But then I realized I download a lot of business-related podcasts. It’s easy to subscribe to any podcast and have each new episode downloaded automatically. From there, I can either listen on my computer or on a mobile device.

So, with about 160-million users of iTunes around the world, might at least a handful be interested in magalogs or how to market their business more effectively?

Maybe being on iTunes wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.

After figuring out the technical details, I created The Magalog Guy Podcast on iTunes. I try to update it about once a week. Most of the regular content is simply audio versions of my blog. But the interviews I’ve started doing give me a chance to cover topics with experts in different fields.

So what about you?

Here are five reasons a podcast can help your business:

1. It’s free – While there are some technical issues to work out to get your podcast on iTunes, it is free to be there. Imagine… a free marketing channel for your business.

2. 160-million users – Granted, it’s probably a very small part of that 160-million that might be interested in your podcast, depending on the topic. But a “small part” of 160-million is still a lot of people.

3. Finding prospects you might not otherwise reach – Because iTunes has so much content in their Podcasts section, it’s become a popular search avenue. While most marketing is reaching out to people you think could use your product or service, there’s plenty of folks you wouldn’t know to target. So being in multiple channels so they can “trip over” you is a good thing.

4. Perception – Search iTunes on your industry or niche and see what’s there. If you find a lot of podcasts and you don’t have one, you’re missing out. The perception might be that you’re behind the curve. And if there are no podcasts for your industry or niche, maybe you should be the first to get in there. Then, the perception could be that you’re the leader in your field.

5. Creating a deeper connection – The best way to make a deep connection with someone is to talk to the person face-to-face. But that’s not always possible. So when someone can at least hear the passion and authenticity in your voice, prospects and customers begin to feel more of a connection to you. And your podcast doesn’t have to be just audio, it could be a video podcast.

This idea is not going to be for everyone. It does take some effort to get it going, then continual effort to keep it up-to-date.

But you should be aware of the potential, and consider whether it’s something to add to your marketing arsenal.

And by the way, if you do want to get started with a podcast on iTunes, feel free to contact me and I’ll tell you how I put mine together.

This week I talked with the Promo Diva, Traci Hayner Vanover on the topic of publicity. She shared so many great ideas, I couldn’t wait until Sunday when I normally release a new podcast.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The difference between publicity and advertising
• One of the key things businesses need to understand about themselves before really maximizing publicity efforts
• How to come up with ideas for press releases
• Free services to connect directly with reporters and bloggers who may want to interview you
• How to maximize media interviews
• What you should include on a website press page
• Where social media fits in your publicity efforts
• Whether traditional media is still worth your attention for publicity

I’ll be honest… I haven’t done as good a job as I could with publicity. That’s why I included the word properly in the title of this article.

I do a little, but I can’t claim I do it properly. But in this interview you’ll likely learn what I did: There’s so much that we can do to really benefit our businesses in the area of publicity. (I’ll certainly be incorporating Traci’s ideas on my website as you’ll hear in this interview where she critiques my press page.)

Best of all, it’s not really hard. It’s just an awareness of how to get the most out of your publicity efforts. And if you need help with it, I think you’ll find Traci is the one to call.

Our chat is available now on iTunes, and on my podcast page. I strongly encourage you to take the time to listen to it.

If you search on slim jim, you’re hit with food and locksmith-related entries. For our purposes, though, a slim jim is part of the magalog family.

Where a magalog is traditionally about 8.5 x 11 inches, a slim jim is around 5.5 x 10. So the primary difference is that a slim jim is narrower than a magalog and can be shorter.

I have to fudge and say “around 5.5 x 10″ because printing and mailing costs can affect the size. Sometimes a change in the size can have a significant impact on those costs. That’s why I always recommend talking to a print broker if you don’t have a printer you trust to look out for you.

Because a slim jim is smaller than a magalog in physical size, it’s often larger in terms of page count. The smallest slim jim I’ve ever worked on was 24 pages.

That doesn’t mean a slim jim can’t have fewer pages. But if a company is wanting to test a magalog against a slim jim, obviously the smaller size of the slim jim will require more pages to hold the same amount of copy.

So why use a slim jim?

First, it gives you a different look. Don’t forget that part of the goal of any marketing piece is to stand out and be read. The slim jim format is different in size from magazines and traditional first-class mail. So it stands out.

Second, there can be a benefit in terms of printing and mailing compared to a typical magalog. There can be other variables involved in those costs. But it’s worth keeping that in mind when considering a magalog vs. a slim jim.

Oprah Winfrey used a slim jim for one of her promotions. I displayed a few pages from that slim jim in my Boosting Response and Revenue with Magalogs webinar that you can view on for free. (By the way, I present that webinar to different groups. If you’re interested, be sure to contact me.)

