The Golden Thread – The Week in Review
June 24–30, 2007

Welcome to The Golden Thread Online, your free e-letter from American Writers & Artists Inc. Every Saturday, you will receive this recap of all the strategies, insights and opportunities we send to you and your fellow AWAIers each week. Whether it’s a message from a fellow writer about how he landed a new client … a technique from a Master copywriter for writing a control … an insight into how to succeed in a new market … news of a brand new writing job or business opportunity for you … you’ll find it here in this easy-to-access and always available “Week in Review.”

In This Issue:

• 2 Words Never to Use in a Promotion
  Will Newman reveals two words guaranteed to weaken your promotion and gives you better strategies to use instead.
• Quick Tip: 3 Ways to Romance a Client
  How to keep your clients coming back to you with more work.
• How to Snag $10,000 in Free Advertising for Your Design Business
  Kammy Thurman shows you how to use press releases to promote your graphic design business.
• FastStone – A Free, Fast Image Browser
  Kristin Schwarz shares where you can find a fast and free image browser.

2 Words Never to Use in a Promotion
By Will Newman

You've decided to buy a late-model used car, so you go to a well-respected dealership. A salesman approaches you, and starts extolling the virtues of the very car you were thinking of buying. You're ready to buy it on the spot … when he says the magic words.

"Trust me," he says, "this car will …"

"Trust me." These two words – or variations like "You can believe me when I say" – immediately warn your prospect that something's wrong.

You develop trust in your prospect by building a relationship with him … not by simply telling him to trust you. And you build that relationship by using 5 specific, easy-to-implement strategies for establishing your credibility.

1. Avoid hype.

   Hype might work in infomercials – but that's not the medium you're working in. They can yell things like "The World's Greatest Toothpaste!" and get away with it, because they're visually distracting you at the same time.

   But this type of language does nothing to make your prospect believe you. When he reads words like these, he feels he is being sold to.

   You become a salesman in his eyes. His sales resistance rises. And you have lost any chance of establishing a personal, trusting relationship.

   One more thing about using hype: It's a dead giveaway that you're a new copywriter who hasn't done enough research to be able to speak in a calm, authoritative tone.

2. Avoid vague or unsubstantiated claims.

   If using hype is a signal that you haven't done your research, making specific, substantiated claims is the signal that you have. This powerful strategy almost instantly establishes your credibility.

   Instead of hollering "The World's Greatest Toothpaste," you describe how Thompson's Toothpaste has been proven to increase brightness by 76%. And that the ingredient polychlorphenol – proven safe in 17 clinical tests – kills 98% of gum-disease-causing bacteria.

   These specific details steadily build your prospect's trust in you and – by extension – in your product.

3. Give your prospect a reason to believe.

   "Thompson's Toothpaste has been shown to effectively prevent decay …" Coupled with the seal of the American Dental Association, this type of endorsement from an authoritative body or individual gives your prospect a reason to believe what you're saying.

   So does giving the product's track record. "Thompson's has been the top-selling toothpaste for 18 years because of its proven ability to whiten teeth while killing bacteria."

   You can extend this by touting the record of your product's developer. "Dr. Tom Thompson, DDS, has been the official White House dentist for 20 years" adds even more credibility to the product.

4. Speak to him as an equal.

   Nobody wants to listen to someone who comes across as a know-it-all.

   You MUST let your prospect know that you don't feel you are better than him … and you do this by adopting a realistic, friendly, conversational tone.

   That doesn't mean you can't know more than your prospect. In fact, if you want your prospect to believe you, you have to establish a sense of authority. But knowing more about your specialized topic doesn't make you better or smarter. Just more knowledgeable.

   Use AWAI's "bar stool test." Talk to your prospect as if he were sitting next to you at the bar, drinking a beer. Tell him your exciting story. Don't preach to him.

5. Respect your prospect and his needs.

   This strategy is at the core of building trust … and having a strong, successful promotion. If you want your prospect to trust you, you have to respect him.

   When you truly respect your prospect, you can't help but speak to him as an equal. And you wouldn't try to bamboozle him with vague claims or hyped-up language.

   You have to sincerely care about your prospect, about his needs, his hopes, his fears, and his problems. This comes from taking the time to develop a rich 3-dimensional picture of him.

   We don't have space here to discuss how you do that. But this crucial step in writing successful promotions is discussed in detail in AWAI's Master Program, and will be a key topic at our upcoming FastTrack Bootcamp.

If you follow these 5 strategies, your prospect will believe and trust you … without you ever having to use the trust-killing words "trust me."

Quick Tip:
3 Ways to Romance a Client

A well-known fact in business is that it's easier and less expensive to keep current customers than to find new ones. As copywriters, we need to keep this principle in mind from the moment we get our first client.

Here are 3 tips for turning a one-time client into a long-term one.

1. Under-promise and over-deliver.

   Everybody likes something for nothing … including your client. So give him a little bit extra when you deliver your promotion.

