Author: Shel Horowitz—Green/Ethical Business Expert

A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Peace and War, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

About ten years ago, a local PR agency decided to subcontract some overload copywriting projects. She asked me if I wanted to try out wrking together. The first assignment she gave me was for a manufacturer of luggage–sounds innocuous enough, right? This was a local company, and I knew that they had a number of DOD contracts to make cases for weapons.

Well, when she sent me their sell sheets, they were so jingoistic and pro-war that they made me sick to even look at them.

I knew the PR agent was overwhelmed and didn’t want to mess her up (especially on the first project)–but after an hour of thinking about it, I realized there was no way I could work on this account–it was too at odds with my values.

So I very apologetically called the PR agency and told her I’d be glad to help her out, but not on this account, and sorry to strand her.

She immediately gave me a different account. I’ve never been sorry I turned that first one down.

OTOH, about a decade earlier, I did some work for Smith & Wesson involving sales materials for their police training program. The material was not rah rah, shooting is good–but emphasized the need for cops to be well-trained before being unleashed on the streets with lethal weapons. I decided that well-trained cops was an agenda I could support, at least to the point of doing this assignment.

In Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I go on at some length about when to say no to a sale. Discomfort with the politics of the client is a legitimate reason. At the same time, you don’t want to suddenly walk away from a big chunk of your income.

And this works two ways. Although I disagree with the position of making gay marriage illegal, I respect the right of a right-wing fundamentalist to say no to an account promoting gay marriage, for instance. It’s not congruent with their values. (Something I blogged about this idea a year ago, in fact.) I hope we and other activists can eventually change those values–a very hard thing to do and a whole other discussion.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

As a copywriter and editor, I spend a lot of time chopping out redundant words, phrases, and concepts–even though I’m aware of the saleswriting mantra, “tell them what you’re going t say, tell it to them, and then tell them what you’ve told them.”

Still, for the most part, I try not to be too repetitious.

But with technology, redundancy is a good thing. Any website should have redundant backups, any e-mail should have multiple routes available.

This week, I did a live two-hour seminar on book creation and marketing. My co-presenter brought two mini-recorders; I brought a laptop with recording capability. We presold a few copies of the recording and also have a web page up where people can continue to buy the program.

Thank goodness for our redundancies! Only one of the three devices worked. But it worked beautifully, and as soon as we do some cosmetic cleanup on the file, we’ll have a nice new product.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing, Uncategorized

While I’ve been blogging since 2005, at https://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/ , I’ve been publishing the first two of my monthly e-newsletters all the way back to 1997 (I added another one in 2003, and had planned to launch a fourth son).

At the time I started my zines, I had one website, spam was almost a non-issue, and you could be pretty sure that when you sent an e-mail it would be not only delivered but likely read. At that time, I only had one website: https://www.frugalfun.com , which went live in the spring of 1996.

But I’ve been thinking for quite some time that e-newsletters have lost much of their effectiveness I know that e-mail deliverability is by no means certain anymore, and you can’t rely on getting a bounce notice if it doesn’t get in.

Also, I know that lots of mail that does make it through gets deleted unread. This is certainly true in my own ebox, where I simply can’t compete with the volume of incoming mail. A few weeks ago I started a big purge and got my inbox down from 2400 to 800–it’s already back up to 1190, after five days on a business trip. And that doesn’t count the approximately 100-2009 per day that I throw out in my spamfilter–or the dozen or so that I try to rescue from the spamfilter but never arrive (9ne of my biggest peeves).

This month I asked the 8000 subscribers of my two largest zines if the format was working for them–and got very definite feedback that while the content is valued, the long-form single-email text only format doesn’t work.

But I *know* HTML email doesn’t work. I’ve seen the hideous results when they are corrupted in transmission, and I also know a lot of spam filters automatically catch anything with HTML.

After thinking it over, I decided to convert to a blog. Yesterday, I sent the first one in the new format–a brief email with a sentence or two about each story and a link to the TOC on my blog (which in turn has live links to all the articles).

I’m sure it will evolve (and hopefully take less time to set up, now that I can refer back to certain repeating articles, such as the one about my books).