While the Oprah slim jim wasn’t my design, if you’re interested in seeing a full slim jim, not just a few pages, you can see one I did for a client on my Issuu site.

While it would be the designer’s challenge and not yours, you should be aware of how a slim jim affects order forms and longer sidebars. On the sample from Issuu, take a look at the order form on page 23. It’s packed! The challenge for your copywriter will be to keep the content to a minimum.

Also, check out page 16, one of many examples where we can’t take the term “sidebar” literally. While that slim jim does have some examples of content that is “on the side,” the significant sidebars like you see on page 16 are dropped strategically in the middle of the copy. Otherwise, as true sidebars, they’d cross pages which is something we didn’t want.

Again, that’s the challenge for your designer and copywriter, not you. But as always, I like you to know what’s happening behind the scenes whenever possible.

For now, hopefully you have enough information to consider whether a slim jim should be part of your marketing mix in the future.

If you ever need help with your marketing material, I do offer a free consultation by phone to talk things over. You can learn more about that and why we should be working together here.

While a major focus of the book is magalog marketing, much of what I talk about applies to other marketing platforms. I also tackle some customer service issues, and tips for DIY marketing projects.

Here’s a list of the chapters in the book:

• Why Print Marketing Still Matters
• Yes, People Still Read Printed Marketing Material, But There’s A Catch
• What Is A Magalog?
• A Magalog Primer: The Expanded Version
• Why I Sometimes Steer People Away From Magalogs
• The Magalog’s Untapped Lead Generation Potential for Consultants
• The Best Two Word Call-To-Action I’ve Ever Seen
• What A Free Apple Computer Reinforced About Great Customer Service
• Are You Driving Away Business With E-mails Like This One?
• Small, Positive Actions Create Loyal And Happy Customers
• How Much Does A Magalog Cost?
• 3 Easily Avoided Mistakes Companies Make With Magalogs
• Be Careful Using Stock Photos For Testimonials
• 4 Reasons For Finding A Freelance Designer Before You Need One
• The Value Of A Great Magalog Copywriter
• Avoiding Pain When Printing And Mailing Your Magalog
• Is Your Designer Pricing Your Project Fairly?
• 4 Points To Consider When Judging Your Designer’s Work
• Why You Should Request Your Designer’s Source Files
• 10 Things You Must Know About Magalog Design
• 6 Design Tips To Save Your DIY Marketing Material From Disaster
• Why Magalogs Shouldn’t Be Your Only Marketing Vehicle

The book is available as a PDF and an ePub. For the ePub version, it’s only been tested on the iPad and will require you to manually put the file on your iPad through iTunes.

The book and many other free marketing and magalog resources are available here.

So why I watch The Next Food Network Star on the Food Network is a bit of mystery to me. I stumbled across the series a few years ago and have a been a fan ever since.

If you’re not familiar with the show, people compete in cooking and television hosting challenges with the winner getting his or her own TV show on the Food Network.

Watching an episode the other day, I was struck by a comment made by one of the show’s judges, Bob Tuschman, the network’s Senior Vice President of Programming and Production.

He took a contestant to task for simply giving tips during a TV camera challenge. He wanted to hear a story. A story is what helps people relate to the host and keeps them watching a show week after week. The host’s personality and stories are what makes his or her particular show unique.

Hmm. Sound familiar?

Anyone can create marketing material that sticks to the facts. In some cases, that might be enough. But I’d hate to bet my business on it.

Instead, find ways to put you or your company’s personality into all your marketing… from printed pieces like magalogs or sales letters, to online avenues such as your website.

Tell your audience stories they can relate to and give them a reason to keep coming back to you. Otherwise you risk sinking down into the crowd with your other competitors.

—–

Need a designer to help tell your story?

Contact me for a free consultation to discuss your marketing projects

About Mike Klassen – The Magalog Guy

Why we should be working together

It takes him forever to be completely satisfied with the marketing pieces being created for him. Even when he is happy with it, it’s likely he’ll still want to tweak something weeks later. I’d love to fire him, but unfortunately I’m stuck with him.

The client? Me!

This scenario is actually pretty common among designers and copywriters. Working for other people is easy… working on our own marketing pieces seems to cause us to over-think things and constantly fiddle with it.

Maybe we spend so much time working for others, its harder to tap back into our individual personalities when we need to work on our own material.

I also experience this from the other side of the equation. Not only do I do design work for clients, in some cases I do consulting. Some of my clients have their own in-house designers, but want a second opinion from an objective outsider.

I’m providing that service for a new client right now. They have a really good in-house designer. But I think, as a whole, the company has not been as tuned in to really examining how their target audience is seeing their marketing material. This is really common and they’re not unique in this.

