Is your copy a bit lifeless? Marketing flat? Michele PW is here with tips and tricks to get your marketing and copy back on track.
11.10.07
Posted in Creativity, General, Notes from PW at 12:30 pm EST by Michele PW
Dear Readers,
Remember how I told you I had new photos taken of me? Well, they’re on my Web site, so make sure you check it out:
http://www.michelepw.com
I basically picked 3 to be my main photos, but I had a lot more taken (and there were a bunch more really good ones). I ended up posting all the ones I liked on MySpace page in a photo album (http://www.myspace.com/michelepw — click on the View My Photos if you want to see them all). One in particular is quite striking of me but I’m afraid it’s not, well, business enough. (I’m wearing a gold tank top.) Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think. (And if THAT doesn’t get you to my MySpace page, I don’t know what will )
Nick wasn’t happy at all during the photo shoot, so to read his take on it, take a look at his blog, http://www.michelepw.com/nblog
In the spirit of football season and Brett Favre, the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers who just broke the NFL all-time touchdown record, I’ve put together an article about how football provides some valuable business-building lessons. Even if you aren’t a sports fan, I hope you’ll still enjoy it.
Michele PW (Pariza Wacek) is the author of 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make That Kill Their Sales…And How To Prevent Them. Ready to turn lookers into buyers and watch your business skyrocket? Click here to learn more about this special report, free for a limited time.
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05.14.07
Posted in Copywriting, Creativity, Marketing at 10:23 pm EDT by Michele PW
The other day, a colleague of mine told me about a new marketing agency and sent me a link to their Web site. I checked it out.
Needless to say, it was dreadful.
Oh, it was pretty enough. Very nice graphics. And what little copy there was, was very artfully placed (although so tiny it was difficult to actually read).
Why do I say it was dreadful? Because, even though it was pretty, it had absolutely no personality.
The copy was boring (not to mention full of “we’s” but that’s for another day). The graphics were pretty but boring. There was no life, no energy. Just flat.
It was as though the Web site was trying so hard to appeal to everyone, it ended up appealing to no one.
You see, people want to do with business with people. And they want to do business with people they know, like and trust.
But how will they know if they like you if they don’t know your personality? If you’re so busy hiding behind some boring, flat, but oh-so-politically-correct Web site, how will they ever figure out if they like you enough to do business with you?
And, even more importantly, will they stick around long enough to get to know you. Read the rest of this entry »
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01.13.06
Posted in Creativity, Marketing at 3:57 am EST by Michele PW
Same old same old just doesn’t sell anymore. To make your marketing stand out, you need to get creative. Below are five tips designed to get your creative juices flowing. Some are brainteasers or are what Michael Michalko in “Thinkertoys” calls Linear Thinkertoys. Others fall under intuition or Intuitive Thinkertoys.
Some tips may appeal to you more than others. My suggestion is to try them all. Even the ones you’re not drawn to may still open some doors that wouldn’t have opened any other way.
These tips will work whether you sell a product, a service or both. Read the rest of this entry »
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01.12.06
Posted in Creativity at 4:14 pm EST by Michele PW
Are you struggling to find a new twist on advertising or marketing campaigns?
If you’re a small business owner or a copywriter/coach/other creative professional, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Having to come up with new ideas for a long-term client (or even your own business) can be overwhelming.
As much as you love those long-term clients or established products, because of their longevity, it gets harder and harder to come up with the next brilliant product.
But never fear. Here are three ways to get those creative juices (and new ideas) flowing. Read the rest of this entry »
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12.20.05
Posted in Creativity, Marketing at 4:03 pm EST by Michele PW
There’s a hard truth about marketing: People don’t care about businesses (and that includes your business).
What they care about is how your business’s products or services can solve THEIR problems, meet THEIR needs and make THEIR lives easier.
In other words, you need to explain the benefits of your product or service, not the features.
Read the rest of this entry »
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12.02.05
Posted in Creativity, Writing at 2:51 pm EST by Michele PW
According to Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, the fear of being a bad speller is a remarkably common fear for people who want to write but are creatively blocked.
It doesn’t matter that the fear is irrational, it doesn’t matter that every single word-processing program out there comes with a spell checker, the fear of not being able to spell still haunts those would-be writers. And thus, those people remain blocked. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Creativity at 2:48 pm EST by Michele PW
Worried you may not be creative or you may not be creative enough? This quiz will help you find out just how creative you are.
Take a piece of paper and number it from one to seven. For each question, write down the corresponding letter of your answer.
