Must-have t-shirt: CACHE RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME!
Welcome to the seven laws of journalism,at least according to Danna Walker,Associate Professor in Residence for Journalism in the USAHere are her tips for budding journalism students1.Journalism isn’t dead. Yes, journalism as we knew it once is gone,but we can’t live without cars, and we can’t live without news and information.2.Money counts. If you’re going into journalism, learn the basics of business. Yes, news sites are giving away content for free, but that is changing and your time is worth cold, hard cash. 3.Grow a pair. think of yourself as a first responder. You walk toward the danger, even if the danger at the time is simply approaching a big-name politician in a Capitol hallway. 4.Life is hard (so deal with it)if you want to get a story, you’ve got to be able to keep appointments, dog people, and spend time developing and writing it. 5.You’re a story factory. Care about your audience. Your world is your assembly line.6.Use technology as a means to an end. 7.people fought and died so you could do what you do, and a lot of people all over the world would kill to be able to do it, You have rights in order to “do” journalism, so flaunt them.
A little finding here is that if we select multiple pictures at one time in Finder and press space bar, a Quick Look window will pop up in an instant1.
Take notice of the option to view pictures in different format just next to scrolling arrows (after separator). Pressing on that turns Quick Look window into Index Sheet2. And in order to go back to normal view, escape key can be used.
Read more for screenshots…
Many sites offering “free” white papers, case studies, or resources in exchange for some visitor information utterly fail to merchandise their downloads. Yet if your website doesn’t treat your white paper as containing valuable information, your visitors won’t either.
The problem starts by thinking of these downloads as free. You’re asking for something extremely valuable to both you and the visitor, their contact information. To get this valuable information, you need to show the visitor the value of what they’re downloading. So when they fill out the lead form, they feel they’re making a good exchange: valuable information for valuable information.
1. Your White Paper Needs an Interesting Title - Would you rather read a white paper title “Mobile Analytics” or “Why 90% of Your Mobile Visitors Aren’t Being Tracked and What Your Can Do About It?” The same technique, that works for selling books, getting people to read blog posts and even to attend webinars can significantly increase your white paper downloads. But don’t go for such an interesting name that no one knows what the paper is about though. For borderline cases, a strong sub-title can bridge between interesting and descriptive.
2. Every Book White paper Needs a Cover - Instead of just giving the white paper a title alone, merchandise it the way you would a book. No plain vanilla covers, make it engaging. Take a look at some samples white paper cover merchandising from other smart marketers.
Keep in mind, many people prefer to download and print white papers before they read them. Which is more likely to catch someone’s attention on a busy, cluttered desk a white paper with no cover or one with an engaging cover design?
3. Make It Easy to Digest - How often have you downloaded a white paper for it only to be pages after pages of block text. No headlines, sub-headlines or bullet points. No graphics, charts or screenshots. People are busy. It is fine to make a long white paper if the topic deserves it, but make it reader-friendly.
4. Tell Them What They Are Going to Get - Write persuasive copy that not only informs people what they’ll learn from the download but also what they can do with the information. Make sure this copy is crisp, simple to read and formatted for online readers. You may want to offer key takeaways, a table of contents, or even an example chart to show them how valuable the paper is going to be.
5. Give Them Download Details - Let them know how many pages it is, how big the file is, what format the paper is in (PDF, DOC), etc.
6. Give Them an Excerpt - Very few people like reading poorly written, monotonous sounding, corporate gobblygook. By providing an excerpt you can help prove how well written, easy to understand and valuable your white paper is.
7. Prove Other People Like It - Like endorsements on a book cover, “credible testimonials” on the download page of your white paper can help sell the value of the content and improve conversion.
8. Don’t Ask For Too Much Information - Make sure your forms are optimized to ask only what you really need. And please don’t ask people to “submit to you.”
9. Let Them Know What Will Happen With Their Personal Information - Provide them with point of action assurances around their privacy.
10. Make it Easy For People to Share - Give people an easy mechanism for them to share your white paper via social media, email or pass along. Do it on the offer/landing page as well as on the thank you page. Visitors are most engaged when they are already downloading the white paper, so a suggestion for them to share it often helps.
11. Have a Follow-up Program -Let’s face it, you created your white paper and offered it for download in order to get leads. That means the white paper has to generate a response or conversation. Making your white paper interesting, actionable, and readable will help, but you’ll be far more successful getting responses if you initiate the post-download interactions and follow-up conversations through a well-planned lead nurturing campaign.
12. Offer Contact Information - Some persona actually prefer to contact you immediately upon finding the white paper, so make sure your contact information is on the download page. Others prefer to contact you as they are reading the white paper, make sure your contact information is found there as well. Others just feel a sense of confidence knowing you are providing your full contact information and not trying to remain anonymous while asking for their personal information. In simple terms make it easy for them to find your contact information everywhere.
What other techniques have you tried to increase leads from white paper requests?
Rajesh Lalwani raised an interesting point in his post a few days back, on how the performance of a social media campaign should not be judged solely by the buzz it generates, since a lot of conversations flow ‘below the surface’ i.e. emails, telecons and face-to-face. I’d also add Chat (the GTalk type) and DM.
My reply consisted of several parts, and some of it got me thinking on the concept of ‘measurement’. Among other things, I felt that, relatively speaking, it is more convenient to measure buzz (a social media search or even a Google search) than the ‘below the surface’ versions. You really can’t track what I speak with someone else on GTalk. But more importantly I felt that this love for measurement stems from a need for control.
So I looked back at the brand campaigns around, the media used and the measurement. Following is a rant.(and is quite India specific) Though its extremely relevant, I shall, for now, ignore brands’ following a ‘campaign strategy’ at the cost of brand strategy. Generally, the campaign would consist of Outdoor (billboards), Print, Television, Radio and *new* Internet. So, lets see the measurement criteria for these. Outdoor - you can’t go wrong with one on Brigade Road- Residency Road (that’s Bangalore) junction, everyone goes there. Print - XYZ has circulation and readership of …. Television - XYZ channel and the TRPs it delivers. Radio - say RAM and listenership. While there are numbers and numbers, there is really no way to figure out exactly how many people saw/heard the ad and responded (not even if you put call centre numbers/email ids/call ins). The sales spike that happens on the day the ad is released is the indicator of its success in print. If ‘people’ saw/heard it, TV/Outdoor/Radio has worked. Yes, I’m generalising, and I do know what value market research can offer. And so Internet. Now the internet obviously needs to match up to the awesome quantitative measurement options that the other media provide. 
And so the brand guys waited for the net to show some real numbers. And it did, as it was bound to. Depending on who you ask, this number could now vary anywhere over 28 million users. ComScore puts India’s net population at 32 million, and within that, the social networking population at 19 million, Orkut firmly leading with 12.8 million. The figure reminded me of the leading English daily’s readership - as per IRS R2 2008, it was 13.3 million.
Stuck somewhere between HOLLY and WOOD with my non-ideological Eastern European sensibilities intact.