So, for them, I’m not doing any design work. I’m sent drafts of what they’re working on, and then I point out areas that I feel need improvement based on my experience and expertise not only in design, but marketing in general.

Whether they apply my advice is up to them. But it becomes a real value for them to have an outsider look at their work and either confirm that what they did was good, or tell them where they’re making some mistakes.

I’ve talked about this in the past… it’s very easy to overlook things when doing your own marketing because you know your product or service inside and out.

The most common problem I see when consulting is that something that is totally obvious to the company is not clearly explained to the reader. Internally, the client unconsciously fills in any gaps that the reader is rarely capable of doing because they don’t live and breathe it like the client does.

Here are some of the benefits to bringing in an outsider:

1. Spotting things you miss or think should be obvious.
2. Being able to apply techniques you might not know about.
3. Bouncing ideas off someone who isn’t afraid to tell you something isn’t right.

Contact me to learn how we can apply these points to your marketing projects.

The Boosting Response and Revenue with Magalogs Webinar is a 30-minute presentation walking you through what a magalog is, what goes into successful magalogs, and a look at a variety of magalogs, including one used by Oprah Winfrey.

The link will take you to the webinar page where you can either view it in your browser, download it to your desktop, or link to the Magalog Guy YouTube Channel where it’s broken down into four parts.

If you’d like me to give this presentation to your group, where we can also include a Q&A session, feel free to contact me so we can set something up.

The point of the webinar is not to sell you on using a magalog. As I say in the webinar, a magalog isn’t always the right choice.

But since some people are hearing about magalogs for the first time, this is a great educational piece to understand why magalogs are such a powerful marketing tool and how they allow you to, as I say in the sub-title of the webinar, make a deeper connection with prospects and customers.

I also talk about something more important than magalogs… being authentic in your marketing material. It’s a topic that applies to more than magalogs and ignoring it has sunk plenty of marketing campaigns.

So I hope you get a lot from this free webinar, whether you want to use a magalog or not.

But there’s an aspect to that project that I wanted to talk about today. And as someone who might need the services of a designer (or copywriter, for that matter) it’s important you be aware of this.

I’ve said in the past that projects that end with log can be more of an investment… magalog, issuelog, catalog, bookalog. These types of projects are typically more complex, especially from a design point of view. Naturally, that will cost more.

Having said that, a common rookie designer mistake (or, unfortunately, an intentional money grab by a more experienced designer) is to price a project based on what it’s called rather than the content.

This bookalog project I’m working on is a perfect example.

When the client contacted me and said he wanted a bookalog, I immediately thought of other bookalogs I’ve been involved with or seen. Many are quite complex.

However, in this case, the copy was very simple and the layout would be very simple. In fact, it wouldn’t be much different than a sales letter. It’s just that the size of the layout would be different. To top it off, there would be no graphics involved, and it was a single color.

So while the project is a bookalog, the layout work on my end is more like a sales letter. And based on that, the price I quoted the client was over 50% lower than the average price of a more complex bookalog. I priced the project more like my average sales letter work.

The point here is that the project price was based on the content and what needed to be done, not based on the format name.

If that seems obvious to you that it should be that way, I can assure you not all creative folks work like that.

Granted, it can be hard for you to know what a fair price is if you don’t have much experience working with designers or copywriters.

That’s why I always encourage you to talk directly with any designer or copywriter you might choose. Or ask business colleagues who they would recommend. In other words, do as much research as you can so you’re as confident as possible that you’re picking the right person.

—–

Need a designer to help boost sales and response?

Contact me for a free consultation to discuss your marketing projects

About Mike Klassen – The Magalog Guy

Why we should be working together

A bookalog is a variation of a magalog. As you might guess from the name, the bookalog is much like a small, paperback book.

As with magalogs, bookalog sizes vary, but 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches is pretty common.

For page count, it can be all over the map. The one I’m working on now is 32 pages. I’ve seen one that’s over 70 pages. (And like magalogs, bookalogs tend to be done in page increments of four… 24, 28, 32, 36, etc.)

The style can vary as well. Some are just as colorful as a traditional magalog. Others are just like a fiction or non-fiction book with no graphics and a single, black color for the text.

For the binding, bookalogs can be saddle-stitched (stapled in the spine) or perfect-bound which is the same as the paperback books you buy at the bookstore. The page count will help determine what type of binding you’ll need.

Like others formats in the magalog family, bookalogs have their place.

Because bookalogs tend to have more pages, they have a bit more weight which helps them stand out in the pile of mail you get each day. I’ve talked about this numerous times in relation to magalogs, but simply the fact that a bookalog looks different from the rest of your mail gives it an extra glance when other marketing mail in the pile is being ignored.

