Marketing – PR, marketing, and film production | Alchemy On Demand

How A Strong Website Helps Your Business

Admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 06:06:00 +0000

The web is a company’s first presence to a lot of people. And, as the old marketing adage goes, it’s all in the presentation.

Think about it. How would Apple look if it handed you their iPhone in a ziplock bag? What if the storefronts were all ramshackle and daub?

Yes, image matters – it’s the calling card of your business.

But how, specifically, does it help? Well, check out this amazing infographic from instantshift.com. It really says all there is to say:

-Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

How to Write a Block-Rocking SEO Press Release

Admin — Sun, 20 Mar 2022 03:05:41 +0000

You know what a press release is:

A press release is the #1 tool in the publicist’s bag of tricks. A press release is what publicists send to media to let the public know what their clients are up to.

But what you may not know is that business owners (a.k.a. Those do-it-yourself publicists) rely on press releases too. It’s true – they send them out when they want to tell the world about a new product or service they’re launching; a store they’re opening; an event they’re sponsoring; an award they’ve won; or some other newsworthy milestone they’ve achieved.

Thus, press releases are popular and important for business.

So that’s a press release. No big deal, right?

So what the hey is an SEO press release?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. An SEO press release is one that is written so that search engines–those robots employed by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and AOL–will read and rank your press release.

You want Search Engines to read and rank your press release because these days online media are as important as print and broadcast.

So how do you write a press release that a robot will read and disseminate?

The same way you write one for people.

Not so bad, right? Here’s why:

Search engines now want the same thing from a press release that readers want: interesting content clearly communicated.

Here’s what PRNewswire recommends about press release writing for SEO:

“Great content written with a specific audience in mind is good SEO and will increase your chances of being found.”

In other words, you write a press release when you have something newsworthy to say to a specific group of people.

Sometimes, however, that’s easier said than done.

How To Write a Great Press Release

Although most people can talk in clear straightforward sentences, too many of us get muddled when we’re saying something in writing. So here are eight easy tips for writing a great press release that both search engines (software) and people will want to read:

1. Decide what your lead is—the news you want to tell. Here are three examples from Malibu NoseRiding Championship, one of our actual clients:

Announcing the 2013 Malibu NoseRiding Championship:
World’s first timed, co-ed noseriding competition

—
Outside TV signs on as Malibu NoseRiding Championship sponsor

—
Win a GoPro camera in Malibu NoseRiding Championship’s photo contest

Why they’re great titles:

Each of these headlines states clearly what the “news” is. Either it’s the first of something, some big-name is getting involved, or there’s something people can win. Any way you slice it, someone will be interested and that, my friends, is the definition of News.

2. Tell who, what, when, where, and WHY—the five Ws. It’s important in a press release to get as many of the basic facts as you can into the first paragraph. Although WHY is the last on the list, it’s often important to say “why” even ahead of who, what, when, and where. That’s because attention spans are short; you need to let people know quickly why this matters. If readers care about WHY, they’ll stay with you to find out who, what, where, and when. Here’s out it played out for Malibu NoseRiding Championship:

“History’s first-ever timed noseriding competition, in which men and women compete as equals for cash and prizes, will take place “On One Perfect Day” in October 2013 at Malibu’s legendary Surfrider Beach.”

(It’s not often that you can claim a history-making event, and when you can, put it upfront.)

3. Fill out your press release with interesting details (content) as hyperlinks.

“The Malibu Noseriding Championship will bring together sixty-four of the world’s best longboard surfers to compete for ‘most time on the nose’ in an objectively timed event. The event will raise funds and awareness for the Malibu Beach watershed ecosystem—once a pristine environment named “Malibu” by the region’s first inhabitants, the Chumash.

“The event will attract some of surfing’s best, including (long list of championship surfers)…

“The Malibu Noseriding Championship will benefit three local nonprofits: Eco-Malibu, whose mission is to restore and protect the lower Malibu Creek watershed and historical wetlands of Malibu; the Bay Restoration Foundation, working to restore and enhance the Santa Monica Bay; and the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center, dedicated to preserving, presenting and promoting surfing’s heritage for the appreciation and education of current and future generations.”

4. Include keywords in your press release. Keywords are terms that people will search for when they’re looking for a product or service you provide. If you’re a PR agency in Santa Barbara, “Santa Barbara PR agency” are likely some of your keywords, and so are “Santa Barbara” and “PR” and “public relations.” Anytime I sensibly include my keywords in my press release, I’m helping a Google bot rank it higher for those words.

If you’re the Malibu NoseRiding Championship producers, “Malibu NoseRiding Championship” is a great keyword phrase, but don’t forget that “surfing,” “noseriding,” “surf contests,” etc. can be equally valuable. Try to mix it up to get a more complete keyword profile.

Note: It can take some research and analysis to select your keywords, and we’ll say more about it in another post. For the time being, however, once you know what your company’s keywords are, use them in your press release.

Adding keywords can be as simple as including them in the headline: “Announcing the first Malibu NoseRiding Championship,” or in the first paragraph of the press release: “Alchemy On Demand, Santa Barbara’s PR agency, announces …” You can then add them, or variations of them, again in your press release whenever it makes sense to do so–from a reader’s (not a robot’s) point of view.

5. Include a photograph or video. You learned it in school: “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” In the Internet age, that’s an understatement.

Photos draw readers’ attention. If you have no other image to accompany your press release, quote someone—even if it’s yourself—and include a headshot of that person. Photos make editors more likely to include your story—because they know that readers will be more likely to read it.

6. Include contact info, including a link to your own website. That’s important for reporters, but also for readers who may want to know more about you than just the information available in your press release.

7. Include “boilerplate” about your company at the very end of your press release. A Boilerplate is a single-spaced paragraph that describes what your company does. It provides background information for living, breathing editors, and adds credibility/authority for SEO software ‘bots. It’s also one last place to legitimately insert your keywords. Here’s an example using Lucky Penny Press, another Alchemy On Demand client:

“Lucky Penny Press is a children’s eBook publisher founded by Melissa C. Marsted, author of Pablito and the Speckled Bear. Lucky Penny Press, whose motto is “Nurturing the creative spirit,” publishes books written by both adults and children. Each book has a professionally recorded audio version. As part of LPP’s cultural fabric, each book is connected to a non-profit organization, which receives a portion of book sale proceeds. LPP sells eBooks in numerous eReader formats including those for iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Nooks, MP3 players, and any computer. Every eBook can be downloaded in either eReader or audio format, or both.”

