Social Media Breakfast Toledo Number 2

If you missed the first Social Media Breakfast in Toledo on May 1st, than you missed an amazing event! We had an incredible turn out and delivered some really good information to small business owners on how to ride the Social Media Wave to help them market better and become more successful. If you missed that event I encourage to NOT miss number 2 which is in two days!

Techrigy Founder/President Aaron Newman will discuss the social media platforms and monitoring tools available; brand names, trends and other examples of what can be monitored; ways to measure and analyze your results and related topics.

Social Media Breakfast-Toledo #2 is 7:30-9:30 a.m., May 1, at Toledo Elks Lodge #53, 3520 Holland-Sylvania Road, Toledo. Registration by or on 5 p.m., April 29 is $15, and $20 afterwards. To pre-register, visit http://smbtoledo.eventbrite.com. Seating is limited to the first 100 registrants.

Nearly 80 people attended the inaugural Social Media Breakfast-Toledo April 3. Those who cannot attend the May 1 event can watch it stream online live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/social-media-breakfast-toledo.

The train is leaving the station, question is will you be on it. Register here

What was old is now new

Here is another column by Karen Gedney about the principles of online copywriting being really about the old school of copywriting. I couldn't agree more. Karen is right on the mark talking about how too many online "copywriters" are suddenly discovering how effective some of the old school techniques of direct response copywriting are in an online world.

I recently read a quote by Jeffrey Gitomer...

"If you want to read something new then read something from 100 years ago"

Excellent observation. It seems for too many years individuals involved in the advancement of technology and the Internet kept arguing that the Internet changed all the rules. Please don't misunderstand me; the Internet has broken a lot of traditional long standing rules, but some rules have never changed. What has not changed is business principles about what it takes to run an effective business, i.e. finding good sources of products, high customer service, sharp marketing, good business development, strong sales, etc. is what it takes to run any business on the web or off.

In the same vein is direct response copywriting principles. The principles of good copywriting are based on human psychology. Those principles of what motivates people to take action hasn't changed in hundreds or even thousands of years. Copywriters from yester-year understood this and simply applied those techniques to the new medium. Modern copywriters who didn't have this understanding about history have made the mistake of believing that the new economy and medium of the Internet has changed the principles of copywriting. Not so.

One of the best books ever written about copywriting in my humble opinion is Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. This book was orginally written around 1923 and has gone through multiple revisions, to update the examples but not change the techniques. The principles of what works has not changed in almost 100 years. If you want to become an effective direct response copywriter then go back and study history first.

Dirty Secrets of Internet Based Copywriting

I read this article in Brandweek that had an interview with copywriter Karen Gedney. I wasn't sure where the article was going based on the title, but she is dead on the mark with her observations.

I completely agree with Karen's positions on items, but I think the best dirty secret of online copywriting is...

Online direct response copywriting is the same as the old offline direct response copywriting.

Karen does an excellent job in the article of pointing this out with actual examples. The media is different, but the techniques and strategies one uses to motivate a person to do something are not any different. There are definately some tweaks you must adapt to in terms of technology limitations and media differences, but at the end of the day the way you motivate someone online with "online direct marketing copywriting" is the way you have always motivated them from a copywriting and direct response point of view.

All the people that have come out and published books about online copywriting are simply taking old ideas and re-packaging them. That is not innovation. Now if you decide you need someone that can do both direct response copywriting and SEO copywriting, now you may have something and need someone with a different skill set. You need a skilled direct response marketing and SEO copywriter. That combined skill set is not shared by all good direct response copywriters.

There are some extremely good direct response copywriters out there, but they don't necessarily have the SEO skills to give a company the double bang they do often need in an online environment. However if you don't require the SEO angle on your copy, perhaps because it is an email marketing campaign or you use other advertising like pay to click ads to drive traffic then hiring the best direct response copywriter you can find regardless of their SEO skills makes great sense.

The bottomline is just don't get sucked into the belief that online copywriting outside of the exception I noted above is somehow different to the point that you can't use a good copywriter, even one that doesn't advertise being an "online copywriter" a good direct response copywriter regardless of his/her background in online promotions is worth their weight in gold.

First Toledo Social Media Breakfast - Total Success!

The first Social Media Breakfast Toledo was a stellar success! We had 79 people attend and 67 who watched the live stream online. The tweets and other positive comments starting rolling in almost immediately. Everyone had a great time and said they would be coming back for the next one which is on May 1st, at the Elks Lodge #53. Hope to see you there!


Our Panel of Speakers, from the left...

Victoria Kamm
Dave Rigotti
Allen Mireles
Damian Rintelmann

Here I am facilitating the panel...


Here are some of the attendees...





Don't miss the event next month; we have a great speaker you won't want to miss...