There can also be a perception of higher value with a bookalog because, generally speaking, we place a higher value on books. And, it’s not every day someone is marketing to you in the mail through a book. Again, it stands out.

Some people use the bookalog format for long copy that’s currently converting well for them online. Realizing that not everyone is online or will stumble across them online, they want to reach “offline” prospects as well.

If the copy has been working well as a traditional printed sales letter, they might try the bookalog format as a test. If the style is remaining basically the same as the sales letter, and we’re not adding lots of new graphics or colors, the bookalog can be a more affordable format to test compared to a traditional magalog, at least in terms of the design cost.

Health and financial topics have been the biggest focus of bookalogs. But just like magalogs are now being used in all sorts of new arenas, bookalogs may follow that trend.

One area where I think a bookalog could be a strong consideration is coaches/consultants/trainers who offer higher-end workshops or seminars.

The bookalog format could be a mini book filled with business- or success-building ideas, but with a strong sales component leading people to sign-up for those workshops or seminars.

A bookalog might also be used to provide multiple samples of books that a company markets.

Whether it’s a good option for you is something to think about. And that’s why I wanted to talk about bookalogs today… so you’d be aware of another option for your marketing.

As always, I’m happy to discuss your marketing projects with a free call. Feel free to contact me in which ever way suits you best.

Finally, if you’re new here, let me take a moment to explain why we should be working together on your next project.

In that article, I acknowledged that few companies had the resources to take such a dramatic step as Apple did. But the idea could be applied in other ways:

You don’t have to give away computers to get stellar endorsements and create happy, loyal customers. You simply need to continually evaluate how you interact with your customers and determine if there’s any room for improvement, no matter how small.

I had a positive example of that on a smaller scale last week.

As you may know, I’m putting some of the articles from this blog, and another one I host, on eZine Articles. Why I do that is a great topic for another day.

eZine Articles is a free service for article authors. Since they use an ad-supported model, I don’t pay anything to have my articles on their site.

Recently I hit the 10 article mark. At that point eZine Articles evaluates what you’ve provided and whether they’ll let you advance to the next level and submit more articles.

It appears I passed because I soon got an e-mail informing me that I was upgraded to the Platinum membership level.

I have to admit I was happy. I like to think that the information I’m sharing has value. The upgrade by eZine Articles felt like validation of that.

But a week or so later, I had a nice surprise in the mail box.

eZine Articles had sent me a coffee mug, a packet of coffee, and a coaster, along with a note of congratulations for becoming one of their “expert authors.”

(The coaster, in particular was interesting to me as I’ve been using one in my office that I made in my 7th grade leather-shop class. Yes… leather-shop was an actual elective back then. Sometimes I think I should be embarrassed about that. But I digress…)

Did eZine Articles have to do that, especially since I’m not even paying for their service? Of course not.

Did it stand out and make me feel even better about my decision to choose them to host my articles? You bet!

It was a simple token of thanks on their part, but it stood out so much in these days of mediocre customer service and business interactions.

Hopefully I can drive this point home to you: It often only takes small, kind gestures of thanks and gratitude to stand out from the pack.

You don’t have to give away computers. You don’t even need to give out coffee mugs. It’s nice if you can, but I know some people can’t swing that.

So, it might be as simple as a cheerful voice when you talk to customers or prospects on the phone. It might be the way you interact with people in e-mail as I illustrated in my article about driving customers away. It might be going above and beyond for a customer that’s not a normal part of the plan.

Deep down, you’re probably aware of where you or your business is lacking. Will you promise yourself you’ll examine that carefully and come up with ways to improve?

Small, positive changes lead to big, positive results. You and your business are worth the effort. And your prospects and customers will love you for it.

Nicholas recently sent word to his list about a chapter from his book that he was making available. It’s called 38 Ways to Use FREE – The Most Powerful Word in Any Language.

No surprise… he’s offering it for free.

The importance of FREE is something I wrote about in my… well, free… guide, 10 Things You Must Know About Magalog Design:

We may feel there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but that word “FREE” still makes us take notice. If you’re offering something free, even if it’s a free gift with a paid order, make sure it’s highlighted.

Designers do this in any number of ways… capitalizing the whole word, underline it, using a yellow-highlighter effect, using a different color for the word, using a different font, or using a different font size.

If something you’re offering is FREE, make sure people know it.

I mention things like this to you even though you may be hiring others to do the writing/designing of your marketing material. If you’re not doing the actual work, you should still be aware of what does and doesn’t work in direct mail.

And if you are doing it yourself, then it’s even more important that you’re aware of these best practices.

Since all of my design work is for print, I know it’s not. But that doesn’t mean print is as strong as it once was. Or that it’s the best option for certain sales and marketing goals.