8. Use the Associated Press style. Associated Press (AP) wrote the rules for journalistic fine points followed by most written media. Since many editors will run your press release verbatim if they don’t have time, staff, or inclination to rewrite it, your job is to make it easy for them to do so. AP style includes rules such as spelling out numbers one through nine, but using numerals for numbers 10 and above (as I just did in this sentence). This rule doesn’t apply for dates, such as July 1, 2013, for which numbers are always used, or when a sentence begins with a number, in which case the number is always spelled out.

AP style also omits the “serial comma,” which is the comma before “and” in a list longer than two. For example, “dogs, cats and ponies”; not “dogs, cats, and ponies.”

(This omission of the serial comma upsets Hudson, and my son Noah, but we’ll leave the grammar nazis to fight amongst themselves, yes?)

Another AP-style guideline is to put the comma or period inside the quotation marks. When you’re quoting someone, it looks like this: “This is our first award,” the proud business owner said. “We couldn’t be more pleased.”

And that’s it. Follow these straightforward recommendations for writing press releases, and you’ll also be writing an SEO press release in no time.

Congratulations!

–Leslee Goodman
Alchemy On Demand

Six Reasons Your Website Needs Video

Admin — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 05:51:07 +0000

Sorry about that, my Luddite friend.

I too, am a reader, not a watcher, but times have changed. Today’s websites need video and here are the top six reasons why:

#1. Search engines love video.

For the last few years, Google has rewarded sites that include video, presumably because videos are “content-rich.” When a video is optimized to include relevant keywords, it has a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of Google results than any static text page. And as if to emphasize the importance of video with web users, YouTube has become the second-largest search engine on the web. That means web users are nearly as likely to search for their keywords (your website) on YouTube as Google. If you don’t have video on your website, YouTube won’t find you.

#2. Videos are more engaging than text.

Just as it’s easier to get caught up in television or a movie, than in a book, well-crafted videos pull people into the storyline. And why not? Videos combine words, images, and music to create more compelling storytelling than words and images alone. For that reason:

#3. Videos are shared more often than text.

Because they are more engaging and compelling than static text pages, videos are shared—on Facebook and other social media, as well as emailed—far more often than static web pages. Moreover, a video thumbnail— embedded on a Facebook page, for example–attracts more attention and garners more “Likes” and comments than a static text page.

#4. Videos convert visitors to customers more frequently than text.

Videos are able to imitate the bricks-and-mortar shopping experience more readily than words and still images, giving prospective customers a “you are there” experience that can overcome any hesitation a shopper may feel about purchasing online. A video can also convey your company’s brand—the look and feel you want customers to associate with your company—far more than a static website. Moreover, once a website visitor has clicked on the PLAY button, he or she is in your control. A well-produced video can provide a “one-stop shopping” experience for the user, answering his or her questions, showing the product from various angles, offering appropriate calls to action (and the links to make them a click away), and even guiding visitors to the shopping cart.

#5. Videos can be shared on multiple channels

—thus maximizing the bang for your buck. By loading videos to multiple sites—YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video, Facebook Video, and more—in addition to your own website, you reach far more prospective customers than through your website alone. Moreover, videos can be optimized to play equally well on mobile devices, televisions, and in-store monitors, further maximizing the return on your video investment.

# 6 Best of all, Alchemy On Demand can create your videos

From animated shorts and two-minute sales pieces to full-length corporate documentaries, our team of award-winning producers, directors, and writers are masters of the craft of video storytelling to meet any budget. When you’re ready to go video, contact us.

-Leslee Goodman
Alchemy On Demand

How To Write Killer Copy (For Reals)

Admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 08:35:27 +0000

Copywriting has long been the black sheep of the marketing world. It’s a crucial part of the marketing process, but it’s tricky, and therefore many overlook copywriting as something that will take care of itself.

Big mistake.

Numerous studies have shown that small tweaks to your copy result in huge returns.

Still, most don’t want to pay to have it done professionally, so how can you get away with writing copy that sells?

Easy. Like this:

Know your target customer
Focus on benefits
Know yourself
Keep it simple, Keep it on point, and Be specific
Yell at them, Build trust, & Dissuade fear
Make them like you
Show them that others have already jumped aboard (Social Trust)
Universalize your tone
And finally – follow through

BAM – There you have it. 9 steps to write killer copy. Remember, practice makes perfect, but armed with this knowledge you’ll be well on your way to writing killer copy that converts traffic.

And it all starts with…

Know your target customer

The goal of any marketing campaign is to guide your customers through the Buying Funnel:

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, Satisfaction – that’s the name of the game.

5 steps to customer (and business) happiness. You’re going to use your copywriting to guide your customers through these steps, and all of your marketing copy should be unified in this goal. Thus, your landing page copy should per tailored to where your customer is in that process.

Optimize your landing pages accordingly.

Example: Let’s say you sell shoes. You’ve designed a landing page to target those who search for “Santa Barbara Shoes.”

Your landing page copy should be geared toward conversions, yes, but you should also recognize that at this point in the buying phase, those that are searching for something as generic as “Santa Barbara Shoes” are likely in the first stage of the buying process, and that’s Attention.

Your potential clients aren’t not sure what they want, or even what’s out there. So your first step for these keyword searches should be creating a landing page that captures their attention, engages interest, and stimulates awareness and desire.

Pro-tip: Use emotion – it’s the strongest stimulant.

Therefore, the landing page shouldn’t be geared to raising awareness, but more about getting the customer to take that action. This is where things like coupons, free shipping, ease of returns, customer service, and social trust metrics like “# of satisfied customers” comes into play. The desire is there, you just have to get the customer to convert:

Now, the amount of space you have to accomplish these goals differs with your target task. If you’re writing PPC Copy, you’ve got precious few words in order to attract your potential traffic.

