This is a great question. And here’s where I want you to start — by assessing your current situation.

Even before you put together a plan, you need to do this. Because if you don’t have a good handle on your current situation, you’re not going to be able to put together a plan that emphasizes your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

So here are some things you should look at:

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This is a great question. And the answer is you can’t. BUT there are steps you can take to minimize annoying people.

First, let me explain why it’s impossible to create a buzz/launch a product without annoying some people. If you want people to buy from you, you need to ask for the sale. And if they don’t want to buy from you, eventually they will get annoyed with you asking for the sale. (Buying is an emotional process, so the only way you’re going to get people interested in buying in the first place is if you push a few emotional buttons.)

But if you don’t ask for the sale (and you need to do it more frequently now because people are hanging on to their money tighter) you won’t get as many sales. So you have to decide what your threshold is in terms of annoying people or making sales.

Now, there ARE steps you can take to keep the annoyance to a minimum. If you provide high quality information during your launch and if you’re honest with people when you contact them (in other words, no more “my server crashed so if you couldn’t get in, that’s why and you should try now” unless your server really DID crash.) Give them good, honest reasons for contacting them and it won’t be nearly as annoying to them.

When most people think of marketing, they think of advertising. That’s not exactly true.

While advertising is a part of marketing, that’s all it is. A part. Marketing is much bigger than that.

A better way to think about marketing is anything you do that touches either your customers or potential customers.

Yes, I do mean anything. Whether it’s sending an invoice, handling a complaint call, running a radio ad or sending an e-mail, you’re marketing your business if you’re touching a customer or a potential customer.

That said, let’s talk about ways to use marketing to increase business and get new customers. To simplify things, I’ve broken it down into five key components:

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Are you planning on doing a product launch in 2010? I’d love to get your biggest question about how to create and/or execute a successful product launch. Here’s the link to give me your question:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VT2QGQX

I’m going to be hosting a preview call on Feb. 18 where I’ll be answering all your questions about product launches. Stay tuned for more details!

The short answer? Yes and no.

Now before you click away and say “boy that wasn’t helpful” let me explain what I meant.

Yes you CAN sell without feeling inauthentic or hype-y or like you need to take a shower. I regularly create copy that does this for myself and my clients. The trick is to connect with your ideal clients on a deep level (more on that in a moment).

But why I said no is because you STILL have to ask for the sale. There’s really no way to get around that. And depending on how sensitive you are, asking for the sale might still feel very uncomfortable for you.

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Ah, this is THE number 1 question I get asked. “Do you really need all those words on a long sales letter? I never read those long sales letters, do they actually work?

The short answer is “yes.” (See, direct response copywriters CAN be brief.) And no, it’s not because I can charge all sorts of money the longer they get. It’s because yes, long sales letters actually make more sales than shorter ones.

Why do they work? Well, it’s because people have a lot of questions when they’re deciding whether to buy something or not. And if you don’t answer all those questions to their satisfaction they’re not going to plunk down the money.

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Well it’s that time of year again where we spend time putting together our goals for the new year. One of my goals is to help as many entrepreneurs as possible reach THEIR financial goals. So, in order to help you better, I’d love to get your response to this question:

What’s your biggest question about how to write online copy that sells your brilliance so you make more money with less effort?

Click here to let me know your question: http://budurl.com/JOMEB

And, on January 6, I’m going to be hosting a special Q&A call with my business partner Lisa Cherney, the Juicy Marketing Expert, answering all your questions.  (Just in time to start making money in 2010!)

It will only take a few minutes of your time, I’d love to get your feedback. Here’s that link again:

Click here to let me know your question: http://budurl.com/JOMEB

It can make good marketing sense to partner with a nonprofit or a cause.

Consider what my marathon friends did when they were raising money to participate in the 3-Day Walk (you walk 60 miles in 3 days to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for research). They approached a local restaurant called Backburner, which was famous for their cinnamon rolls. For a week, every time someone bought a cinnamon roll, they donated $1 to my friends for their walk.

I personally hadn’t heard of the restaurant, but when I found this out, my husband and I went and had breakfast there (complete with a cinnamon roll of course!)

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My 95-year-old grandfather is quite a character. Yep, he’s still going strong, takes 2 pills a month (yes, you read that right, a month) but he always makes sure he gets his gin in every day. (Forget yogurt, the key to living a long and health life is definitely the gin.) He’s also a very successful businessman.

One of the things he taught me is you should always ask. What’s the worst that will happen? They’ll say no and you’ll be no worse off than you are now.

Now, while I subscribe to that and DO ask, I’ve realized there’s a bit of an unspoken rule here. Yes, I think asking and negotiating is part of business and life. So why do some questions put my teeth on edge and others don’t? Where’s the line?

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When I first explained Twitter to my husband, who is a computer programmer, his response was “Oh, it’s just like ICQ.” And he dismissed it.

So what the heck is ICQ? Well, it was a program that was a lot like Twitter. And it was being touted as the “next big thing.” I actually remember it because my husband was using it. I looked at it and couldn’t figure what the big deal was and promptly dismissed it.

Fast forward 10 years or so, and now we have ICQ reborn into Twitter, and Twitter is all over the place.

So what happened? Why did Twitter succeed (although it still hasn’t proven to make money yet but that’s a topic for another article) and ICQ fail?

It’s not the technology. In fact, ICQ might have been more powerful than Twitter. (Note to all of you business owners thinking if you build a better mousetrap they will come. Not true.)

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