What if FEEDCOPY  had a iPhone app? An ingenious little application that could install  in seconds and could  help you with any of your content needs in the coming 2012.

Need a snappy line for an email opening? Need assistance writing a sales letter to generate leads for one of your new(or existing) products?  The feedcopy app could generate lines of reusable and effect words that you can plug in wherever you need it?

Need to keep customers on your site longer and entice them to purchase? The feedcopy app would create articles and success stories to keep eyeballs on your website.

Many people wonder about  how the feedcopy app would anticipate just what phrases and words to use to generate high-quality, customized output.

It’s would be a patented technology protected by an iron-clad  industry trade secret wall – and wouldn’t tell anyway. Now if you needed punchy email copy written, your home page redesigned, or  autoreponders crafted  feedcopy could finally help all of the Apple devotes in the world.

2012 will be the year of the whitepaper, too. If you don’t have a whitepaper highlighting your product or business, feedcopy could handle that task for you quickly and in a custom tailored fashion.

How could one little app do so much?

If you don’t have a smart phone, you can still enjoy the same benefits of feedcopy because feedcopy is available to everyone at www.feedcopy.com.

Happy New Year!

(by the way – my  feedcopy app is still under development

Everyone buys software to run their business whether you are a large or small business. But much like opening a word processing program and staring at a balnk screen – all of these companies are missing something when take their first step.

Content.

It would be great if every app we purchased or online account we started came complete with content to make it useful but it doesn’t.

Financial firms buy content in the forms of ready to use charts of accounts. Teachers get ‘learning packs’ complete with lesson plans and exams ready to go. Hospitals buy ‘care plans’ with proceeses and content ready to load into their applciations.

So what about you?

You signed up for a Twitter account. You added a Facebook page and you bought your own website. ‘Build it and they will come’ you were told.

Is it working for you?

Just between you and me, is it?

Just like all of the businesses I mentioned they have ways to go to someone to get a ‘jump start’ on their content. After all, the content is the most important part.

Do you content for your advertising campaigns? For your brochures? For your sales letters? How about ready to go content for your tweets and you email messages? Content tailored to you and not ‘out of can’ like ConstantContact?

I can help you with your problem by delivering you stream lined and intergrated content that can work in all of marketing and advertising needs. Right out of the box.

You have a business to run – leave the content to someone else.

feedcopy can help.

So how have some of the most successful businesses thrived by embracing information? How have some entrepreneurs grabbed the information content of their business and used it to forge extremely tight relationships with their customers? Let’s take a look at a few:

Trader Joe’s – Maybe you have shopped at this unique niche grocer or maybe you’ve heard of them. Trader Joe’s (www.traderjoes.com) is a small, mostly private label specialty grocery store chain. While they carry a core amount of staples, they also carry a good variety of specialty items like Indian food, frozen Morrocan dinners, and ’2 Buck Chuck’ wine. One of the key’s to Joe’s success is their newsletter (newspaper, really) that they publish every two weeks. They highlight seasonal items and new items of interest to customers. This isn’t, however, the weekly circular from your local grocery store chain. Joe’s highlights only some of their offerings but gives each product an extensive 1/4 page to 1/2 page editorial. Walk into any Trader Joe’s and you will see a paper-wagging, intelligent crowd that helps to drive Joe’s business.

Ric Edelman – In a cluttered financial services market particularly during the post-2008 crash, how can a financial services group attract customers AND grow exponentially? Ric Edelman (www.ricedelman.com) has mastered the information delivery / marketing component of managing his business. Ric is a publisher of 6 NWTimes bestselling books (Rescue Your Money, The Truth About Money) , he hosts a weekly 2 hour radio program since 1987, and he delivers in depth  newsletters, seminars, and information to his customers educating them on a whole financial approach to managing your money). He successfully educates his clientele by arming with the facts they need to know about finances and important information that vital to their well-being – for free. Ric is masterful with his use of whitepapers (18 Questions to Ask Financial Advisers, Healthcare Reform – Costs of the New Law). He has successfully used his information marketing strategy to build a portfolio of client assets worth close to $6 billion. Ric has skilfully embraced information marketing to boost his core business!

Ari Weinzweig – My perennial favorite restauranteur, Ari and his Zingerman’s Family of Businesses is another information marketer expert. There are several things that Zingerman’s (www.zingermans.com) does right and information marketing is just as important to Zingerman’s core food business as corned beef is. Ari published numerous newsletters that inform his ‘foodie’ clientele not only about the subtle aspects of the newest olive oil in the store, he will tell you about the region, the soil, the farmers – and why all of that is important to the quality of the oil. Just get your hands on the current Zingerman’s catalog and you’ll see what I mean.