But after two project consultations in the last couple of weeks, it certainly became even clearer to me why print still matters.

In these two calls, I was talking with businesses that primarily market online. In one case, the business was an online service with no physical product to sell.

Here’s what both discovered: Many of their ideal customers don’t know to be looking for them online. Both companies had valuable services, but their audience is not the type who sit around at the computer, magically coming up with the right search terms for services they don’t know exist.

So how do you reach those people? Well, you need to get a little more direct. You can’t keep waiting around, hoping your ideal customers stumble across you.

It was at that point that these two businesses contacted me. They knew that despite whatever success they were having marketing online, they were still missing valuable customers by not reaching out to them directly through print, whether it’s a magalog, a sales letter, or something else.

The print piece would certainly drive readers to their websites. But they felt the first step of engagement needed to occur directly through the mail.

Even if these two companies could reach their target audience through e-mail, it’s getting a bit trickier to cut through the clutter. And in one case, it was unlikely the key person they really needed to reach at each company was the one checking e-mail anyway.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying print is for everyone, for every project, for every niche. It’s not.

I am saying that print, in my experience at this time, is not as dead as some people make it out to be. And I am saying it’s still a vital piece of the sales and lead-generation process in many situations.

Let me give you three more examples.

1. In the business-to-business world, print is still a huge part of the initial lead-generation and sales process. In some companies, the approval process can take months and go through various layers of approval. While you should always use your print piece to drive people online, by and large the companies in the B2B sector expect to see something in print.

2. Speakers and consultants can be in a similar situation to the two companies I mentioned earlier. They may be easily found online… if people know to search for them. But often that’s not the case. Unless there’s an immediate and specific need, people probably aren’t sitting around in their free time searching for speakers and consultants. To start the conversation, get a strong print piece into their hands.

3. Some people, especially in the older generation, tend to be more trusting of print material. We see that a lot in the health industry. Traditional print marketing is what they grew up with. Not that scams don’t exist in print marketing, but there can be a perception that if you have the budget to actually mail something to someone, you’re more legitimate and more worthy of attention. Again, we know that’s not always true. But the perception is there.

So, for those reasons and others, I think print still matters… it still has a place… and when you’ve got a great list, great copy, great design, and the appropriate format, it still delivers.

Full-blown magalog samples are a bit hard to find online. Over time, that may change. But let me tell you one reason why that’s the case these days.

Businesses using the sales-letter style of magalog use them because they work. But what these businesses started discovering in the Internet age was that something online rarely, if ever, goes away.

So picture yourself as a business with a magalog. You’ve got an order form on the last page offering your product for a great price. So far, so good.

The designer, as is common practice, puts the magalog in his/her online portfolio. Again, so far, so good. Businesses don’t mind extra publicity of their product, so being in a portfolio is looked at as a good thing.

Now jump ahead a year or two.

The product in that magalog is no longer sold, or sold for a different price. But in researching the product, a prospect found the old magalog on the designer’s site, printed off the order form and sent it in. Or called a toll-free number that has since been changed. Not good.

If at all possible, the business will do what they can to honor the out-dated order form. But obviously that can be a bit of a pain, especially if the product has been replaced by something else, or there’s been a dramatic change in price. And if the phone number has changed, you can only hope the buyer will not give up, and instead search for the correct number.

For that reason, many designers will not put full magalogs on their site. They’ll put up just enough to give other prospects an idea of the work that was done.

That’s a compromise between the designer and the client and usually works pretty well. But it can be frustrating for someone new to magalogs who is looking for a lot of samples.

In my case, where it’s an issue with a client, I may block-out contact info or prices. Or I might put a watermark on the order form to ensure it can’t be printed and used. In other cases, I may only release certain pages of the magalog.

As magalogs have found their way into new industries – where the format is more in the magazine style – businesses are still figuring out what to do with them online. They’re not always called a magalog, so searching for them doesn’t yield many results. And some of those businesses think of them as print-only pieces. (Which is usually a mistake, by the way. But that’s another topic.)

This might seem a little narrow in it’s interest level to most readers here. But it’s come up enough that I just wanted to take a moment to address it.

If you have questions about magalogs, always feel free to contact me. And if you’re serious about moving forward with a magalog, take advantage of my free project consultation by phone where we can talk about your marketing goals and how a magalog might fit in.

The question is a fair one, but it’s like asking a home builder how much a house costs, or asking a car salesman how much a car costs… it depends.

It depends how big you want your house and how many features you want in it. It depends on the type of car that’s appropriate for you and your family and the features you want in it.

Same with magalog design. For that matter, it’s the same for magalog copywriting, printing, and mailing.