But ultimately, for any of your copywriting, what you’re trying to do is offer meat, in the language of the dog, directed to the dog.

Let me explain:

Remember Pavlov’s dogs? It’s a classic experiment about classical conditioning.

Good ol’ Pavlov proved that he could stimulate a physiological response by conditioning dogs to know that when a bell sounded they would be fed. In this case, when Pavlov sounded the bell, the dogs knew (or thought) that they were going to be fed, and that stimulated the response to salivate.

Great response, no?

But imagine if Pavlov hadn’t used meat to stimulate the dogs. What if, instead of steak, Pavlov used… lentils.

Lentils don’t get dogs going like meat.

Nothing does, in fact.

So if you don’t present meat for your customers, they aren’t going to salivate. Period. End of story. They won’t be hungry. They’ll go elsewhere for the meat they desire.

Take-Home: Know your customers, and present them what they want (give them meat).

Keep it Simple

Additionally, if Pavlov hadn’t rung a bell, but had used a whistle beyond the range of their hearing, the dogs wouldn’t know it was dinner time.

Take-Home: The language you use matters. Don’t over-sell something, don’t use ostentatious language. All big words do is isolate people. If you can use a simpler word, do so. Or, as a student of mine pointed out, if you can use an Anglo-Saxon word instead of the Latin, use the Anglo. That requires you to know the difference between Anglo-Saxon and Latin words, however….

Alright, now you’re ready to start writing some copy. But before you do, you must…

Know Yourself

It might sound silly, but many small businesses, especially those early on in the growth phase, suffer from an identity crisis.

Before you write a lick of script, you’ve got to know who you are, what you offer, and what makes you unique. These are the things that your potential clients are going to be looking for, and they’re going to want those things quickly.

If you can’t define yourself and your service in a sentence or two, your first priority is to learn how to be able to.

Define. Your. Mission.

Learn what sets you apart.

Seth Godin called this the “Purple Cow,” and Santa Barbara-based Zeeblu spins this into a blue zebra:

The point is, you’ve got to know what sets you apart and highlight it. Level of customer service, cost, quality, whatever – you’ve got to know what that is and promote that so that you stand out from the crowd.

When you find your purple cow/zebra, whatever, you’re ready to put pen to paper.

When you do, be sure to…

Focus on benefits (not features)

I’m a big believer in the selfish nature of people and their time.

It stands to reason.

People want to know if you’re worth your salt before they waste any time listening to you. It’s the same with the guy handing you the flier in the street, and the message is simple:

DO NOT WASTE MY TIME.

When people are on your site, it’s all about them. Make sure that they know that. Don’t fall into the mistake of talking about you.

Example:
Check out this website from the Santa Barbara Small Business Entrepreneurship Center. This is cut from their homepage, and before I know anything about them, or what they do, I’m hit with a wall of text about who they are.

Right. Got it. No offense, but What’s in it for me?

A better design choice would have been one that speaks to the target customer’s needs:

“Get your business off the ground and running.” OR “What’s your goal? Here’s your solution.”

Or something thereabouts.

Take home: Make your copy about your customers, and they will thank you.

This brings us to…

Yell at them, Build Trust, & Dissuade Fear

Seems counter-intuitive, no? But it’s the truth. Well… sorta.

Talking firmly projects confidence, and people respect others with confidence. Many times people don’t know what they want – they want you to tell them what they want. So tell them. Use action verbs:

Just do it.

Act Now.

Subscribe.

Check this out: You tell me which one reads better:

A: “They may not even be hungry. They’ll probably go elsewhere for the meat they desire.”

B: “They won’t be hungry. They’ll go elsewhere for the meat they desire.”

If you guessed B, cheerio.

Remove doubt from your copy, and your readers will thank you.

*Caveat* Confidence isn’t enough. You actually have to know what you’re talking about. But before you do so, you’ve got to build up your reader’s trust. To do that, you’ve got to form a relationship with them.

Think about it. When you compose an argument, you start by getting the people to like you. This is why speakers start off with a joke. Bust up the crowd a little bit. Use conversational tones. Use “you” and “I”. Tell a story. Use your own picture:

Me hogging the spotlight at Christmas.

In short, get them to know you (and hopefully like you). Then, once you’ve established a firm relationship, you can speak directly, but don’t come out of the pulpit all fire and brimstone, or you risk alienating your readers.

Make them like you.

Humans aren’t such tricky animals. Ultimately, we’re social creatures and generally pretty predictable. It’s upon this premise that an ancient martial arts trick rests.

Ask any 3+ degree blackbelt what they would do to stop a fight from happening, and they’ll respond: “Smile.”

Yep. Smile. That’s it. Ten years of kung-fu knowledge distilled into a single word. And marketers use it daily.

Why?

Because it’s a lot harder to hurt someone you like, and as humans, we’re hard-wired to respond positively to smiles.

It’s called reciprocity, and it’s a powerful marketing tool.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself what happens when someone you don’t know follows you on Twitter. Chances are, your innate response is to follow them back. Take and receive. That’s our social instinct kicking in again there.

So when writing your copy, go ahead and yuk it up. Put some funny images in there. Lighten the mood.

Look at Groupon, they’re champs of the sly-quirky just to make you smile:

Yep. They’re the masters of quirky. And I should know, I used to work for them.

Show them that others have jumped aboard the bandwagon

This is another one of our innate human characteristics. We’re social creatures. Additionally, if someone else does it, it reinforces the feeling that if we do it too, we’ll be doing a good thing, and that will release a small amount of dopamine (happiness chemical) into the brain.

Predictable, see?

The rub is that if someone did jump off a bridge, you might not, but you’d want to know why, and if it was a good idea, and if you were missing out on anything.

Your copywriting can exploit this.

“Scientists in California don’t want you to know this amazing secret to dieting.”

“These celebrities do things just like us.”

“1000s of satisfied customers”

…and so forth. Use some social trust indicators on your website with logos and testimonials, and use it in your copy to slam home the trust instinct.

