Drive-by-Shooting Sunday: Marketing Artfully

Written by James - 19 Comments

Two men watched the small screen, one casually lounging but his eyes sharp and scrutinizing every action, the other with elbows propped on the table and green eyes slightly narrowed.

“He’d better not screw it up,” James offered the comment into the silence of the small observation room. “We have a lot riding on this hit.” And this time, it wasn’t them pulling the gun. They were observers, making sure nothing went wrong.

If it did, they were close enough that James could secure the scene and put a bullet in fast, getting out before anyone knew what had happened.

“He won’t screw up,” Harry answered, watching the screen and the car that pulled out from the driveway. “Are you sure the video’s going to work on this?” He glanced over at James, skepticism all over his face.

“It should.” He’d Googled and researched and schemed up strategic webcams and a video network system that was tighter than water. He hoped. “I hate video.”

“I know.”

“He’d better not screw it up…”

“He won’t.”

And they watched the moment unfold, their hit in the hands of the rookie at the wheel of the car.

Clearwater Florida. Temperature 89. Humidity 89. Average Age 89. Average IQ, well, I couldn’t say.

All I knew was I had to be careful. I was in Frenchy’s town: Frenchy’s Seafood Company, Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill, Frenchy’s Jet Ski & Boat Rentals. You couldn’t get away from Frenchy. I didn’t know who Frenchy was, and I didn’t want to know. Get in. Get out. Let Frenchy clean up the mess. That was the goal.

I’d found out about the hits, especially last week’s. I’d been watching them for a while… and the boys had reacted in the smartest way. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. They called me in.

Today’s drive-by is Marketing Artfully, the blog of Tara L. Jacobsen, and here’s how the site looked at the time of my visit:

She was a looker, this victim. She was into the ponies. Meerkats too. Odd combination. What she’d done, I didn’t know. It was something to do with the declining real estate market, I assumed.

All I knew was my company’s new mission statement. Exceeding customer and shareholder expectations with flawless execution. It wasn’t much of a statement. Hell, it wasn’t even a sentence.

Flawless Execution… I knew what that meant. That meant me.

I removed the Arizona license plates from my 97 Dodge Stratus, got out my Sig Sauer 220, and slowly drove through the palm-tree infested neighborhood. It was time to execute flawlessly…

Anyone who knows my pet peeves knows that the first thing I looked for was an archive page. Unfortunately, there was none to be had.

Marketing Artfully uses category and month links, as well as a list of five recent posts. The lack of an archive page hurts MA’s ability to get its posts indexed by Google, and it shows. Very few individual blog posts have been indexed. About the only thing you will find in a search is the main site. One of the keys to long-term success is a good archive page. It allows readers and search engines to find the articles you want read.

“Hm.” James leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. “Left-side navigation going on. I’d much rather see that on the right, with the content on the left. Google reads top to bottom and left to right. So do people.”

Harry just grunted.

“The navigation really fades into the background too. I don’t like that it isn’t clear and easy to see. Tabs, maybe, nicely visible, or a navigation bar. Why doesn’t she have a ‘Services’ page? Why isn’t her name in the About Us? Wait… what’s he doing now,” James frowned, watching the man on the screen.

The next minor annoyance was the double masthead. The name of the blog appears as text, and then underneath it is the logo with a rotating banner. (note from James – we see the logo beside the banner… screen size?). Not only is it redundant, but it takes up a lot of space on the screen.

The rotating graphic (changes with each pageload) is an interesting choice and could work. This is a blog about marketing homes though, so why am I seeing pictures of meerkats and racehorses? Every picture should be of a beautiful home. It’s the only choice that makes sense.

“What the… Hey. Is that a meerkat?” The grin on Jamie’s face said it all. “Coolness.”

Then he frowned. “Not cool on a real estate blog though… Nice horses… Alright, pick one banner relevant to real estate and stick with it. Keep the logo, ditch the boring title at the top, and have the tagline underneath the logo.”