Just like a house or car, there’s a range that you can expect to pay for a magalog. The trouble I’ve found is that when I give a range, most people think their magalog project should be on the lower end of the range. That’s natural and I don’t blame anyone for thinking that way.

When I talk to people during my free project consultations, and have more information to get a sense of what’s involved, I will usually give a pretty good idea of how much the layout of their magalog will cost. But only after I’ve asked a lot of questions.

I can tell you, though, what’s involved in the pricing.

1. Page count – This is probably pretty obvious. The more pages, the more it costs. An average magalog is 16 pages. It can be more, it can be fewer.

2. Size – Magalogs come in various sizes. Your average magalog is about 8.5 x 11 inches, give-or-take. Slim Jims are narrower, tabloids are larger.

3. Complexity – Financial publications, in particular, tend to use tables and graphs that may need to be created from scratch. (Or recreated if the client has website graphs that aren’t print-quality.) The more complexity, the higher the cost.

4. Photo work – Sometimes photos (either stock photos or photos provided by the client) need some degree of prep work in Photoshop. Your designer should be able to explain what’s involved if that is an issue for your project.

5. Stock photo searches – If a large number of stock photos are needed, there may be a search fee. Searching for the right photos can be very time consuming.

6. The copy – Ideally, a designer will see the copy before quoting a price, although it seems to rarely happen that way. Most designers are hired before the copy is complete. That’s smart for the client because you need to book your designer ahead of time and not wait until the copy is done. But seeing the copy, even if it’s a rough draft, helps the designer zero in on a price because some copy (including sidebars and order forms) takes more time to layout than others.

OK… I know you would have preferred to see some specific prices here.

But as you can see from the list, it’s hard to give a good answer until these variables are known.

If you’re serious about a magalog – or any other marketing material for that matter – find a designer you trust and talk it over with him or her.

Obviously, I’d love to be that designer. That’s why I offer a free project consultation by phone to go over your needs and narrow down a price so you know what to expect. During that call you’ll also learn more about me. It’s important that, personality-wise, we’re a good fit for each other.

Until last year, I didn’t think potential clients of mine cared about why I’m a designer and why I love doing what I do.

My belief was that someone who needed a designer really just wanted to see samples and get a sense of whether I’m dependable or not.

I had that belief because that’s how I feel when I’m looking for services. For example, if I need a plumber, I want someone who can do the job. Why he or she became a plumber doesn’t interest me when I’m in need of that service. It might be  a nice discussion after the job is done. But when there’s an immediate need, background info isn’t high on my list.

And there’s the problem. Did you spot it in the last paragraph? It can be tricky, so let me tell you…

My belief about what people want when they came to my site was based solely on how I see the world. I don’t usually care about background information or the ‘why.’ Thus, I believed no one else did.

I was wrong.

Let’s expand this conversation to your business.

It’s fair to say that not everyone cares about the ‘why.’

But – and this is a big one – there are probably enough people who do care that you should consider something on your site and in your marketing material that let’s those people know how you or your company got to where it is and why you do what you do.

In print material, like magalogs, this is a major function of page 2. With a magalog, you have the cover and then the main copy often starts on page 3, a right-hand page, just like most chapters in books start on a right-hand page.

Most copywriters I work with include a “Message from the President” or similar letter on page 2. That letter allows you to expose more of your personality or tell readers some behind-the-scenes information that helps build that deeper connection with customers and prospects.

The fact is, a good number of people need to feel that connection before investing in you. It can be very subtle. They may not even be able to put it into words. They just have a feeling that you’re a better choice.

That’s often a result of you taking the time to explain the ‘why.’

For example, the prospect is making a choice between you and a competitor. You took the time to explain the ‘why.’ Your competitor didn’t.

All else being equal, the prospect feels closer to you because you went beyond the product and let them see behind-the-scenes… you gave them more to relate to than simply, “Here’s my product and here’s what it will do for you.”

This is another case of doing something that doesn’t cost you much except for time. In my case, it was an About The Magalog Guy page on my site. It might be a heartfelt page 2 in your magalog.

(And, yes, many websites have an About section. But too often they lack any emotion or deep insight. It’s more of a ‘just the facts, ma’am‘ type of page.)

If you’re like I used to be, you may have never thought much about the ‘why.’ I’d challenge you to do that today and consider whether it would be a worthy addition to your marketing material.

If you don’t sign-up, you don’t get to read the blog.

Fair enough. But that method of getting people on my list isn’t for me. I said as much on Twitter.

Personally, before I get on anyone’s list, I want to know a bit more about them. A blog is one way of doing that since it’s an excellent opportunity to expose your personality and let people know what you’re all about.

But, just because it’s not a method I prefer, doesn’t mean it’s a bad method. So this guy isn’t wrong doing it that way.

