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7 Things I Learned about a Shining Offer … from the Stars

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The Stars Never Interrupt Me

I’m an introvert. Always have been. Painfully shy when stretched too far.

I love people. Interacting, talking, learning. No holds barred conversations exhilarate me like a thrill ride edging out of control. I leave conferences and speaking gigs ready to be alone and … um … kind of cranky.

It’s then that I need permission to think my own thoughts, find my own feet, realign with the universe, on my own.

After a day of conference talks and highly engaging meetings, I went to dinner with two of the best folks in the world. They were fun and lovely. The food was marvelous. The conversation got better for me when it started to slow. It was a nice transition. We stayed up late talking about companies and events and ways to use the web in this new conversational world.

One by one, the others went their ways to crash. I went for a walk with the night sky, delighted to see Orion waiting like an old friend. I got thinking about people and stars. Then I thought about stars as the original shiny objects — how, unlike the shiny things on the Internet, stars don’t demand our attention. Stars are experts at permission marketing. Here are seven things I learned about permission marketing from looking at the stars.

  1. The Opt In. Stars shine with understated elegance and beauty waiting for me to opt in.
  2. The Respect. Stars don’t interrupt, steal, or borrow my time. They anticipate and await my attention with a distance that allows me to move, breathe and live my life without them, if I choose.
  3. The Signal without Noise. Stars don’t draw overdue attention to themselves. Falling starts don’t fall in my face to get me to notice them.
  4. The Relevance. When I look at the stars the message is always fresh, inspiring, and meaningful in my life.
  5. The Emotional Attraction. I always feel better for having participated in a star show.
  6. The Viral Response. I always want to tell folks about what I saw and how it moved me.
  7. The Delivery on the Promise. I’ve never been disappointed by looking at the stars.

Stars are available, relevant, and personal. Even when we look at them from afar, they put on a show.

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If we take a cue from the stars, we can offer value that will lift folks up and make them feel good to pass it on. And like the stars we won’t have to worry about having an audience who values us.

People and stars have a lot more in common than just what we’re made of.

Have you seen any shining offers lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence.

Have You Found the Irresistible Rock Star in You?

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An Ever-Growing Group of Fans

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Social media can be an interesting exercise in watching the number of people who click on the button to become followers or fans. Yet you’ve probably met that fickle group who easily buy in on a whim bo become a friend of that kind.

Sometimes we connect to be around in case we need each other. Not every friendship needs constant maintenance. We make conversational networks of acquaintances. We make large groups of Twitter friends. We know that they not really fans. Some might be around for the longest time without actually listening. Or they might clearly participate for “15 minutes” until something or someone shinier or more interesting happens their way.

It’s unreasonable and unrealistic to think that every person would be a lifelong friend. I’m not sure anyone could handle the load if it were possible for a life like that.

But some folks have a way of attracting dear friends and loyal fans. They’re the rock stars of whatever world they’re working in. They so love what they do and do it so well that they attract an ever-growing group of devotees and fans. These rock stars have three unmistakable traits that make what they offer irresistible.

  1. A Beginner’s Mind …

    “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs

    Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to get from good to great. Music, science, acting, cooking, art, architecture, engineering, writing — any domain you might name — has core group of knowledge, insights, and best practices that defines a solid, quality product in that space. A real rock star has the curiosity, takes the time, and puts in the work to saturate his or her mind in finding out how every bit of that works. Until we understand how the notes in the scales or the colors in the palate combine in positive, structural forms, reaching for the creative or the beautiful will be a random attempt to make something that sticks and stays.

  2. A Creator’s Heart …

    If at first, the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it. — Albert Einstein

    All that learning of the traditional pieces and parts becomes a real rock star’s tool kit. Rocks improvise and innovate by making new connections and new relationships. They see opportunities to solve problems, make art, and surprise us with the results because they know their domain well enough to play with it. They don’t fear failure or small risks.

  3. A Giver’s Outlook …

    Do what you love in service to the people who love what you do. — Steve Farber

    Rock stars aren’t stingy with their talent. They also know that their core group of fans will never include everyone. A jazz musician doesn’t try to be a star pitcher in the world series. Rock stars make simple and elegant offerings to the people who value what they do. They don’t worry about the folks who want something else.

Knowing, playing, and centering in on the people who thrive on what you do. Those are the keys to an irresistible offer. Every one of us has the power to reach inside to find that rock star potential and make it evident.

Look to the ideas, the topic, the thing that you can’t NOT do. Learn everything you can about it. Go deep and wide learning and experimenting with combination and creations just to see what happens. Then have fun showing other folks how you can use what you love to solve problems for them.

Have you found the irresistible rock star in you?

Make new connections …
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Seven Ways to Offer an Irresistibly Readable Blog to the Undecided Readers of Your Blog

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Who Decides to Read Your Blog?

I went back to the archives to find, revise and expand, and bring this one back to you. The content is even more relevant now that the conversation has moved to so many locations and the noise is so much louder.

In just a brief one-twentieth of a second–less than half the time it takes to blink–people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.