Universalize your tone

All of your web copy is going to be setting a tone. Is it funny or serious? Flippant or stern? Direct or vague? You have to make these choices and stick to them. Obviously, if you’re in the business of selling caskets, you’ll want to take things a bit more seriously than Groupon. But they have the luxury of selling fun times and fun things, so they can get away with a little playfulness. This is where knowing your audience is key. Figure out what you can get away with and then tailor all-out copy to suit.

Additionally, make sure that your tone is the same across platforms. You’re building relationships with people whether you’re aware of it or not. If you’re Joe Happy one day and then Stern Moe the next, people won’t know what to think. And if they don’t know what to think, then they can’t count on you, and if they can’t count on you, then they can’t trust you with their money, can they?

Follow Through

This is the end of the AIDAS marketing funnel. You want your customers to be your biggest proponents. Follow up with them. Thank them for their business. Make sure they’re satisfied. It goes a long way to repeat business and referrals.

Use the same tone in your follow-up copy as the rest of your marketing efforts and you’ll be A-OK when it comes to quarterly profit reporting time.

And there you have it. 9 steps to copywriting mastery. So what do you think? Have you got any copywriting tips that I missed? Care to share? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll holler back!

-Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

How To Find Your Ideal Client And Rock Them

Admin — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 08:06:05 +0000

Let me present a situation to you:

You’re blogging away, creating all this great content, and you’ve been at it for months yet nobody has seemed to turn into a regular follower. Your email #’s remain low, as does your traffic.

What gives?

If your content is good and your capture forms are in place, chances are your targeting is off.

To fix it, know that targeting is about two things:

1.) Knowing your target client.

2.) Finding them online.

Now let’s get crackin’.

Knowing your Target Client is Important

Here’s why:

1.) When you know your target audience you can write to just him/her. You do this because copy reads better if you’re writing to one rather than many.

Think about it. I’m writing to you right now, aren’t I? Note the conversational tone, my casual use of slang, the way I act familiar by using words like “you” and “I” – all these things help foster trust and break down inter-personal barriers. Getting people to trust you is the first step toward getting them to like you. And people listen to people they like and trust.

2.) The more you know about your ideal customer, the better you can present your business’s unique value to your potential clients.

For example, if you know that your target customer is in an older demographic, you’ll probably use different language than when marketing to 15 year-olds that eat lunch at Taco Bell. You’ll also be able to better identify their key pain points and insinuate why your business is uniquely poised to help solve them.

3.) Knowing more about your ideal customer helps you consolidate your efforts. It helps you know where to find them online and elsewhere, so your marketing campaigns can be more effective.

4.) And finally, it’s damn hard to find good content. It’s even harder to create good content on your own.

To continually come up with good ideas, you’re going to need to tap other sources. So in order to find what your potential customers are responding to, you’re going to have to know who they are and where they hang out, what they like and don’t like, what’s appropriate and what’s not.

So that’s why you need to find your ideal client.

Here’s how you go about actually finding them.

Step 1: Use That Grey Matter

Fight the urge to skip the “Target Client” step. It’s really in your best interest.

Example: Let’s say that you’re a contractor who specializes in high-end home remodels. You might first think that you want to rank like crazy for “Custom Home Remodel in [insert target city],” but in reality, most high-end home remodel jobs come from word of mouth, right?

Therefore, you want to:

1.) Position yourself as a leader in your field about construction.

BUT ALSO

2.) Target your approach to those who would give you word of mouth – Designers, Architects, Sub-Contractors, etc. You can make friends with these “complementary” industries who are also targeting your same client, but with a different service.

Take-Home: Think for a minute about who it is you’re trying to appeal to, then see if there are any complimentary industries that are targeting the same clientele, and then consider using their information to your benefit.

Cool?

Ok, now let’s say you’ve thought about your ideal client.

It’s time to get get to work.

Step 2: Find your Target Client: Search and Destroy is Not Just for War Games

Identifying your target demographic, much like writing, is a process of revision. You’re going to start out with an idea, then hone and refocus, hone and refocus, hone and refocus.

Try not to think of it as excluding anybody from your market, but more that you’re targeting the people where your message will have the greatest impact.

Also like writing, you’re going to need to be brutally honest about your business and its capabilities.

For example, if you asked me who my ideal client might be, I may say “Direct Relief International.” They have a huge advertising budget, do good work all over the world, and are accessible to me since I’m based in Santa Barbara, California.

But, being honest, Alchemy can’t handle DRI – they’re simply too large an operation. We’d be swamped and completely under-resourced. We’d have to drop our other clients, bring teams of people on, and spend weeks, if not months, training them.

Instead, a more honest answer would be:

This guy.

This is a middle-aged CEO/doctor/dentist/etc in Santa Barbara who:

runs his own practice and, as of late,
has found his business trailing off. He’s not sure why – he suspects it has something to do with the digital revolution, but he
doesn’t have the time nor the inclination to do the work himself. He’s good at his job and he wants someone who’s good at theirs.
He makes more than$100k/yr, has an advertising budget of $2500/month, and “just wants it handled.”

That, is my ideal client. Notice that I’m not going for a big pay-off here. Our ideal client isn’t a windfall of good fortune, it’s the good solid customer that will form the foundation of your business.

I’ve narrowed my ideal client down by assessing his

Pain Points – time (he lacks it and wants more of it), small-to-medium sized business operation concerns, clients (he wants more of them by getting the phone ringing)
Age – 40+
Location – Central Californian Coast
Gender – Male or Female
Income – $100k+ annual
Education – High
Occupation – Doctor/Sciences (or any relatively high-level of income small-to-medium sized business owner. This opens up: contractor, dentist, lawyer, early startups, and so forth)
Occupational Heirarchy -(Manager, Buyer, Worker Bee, etc.) – Owner/ Manager/ CEO
Ethnicity – Any
Marital Status – Married with Children (Probably)
# of Children (2)

In reality, the more information you can gather about your ideal client. Hobbies, personality traits, recreational activities, outdoorsy/indoorsy, everything – the more, the better. Make a spreadsheet. Find a picture. Print it out and pin it to your wall.

Have it look something like this:

This will help you flesh out your ideal client personality profile. And this will, in turn, help you to understand what other information he might be looking at and how he might respond to your marketing efforts.

