Archive View (November 2007)

There is a saying in public relations that all publicity is good publicity.  Today I am going to tell you that every press release no matter how polished or how much pick up it gets is not necessarily a good press release. I learned this the hard way so I am going to share a little info here that will hopefully save you time and money.  In today's world a press release is not just an announcement of a new product or service.  You always need a hook or something of interest to write about. What makes or breaks a press release more...

Throughout my career people have always joked that to make ads better you should: Make 'it' bigger If you can't make it bigger make 'it' red Use more emotion I thought you would all get a kick out of the Make My Logo Bigger site and video.  It pokes a little fun at everything marketing but with a little extra towards the tools and tactics of direct response marketing.  After you had a chance to laugh take some time to learn the importance of branding your business and how to market your business.   Enjoy. Josef Katz more...

If you have been reading this blog for a month or so you will remember the launch of our new Trump Book Wealth Building 101.  It took a little work and networking but we were able to get a review on entrepreneur.com's blog.  One more achievement for our marketing effort.  Next stop, a place on the best seller list.  OK, it is a bit of a long shot but we are going to keep trying. Hey, did you buy the new Trump book? Go ahead and help us hit our next goal... Thanks for reading - the blog and the book. Josef more...

With football is in the air and Thanksgiving coming up I figured the title would catch some attention. Today I read a study on the Marketing Experiments site about long vs short sales copy.  It is well worth the read if you are debating the issue internally for any of your marketing activities.  Of course the big take away is that you have to test what works for your business.  However, the results do remind me that you need to tell in order to sell.  TrumpU products and services tend to require more explanation so long form copy seems to work better more...

Today I had the honor to attend a DMIX lunch as the guest of a current member.  If you ever have the opportunity to go to one of their events don't miss it.  This is not your typical organization.  The DMIX is an exclusive member only group consisting of marketing thought leaders.  I look forward to one day having the possibility of being asked to join the group.  Today's speaker was Carla Hendra, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Ogilvy North America and she was excellent.  One of her points which resonated with me was that marketing today is about Accountability and Optimization.  This has more...

Yesterday I discussed marketing yourself on an interview.  Well, today I got lucky.  I met with someone who did just that.  Not only did this person market themselves and their skills they added value to my day by directing me to a blog I didn't know about.  The Whats Next blog looks like it is right up my alley.  If you are interested in online marketing or social media this should be on your reading list or RSS feed. Are you adding value to your business or marketing programs? If not, find a way to add value.  People around you will take more...

The last few weeks we have been running free real estate seminars in different cities across the country.   To generate awareness and drive registrations we have been using print advertising in the local newspapers for each market we visit.  Throughout these weeks we have been discussing the effectiveness of the ads and whether or not they were 'old school' direct response enough for what we need the ads to do.  Part of the reason for these discussions is that Michael wants us to test different messages and harder hitting variations of the ads.  Nothing to disagree with here and great more...

A few years ago I read Good to Great.  The main point I took away from the book was that your success is dependent on the people on your team.  Well, we are trying to build out a great team and nurture the members on our existing team.  Do you think you have what it takes to work for Trump U (Apprentice audition not required) then check out our openings and tell us why you should be a member of the marketing team. In conducting interviews over the last few days I remembered that a job interview is basically marketing and branding.  more...

A month or so ago I was talking about Whole Foods and their approach to customers.  I also mentioned some of the trouble their CEO got into with a blog posting he wrote.  Well I just read Andy Sernovitz's Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That! blog and he pointed out a WSJ article indicating that the board of Whole Foods modified their code of conduct to restrict executives from posting about the company, competitors, suppliers etc unless it is a company sponsored forum (to me this sounds like it is edited, reviewed and approved).  Andy makes a great point about using more...

In a previous post I promised a list of direct mail dos and don'ts so here they are in no particular order: Do: Focus on your target audience as well as who you don’t want to mail to Personalize your messages Use direct mail to acquire, retain and win back customers Make it easy for me to respond (include 800#s, URLs, mail response and today, mobile text messaging) Think through your strategy and make sure everything is in order before the mailing (sales, fulfillment etc) Create a sense of urgency Provide an offer or incentive for me to respond Get creative and think about what is going to make me take more...