   If you promised to write a letter, teaser copy, and reply device, throw in a top-of-the-line lift note as an extra. Explain that he's free to use it if he wants to … and that it's your way of thanking him for the project.

2. Schedule for on-time delivery.

   Always deliver on time. To ensure that you do, pad your schedule slightly when first discussing the project with the client. If you feel you can get it done in two weeks, ask for three. That gives you a built-in safety net in case something comes up.

   Take the time you need to write powerful copy. But if you're ready to send it off a couple of days early, go ahead and do it.

3. Proof 'til it hurts.

   Deliver super-clean copy by proofing extensively. Your computer's spell-checker is not good enough. Before you send copy to the client, proof it yourself. Then print it out and have someone else read it out loud while you follow along.

How to Snag $10,000 in Free Advertising for Your Design Business
By Kammy Thurman

Imagine how you would feel if you tripled your client base in one week? Can you imagine what that would do for your business … and your income?

One of my clients experienced this happy situation two months ago. The best part: He did it by spending only a $60 distribution fee.

His success came from sending out 3 press releases that got attention from nearly 200 newspapers across 2 states. You can easily do the same thing.

Exposure in the media is one of the fastest, surest, cheapest ways to build credibility, position yourself as an expert, draw attention to your business, and generate sales. In a mid-sized daily newspaper or trade publication, a one-page article about you is worth about $10,000 in free publicity.

Here are some topics you can use for your press releases:

• When you open your business
• When you hold an open house
• When you win an award
• When you have a speaking engagement
• When you partner with another business (For example, we partner with a salon that does professional makeup & hair for our clients before they come to our studio for a portrait.)
• When you get an article published
• A client’s success story
• A book or special report you wrote
• A fundraiser you’re helping with
• “Predictions” about what’s coming up in your niche
• A survey, top-10 list, or “free advice” about something related to your niche

(If you’re not confident in your ability to write your own press release, partner with an AWAI copywriter and barter your design services.)

Keep in mind that you need to send your press release at least 2 weeks before the publication’s print date, and earlier is better. That said, here’s how to write a release that grabs media attention and helps you sell your design services.

1. Open a new document in your word-processing software. In the upper-left corner of the page, type (in bold all-caps):

   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

   If you want the release printed on a certain date, type:

   FOR RELEASE ON OR BEFORE:

   Underneath that header, type the approximate date you’d like the release to hit print (without bolding or all-caps).

2. Drop down a couple of spaces and type (in bold all-caps):

   FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

   Directly beneath that header, type your name, address, and phone number (without bolding or all-caps).

3. Drop four spaces down the page. Type the headline of your release, designed much like the headline of a sales letter – large, bold font size (18-24 point for a release), with down-style capitalization on the words. Just like a sales letter, the headline must grab your reader’s attention. (In this case, your reader is the publication’s editor.)
   Down-style: “Powell to lead U.S. delegation to Asian tsunami region”
   Up-style: “Powell to Lead U.S. Delegation to Asian Tsunami Region”

4. Under the headline, type a “deck” (subhead) that teases the editor to continue into the “lead.” (The lead is where you present the angle or “hook” to pull him into the body of the release.)

5. Drop two spaces below the deck and start the lead with a “dateline” (like BILLINGS, Montana – March 15).

   The dateline tells the editor where and when the “news” is coming from. Immediately after the dateline, jump into the lead.

6. Next, write the body copy, where you “tell the story” you’re writing the release about. It will make up about 90% of the release.

7. After the body, provide a “call to action.”

   You might say something like “For more information or an interview on (your topic) call (your name) at (your phone number.”) Or “To order your free copy of (title), call (phone number) or email (email address).”

8. Finally, drop two spaces after the body copy and type # # # in the center of the page. This signifies the end of the release.

The Internet has drastically changed how press releases are handled by the media. You no longer have to stick to local news.

Publicity expert Joan Stewart says …

“Today, you can start writing press releases directed at people anywhere who need what you’re offering, not just journalists. The Internet makes it possible to post press releases to your website and send them to press release distribution services which will blast them all over the Internet.

When someone is looking for information on a certain topic and uses a search engine to find it, even if they don’t know you, they’ll stumble across your press release if it includes the keywords they used during their search.”

You can find out how to do this in Stewart’s e-book, 89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.

And to learn how to structure releases for immediate response, see Bob Bly’s special report, Direct Response PR.

FastStone – A Free, Fast Image Browser
By Kristin Schwarz

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, and free user-friendly image browser, converter, and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, and color adjustment.

Its full-screen mode provides quick access to photo information, a thumbnail browser, and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen.

Other features include a high-quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects. It also has lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram, and much more.

FastStone supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF, and DNG).

An added bonus for designers who cannot afford expensive image-editing software, FastStone allows you to save TIFF files that are in RGB to CMYK. This is important when you submit your files to the printer.