Ultimately, all your marketing efforts are going to be about building your brand into a brand personality. People resonate with a brand personality that is either closely akin to themselves or one they admire or respect.

This is who you’re targeting.

Now let’s go find them online.

Step 3: Let Me Google That For You

There are a number of ways I can go about doing this.

I can make a list of potential magazines that cater specifically to that demographic:

Conde Naste
Esquire
Vanity Fair, etc.

But this would take too long and be guesswork, nothing solid.

Instead, let’s put that information into amazon.com and see what’s recommended.

A quick search for “Business Owner Magazine” gives me Inc. Fast Company, and Entrepreneur. Click those and see what’s recommended, and your list grows.

You can then read some of these magazines, visit their site, and see how their social media efforts are panning out for them and what language is being used.

Ask yourself: Is humor involved? Is the tone subtle? Are the images racy? Classy? Dignified? You can model your marketing approach and brand copy after theirs.

Option 2: Use Your Competitors

Successful competitors are a treasure trove of customers. Pay attention to their social profiles and which posts do well and you can do likewise.

Additionally, Twitter allows you to search profiles. This is an often under-utilized tool.

In our example of Business Owners, we can search for “INC” “LLC” “.com” and other suffixes that are commonly found in users’ profiles if they’re business owners. This way you can not only see the language that they use, but you can reach out to them directly. Bonus!

Curveball: “Ok Hudson, you say. That’s all good and well, but I’ve got to market to my ideal customers, not just write to them.”

No problem.

Let’s take a look at CityTowninfo.com. Under Employment, we’ll see the list of just about every job in the country.

Click on the job, and you’ll get a breakdown of the professions, top-paying places in the country, job openings, and much more data. You can search for the job your target client has, see what cities have that job with a median pay that fits your target demographic, and then use these cities in your PPC/Facebook/whatever approach.

Not too shabby, eh?

Now you know how to: find your target customer, interact with them on social platforms, and speak to them in their language so that your message resonates with them.

What do you say? Got any additional targeting tips you’d like to share? Fire away.

–Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

How Socrates and Science Can Make You a Better Marketer

Admin — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 07:32:29 +0000

Here’s how you can take the teachings of a guy who’s been dead for centuries, combine that with some modern-day science, and walk away with a foundation for marketing mastery.

Check it out:

As a marketer and blogger, your visuals and your text are going to matter a lot. You have, on average, 8 seconds to persuade your audience to take some course of action. When it comes to your website or blog copy, that 8 seconds is trying to get the visitor to either read more, click on something, or enter some of their information.

Seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

That depends on how you look at it.

See, human beings aren’t as complex as we make them out to be. At our base, we’re really just predictable little nuggets running around in fancy clothes.

Marketers have known for a long time what stimulates customer responses. They’ve had several hundred years to test it, so they darn well should, if you ask me.

What takes over our brains when we look at stuff:

First off, the brain uses what’s called heuristics to scan and learn new information. It’s not a perfect system (it can lead to errors in judgment), but it evolved from us needing to process information quickly and easily and to make snap decisions.

This, in essence, is what people are doing when they scan your site, display ad, copy, etc. They’re making snap judgments about YOUR QUALITY, my friend.

They want to know, and they want to know quickly, if they’re wasting their time being there.

All of this boils down to a very simple, long-held tenet: What’s in it for me (WIIFM)?

WIIFM is the radio station the world tunes into. WIIFM is what everyone on two feet wants to know the second they land on your site. WIIFM is what Hubspot proved with this graph:

BOOM.

You’d better get your ducks in a row about what you want that message to be.

Here’s how to do that:

Luckily, Socrates and Google have done much of the legwork for you.

First up, Socrates decided all those centuries ago that he needed a way to make his speeches superlative, top-notch, something to be remembered for well… centuries. He wanted to maximize his ROI, if you will. What he came up with is still taught in schools today.

(Guess he succeeded, no?)

What Socrates developed was the idea of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. He concluded that in order to convince someone of an argument, you have to touch upon these three things.

Ethos, pathos, and logos – the three-headed dog of marketing

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the three cornerstones of an effective argument, be it spoken, written, or visual.

When you’re writing your marketing copy, when you’re designing your website, you need to know what will convince people of what you’re trying to sell them (what your argument is, so to speak). Advertising is too expensive to get wrong, (amiright, America???) so your punches have to count.

Here’s what’s what:

Ethos

Ethos is the credibility factor. It’s things like social trust, celebrity endorsement, jump-on-the-bandwagon approaches, that sort of thing. For a marketer, it’s our brain rationalizing the decision to buy certain things because it’s safe and acceptable to do so (Ex: “Beyonce is doing it, so I can too!”)

Logos

Logos is the logical part of the argument. Logos, for a marketer, is the cherry on top. It’s the “Now 25% off!” banner hanging outside your local mattress warehouse. Logos tries to win over the inner critic in you by quieting the voice that says: “Hmm… it might not be wise to purchase that dress right now,” by providing evidence to the contrary.

Now, Ethos and Logos are powerful and convincing methods of persuasion. But Socrates learned that they don’t hold a candle to Pathos.

Pathos – god of passion (don’t quote me on that)

If Ethos is all about credibility, and Logos is all Spock-like logic, Pathos is all about emotional response. Pathos is why you paid extra for the red sports car instead of the yellow sedan. Pathos is why you can’t commit to forking over $300 for a phone that, though better on paper than an iPhone, just doesn’t impress you with the way it looks and feels.

Logos says budget is best. Pathos says sexy is supreme. Guess who wins?

Why ethos and logos aren’t as powerful as Pathos:

Take a look at this magazine ad:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this ad is primarily geared towards men (it was taken from an issue of FHM (For Him Magazine)).

But riddle me this: why is this ad effective at all?

It does nothing to espouse the wonderful taste of the Silver Bullet. (I come away knowing nothing about what the product does, or what, even, it is.)

But what the ad does do is make me feel something. Specifically, it makes me feel an association with three things.

Three very powerful things:

1.) lust – sex is a very primal (and therefore powerful) motivator.

2.) fun – this goes hand in hand with lust – it’s a great time, and that’s something that a company might want a potential customer to associate with their brand.

