Sometimes there’s a better way to communicate certain information than text and pictures. Video has been creeping online since flash first reared it’s head but unless you’re a professional (or pay lots of money to a professional), the results have always looked very amateur. Youtube arrived and gave people the chance to upload… anything… and they did. (The Onion reported a youtube contest for people to upload something which was actually ‘good’)

Well now, a website landed on my desk which could change everything, at least for a small proportion of users and businesses; Animoto. Animoto is a video generator, and it’s free to use for short clips with small charges for upgrades. It allows you to upload images, add a little text and music either by uploading or selecting from their library. Once you hit the generate button, it gets to work.

It’s uses are limited but at the same time can be used for a wide variety of presentations and video shorts. These can include holiday snaps, graphic portfolios, photography, illustrations etc etc… 

Zakomedia portfolio made with Animoto:

Now I think that’s pretty impressive for a freebie. I didn’t have to fiddle about with transitions or other effects… it did everything for me!

Go try Animoto now, upload a few pictures and see if it can help you.

Q: What is ‘me-marketing’?

A: Anything that is writer-centred and shouts ‘Look at me, aren’t I wonderful!’

Frankly, I couldn’t careless and neither could your reader.

Normally when I see sales flyers I throw them straight in the bin. But when one landed on my mat the other day I took a quick peek. It was very colourful and had several nice images dotted here and there to break up the text. It was quite pleasing to the eye so I thought I’d have a read – I believe it was a conservatory company.

I learned all about how long they had been in business, the wonderful calibre of their sales team, the fact that they used special glass and wonderful weather resistant frames. They had also won a local award or something…as you can tell, I was beginning to flag by this point.

They had made one fatal mistake – they had forgotten who the flyer was going to.

At no point did they tell me how their company’s product would benefit me.

They completely missed the point. OK, you could argue that I am intelligent enough to work that one out for myself. But because the flyer was all about them my reaction to it was ‘so what?’ Why should I spend my time and money contacting a company that paid so little attention to the needs of its potential customers?

If they had hired themselves a good freelance marketing copywriter their flyer would have been customer centred. It would have told me how their windows would benefit me: their energy saving qualities, reduced heating bills etc.

The moral therefore is no matter what medium you are writing for, your copywriting must be centred on the reader and the benefits they will get from your product.

Sally Ormond

Briar Copywriting – freelance copywriting services

1. Use broken lists – everyone likes lists. If you promise 3 things it is human nature to read all 3. Why not split your list over two paragraphs to keep them reading? They’ll be compelled to read the second paragraph.
2. Teasers – add things like ‘But that’s not all…’ or ‘And here’s why…’ or even ‘So why subscribe?’
3. End pages mid-sentence – humans have a great need for completion. If your sales letter goes over the page, by ensuring your page ends mid-sentence will render your reader helpless and they’ll just have to turn over to continue reading.
4. The promise of more to come – this is great for long copy. For example ‘In a moment, I will reveal to you the five most important conversion techniques to increase your sales. But first…’ It is just like dangling a carrot in front of them.

Are you getting the idea? Just so long as you deliver what you promise your reader will become putty in your hands, hanging on every word. Satisfy their curiosity and you will have them hooked.

OK, you’ve waited long enough. Below are the six magic words that will help you cast your spell over your reader:

1. Easy – we are all inherently lazy. Give your readers an easy option and they’ll love you for it.
2. Quick – not only are your readers lazy but they are impatient too. Enough said.
3. Free – this is very powerful so long as you don’t murder it by adding ‘absolutely!’
4. Now – it can be used to show something is new when used in a headline, it is highly effective in the CTA, or it can be seen as turning a problem into a solution in the body text.
5. Please – didn’t your mum always ask you what the magic word was when you were after a biscuit?
6. Guarantee – immediately allays fears and uncertainty.

Follow these simple tips and you will be able to weave your very own brand of magic through all your sales writing. Go on, try it out and hook yourself some readers.

Sally Ormond is a professional website copywriter, SEO copywriter and advertising copywriter with extensive experience in B2B and B2C copywriting markets. She can be contacted at +44(0)1449 779605 or sally@briarcopywriting.com for any copywriting project you may have or for a complimentary webcopy analysis.

One of Mac’s Key selling points was that the system was virus-free. This was largely to do with it’s programming and management system, but also had a part in it’s lack of marketshare. Back in February 2006, Mac users were warned of Leap-A worm which spread itself through bundled software iChat, the worm was easy to avoid so didn’t affect it’s track record.

Suddenly at the end of last month (November 08) Apple posted this message on their website:

“Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.”

Are they gearing up for something? Do Apple know something we don’t? Even PC users are told to use an antivirus program, rarely more… Apple users are recommended to use multiple utilities.

I can see 3 possibilities:

1. The fact there wasn’t an outbreak was down to luck rather than skill and their law-conscious people have decided to step away from the edge and play it safe in the wood chip with the other personal computers.
2. There is already an outbreak and they want to quench it before it spreads and destroys their reputation.
3. They need to pay for their iPhone advertising booboo and found a good way to make some cash quickly. (interesting that all their suggestions are commercial and 2/3 are available from the apple store.)

I’m a PC, and I can download free software to keep virus’s and spyware in check. Apple users will have to purchase one of the following utilities:

Intego VirusBarrier X5, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial

Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial

McAfee VirusScan for Mac
License: commercial

I love being smug, but on a serious note. Virus’s are not a good thing to have on your computer. Besides slowing down your system, they can watch your keystrokes and report back to a database without you knowing. This way, hackers can gain access to your banking details regardless of security, email passwords, website passwords, credit card details and paypal accounts. They also have the potential to access sensitive or personal documents from your computer remotely… all without you knowing.

PC Users can download AVG for free, I highly recommend this one as it has not let a single file through.

Mac users <snigger> your recommended options are above.

 

GoogleRight 2008

Despite it’s many strengths (and already taking 2.8% marketshare in one day, it seems Google Chrome is the devil in disguise…

 

 

11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Wow… So when you post a blog through Google Chrome, as I’m doing with this one, you give Google permission to copy it, translate it, modify it, alter it and publicly display and publish it royalty-free. It apparently also means that if you email a friend with a very personal issue via webmail using Google Chrome, Google are allowed to perform it publically.

Google allegedly used similar wording in their chat system Orkut, MSN was shot out of the sky when they attenpted this ‘data grab’ through MSN messenger, and AOL’s AIM again had to rephrase their Terms and Conditions.

Realistically, Google are not going to take all that copyright text and images from your business website and set up in direct competition (unless you happen to be Yahoo! or Microsoft) but keep this in mind as they distribute your content via Google Images, trackers and various ad tools.

Advice? Use at your own risk!

Google Chrome have 2.8% of the market quickly overtaking Opera and catching up already with Safari.

Whether or not this will last is anyone’s guess, how much of this percentage is created by people ‘just trying it out?’