| Welcome to SOCIAL GOODIES, our monthly newsletter full of fun, interesting marketing news you can use to increase revenues in your own business. If you received this newsletter from a friend or colleague and would like your own subscription, it's easy -- just visit our website at: SocialGoodMarketing.com, and click on the "SOCIAL GOODIES" button on the right side of the page. Please let us know if you have a question or if there's a topic you'd like to see covered in our next issue. We love to hear from you! |
| Recommended Reading: "The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 seconds or Less" by Mark Joyner |
| Your customers are going to give you three seconds to make the sale. Do you know what to say in those three seconds? The marketing methods of the past are losing effectiveness as consumers are getting smarter and smarter and have less and less time. What's needed is a new way of doing business--a method that is simultaneously socially responsible and far more effective than "old" marketing. This new way is The Irresistible Offer. |
| Thank you for being a loyal SOCIAL GOOD friend! And have a prosperous New Year! Warm regards, Tea L. D. Silvestre SOCIAL GOOD Marketing & Design p.s. - If you enjoyed this newsletter, we encourage you to forward it to your friends and colleagues. |
| Social Good Marketing & Design PO Box 3354 Ventura, California 93006-3354 805.658.8196 |
| What's New in Doing Good: Choose Your Gift |
| The holidays are over, but gift giving is a year-round past-time. Did you know that last year, Americans donated $199 billion to nonprofits, but they spent $250 billion buying presents for one another? Funny thing is, many of them aren't very happy with the gifts they've been giving and receiving. So they're starting to give donation gifts, that is, charitable donations made in a friend's name, instead of more stuff. Where's it happening? How can you tap into those dollars? At ChangingThePresent.org, you can do more than select a nonprofit to support; you can choose exactly what you want to accomplish. For just a few dollars, you can protect an acre of the rainforest or fund an hour of a cancer researcher's time. You can provide a child with a first book, an AIDS patient with life-saving drugs or a hungry family with a nourishing meal. Take a look. You'll find something for virtually any cause. And if you are the cause, get yourself listed! |
| Case Study: Guerilla Marketing (with Oranges) |
| Blue Moon is a Belgian style wheat beer. The people behind Blue Moon beer spent a lot of time and money perfecting the taste. People who drank the beer loved it! But because there were so many more beers on the market that spent more on advertising than Blue Moon, taste didn't matter. How will good taste help if people haven't heard about you? But instead of spending a few millions in advertising, Blue Moon decided to take a very different "guerilla" approach. They decided to make the sight of drinking Blue Moon noteworthy. They came up with the idea of merchandising Blue Moon as the one beer that you have with a slice of orange! Instead of spending money on TV and magazine ads, Blue Moon spent money on creating point-of-sale materials and educating bartenders to serve Blue Moon with a slice of orange. When people saw someone drink a beer with a slice of orange on it, they would ask about it. And they would give it a try too. Soon, Blue Moon became well known because of word of mouth. Blue Moon sold between 400,000 to 500,000 barrels of Blue Moon beer in 2006 -- making them the third largest craft brewer in America! Moral of the story: It doesn't matter how good your product or service is if no one knows about it. Spend some time on making your product instantly noticeable. |
| Make Your News Stand Out (and get that story published!) |
| There are a few simple rules of thumb to make your news catch a journalist's eye and increase the likelihood of actually having your press release opened and read: 1. Will the journalist recognize your name? Just like you and me, journalists look for email from people they know. Do you have a relationship with this person? Have you called to let them know they can expect a release from you? Have they requested your news in the past? If you cannot answer yes to at least one of the questions above, chances are your news will never even be seen. 2. Is your press release newsworthy? If you are uncertain about the newsworthiness of your release, ask yourself the following: Is it… * New * Timely * Related to something people are talking/ thinking about * Unique * First * Best * Relevant to media outlet's readership 3. Do you have you a compelling subject/title? Would it be enough to make you open it if it came to your inbox? If you're not sure, test several subjects on your colleagues or friends to get some fresh perspectives. The subject line/title can be the single most important element in a successful release. {More press release tips will appear in next month's issue of SOCIAL GOODIES} |