MV newsletter - April 2006

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To the devil in a handcart

We cannot remember where the expression "going to the devil in a handcart" comes from (we assume that it has something to do with poverty), but later in this newsletter we are going to give you advice on which words and phrases to avoid using in order to prevent your own newsletters and eBroadcasts going off in the same direction.

Unfortunately, as this newsletter contains a high proportion of such words and phrases, it will be something of a miracle if you receive it.

Firstly, though, checking through the list of sites pointing to Mud Valley (as you can for any site by typing www.siteaddress into the Google search engine), we were very pleased to come across a blog written by Joe Mann (of Mann Power Design) for Futurelab.

Joe, who is obviously a very wise, smart and handsome individual (handsome is as handsome does), was extolling the virtues of our Star Signs tool.

Thinking that if he were that clever he must have some interesting things happening on his site, our inspectors visited it and discovered that it was so.

You may well wish to download his 8 page eBooklet on Emotional Branding which argues that you must focus on three brandholders in particular: your customers, your employees and your CEO. We have written several articles on brandholders, including this one on What is branding?, but we have not generally singled out the CEO as a critical factor for the brand expression itself (although undoubtedly critical for the overall branding process).

However, Joe is absolutely right. Whenever CEOs open their mouths, either to an external or an internal audience, everybone treats them as the ultimate embodiments of the brand, and starts to metaphorically dissect their entrails for clues and cues. Ugh!

So keep an eye on your CEOS, and ensure that they are all people who do the brand proud. Hmmm!

The eBooklet also contains a great quote from one Jimmy Dunne III, who said that business is all about relationships, which are either improving or deteriorating and, if you think they are staying the same, they are deteriorating.

Rude words

Now for those words and phrases that are dangerous to use in any eBroadcast. Within this newsletter, those we should not have used are: $, Buy, Free, Marketing, Phrase, Search engine, Your own (and repeating them was not such a good idea either). These give us a combined failure rate of 41%, according to the Email Analyzer tool you can download free tool from UK Marketing Management Ltd.

Perhaps they should change their name to something more innocuous!

Deal of the week

If you have $3m to spare, you can buy the US town of Bridgeville.

Which reminds us of that great joke from the late Linda Smith, who said that she grew up in Erith in Kent, a town which is not twinned with anywhere, but has a suicide pact with Dagenham.

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© 2006, Mud Valley ™ brand marketing community.

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