An educated, intelligent customer is the best customer for Zingerman’s. Through their newsletters, websites, catalogs, numerous books (Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating, Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service), and seminars Ari is able to teach his customers about his business and why what he does is so special. The customers love being ‘in the know’ and keep coming back for more.

Each of these three businesses have embraced the concept of marketing their businesses by giving information away in most cases for free. Through teaching there customers they are establishing rock-solid relationships and the all-important trust factor. In the age of tweets and friending – here is a classic marketing approach that works that can be explosive for you on the internet.

Why not take a tip from Ari, Joe, and Ric and start marketing your business with information today?

feedcopy can get you started!

“Ugghhhh!,” he complained, “They’re not getting any of my money. Good-Bye!”

His reaction was to the way this company’s website looked on his device. Now he was surfing with a 3G iPad. The problem was that the website looked to really be optimized for someone sitting at a desktop or a laptop computer.

It was subtle. But my friend won’t be coming back.

I have seen predictions that between 40 and 60% of web traffic will be mobile related in the next 5 years. Think of, 40-60%!

If you thought getting on the web was your ‘big leap forward for 2011′ think again. You have to be advancing fast enough to keep up with your customers or risk losing them to competitors. And enough of those kinds of failures can be fatal.

You should probably sit down with a constultant and review your web strategies to ensure that you are capitalizing on he hot and growing mobile market.

All customers are not the same and all customers don’t remain static.

If you aren’t mobile-friendly you are already behind the proverbial eight ball.

Now,  on the upside,  great copy and content is pretty much platform-agnostic. Meaning that great sales copy can more easily port to your various uswers’ technologies with less hassle than technology can.

If you would like to see what feedcopy can do for you.

Just ask.

While driving around in some of the countryside we came across a farm that was offering “U Pick” peaches and ripe raspberries. After you picked what you wanted you head up to the barn/store and make your purchase while looking over other farm fresh produce that was for sale.

As we made our way up to the counter with about 7 pints of raspberries I noticed a tattered piece of cardboard taped to the counter in front of the register. The placard said “Mills Farms : Follow Us” with a logo for Twitter and Facebook.

This farm was fairly out of the way and really the only way you would get there is if you knew where it was.

Follow us on Twitter? Friend us on Facebook?

It just struck me that I see that tagline in EVERY business now. It almost stands in as a defacto marketing strategy. ‘If we set up an account they will come” is not a strategy.

So I went to their Twitter feed:

• Daisy is now the proud mother of two puppies
• We now have #strawberries in the market
• Fresh peaches are ready, be sure to #upick
• Need any canned tart #cherries?
• Apples are about to come in

Now maybe this marketing angle is working for them and thier niche clientel. They are communicating news about their business. But I wonder, with so many distractions vying for people’s attention these days is this really going to stand out. Is this strategy really paying any kind of dividends for the effort put into it (okay, I admit it is a small effort).

My point is, marketing your business is all about gaining attention, building relationships, and increasing sales. If everybody is now so desensitized to a “Follow Me” logo becuase I see it everywhere from work to home to an out-of-the-way farm in Northern MI is it really getting any attention in a see of “me toos?”

Maybe this tactic works for Mills Farms, or maybe they might want to look for a different way to stand out in a crowd.

How many times has an idea crossed your mind for a business or product? How many times have you acted on it?

We’ve all seen a product on TV or on the Internet and said “I thought of that years ago.”

My first “gem” was back in 1984 – I had the idea to create a Solar Flashlight. Mocked by friends and joked about at family gatherings I was considered a bit loony. Until a magazine I ran across in 1993 had an ad for a solar rechargeable flashlight. Not completely the same as mine but close enough.

In 2005 I had the idea for an online business that would connect people all over the world. There were plenty of products and services to teach you a new language – but none that help you maintain it. I envisioned an online community of people who would charge you in 15 minute increments to talk to you – over the internet – in their native language.

Want to stay current on Spanish? No problem, connect someone in Zaragosa, Spain. Want to keep your Mandarin fresh? Punch up someone in Taipei.

There was no one else filling that need. I had a great name to “Vobis.com” You see ‘vobis’ is Latin for ‘to talk to.‘ I even created a sample website for the  business:

Everything seemed to be ripe for taking on action on my new idea. So I did what ANYONE else would do. . . .

I procrastinated.

Never did anything with it. Then my wife sent me an email with a link to an online business that she saw on day a year or so ago.

Livemocha.com connects people all over the world with Internet phone technology so you can learn and maintain your language skills with native speakers across the globe. From what I can tell, they do a pretty good job.

 I guess the lesson here for me – and for you fellow procrastinators out there – is simply this: when you get an idea and it seems to be original take action immediately.

Otherwise you find your idea may take root in someone  mind and could become a very profitable endeavor. . . . . for them.