In fact, I wanted to learn why he set up his blog that way so I could expand my thinking on the matter, and so I could pass along his knowledge/experience here for your consideration. After all, if it’s something that works…

Here, word-for-word (without his name) is the e-mail I sent:

Hi ________,

I’ve got to ask…

On your blog, when clicking on a link to read any of the articles, there’s a pop-up to get on your list before anyone can read/comment on your articles.

I’m assuming this works for you, otherwise you wouldn’t do it. But I am curious on the thought process behind it. I would fear that a good number of people would be put off by that and go away.

And maybe that’s OK… they might not be good prospects for you. Yet on the other side, I would think I’d want to expose people to my content and if they feel they want a deeper connection, they could sign up for something on their own terms.

But again, your method must work for you and I just wanted to ask you about it.

Thanks.

Here, word-for-word, was his response:

It looks like you answered your own question.

Alright, then… I guess that settles it.

Maybe my question came across as stupid. If so, again, fair enough. That’s why I included it word-for-word, so you could decide.

But here’s my whole point of this article and it has nothing to do with how people access your blog:

If you’re in business, make any interaction with potential customers, clients, business partners or people who might refer business to you – especially your very first personal interaction – as positive as possible.

If someone actually takes the time to reach out to you, even if it’s to complain that they hate your product or service, respond to them as nicely as you’d respond to your best customers.

Any interaction with people is an opportunity to positively build your brand

Would it have been much more difficult to respond with, “Hey Mike, thanks for the question. You nailed it. The serious prospects will sign-up and that’s the people I want reading my blog.”

Maybe he was busy. Maybe it was a bad day. Maybe he felt I was another freeloader trying to squeeze free information out of him. Maybe, in his mind, there’s nothing wrong with a response like that. Maybe I came across rude in my e-mail. Or maybe I’m making too much of the situation.

But then I thought back to various e-mail interactions I’ve had over the years or stories I’ve heard from others.

Sometimes with e-mail, it’s really easy to come across wrong or be misinterpreted. However, you still have to claim responsibility for what comes out under your name or your business’s name.

For that reason, I really do think you have to be extra careful in your e-mail interactions, especially that first interaction.

Knowing that you can never be 100% sure how someone will take something, might you be able to at least significantly cut down on potential problems?

One great way to respond to e-mails

I know it is possible to get it right, because on the other end of the spectrum I’ve got a great example to share.

One of the business sites I enjoy the most is The Rise To The Top. It’s run by David Siteman Garland. I learn a lot from his interviews.

We’ve exchanged e-mails a couple of times. Do you know how he started his reply the first time I wrote him?

Thanks for taking the time to reach out.

Simply beautiful!

Other e-mails have started similarly… with appreciation that I’d take the time to contact him. I’ve stolen that idea and modified it because I know how good I feel when someone says that to me.

I don’t want people who contact me to feel like they’ve wasted my time or that their question isn’t important.

You be the judge

Despite spending so much time talking about my recent experiences, this really is about you and how you interact with people who contact your business.

I know, talking to soloprenuers especially, how pressed for time you can be. Too much to do, too little time.

But if someone comes into your business’s orbit, you simply have to make time to ensure the interaction is a positive one, especially in e-mail. It’s too easy to misinterpret intention in e-mails.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Or the shoes of someone who may be a potential partner down the road, or who might be able to refer business to you.

Which type of response or attitude would make you feel best if you were contacting your business (or any business) for the first time?

1. It looks like you answered your own question.
2. Thanks for taking the time to reach out.

To me, it’s pretty obvious which direction you’d want to go. Hopefully it’s obvious to you, too.

If you’re not the iTunes type, you can get the interview from my podcast page on the Magalog Guy site.

T6TQ5XKVVUWE

Debra Jason wrote the article: 4 Easy Ways to Get Great Results from Your Copywriter

As you may know, I started as a freelance copywriter before moving into the layout world.

Because of that writing background, I understand how important the copy is, and how important it is to work with a great copywriter. (As a matter of fact, I just finished an interview with copywriter Eileen Coale. It will appear on the Magalog Guy Podcast on iTunes soon. I’ll let you know when it’s available.)

One point Debra made in the article was sharing everything with your copywriter. This was a hot-button issue with me as a writer and now as a designer.

I can’t tell you the number of times a new client will say something like, “I’d prefer not to show you our past marketing material. It’s really bad and we don’t want you to be influenced by it.”

But that’s the wrong attitude! You want your freelance writer (and designer) to be influenced by your past work. That’s something Coale and I talk about in the interview.

We need to know what bombed… why you think it bombed… things you didn’t like… everything! That way, we don’t repeat those elements on our own and waste everyone’s time.