–Kamakshi Tandon
REUTERS, Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink
Jan. 17, 2006
Liz reading computer

We’ve got less than a blink to grab a reader’s attention. The reader clicks in. Looks. Decides and then . . . and then what? . . . Do they stay or do they leave? If they stay, did what they see lend our words more credibility or did it take some away?

Design, curb appeal, packaging — whatever you call it — it’s what brings customer-readers further into our businesses and our blogs. They recognize what works for them and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t, they’re gone so quickly that even our stats programs don’t know. Try the Blink Test if you want a baseline idea of what your readers are seeing before they blink.

What about reluctant readers, undecideds who decide to stay a little longer? What can we do to convince them to stay? Better yet, how can we turn them into fans?

Capturing the Attention of Reluctant Readers

Uber Reader Sign

In educational publishing, we use a euphemism, “reluctant readers.” It’s meant to describe kids who, rather than read, they turn away to find their inline skates or a shiny object online. To get those customer-readers engaged you don’t forget them, you off them something. As a product builder, they’re my favorite customers to write for and to write about.

Why am I talking about this when you write for literate adults? The interwebs offer so much that this information has become vitally important to every person who writes a blog. .

. . . You see, with no time and too much information to sort and process, we’re all reluctant readers and becoming so more and more. If you’re a skeptic, try reading the tax code –or any “have-to” document on your least favorite subject. You’ll wish that there were something more to see than long columns of endless text, something to break up the boring words.

If we want our customer-readers to stay long enough to hear what we’re saying, we need to offer an experience that’s irresistible. We’ve got to

  • offer information that’s useful and makes sense to them
  • appeal to their sense of fun, offers a beautiful experience, or moves them emotionally
  • deliver it in ways that fit into the time their life has available

Irresistible is all about the engaging the folks who come in all three ways above.

Reader Support as Part of Your Brand

Those kids we call reluctant readers leave their inline skates to read what they’re madly interested in — books on extreme sports and the latest gaming websites and blogs — if they’re made right. As educators, we keep them using the research that show us how to construct information so that they’re reading faster and with more satisfaction.

You can use that same educational research to engage your customer-readers. Brand your blog as a worthwhile source of quality content. It’s one more way, that you can make customer-reader support a resounding part of your offer.

  1. Tell the story of the information. Quality is essential, but know that quality information can’t carry the load. If people only want information sources are plenty. The story of the facts, your experience or response to them is only where you are. It’s the story that gives connects people to the information. Give your words and your blog life, appeal, and meaning and you’ll be most of the way there.
  2. Use sub-heads liberally. Sub-heads break the text into shorter bits. Subconsciously that not only tells me what this bit is about. It also says I only have to read this far and then I get to breathe again. Our brains like subheads. Search engines like them too. The keywords are guideposts that organize our thoughts.
  3. Use everyday words. Everyday words keep the reader moving forward. Big words make us stop to consider them. Think about it. The word use is a fine one, use it. Do you really mean utilize? Use keeps me going. Utilize makes me stop to wonder whether you mean something other than the what use would have said. Anything that stops a reader works against your message being heard.
  4. Use one or two pictures, images, art, and color to enhance your message. Place them with care where add value to the text. Put images where readers expect to find them. If you’re not sure ask a customer-reader to give you feedback on how you’re doing. Design seems easy, but it’s not.
  5. Take the time to write something short. The point here is to make every word count. Be lethal. Remove every word that you don’t need. It’s amazing how many extra words you can find when your quest is to go looking for them. A few sentences ago, I turned this into two posts instead of one.
  6. Use typographic cues, such as bold and italic, to show what’s important. Be consistent and try not to make everything important. If you use underlined text to show what is a link, don’t use an underline for anything else. If you make everything important, then nothing is.
  7. Show up to let folks know you want them there. Write with room for them to add their view. Consider the questions you ask them. When they take the time to respond, let them know that you heard. Take time to answer back with your thoughts and if you can, ask another question.

Each of these points are about helping reluctant readers access your message in the easiest most straightforward way. When you support me like that I feel like we’re both smart.

Ever read something that made you feel like the writer was saying something you always thought? . . . or something that just made you feel smart for reading it? Bet you went back to see what else that writer had to say . . . . These are just a few more ways to a fan.

What makes an irresistibly readable blog for you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The FIVE Ps of Irresistible Social Marketing

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Last year at SxSW, I told Richard at Dell that I thought the time of Brand You was over and the time of Product You had begun. What I meant was that brand is an interpretation of the “specs,” whereas product was the actuality. My point was that to build a career on concrete we have to build on the values and traits that are truly and always our own.

Now I’m thinking of traditional marking — the Four Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion — and in social media I’d add People.

In social media marketing, the view has shifted campaigns are about people not products. So lets start with the people.

People

It used to be these beings were outside a company. They were studied, feared, occasionally consulted, targeted, but considered “other” than the enterprise. Called buyers, customers, clients, eyeballs, users, and some terms less dignified, their value was often best understood by how they showed up on the bottom line. Many companies actually spoke of “customer proofing” their products, because they thought of their buying public as not too nimble or clever.