We’ll see what happens..

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

While writing the post about slug lines, a thought occurred to me that I’d like feedback on.

What do other bloggers think about using sigs in blog comments?

I’ve been ambivalent. On the one hand, I love getting extra inbound links and visibility for my core offerings. On the other hand, I don’t see them used much, and I wonder if they’re offensive.

So sometimes I’ve posted and sometimes not, and I’m more likely to post on, say, a newspaper comment page than a blog.

This is the sig I’ve been using, when I use it–looking at it, it occurs to me that one obvious solution is to shorten it, pick one URL per sig, maybe have several versions of say two lines each–what do you think?

________________________________________________
Shel Horowitz, shel (AT) principledprofit.com, 800-683-WORD/413-586-2388

Marketing & publishing consultant/copywriter, award-winning author of

* Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts
People First https://www.principledprofit.com

* Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers
https://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com

* Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World
https://www.frugalmarketing.com /

–>Join the Business Ethics Pledge – Ten Years to Change the World,
One Signature at a Time (please tell your friends)
https://www.business-ethics-pledge.org
_________________________________________________

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

Ted Demopoulos commented that both Joan Stewart and I use a “slug” to identify ourselves in comment posts. In my case, it’s “Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert.”

Ted took it a step farther, and now has his slogan, “Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business,” incorporated as the name he uses when he posts to his own blog.

You’ll notice that starting with this post, I’m doing the same. We all learn form each other–I never thought of that before Ted’s post.

So much of marketing is about repetition of the brand. And people do notice.

Unfortunately for the strength of my brand, I’m a person of many interests and skills, and probably dilute my slogans too much–but I have more fun that way. Fortunately, as I write in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, the real brand is not the slogan but the customer/prospect’s experience of you–and in that regard, I do quite well at creating a very positive impression.

I can wear whatever hat is appropriate at the moment: ethical marketing expert, master copywriter, author of seven books, speaker, activist, even expert on having fun cheaply–to name a few. Somehow it all works out.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Events, Uncategorized

For seven years, Zheng Xiaoyu headed China’s Food and Drug Administration–a time in which that agency was filled with scandal, from tainted toothpaste to poisoned pet food. Both animals and people died in large numbers as a result, The New York Times reports.

Mr. Zheng, 62, has been sentenced by the Chinese government to death–not for the poisonings, but for the bribery that enabled them.

One more reason to stay honest, o ye corporate executives and government officials.

Of course, there are plenty of others–including, as I point out repeatedly in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, that it’s actually easier for an honest business to profit and thrive.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

This is the first viral video I’m linking from in a year and a half dong this blog.

A film that morphs the faces of women from great paintings throughout history.

Of course, the marketing implications of viral travel of humor or inspiration over the Net have been known for a while–but this one made me think about art in an entirely new way. The paintings really seem to be alive.

As a marketer, I want to know why this had such a profound impact on me that I was instantly moved to share it not only with my humor email list, but for the first time, with my blog.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Marketing Trends/News, Other, Publishing, Uncategorized

…And they should be trying to invest in this.

In three days at Book Expo America, I saw one technology that could really alter the world.

Because FedEx’s whole model is based on the need to transport paper around the world quickly–in situations where fax or e-mail isn’t practical for one reason or another. Situations that require a physical signature on an original document. FedEx, DHL, UPS, USPS, and all the other courier services need to know that the real business they are in at least as much about transporting signatures as in transporting large documents that would be unwieldy via electronic technologies.

Frustrated by the demands of wearying multicity author tours, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood was signing for a package on an electronic tablet. I’m sure you’ve done it. Mistakenly, she believed that she was actually creating a physical signature on a piece of paper, remotely–so, she thought, why can’t I sign a book in my house? After all, it’s been possible for years to do author events by video or audio, remotely. Why not a long-distance book signing?