3.) strength – this one isn’t as abundantly apparent, but notice the black and white color schemes, which are a classically powerful color pattern. The black bottom with a hard red font in all caps, the mountains in the background, the women on their knees in an overtly sexual post, the snowman behind the blond, grinning wildly as if he’s been outfitted with two carrots (sorry, but… c’mon) – all these lend themselves to the idea of strength and dominance.

So there we have lust, strength, and dominance. All from drinking a beer!

But do you notice a pattern here?

None of these things have anything to do with credibility (ethos) or logic (logos), do they? Nope, it’s all passionate, emotive forces at play.

Does that strike you as odd? It shouldn’t.

Here’s why:

Human beings are emotional creatures. Our decisions are based on our emotional reactions and little else. We’re SO emotional, in fact, that in a study done by Antonio Damasio at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, has shown that humans whose emotional parts of the brain have been damaged are physically incapable of making a decision – even for something as mundane as whether or not to fasten your seatbelt.

As in, these poor souls just sit there trying to decide whether or not to fasten their seatbelts. Without an emotive response, they’re literally paralyzed.

Take-Home: EVERY decision is emotionally based.

Crazy, no?

It gets deeper, my friends.

But before we go there, let’s bring it back-to-home by pointing out that these marketers knew that they had one shot with their magazine ad, and they knew that they wanted to convey strong emotive connections between their brand and these feel-good emotions.

Ethos and Logos are important, but depending on your budget, and depending upon the size of your campaign, you should always be sure that your potential customers are leaving with a positive emotion, and preferably the emotional association you want to link to your brand.

The Coors Light marketers went over the top with their message, but they were successful in their goal because they stopped the reader long enough to associate their product with three emotions they were targeting.

When you’re designing your ads, you’ve got to think about the goal of your campaign. If you get just one shot, you want it to count.

Know your target customer, and know what moves them to action, then put the hardest-hitting message you can in front of their face.

What you and lions have in common (*spoiler alert*: it ain’t your heart)

James Clear recently wrote a great post on Buffer (a great social media tool, btw) about how to tame lions by presenting them too many options.

Have you ever seen the lion tamer in the ring with a whip and a chair, bravely warding off three hungry lions? It turns out that the reason this is successful isn’t because of the whip; it’s because of that seemingly-stupid little chair.

But that’s not just some object chosen by random. The chair, positioned correctly, offers the lion four potential focal points.

The chair, along with the whip and the man wielding them, presents the lion with too many things to focus on, and the options immediately capture the lion’s attention (the whip and the chair, that is) it can’t eat.

The lion, after having its stimulus (food) taken away, becomes preoccupied with the clutter of other things in its face, can’t decide on which one to attack, and so instead decides it isn’t hungry after all.

Score one for the lion tamer, but human beings are little different: if we are presented with too many choices we stall and walk away.

The same is true with web design. If a design is too cluttered, it becomes confusing. We’re not ready to take on too much information. We see a wall of text and our first instinct is to balk and run away:

Too much.

Visitor: What is this?

You: It’s a site about nonprofit governance.

Visitor: Oh. Why’d I have to ask? [walks away]

Instead, aim for a clean design that strips away all but your primary objective. Airbnb does a great job of this:

AirBnb. Well played, sir.

Why is this good web design?

1.) Because it uses larger-than-life cool images of travel that entice but don’t overwhelm.

2.) Because all extraneous elements are stripped away and you don’t have to waste time wondering what the hell it is you need to do; the call to action is large and in charge, front and center.

3.) Because it’s simple, it loads fast, and there’s additional information pushed to the background, there only should someone need/request it.

In short, it’s successful because it remembers WIIFM – Your website isn’t about you and what you do. It’s about serving your clients and giving them what they need.

The take-home? Three parts:

1.) We need an emotional response to make a decision.

2.) Don’t present your visitors with too many options (cleanliness is next to godliness).

3.) Remember WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)

Now, back to the Coors Light Ad.

These marketers got rid of the now-metaphorical chair and dangled what they were selling in front of their target audience – that is, they’re selling the idea of sex, fun, and power. Coors Light will give you that. This is the meat of their message, so to speak.

They could have used other factors: “9 out of 10 doctors recommend Coors Light,” or “Now 25% off!” but that would cloud their message.

Don’t get me wrong. The “9 out of 10 doctors recommend Coors Light” and “Now 25% off!” are good marketing tactics in their own right, but given the one-shot opportunity that this magazine ad had with its intended audience, these marketers decided (and rightly so) that the main message should be meat, so to speak.

These emotional engagements people have with your product/brand ARE HUGE. They’re so important, in fact, that big brands spend $millions$ every year in order to make sure that they remain in their client’s good graces.

Come fly the friendly skies.

Relax, it’s FedEx.

We’ll leave the light on for you.

People want to have a sense of what they’re getting into before they get into it. Therefore, your first marketing message should be an effort to convey trust and confidence. Additionally, you want your customers to come away feeling good about your brand.

Bonus: More Science to Blow Your Mind: Surprise and Conquer

The nucleus accumbens is the part of the brain associated with pleasure. Studies show that it gets more excited (read: that people have a better experience) when it is surprised.

Surprise, therefore, can help put your brand in your audience’s good graces.

Check out these creatives:

Pretty clever, no? All of them are clean, uncluttered messages that make you pause, think, and smirk. All get you excited about their brands, and all of them link a target emotion to their brand.

Use surprise wisely and you’ll have your customers all:

How this makes you a better marketer

1.) If you’re trying to sell something, push passion to the forefront. Let Logos and Ethos be Robin to the Batman of passion.

2.) If you’re trying to sell something, don’t give your customers too many options. It stalls them. There’s been a great deal said about this by others like this amazing post by Peep Laja.

3.) Surprise your audience to give them maximum pleasure.

In Sum:

If you’re trying to sell something, if you’re trying to dangle, say, a steak in front of your visitors, keep it simple, keep it passionate, keep it fresh.

Got it? Great.

-Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

What should you pay for SEO services?

Admin — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 09:08:40 +0000

For most businesses today, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the marketing investment that yields the highest return on investment (ROI). The benefits SEO provides far exceed the value of other marketing approaches – print or broadcast advertising, online ads, direct mailing, etc.