I heard a great line the other day. When you get to the end of your life you will be able to say one of two things: “I wish I had“, or “I’m glad I did.”

Then the bubble burst! All of the sudden bricks were and ‘clicks’ not as much.

Well the tides are slowly changing. Again.

You small business may very likely have a physical store. Maybe it’s in a mall. Whereever it’s located, the arena in which you compete against others is called the ‘marketplace.’

It’s real and it exists.

The internet offers another market. One the was touted as the only market in the 2000s. Now I think the economy is finding the right balance. On the Internet you aren’t just competing against others in your immediate, physical location – you can be competing with anyone on the Internet. This is called the ‘marketspace.’

In the marketspace you compete with with sellers from across the globe, sellers that are 1-person companies to large mulit-national corporations.

What the past 10 years has taught  us is that the vast majority of businesses would do well to diversify their business across both their marketplace and the marketspace.

Finding the right balance of accessible customers can keep your business humming.

Have you thought about your market approach? Have you thought about a strategy to serve both of those markets in a cohesive fashion?

Is it time that you should think about it? (hint: the answer is yes)

feedcopy can help with the hard stuff.

You night have noticed – and you might not have noticed – these wierd looking little symbols.

They are called QR codes and they are the next step of the evolving ‘bar code’ stamp. A QR code is simply a two dimensional pattern that can be read by a special bar code scanner or  by the camera of many new smartphones.

QR codes can pack a lot of information into a small area.

Originally created by Toyota in Japan, these codes have been around for over ten years but have have jsut started taking off here in the U.S.

How is it used?  Usually in marketing comapaigns. WHen your company puts out an ad or sends a traditional mailing to your customers – businesses are now including this QR as there website address. For example they may have a spcial web page with a specil offer for people who use the QR code. You customers scan the code with their phone and they are brought to a webpage with special offers – and you have a great way to check the reponse rates to your ad.

You could also place the QR code in your store, on your business cards etc. and have people scna the code with their smartphone to ‘like’ your business on Facebook. No long web addresses to remember and no hoping your customers will remember to look you up when they get back to their computer.

Ease and simplicity!

Anytime you want to immeadiately connect your customer to additional content you can use a QR code to make it easier.

I mean, what most pople do is pass on the graphics (or worse yet – use cheesy ones) and pack the screen with a lot of text that they in turn then ‘read’ to their audience.

How often is your presentation successful? If you closely watch the faces of your audience it should be giving you a clue.

Boring presentations miss their target worse than a bad celebrity ‘roaster’.

There is another way to look at this. PowerPoint presentations are really just sales letters. They have a slightly different graphical twist but the format and concept is still very much the same.

You need to make a promise, tease your audience, use a few techniques to build suspense and keep them waiting right until the end when you make your power pitch.

Slowly reveal your points in a way that keeps the audience’s attention. Make your case and make it entertaining. Tell stories, relate real life experiences or those on behalf of your customers.

A good copywriter can wake up your ‘boring’ PowerPoint presentations and breathe new life into your old deck.

feedcopy can get you there.

Before that, email addresses (computer mail) and domain names were largely confined to big corporations and elite universities. But once the internet was opened to business and commercial use, as the saying goes, life as we knew it would never be the same again.

Prior to the internet, you could very successfully market your business through use of newspaper ads, listings in the yellow pages, and targeted mail campaigns. It was effective, but your response rate could only be judged by how many customers came through your door or rang you up on the phone.

But that was the old way

The developments in internet marketing over the last 15 years have simply been staggering. Major advances seem to come weekly (if not daily) and if your internet business plan is older than 1 month it’s probably out-of-date. Big corporations, by comparison, have big budgets and big departments to stay on top of the constantly shifting landscape and the latest trends of internet marketing.

Small businesses simply don’t have that luxury.

Small businesses, and start-ups, are very prudent about how they spend their money and they watch their expenses like a hawk.

They have to – without that kind of tenacity they wouldn’t be in business for very long.

But your small business has several advantages over the bigger corporations. You’re more nimble, like a jet ski, and those big oil tanker corporations take may be bigger –  but they take time to change course and just can’t turn on a dime.

One of the advantages of the internet for businesses of all sizes is that it levels the playing field. Big corporations compete for customers just like small businesses only, as a small business, you can use your size to your advantage.

But it isn’t enough today to just set up a website and think customers are going to beat a path to your door.

And many small businesses barely have enough time to establish that internet presence or maybe get their products listed on the website at all. The rest of the time they are too busy actually running the business to be able to tackle much else.

This report has some quick tips that you can implement now to help kick-start your small business’ internet marketing strategy.

The tips here run the gamut from inexpensive ways to advertise to how to get the most out of your website; from some important trends that should be a centerpiece of your internet presence to knowing the consequences of the most crucial 5 seconds of your entire business relationship.

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