society, the Himalayan Institute, and Live Earth, among others. They’ve also earned a listing as a Webhost Magazine Editors Choice and membership on the Inc Green 50 and in Co-op America. Pretty cool!

Thanks to Kristen Lems of the Peoples Music Network for telling me about these folks.

Truth: The New Rules for Marketing in a Skeptical World by Lynn Upshaw (Amacom, 2007) is one of the few books I’ve seen that really addresses ethics from a marketing point of view.

Upshaw argues convincingly that companies should be ethical, transparent, and engage in what he calls “practical integrity” (which in his view has more to do with product quality and service than with the “traditional” integrity issues). He repeatedly cites the same examples (among them Timberland, Trader Joe’s, John Deere, Herman Miller and Patagonia)–and shows how these companies reap handsome rewards in the marketplace because of, not in spite of, this commitment. Unfortunately, with a pub date of 2007, the book was probably written in 2005–and a couple of his examples (Whole Foods, with its CEO sock puppeting, and Southwest, with its recent inspection issues) have been somewhat tarnished in the meantime. This is always a danger when writing about ethics; I’ve been burned a couple of times, as well, and I don’t hold a grudge that the facts changed since Upshaw turned inhis manuscript.

Upshaw makes many excellent points. Among my favorites:

• 6 characteristics of “integrity heavy-users”
• Quantification in dollars and other metrics of the consequences to Ford and Firestone of their stupidity in the Explorer rollover scandal
• The idea that great employees actively seek out great companies to work for (Upshaw doesn’t elaborate, but to me, that means these companies have much lower recruiting expenses)
• A tarnished brand can, with effort, rehabilitate itself (example: a few years ago, Gap was widely condemned for its use of sweatshops and child labor; now, the company actually pits vendors against each other to show who has improved working conditions the most)
• In one of several appendices, a sample “integritomter” showing how a company can rank itself for promises kept, guarantees honored, and other factors.

A couple of minor negatives: I found some of the visuals and sidebars (particularly the invented conversations) distracting and irrelevant–and I found it deeply ironic that the cover flap (which I’m sure the author didn’t write)–engages in exactly the same sort of unfounded claim that he chastises other companies for: “The first book of its kind, Truth takes a practical business-building approach to marketing with integrity.

While Upshaw is writing more for a corporate audience and less for the small entrepreneur, I covered much of the same ground in my own award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First, published a full four years earlier. And in the nearly four years I’ve been writing this column, I’ve reviewed several others that also cover this territory.

Despite these minor flaws, this book is a rich collection of values/profit-oriented advice, and I definitey recommend it.

The last two months, we’ve talked about social networking communities–places like Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, CollectiveX, Ning, LinkedIn, and literally hundreds of others.

But social networking is only one of many types of Web 2.0 sites. Any site that allows visitors to participate actively, and not just passively receive information, is a Web 2.0 site, and can be used in some ways for marketing purposes. Among the possibilities.

Your Own and Others’ Blogs

Blogs have several advantages over traditional websites. To name a few:

• They get into the search engines almost instantly (I once did a Google search for something I’d blogged about ten minutes earlier, and my blog post was there, on the first page of the results)
• It’s easy to increase the reach of a blog by feeding it to your social networking profiles
• You can set your blog to automatically ping Technorati and other blog content aggregators, so people will find you quickly if you blog about something topical and hot

Your own blog should be closely focused on the topic you want to promote. It’s OK to have an occasional post that’s off topic, but you’ll get much better results if you can stay on track. This is a challenge for me, so I describe my blog broadly: as covering “the intersections of ethics, politics, media, marketing, and sustainability–that’s big enough territory that I can ramble, and still be within that rubric.

Note: I strongly advise hosting your blog on your own server, and not on the software’s server

There are also other blogs I follow, and make public comments every once in a while. Posting on others’ blogs gets me known and respected by people I want to impress, exposes me to their fans, and also provides high-quality backlinks to my own various sites.

More kinds of sites next month.

Why Attend Book Expo America?

BEA is the largest book-industry gathering in the United States (though Europe has a far larger one, in Frankfort). Hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of authors, numerous educational events, chances to rub elbows with authors you admire (and perhaps make a contact that could lead to an endorsement).