The theme colors are lime green, light blue and gray. The colors are attractive and professional looking, with an upbeat feel. I think it works well for the site. I would probably change the subscription button to a lime green so that it matched.

“I like the colors,” Harry commented, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “The green in the logo could be sharper though. It’s not clear enough. The white background is eating it up. I’d get that RSS out of the top section to move the banner up and save space. Belongs with the email subscription section.”

Marketing Artfully does a good job of emphasizing the feed subscription options. It’s right there at the top of the right column. I would get rid of the MyBlogLog and Amungus widgets though. They make the blog seem more casual than professional. This blog is promoting professional services. It is fine to look creative, but a site like this should avoid any gimmicky widgets.

“Hey, what the…” James frowned at the little blinking green circle that hovered over the map. Montreal, Quebec. “Is she tracking us? WTF? Okay, that’s just creepy,” he reached over to shut down the video monitor. “Call him. Get him the hell out of there. We have a trace on us.”

“Wait,” Harry’s hand reached to stop James from shutting the hit down completely. “Hold on…” His whole body was tense, waiting to see if anything would happen. Nothing.

“Let it go, bro.” Harry relaxed and sat back. “We’re ditching this rental anyways. No one will know we’ve been here.”

Having removed the widgets, I would move up the ads for her services. They are attractive and blend well with the site colors so there is no harm in moving them directly underneath the subscription form. Make it easy for people to do business with you.

“And improve the copy,” James mumbled absently. “‘Hire me.’ To do what? Plus, with that lack of clear navigation, people can’t see right away that there are services being offered…”

“Be quiet, would you?” Harry glanced over. “I’m trying to watch this, you know.”

The tagline for the site is “Niche Marketing For Realtors and Small Businesses”. The site is clearly meant to promote services but to do that, there’s going to have to be some great information.

For the most part the posts stay close to the stated purpose, but I notice that many of the posts contain long paragraphs with few headlines or other visuals to break up the text. Readers on the web tend to get bogged down by large blocks of text. I would consider adding some graphics to the post and using more headings and lists.

“No argument there,” Harry grunted.

This is a marketing blog, so I expect great headlines. Blog owner Tara Jacobson has the appropriate creativity when it comes to writing headlines for her articles, but her references can be a little obscure. Headlines are not meant to entertain your existing readers, they are meant to draw in new readers.

If I came across an article titled, Your Favorite Medium, I could only guess what the article was about. A headline such as, Reaching Your Market: Is Your Medium Too Small?, identifies what the article is about while staying creative. The key to good headlines is to be creative AND informative.

“You go, bro” James said softly, nodding in agreement.

This good, basic site just needs a little tweaking. I would consider a professionally designed theme, but the current theme has no serious problems other than the double masthead. I would look for better headlines and more visual posts. I would also add an archive page and (behind the scenes) Google Site Maps. I would encourage Jacobson get more involved in the blog community and look for ways to reach out to similar sites and get more incoming links.

The afternoon rain began to fall right on schedule. A convenient lightning strike distracted from the shots. Two to the body. One to the head. The corporate guidelines were specific. She never saw it coming. I was around the corner and on my way before she hit the ground.

As I drove away, I turned on NPR and listened to Kai Ryssdal give the Marketplace Report. He told me the real estate slump was getting worse by the day. I nodded in agreement as I pulled off the road to reattach the license plates and ditch my gun in Old Tampa Bay.

The market was dead.

John Hewitt has been a professional writer for 20 years. In that time, he has learned 12 Ways to Write Terrible Documentation, 10 Ways to Annoy the Hell out of Your Writers’ Group and How to Write Your Way Out of a Wet Paper Sack. Oh, and how to be a hit man.

Want more? You got it. Check out our upcoming hit jobs:

June 8 – Head Rambles
June 15 – Kameronmf.com

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