1. When you come across a rose, you immediately:
A. Smell it.
B. Quote every rose poem you can remember.
C. Write your own poem.
D. Sketch the rose.
E. Step on the rose.
2. One of your dreams in life is to:
A. Write a novel.
B. Become a painter.
C. Travel the world.
D. Climb all the famous mountains.
E. Just once, get everything done on your to-do list. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Business, Creativity at 2:45 pm EST by Michele PW
When you think about the legacies Walt Disney left us, do talking mice and a multigizillion dollar company come to mind? Actually, those are only the products of his prodigious and rich creativity — dig deeper and you start to realize one of the most intriguing heritages Disney left was his processes.
Disney was a creative and problem-solving genius. He knew how to make fantasy come alive in the minds and hearts of millions of people around the world. He employed several techniques to do this, but one of the most interesting is his ability to seamlessly slip into different creative “people” or “roles.”
The dreamer, the realist, the critic
One of Disney’s coworkers once said: “There were actually three different Walts [and] you never knew which one was coming to your meeting.” Robert Dilts, a scientist who studied Disney, called the three different Walts “the dreamer, the realist and the critic.” Each persona had a specific role in the creative process, and only together did it become “Disney magic.” Read the rest of this entry »
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05.05.05
Posted in Creativity, Writing at 6:18 pm EDT by Michele PW
A lot of great ideas happen when two or more other ideas collide to form something completely new.
Think of this like those old chemistry movies we used to watch in school. You had all of those atoms floating around and when two collided — bam! A chemical reaction. Maybe something new was created. Maybe something exploded. Or maybe it all fizzled out and nothing happened.
Well, a similar reaction is going on inside your brain or muse. Except instead of atoms floating around they’re pieces of information or other ideas. As they drift about, they occasionally bump into each other. When that happens, you may get a new, third idea. Or a big explosion. Or absolutely nothing at all.
Now, if you have lots of atoms, or information and ideas, you’re going to get lots of reactions. Some will fail. Some will be so-so. And some will be hot — so hot, so full of energy, they’ll have the power to change the trajectory of a business. Or even a life.
The problem occurs when you don’t have lots of random information and ideas. Fewer atoms mean fewer reactions. On top of that, you still have to weed through the invariable duds. So the odds of landing that one amazing idea drop considerably. Read the rest of this entry »
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03.12.05
Posted in Creativity at 6:24 pm EST by Michele PW
Here’s a quick quiz:
1) When I see a see a sunrise, I’m moved to:
A. Compose a poem.
B. Try and capture the beauty with my paints and brush.
C. Stumble drunkenly into bed — boy that party was a lot of fun.
D. Cover my face with my pillow and go back to sleep. Who in their right mind gets up early enough to look at sunrises?
2) At work, I’m the person my coworkers go to when they need someone to:
A. Think up a new theme for the office party (especially if they want it to be a bit wild and off the wall).
B. Get people excited for the party.
C. Organize the party.
D. Clean up after the party. Read the rest of this entry »
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02.19.05
Posted in Business, Creativity at 6:31 pm EST by Michele PW
I have a friend who has struggled with her creativity for a long time. She’s extremely uncomfortable thinking of herself as “creative.” We’ve been working together on it, and making progress. One of the tools that’s really helped her has been journaling.
From Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way to Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones to Linda Trichter Metcalf, Ph.D. and Tobin Simon, Ph.D.’s Writing the Mind Alive to numerous other publications, journaling has enjoyed a long history of creative-nurturing along with a host of other benefits.
For my purposes, I’m defining journaling as any sort of loose, longhand writing. Whatever thoughts come into your head you put them down on paper. There’s no structure, no form, nor concern about spelling or grammar or even legibility. Read the rest of this entry »
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01.13.05
Posted in Creativity at 6:20 pm EST by Michele PW
One definition of creativity states that creative people look at the same thing everyone else does, yet they see something no one else does.
But even creative people (which includes all of you, of course) can run into roadblocks every now and then. Sometimes it’s not possible to see something different. Sometimes you’ve just been staring at a problem for so long it’s now impossible to look at it in any other way.
So what do you do in these situations?
Why not try changing your perspective?
Consider this: A friend of mind who does needlepoint has a design that’s mostly black. Rather than simply stitching the design on white canvas with black thread, she’s using a black canvas and is stitching the negative aspects of the design instead of the positive.
She changed the way she viewed the problem. And now she has a really cool-looking needlepoint design that’s different from most other ones out there.
Or what about this: An art teacher has her students turn a photograph or object upside down and paint what they see — not a picture but an arrangement of shapes. Read the rest of this entry »
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