By attending BEA and the events around it (this will be my 13th straight), and sometimes having a book at one of the co-op exhibits, I’ve been able to leapfrog my publishing career. Among other things:

• Initiated a book deal by having a conversation with a publisher in his booth! Yes, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World was actually sold because I walked the floor of BEA (you can click here to get Grassroots Marketing at half-off right now with the purchase of any of my other marketing books, by the way)
• Sold rights to one of my books for India and Mexico
• Made direct contact with agents and editors who expressed interest in books by my wife, my clients, and/or myself
• Met people who later became clients or vendors (or both)
• Been offered speaking gigs
• Developed in-person friendships with industry gurus such as Dan Poynter, Fern Reiss, and John Kremer (who have all since endorsed at least one of my books)
• Gotten autographed copies of cool new books (Studs Terkel’s publicist actually traded me Studs’ latest for one of mine, when we were autographing in neighboring booths several years ago)–however, this alone would not be a reason to attend; it’s just a fringe benefit that you should not let dominate your precious time on the show floor
• Learned an awful lot about the publishing business

I’ve attended most years as a journalist, and all my reports are online here. The first six articles on that page are all from BEA 2007; older material is farther down the page.

Incidentally, I’ve never taken a booth. I walk the floor, and attend both educational events and parties.

Pre-BEA Seminars

If you’re planning to attend Book Expo American(an extremely good idea), you should definitely attend at least one of the seminars. I published my first book over 20 years ago, and I still get good stuff. This year, I’ll be at PMAU on Wednesday May 28 (in the Advanced Track) and Rick Frishman’s seminar with Mark Victor Hansen, Brendon Burchard, Barbara DeAngeles, David Hancock, Alex Carroll, and an editor panel on Thursday, May 29.

I believe that a good live seminar is especially helpful to people starting out, but still useful (in different ways) to those with experience. I live my whole life in learning mode: books, teleseminars, and a least a few live events every year. If you attend the Frishman seminar, definitely come up and introduce yourself. We might or might not cross paths at PMAU, which has a dozen or so tracks at once.

Another Recommended Book: The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey with Rebecca R. Merrill

It’s good to see an important and well-promoted book on business ethics coming out of a major New York house (in this case, Simon & Schuster’s Free Press imprint).

Coveys basic thesis, peppered with lots of examples from his own and his famous father’s life and career as well as the business world in general, is that when people trust you, business gets transacted a lot faster, more smoothly, and less expensively.

He notes that almost every action either increases trust–creating what he calls a “trust dividend”–or deceases it, imposing a “trust tax.”

Covey identifies a number of factors leading to increased trust, and they basically break down to two key principles embodied in “4 Cores”: character (subdivided into Integrity and Intent), and competence (Capabilities and Results. It’s not enough to offer just one of those two. If you are good at what you do but people have reason to mistrust your ethics, you pay a penalty. But also, you can be a model of integrity, and if you’re not good at doing what you commit to do, you’ll pay a trust penalty there as well.

Building from those four core attributes, he identifies 13 specific behaviors that build trust, and spends a chapter on each:

• Talk Straight
• Demonstrate Respect
• Create Transparency
• Right Wrongs
• Show Loyalty
• Deliver Results
• Get Better
• Confront Reality
• Clarify Expectations
• Practice Accountability
• Listen First
• Keep Commitments
• Extend Trust

When evaluating these behaviors, in yourself or in others, it’s important to fid the “sweet spot” where distrust is overcome but judgment comes into play so you don’t get burned. And in that process, it’s important to recognize that each of these 13 behaviors has “counterfeits” that look on the surface like they’re building trust, even as they actually undermine it. As an example, flattery is one of several counterfeits to straight talk.

Like my own book Principled Profit, Covey repeatedly demonstrates that high-trust environments, based in both character and competence, wildly outperform the traditional hierarchical micromanaged corporate environment. Trust, in other words, is very good for business. It’s why all the local McDonald’s were left untouched during the Los Angeles riots–because McDonald’s had shown itself as a concerned community partner, for years. It’s why Johnson & Johnson is one of the only pharmaceutical companies that has a reputation for genuinely caring about its customers. It’s why when an IBM executive who had lost the company $10 million expected to be asked for his resignation, founder Tom Watson Sr. responded, “You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million educating you!”

My favorite chapter is toward the end of this substantial book: “The Fifth Wave–Societal Trust: The Principle of Contribution.” Spiraling out from previous chapters about trust within an organization (built around the concept of alignment: the messages reinforce the desired behaviors) and within a market (where the key element is reputation)–these are the third and fourth waves–the fifth wave is about “conscious capitalism,” a/k/a social responsibility: the idea (and the statistics to back up the claim) that making a difference in the world is good for the soul, and also for the bottom line. And the key principle is contribution–doing things specifically to improve the lives of others.