Businesses no longer decide whether they need SEO services; rather, it’s how much they’re going to spend. How much is appropriate?

Since Alchemy On Demand is a provider of SEO services, we figured you should get an independent third-party’s opinion. Here’s what Jason DeMers at Search Engine Watch had to say about it:

Typical SEO Costs

So, what should you expect to pay? Here’s a survey of the range of the costs according to the various payment models standard in the industry.

Monthly retainer: $750-5,000 per month. Within this range, the amount that a client pays depends on the size of their business and the extent of services provided by the agency. On the lower end of this spectrum are small SEO agencies that offer a limited range of services. On the upper range are businesses with greater needs working with full-service SEO agencies. Most businesses pay between $2,500 and $5,000 for a monthly retainer.
Contract services at fixed prices: price variable. Businesses that are just testing the waters in SEO usually choose a contract service as an entry point. Typical contract services include things like SEO copywriting ($0.15-$0.50/word), site content audit ($500-$7,500), link profile audit ($500-$7,500), and social media site setup ($500-$3,000).
Project-based pricing: price variable. Since there are a variety of projects, there is a wide range of prices. Most projects cost from $1,000 to $30,000.
Hourly consulting rate: $100-300/hr. SEO consultants, whether individuals or agencies, usually charge between $100 and $300 per hour.

(Some of these figures are taken from a 2011 SEOmoz survey of 500 consultants and agencies.)

Things You Should Be Suspicious of

Any discussion of SEO agencies and pricing isn’t complete without a few warnings. To help you guard against indiscriminate SEO agencies with unethical business practices, read and heed. Be suspicious of the following promises:

Guarantees. SEO firms generally can’t provide guarantees due to the constantly changing nature of the industry.
Instant results. True, some SEO tactics can get “instant results” by gaming the system. Be warned that these can hurt you in the long run. Instant results often involve SEO practices that are against webmaster guidelines put out by search engines. Invariably, Google seeks out these techniques and penalizes them, resulting in lost rankings that can take months to recover.
#1 spot on Google. If an agency promises you the number one spot on Google, it sounds great. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get it. However, it’s not something that a firm can promise to hand over to you.
Costs lower than $750/month. When it comes to SEO, you aren’t shopping for the lowest price; you’re seeking the best level of service. Be wary of rock bottom prices or “unbelievable deals.”
Shady link building services. Link building is a crucial part of SEO. You can’t have a highly-ranked site without inbound links. But there’s a dark side of link building. Link trust is gaining importance to appear high in the rankings. Before you enter into an arrangement with an SEO agency for link building services, ensure that their link building services are ethical, white label services. You may even wish to ask them where they may be able to gain links for a business in your industry.

Things to Keep in Mind

As you begin shopping for SEO agencies and making your decision, be mindful of the following points:

SEO takes time. A monthly retainer is best. Think of SEO as a long-term investment. Aggressive campaigns and major pushes may have their place, but the most enduring SEO results come from a long-term relationship. In SEW’s Mark Jackson wrote, “The real value of SEO efforts are, generally, not realized in the first month(s) of the effort.” It’s true. SEOs don’t wave a magic wand and get instant results. Instead, they perform extensive operations that will produce results months down the road.
SEO changes, and your rankings will change, too. The field is full of competitors, and rankings rise and fall with the changing of algorithms and the entrance of new competitors. One-and-done SEO tricks simply don’t work. It takes constant monitoring to keep your website ranking well and performing at top-notch levels.
Not all SEO services are created equal. Again, SEO isn’t about shopping around for the lowest prices. It’s about finding the finest agency you can. Look for an SEO agency that defines its scope of services, and takes the time to educate you.
SEO is important. Do it. The point of your website is to increase and/or improve your business. Unless people are finding your website, it’s not even worth having one. The smart thing is to pay what it takes to keep your site findable by the people who are looking.
Hiring an SEO agency is best. You may be thinking, “Can’t I just do this SEO thing on my own?” A tiny percentage of business owners or professionals have the skill and savvy to do their own SEO. Even so, comprehensive SEO takes way more time than most business owners can afford. Even an employee who “knows a lot about SEO,” will be hard-pressed to deliver the level of services and excellence found in a SEO agency. You’ll rarely come out on top if you try to go it alone, and you’ll never get the same level of ROI that you would with a competent SEO agency.

You Decide

-Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

The Better Way To Blog

Admin — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 03:36:28 +0000

Blogging is tough! The hours are long, the information is difficult to come by, and your work isn’t panning out like you’ve hoped.

Still, blogging is important.

You probably already know that Google and other search engines rank longer, in-depth content higher than others. This study done by Neil Patel shows that the content length for a web page, plus coverage and in-depth content on your focused topic (keyword) plays a big part in how high the site ranks. And the higher up you go on the search listings page, the more content each web page contains.

What this study and others show is that there’s a strong correlation between longer content and good quality information. And this is what both Google and your prospective clients are looking for – good quality information.

Does this mean that every blog you write should have at least 2000 words? No, but it does mean that people (and Google) recognize the value of longer posts and that you should strive to get the best content out to your clients.

In the old days, if you were looking at getting some content built for your site, here’s a little breakdown of what you might expect:

Traditional Blogging

Sites like textbroker.com offer copy services at a range of skill levels. They’re relatively cheap, but as in most things, you get what you pay for. Here’s what a typical article from one of these services looks like:

Here you’ll see copy that was contracted for target keywords that would be pertinent for a Santa Barbara-based business. The first issue you see is the immediate need for formatting help. There’s no plug-and-play here.
Now let’s take a look at the actual content of the article.

If you bother to read this article, you’ll notice the generic copy that’s provided. In addition to the vague generalities and questionable advice, there is no real value in this article. If you read it, all you would get is a common-sense approach to being careful about hiring somebody. This isn’t what your clients are looking for.

Why This Is Bad

Google is actively updating its search algorithms in order to demote sites with this sort of superfluous and redundant content. It’s all about providing the end-user (your client) with better content. Search Engine Optimizing is rarely a cut-and-dry case, but bloating your website with undesirable, irrelevant, redundant content, especially keyword-stuffed bad content is a sure-fire way to frustrate your users and disappear in search results.