And now she can. Using two-way videoconferencing, she can interact with a fan or group of fans anywhere in the world, and when a bookstore staffer puts a book under the pen at the other end, she can inscribe and personalize the book.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the company’s promotional material focuses on the “Green” feature: the amount of carbon saved in not flying. Of course, the author who doesn’t have to slog through international border crossings, airports, hotel rooms, and the rest of the grind may or may not be thinking about carbon offsets. And, of course, it’s going to be waaaay cheaper than a year’s worth of book tours–though once the novelty wears off, readers/fans may not find it as satisfying as a real in-person appearance.

Atwood’s company is called Unotchit and the product is Long Pen (TM). I couldn’t find any pricing information on the site but I’m sure that in most cases, a bookstore or other venue will install the device and then loan out the writing tablet (and, if necessary, the video cam) to the author, so the equipment cost will be relatively manageable. And I’m guessing, ironically enough, that a lot of those tablets and cams will be shipped by FedEx

This has huge implications–not only in publishing but in sports, finance, real estate (think about closings with absentee owners), music, international business, and probably dozens of other industries.

You heard it here first.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Publishing, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

Ever been to a rock concert where the merchandise sales tables has more books than CDs? I went to one Friday night in New York: the literary all-star band called the Rock-Bottom Remainders (a remainder, in the publishing world, is a book that the publisher gives up on and sells at a deep discount–these are the fancy $30 art books you see marked down to $8, for instance).

This band consists of people known for their books–Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, among others. they did have Roger McGuin of the Byrds sit in for a few songs (and he sounded great!). Missing the introductions while waiting to get in on that looooong line, I couldn’t figure out who the female singer with the black hair was who could actually sing. (I did figure out that it wasn’t Amy Tan, who has brown hair.) Later, my distributor, who came with me to the concert, told me it was Mitch Albm’s wife. But for the rest of them, it’s good clean fun, and the idea isn’t so much to sound terrific as to throw a great party.

And they did, singing mostly songs of the 1960s and early 70s–everything from “My Boyfriend’s Back” to “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

It’s been a decade or two since I’ve been to a packed New York nightclub–in this case Webster Hall, a fabulous old theater on East 11–and I’d forgotten that in New York, they multiply the legal capacity by several times when they determine the number of tickets to sell. The place was so crowded I literally couldn’t take off my backpack (filled with books and a laptop and probably weighing around 10 pounds). Ever try dancing like that? I could only stay an hour before my feet, worn down by eight hours of walking the BEA show floor, told me I had to stop.

But unlike the typical NYC crowd, nobody was rowdy on that long line to get in. All the booksellers and publishers sedately stood and waited our turn (in our case about 20 or 30 minutes).

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Uncategorized

The more I learn about biodiesel, the less convinced I am that it is anything more than a temporary feel-good “solution” with problems of its own.

Keep in mind that oil and coal are biofuels: when we burn them, we are burning fossilized plant matter from ages long past.

I don’t have a problem with biodiesel that uses waste oil from fast food restaurants, etc. But when crops are grown to be converted to energy–and that’s what will happen if there’s large-scale conversion to biodiesel–there are a number of issues. To name a few:

  • Corn grown for energy displaces corn grown to feed both humans and animals, and that could mean spiraling dairy prices, among other things
  • Transportation and processing issues, including fuel consumed, increased truck traffic, and greenhouse gases/toxic wastes emitted, are usually not factored in
  • Soybean plantations for energy, for soy-based “environmentally responsible” inks, and so forth, are a major cause of rainforest destruction in Brazil (if that sounds far out, look at this article in National Geographic–not known for its alarmist visions, but known widely for its accuracy in reporting)

    • As for carbon credits, I never liked them, any more than I liked the pollution credits of 20 years ago. They are nothing more than a license to pollute. While buying carbon offsets is certainly better than not buying them, bringing down the level of pollution and greenhouse emissions and global warming impact are better strategies to me than polluting and paying.

    I do think massive tree planning is a good thing, and if the offset programs enable that, it’s a start. But think of the environmental impact of buying a tiny and fuel efficient car instead of a Hummer–or better yet, walking or biking or taking public transit.

    So what are the truly Green approaches? Conservation and solar, for sure. Wind, geothermal, and small-scale hydro (especially approaches that don’t actually dam the stream), if done correctly. And little lifestyle changes that minimize resource use.

    Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail