Ignoring good advice because it's the right thing to do.

There are so many ways to market your products and services: Websites, SEO, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, blogging, email blasts, direct mail, presentations, events, workshops, teleclasses, videos, postcards, business cards, brochures, newsletters, seminars, shopping carts, advertisements, and many more.

Each of the items listed above comes with its own set of "rules" on how to use them to best advantage - you know, the stuff you read about in all the marketing newsletters and books, best practices that tell you how to set it up, what it should looks like, how many and when... Advice everywhere, good advice, time-tested and very helpful.

However, there is one rule that overrides them all and that helps make marketing decisions sooooo much easier. It's a rule that we follow in everything we do for you because it's the very most important one of all: PEOPLE FIRST.

Of course, it's important to know those best practices and to incorporate them into your marketing so that you maximize your return by following time-tested guidelines. But always, always remember this first:  It's about connecting with the person on the other end. What problem do they have that you can fix? Put yourself in their shoes and view all your marketing as if you were them.

Then structure your marketing. If connecting with your audience violates one of the marketing "rules" then ignore the rule.

Unnamed climbers on a hard-glazed Rulten. Lofoten, Norway. MARKO PREZELJEntrepreneur Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia built his business by following that one most important rule of putting people first. 

Yvon loved climbing, didn't love that all those pitons got left in the rock, so he decided to make reusable climbing hardware. He was 18 years old, he set up a shop in his parent's back yard. By 1970, Chouinard Equipment had become the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S. In his catalogs Chouinard broke every direct mail catalog rule because he designed his catalogs to help people become better climbers and not to just sell them merchandise. The rules said do this many images to that much text, have an 800 number for orders, and so on. Instead he had oodles of pictures, and a 14-page essay on "clean climbing."

In his book Growing a Business, author Paul Hawken (of Smith & Hawken) profiled Yvon & Patagonia and mentioned how (in the beginning) they had an 800 number, but only for talking about climbing. If you wanted to place an order, you had to pay for the call. 

He knew it was the right thing to do, he knew it was more important to connect with his readers than to follow rules.

Go out there and break some rules.

All our best to you and yours.

Robin & Harry 

Groovy enhancements to PayPal and Constant Contact

For those of you who use PayPal or Constant Contact, this is to let you know that they've both had major updates with some really useful features that will make your marketing efforts easier and more effective:

PayPal:
Still my favorite for online payments. I used to have a merchant account, but after tracking fees over six months compared to PayPal, I cancelled it. PayPal was 50% cheaper. Granted, some of you need the whole merchant account/big old shopping cart thing. But for those without a lot of products, or who are service businesses, PayPal is great. Not sure which you need?  Call me.

NEW: Their checkout process has been vastly improved. Here's how it looks:

I love that I can see the order summary along with the payment screen. There is room for a nice big company logo and a customizable border. It all makes for a more consistent and better branded experience for your clients/customers.

If you use PayPal and want to customize the checkout page, ask me to do it, or, go here:  https://www.paypal-marketing.com/emarketing/allnewcheckout/index.page

Constant Contact

Still great after all these years, and now with a super easy to use interface and stats on your social media.

Here's an image of the new menu bar. It floats above whatever you're working on and I love it. I'm doing a lot less scrolling and clicking. Whew!



Another floating toolbar that's been updated makes it easy to add images, link to documents, add linked social media icons, and even give your readers PayPal and amazon.com purchasing option.

Another great new feature is their social media stats. They always have great stats, right down to knowing exactly who on your list opened your email and what links they clicked on.

Now, you can leverage your social media efforts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn by sharing your Constant Contact content and tracking your success. You can add social media links to your email broadcast, add Share and Like buttons to your emails, tweet your email right to Twitter from within Constant Contact, and see how how many people shared or tweeted your message. Your Facebook fans can join your mailing list without leaving Facebook, and you can also see the number of page views your email generated.

This all gives you valuable data on how your email campaign has boosted your social media and email marketing efforts.

You learn more about it at http://www.constantcontact.com/socialmedia, or, give a call or email if you want some help with this.

 Have an awesome weekend!