Now it’s people that we want to attract, connected and engage. It’s people who provide our best ideas and our most interesting content.

Product

It used to be that the product was what drove campaigns and the brand. Just putting a cool product in front of people hardly attract any more. Creatively featuring it, hardly makes enough single to get a mention if more interesting, informative, or intriguing conversations are nearby.

Now the product sits alongside to the ideas and actions the product enables or represents. Those ideas and actions are what connect people in conversations to form communities of fiercely loyal fans. The connection to has to be meaningful … the conversation has to be both intelligent and worth our time.

Price

The price was once derived solely from the cost of delivering a quality product into the people’s hands. Now the price is value. Value is based on the experience of being able to participate in the community, being able to meet with folks who can answer questions and who share the stardards and values the product represents.

Place

Place used to be where the product was offered — the footprint and location in relation to of ther products of the same ilk and kind. Now place is more about where people find the product helping other people and how we help customers find a place for the product in their lives.

Few of us need much more than we already have. What we’re looking for are things that give us more time and make our lives more efficient and meaningful.

Promotion

Promotion has turned inside out. It’s about showing and attracting, not telling and pushing.
Make a product that connects people with meaning and value that fits easily in their lives and they’ll it irresistble — so irresistible that they’ll tell their friends about it.

That’s social marketing.

How do you make your social marketing irresistible? What’s irresistible to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Share a SOBCon weekend learning with Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
Brian Clark Liz StraussBrian Solis Kali Evans-Raoul KD Paine Geoff Nelson and Chris Aarons Denise Wakeman Wendy Piersall and David Bullock Stephen Smith and Michael Martine Glenda Watson Hyatt, Karen Putz, and Stephen Hopson
Saul Colt and Terry Starbucker Glenda Watson Hyatt, Karen Putz, and Stephen Hopson
The value — priceless.

How to Leave an Unforgettable First Impression … of the Very Best Kind

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Irresistible Beats Embarrassed Every Time

First impressions. Guess we’ve all made our share of bad ones. In my experience, bad first impressions tend to happen when I try too hard, when I focus on myself and what I want from a certain situation. Whether the occasion is personal or business, if I become about attracting attention, I end up looking like someone who wears sequins and top hat to blue jeans bar … It’s an unforgettable first impression, but not the one I wanted to leave behind.

It happens. People do it. So do big corporations. We’re even inventing new ways to do the equivalent as the noise level rises on the social web.

In a hard economy, first impressions become even more important. People have less time, fewer opportunities, and more competition. A bad first impression may not lead to a chance for a second meeting.

Unfortunately trying too hard usually too often leads to the wrong kind of attention.

Do you, does your business, leave an unforgettable first impression … of the very best kind?

How to Leave an Unforgettable First Impression

In a one-to-one market, every individual and every business is meeting customers as individuals. As the social web grows, people discuss experiences and pass their impressions far further than was ever possible. Suddenly a bad day can become an incident or a nice passing gesture can be raised to heroic. Every first impression has the possibility of being amplified.

We all want to make the positive, unforgettable first impression. That’s the one that wins us friends and business.

What makes someone unforgettable? What makes us want to go out of our way to see someone we hardly know? How do some people leave an indelible first impression so attractive that we look forward to being with them again?

What do those magnetic people and companies consistently offer?

  • a curious, open, intelligent mind
    Some people spark our imagination. They energize and motivate us. When we share a conversation, they literally make our brains light up with thoughts and ideas. Their kind of thinking inspires confidence and respect — in them and in us. People who are mindful and curious find solutions where other folks find problems. They don’t let small differences or ambiguities throw them. They help us find the action inside our ideas. They listen well and respond. We feel that they truly see us.
  • a positive, open, knowing heart
    Some people love living. They don’t really have an easier life; they just look at life and business differently. Small things don’t get to be worries, so they spend time on little disagreements. When others might be a little more distant, they pull us near with positivity. They smile soon as they see us, long before we say say hello. It’s easy to say hello when we feel like we already know them.
  • a clear, open, meaningful purpose
    Some people see the world and everyone in it with the eyes and the mind of a discoverer. When we say things, they listen for what our words mean to us. They know themselves in a real way, which makes them easy to understand and easy to be with. They offer everyone solid ground to stand on, which makes us all feel a little taller when we’re around them.

People like that are unforgettable. When we see them again, we go back to where they’re standing, even if we hardly know them. We want that unforgettable experience again. If we are able, we introduce that unforgettable person to our friends.

It works the same for companies. When companies meet customers in that unforgettable way, customers want to have that experience again. We often tell our friends about how we were treated and bring them back with us so they get the same positive experience.

You might notice that each point closes on the feeling we’re left with. Isn’t that what a first impression is? A feeling about someone or something that we’re getting to know?

People remember most how we make them feel. The most unforgettable people … of the best kind … focus their attention and care on the people around them. They know that an unforgettable positive first impression is the doorway to true communication.

What’s your recipe for a unforgettable first impression of the very best kind? What tools do you use to make that impression a reality?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!