Do you have a strong "USP" ("Unique Selling Proposition")? You've had the importance of establishing your USP hammered into you again and again, but if you're like most people, you still only have a vague idea of what it might be.

I've hammered on the idea myself:

How to Make Your Marketing Story Compelling:

A...
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If you're like me, your morning started an hour too soon today. Actually, I got a double whammy: spring break ended for the kids and daylight saving time started. Ugh.

If I were living the internet lifestyle :-), I would have stayed in bed. But breakfast had to be eaten and lunches had to be...
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Every few days, I see a tweet about the latest edition of somebody or other's Paper.li publication. Occasionally, something I've written shows up in one, and I appreciate that. But do I ever read them? Well, I haven't yet.

Paper.li looks kinda cool -- you mash up all the interesting stuff you've been reading, organize...
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I've got a revelation for you today: we're in a recession. Oh, you'd already noticed?

A lot of people have watched their businesses shrivel over the last few years. No matter how they tweak their marketing, there's just not as much money flowing around for them to dip into.

I've experience it myself. Within months...
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I was scrolling back through a bunch of unread items in my feed reader today and came across a post by Andy Jenkins highlighting a bunch of good and bad landing page designs. On really jumped out at me -- Google's page for the Nexus S.

The design is beautiful, simple, and clean. But there's...
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Yesterday, I wrote about overcoming the fear of being unique in your marketing. This morning, I experienced something that hammered home the power of uniqueness.

I was listening to an old Stevie Nicks song, "Blue Lamp", as I worked. At one point, the music comes to the end of a phrase that's occurred before in...
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Seth Godin says you need to be a "Purple Cow". Chip and Dan Heath teach that "unexpected" ideas stick better. A million other people offer the same advice in a million other ways. If what you're doing is run-of-the-mill, you're headed for run-of-the-mill results.

I'm sure you've heard plenty of times before that to get...
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I don't know how many times I've read advice claiming you need to slash adjectives and adverbs from your copy. The writer will share a few examples of converting boring descriptive sentences into exciting action sentences.

"He was super-duper tall -- even taller than a three-story building," becomes, "he lumbered through the town, stepping over...
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When I read that today is the 20th anniversary of the Rodney King beating, it brought back a flood of images. First, of course, was the video of the beating on the news.

I lived in San Francisco at the time, so I also remember seeing the broken and boarded up windows downtown after the...
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When an original webpage is outranked by a page that copied its content, the author usually cries foul. At first glance, it seems they're right -- the original source should get the credit for the content. But when you look deeper, it's not nearly so clear cut a question as you might think.

Let's talk...
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