This is one of the most important business books I’ve read in a long time, and a complete validation of the points of view I’ve been promoting for years. Strongly recommended.

I learned about this innovative and very customer-focused Irish supermarket chain in Stephen M.R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), where he’s quoted: “Genuine listening ability is one of the few true forms of competitive advantage…Listening is not an activity you can delegate.”

Founding CEO (now President after the family sold the company), Feargal Quinn has earned the sobriquet “Pope of Customer Service.” Apparently a rather colorful character, he’s also a long-serving member of the Irish Senate and author of Crowning the Customer.

In his own words,

If you look after getting repeat business, profit will largely take care of itself. When faced with any business decision, any call on your time or resources, you need to ask, What will this do to help bring the customer back?”

This philosophy has generated consistent innovation since the company’s founding in 1960. The firm has a strong environmental consciousness too, and was an early pioneer of reusable cloth shopping bags designed specifically for maximum customer convenience (and which make even more sense since a tax was instituted on plastic grocery bags in Ireland). The store was also a pioneer in loyalty reward programs and online shopping, among other areas.

Perhaps the coolest innovation is a hand-held scanner program that saves time by letting you check yourself out as you add items to your cloth totes in your shopping cart (note the trust factor there), and keep a running total for you. When you’re done shopping, your bags are all packed and you go to a cashier to run up any items you couldn’t scan and make your payment. This could easily shave 10 or 15 precious minutes off the typical shopping trip, and it sounds so much more pleasant than the horrible automated checkouts at my own local supermarket (which hardly anyone uses).

If you are involved with a retail business, a community agency or nonprofit, a home-based entrepreneurial venture, an Internet business, or any other venture where you try to find markets for your products, services, or ideas–listen up!

Here’s a special half-price offer on Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, which was a Finalist for ForeWord magazine’s Book of the Year Award, has been endorsed by Jay Conrad Levinson (author of the Guerrilla Marketing books), and praised in the national press.
Read the rest of this entry »

Shel Horowitz’s Monthly Frugal Marketing Tip, April, 2008
Vol. 11, #11

In order to get much out of a networking site, you need to network. There are dozens of ways to do this, and here are a few.

1. Friending. Most social networks offer the option of sending a friend or business connection request–called “friending.” Start with friends, colleagues, relatives, people in nearby locations, and see where it leads. The cool thing is that when you “friend” someone, and they accept, you get to look over their friends and friend any that look interesting. Since I travel in marketing circles, I often find very good connections (industry leaders, gurus and such) within the friend networks of those who reach out to me. Almost as cool: every time you post something to your profile, all your connections get a notice about it. Note: You will get friend requests too. I say yes to most of mine if I can see some common interests–or if they respond appropriately to a note I send saying I don’t recognize them, how do we know each other or if we don’t, what led them to friend me?

2. Public messaging. One tip I picked up from Facebook guru Mari Smith: the social networks offer private and public message options. If you’re welcoming someone to the network or thanking that person for a friend invite, do it in the public comment space (like the profile or the wall) rather than in a private message. I usually include *one* link at the end of my post.

3. Interest groups. This is the 800-pound gorilla of successful social networking, and so far, relatively few people are taking advantage. Find groups that are relevant to your interests, your geography/history (e.g., your city, the schools you attended) and/or your business, and participate actively on a few of them (don’t forget that link at the end).

4. Requests for help. Ask questions about resources, tactics, suppliers. Answer questions in your field of interest. (LinkedIn is really nice for that).

P.S. If you’d like to friend me, here are my most active profiles.
Plaxo: https://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/profile/show/128849525442/
Facebook shortcut: https://profile.to/shelhorowitz
LinkedIn: https://snipurl.com/1w1s3
CollectiveX: https://www.collectivex.com/network/show_profile/54661

If you include a message that you subscribe to my newsletter, I’ll accept your request.

Correction: The Facebook group for reporter queries got too big for Facebook’s 1200-member limit. It now has its own website, and you can sign up to receive queries at https://helpareporter.com/

Note: Do NOT abuse this list. Only respond appropriately, and only to appropriate queries, or you’ll spoil it for everyone. You don’t want to get journalists mad at you, and nor do you want to get on the bad side of either Peter or me.

Next month: Other Web 2.0 sites