Don’t put restrictions on what you’ll show your freelancers. Let them see it all.

My point isn’t to make fun of the person who sent it to me for feedback. Instead, I want to illustrate what often happens when someone without a lot of design experience attempts to tackle things on his own. He’s not the first to do something like that and he won’t be the last.

On one level, his idea had some logic behind it. He was talking about getting a pink slip and losing your job, so it was completely natural to use pink as a color for the text. That doesn’t mean it was a great idea, just a natural one.

And I suppose the full-page black background was used as a contrast with the pink. But unless you know how to properly make the colors interact, and you choose the proper font, the results can be almost painful to read.

In another example he sent, pink text was used on a white background. It failed just as much as the pink-on-black. A light color (pink) on the ultimate light color (white) is rarely going to fly.

For the record, a magazine ad for the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure is an example of pink-on-black working. But it was because a professional designer knew how to make it work. Using a default pink that you find in your word processing program is different than the varieties of pink a designer can create with professional design software.

One of the primary design goals of any marketing piece is readability. And just about the easiest thing to read is black text on a white background.

Obviously, we stray from black-on-white in our marketing material. If we didn’t, marketing material would be boring and look similar to what everyone else does.

So we know we’re going to stray from black-on-white at times. It’s knowing when and how far we can stray that separates professional designers and DIY designers.

I realize not everyone reading this is going to hire me, or any other designer for that matter. So let me give you some tips if you’re doing small-scale design projects yourself.

1. Stay away from fancy fonts, at least at first. As you’re doing your draft, stick with common fonts like Times New Roman and Arial. (If you need a reminder of what happens when good people use bad fonts, refer back to my article, Readability lessons from a B&B that got it all wrong.) That doesn’t mean Times and Arial will be the fonts you end up using. But I don’t want you to get distracted from what should be your main purpose…

2. Get all the pieces in place without any thought to color or fancy fonts. Text, graphics, your logo… whatever it is, just get the raw pieces organized on the page(s). Make it readable at it’s most basic level without getting sidetracked by other issues. Ensure that any graphics you throw in, especially stock photos, have a clear relationship with the copy. Copy and photos should be sending a unified message.

3. Look at your basic layout in all it’s non-fancy glory. If you could only print your piece in black & white (like in a newspaper), how would it look? Would everything be readable? Would there be an obvious relationship between the copy and any graphics you’re using to support the copy? If not, go back to step #2.

4. If things are looking good, now is the time to make color and/or font changes. But don’t go crazy, and don’t always feel that you have to be literal. Just because you’re talking about pink slips doesn’t mean you need to use pink. Pink text, in many cases, is a bugger to read. Obviously there are exceptions. But, and I don’t mean this to be insulting, unless you have some sort of design background, you’re unlikely to know what those exceptions are. The same applies to other color combinations that seem clever, but really aren’t.

5. Take a moment to study what others have done. For example, let’s say you’re designing an ad for your local business newspaper. Get some recent issues of the paper and see what people are doing. What’s standing out to you, for good and bad reasons? I’m not suggesting you copy ads, but I think you’ll find the easiest-to-read ads are not too complex. They grab attention (since they’re fighting for it among the news and articles that people actually want to read) while being very easy to read.

6. Get feedback on your layout from someone you trust. In fact, phrase it this way: “I designed this ad and I really want you to rip it to shreds. Tell me every little thing that you don’t like about it and why you think it might fail.” The goal here is not to boost your ego with praise from someone who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Your goal is to make money with your marketing material. For that, you need people who aren’t afraid to tell you that, in a manner of speaking, your baby is ugly.

Now, I have to be honest… there is so much more to the design of marketing material than these steps.

If you’re counting on your marketing material to help you make sales, yet you’re doing the layout of your material yourself and have no real experience, you’re asking for disappointment.

In the business world, “disappointment” is usually translated as “waste of money,” “missed opportunities,” and “our first impression made us look foolish and unprofessional.”

But I know that, for a variety of reasons, it’s not always possible to bring in a professional.

If that’s the position you’re in, use these steps to at least give yourself a fighting chance.

If you’d like a professional working on your layout projects so you have the best chance of success with your marketing material, feel free to contact me for a free project consultation.

I have to admit that I sometimes stifle my natural personality when I’m writing content for myself.

And yet I think it would benefit a lot of us to let our personality shine through more, especially in your magalog. But the thought can apply just as easily to your website or other written interactions with customers/prospects.

Try to make a point of looking at your marketing material (including your website) and consider if enough of your company’s unique personality is shining through.

If you use an outside copywriter, make sure you’re giving that person enough information so that they can tap into your unique personality. You want that to come out in the content they’re writing for you.