Look again at the article. The next thing you’ll notice is that it’s far too general – it’s not specific to any one industry, even if it does allow multiple uses of various client-oriented keywords. This article is unlikely to be shared among social networks and therefore does nothing to promote your business or the article’s author as a source of information that’s relevant to your customers. In short, it’s filler content, and keyword-rich – running the risk of being demoted by the search engines.

The last thing I’d like to point out is the inclusion of potentially undesirable information. Generating content from people unfamiliar with your industry, your customers, or your business ethos can lead to problems. Trust us, we’ve seen people go this route and the results are the expenditure of a lot of money with a lot of headache and little customer return.

Blogging Services The Alchemy On Demand Way

Here’s the better way to do it. Custom-tailor your content to your client’s needs. Read up on your industry’s trends, see what’s getting the most social shares, and write content that answers your reader’s questions. Use tools like Technorati to see who else is blogging in your market, and then see what their readers are responding to.

Use Google Trends to cross-reference this information with what’s trending in your industry to see what your potential customers are interested in and reading about. Then custom-tailor blogs with all the SEO-relevant info.

Then utilize a content plan to target your chosen keywords. Get at least one copyright-free image to use on your blog. There’s plenty of info that suggests visually-heavy info is much more effective than text alone.

If you’d like help with your blogging efforts, feel free to reach out. It’s a service we here at Alchemy On Demand happily provide. Please drop us a line!

Thanks for looking and happy blogging!

–Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

How to A/B Test for SEO

Admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 06:29:58 +0000

A/B testing (or multivariate testing) is good practice to determine which aspects of your site need tweaking. But running multiple versions of a website can get you out of Google’s good graces (mainly because serving up different versions of the same page to different users has, in years past, been used for nefarious SEO purposes).

So here’s what Google has to say about running split tests and maintaining good SEO:

Website testing is when you try out different versions of your website (or a part of your website) and collect data about how users react to each version. You use software to track which version causes users to do what you want them to do most often: which one results in the most purchases or the most email signups, or whatever you’re testing for. After the test is finished you can update your website to use the “winner” of the test—the most effective content.

A/B testing is when you run a test by creating multiple versions of a page, each with its own URL. When users try to access the original URL, you redirect some of them to each of the variation URLs and then compare users’ behavior to see which page is most effective.

Multivariate testing is when you use software to change different parts of your website on the fly. You can test changes to multiple parts of a page—say, the heading, a photo, and the ‘Add to Cart’ button—and the software will show variations of each of these sections to users in different combinations and then statistically analyze which variations are the most effective. Only one URL is involved; the variations are inserted dynamically on the page.

So how does this affect what Googlebot sees on your site? Will serving different content variants change how your site ranks? Below are some guidelines for running an effective test with minimal impact on your site’s search performance.

No Cloaking— Cloaking, showing one set of content to humans, and a different set to Googlebot—is against our Webmaster Guidelines, whether you’re running a test or not. Make sure that you’re not deciding whether to serve the test, or which content variant to serve, based on user-agent. An example of this would be always serving the original content when you see the user-agent “Googlebot.” Remember that infringing our Guidelines can get your site demoted or removed from Google search results—probably not the desired outcome of your test.

Use rel=“canonical”– If you’re running an A/B test with multiple URLs, you can use the rel=“canonical” link attribute on all of your alternate URLs to indicate that the original URL is the preferred version. We recommend using rel=“canonical” rather than a noindex meta tag because it more closely matches your intent in this situation. Let’s say you were testing variations of your homepage; you don’t want search engines to not index your homepage, you just want them to understand that all the test URLs are close duplicates or variations on the original URL and should be grouped as such, with the original URL as the canonical.

Using noindex rather than rel=“canonical” in such a situation can sometimes have unexpected effects (e.g., if for some reason we choose one of the variant URLs as the canonical, the “original” URL might also get dropped from the index since it would get treated as a duplicate).

Use 302s, not 301s -If you’re running an A/B test that redirects users from the original URL to a variation URL, use a 302 (temporary) redirect, not a 301 (permanent) redirect. This tells search engines that this redirect is temporary—it will only be in place as long as you’re running the experiment—and that they should keep the original URL in their index rather than replacing it with the target of the redirect (the test page).

JavaScript-based redirects are also fine.

Only run the experiment as long as necessary.

The amount of time required for a reliable test will vary depending on factors like your conversion rates, and how much traffic your website gets; a good testing tool should tell you when you’ve gathered enough data to draw a reliable conclusion. Once you’ve concluded the test, you should update your site with the desired content variation(s) and remove all elements of the test as soon as possible, such as alternate URLs or testing scripts and markup. If we discover a site running an experiment for an unnecessarily long time, we may interpret this as an attempt to deceive search engines and take action accordingly. This is especially true if you’re serving one content variant to a large percentage of your users.

The recommendations above should result in your tests having little or no impact on your site in search results. However, depending on what types of content you’re testing, it may not even matter much if Googlebot crawls or indexes some of your content variations while you’re testing. Small changes, such as the size, color, or placement of a button or image, or the text of your “call to action” (“Add to cart” vs. “Buy now!”), can have a surprising impact on users’ interactions with your webpage, but will often have little or no impact on that page’s search result snippet or ranking. In addition, if we crawl your site often enough to detect and index your experiment, we’ll probably index the eventual updates you make to your site fairly quickly after you’ve concluded the experiment.

That there above is a straight scrape from Google’s own Webmaster Guidelines. Let’s see what they say about duplicate content now, eh?

-Hudson Hornick
Alchemy On Demand

Marketing – PR, marketing, and film production | Alchemy On Demand

How A Strong Website Helps Your Business

How to Write a Block-Rocking SEO Press Release

Six Reasons Your Website Needs Video

How To Write Killer Copy (For Reals)

How To Find Your Ideal Client And Rock Them

How Socrates and Science Can Make You a Better Marketer

What should you pay for SEO services?

Top 10 Words That Capture Readers’ Attention

The Better Way To Blog

How to A/B Test for SEO