Built on Bravery Builds Athletes of All Abilities

Andrew Cameron knows how to train athletes, especially special needs individuals and Special Olympics athletes. He recently started a new organization – Built on Bravery – to help them become the very best they can be.

Built on Bravery provides individualized personal training and more focused Special Olympics coaching that helps clients meet their health and fitness goals. They can take engage in person at Built on Bravery’s Eden Prairie, Minn., facility, or online if they don’t live in the Twin Cities area.

Andy’s mantra is “Believe It, Achieve It!” and that’s exactly what he helps his athletes do. He believes in “any body,” meaning Built on Bravery’s science-based health and fitness programs are built on the conviction that every individual has the potential to get stronger, healthier and happier regardless of any perceived limitations.

Built on Bravery athletes learn how to eat right, lose weight, gain weight, build strength, tone muscles and improve skills in everyday life and their chosen sports. “They just need the courage to try, and we’ll guide them the rest of the way,” Andy says.

To help spread the good word about his new business, he turned to Nubson Design and Fredricks Com

munications. Nubson took care of Built on Bravery’s website and design work, and I handled the copywriting and content creation for several marketing and public relations pieces.

Since the beginning of our relationship, I’ve helped Andy with copywriting and content creation for a sales flyer, a press release, an email to coaches of special needs athletes, a letter to education professionals who work with special needs individuals and a script for introductory video on the Built on Bravery website.

You can help special needs individuals, Special Olympics athletes and Built on Bravery by checking out its sales flyer and website and directing special needs individuals, their parents/guardians, coaches and teachers there, as well.

It’s been a pleasure working with Andy because he is pretty special, himself. While he doesn’t have Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome or any of the other conditions that his clients deal with every day, he’s dedicated himself to seeing them prevail. And in my book that makes him very special, indeed.

Fredricks Communications recently had the pleasure of working, once again, with Burnsville, Minn.-based SnowWolf, for the release of its latest innovation, the QuattroPlowHD. FredComm created a press release for the new attachment and developed headline/content for a series of social media posts.

SnowWolf is a highly innovative leader in the snow-removal equipment market. Over the years there have been many “industry firsts” from the company.

The QuattroPlowHD is a 4-function-in-1 snow-removal attachment for use with heavy-duty equipment such as wheel loaders, tractors and backhoes.

In 2016, FredComm worked with SnowWolf on a wide range of materials for the introduction of what at that time was its latest “first,” the QuattroPlow, a 4-function-in-1 snow-removal attachment for skid steers. The QuattroPlow is a high-capacity, hydraulic angle snowpusher, angle plow with wings, wide-angle plow with wings and backdrag plow, all in one. The theme of the campaign was “4x the Plow,” and it was highly successful.

SnowWolf executives said it was “an out-of-the-park homerun”; QuattroPlow sales exceeded sales of all other SnowWolf snow-removal attachments and accessories combined. This year, SnowWolf incorporated the concept into its design for the beefier 4-in-1 attachment for larger machines.

Congratulations, SnowWolf! I hope the sales on the QuattroPlowHD are just as good, if not better, than what you saw with the QuattroPlow last year.

The name for The Red Letter grew from the hair on my head to the copywriting, strategic messaging and brand consulting services I provide. In other words, it combines a number of Fredricks Communications brand and personal-identity ideas.

The first is as plain as the red hair on my head. I come by it honestly. My grandfather, the late Martin C. Fredricks Jr., was a district court judge in Jamestown. He also was a redhead, and for as far back as I can remember, everyone called him “Red” instead of Martin. As his namesake and a fellow redhead, it was an honor to also take on his nickname and put it to good use in terms of marketing my company.

So, whenever someone reads The Red Letter, they are literally reading a letter from “Red.”

Second, when I started FredComm in February 2004, I knew I would offer several interrelated communication services, but that my primary offerings would match my strengths: writing and editing. The colors of writing and editing are white (paper), black (ink) and red (editor’s ink), so I selected those as my brand colors. In addition, you’ll notice that my logo contains an editor’s mark in the page icon– the three lines under the lowercase “fc” indicating that they should be capitalized.

Before I left my day job for the freelance world, I noted what some established freelancers were doing. One, in particular, caught my eye. She published a simple, one-page newsletter that reported news about her business when there was any. Mostly, though, she filled it with simple communication tips and ideas.

I also noticed that, without fail, one of the account managers in the advertising agency I worked in at the time copied and distributed that little one-page tome to everyone in the office every time it arrived on the fax machine. I thought it was a great way to stay in touch with clients, prospects and others, especially if you could make the newsletter funny, informative, a little quirky…basically quick and fun to read. So, I launched my own newsletter within a month of starting my own business.

The Red Letter has evolved with the times so that, now, rather than being a printable PDF sent by email, it’s become a blog for anyone to see any time.

Now, as for the name, The Red Letter –

You might be familiar with the term “red-letter day.” Historically, calendars denoted holidays or special days with red ink while regular days were in black. Those days came to be known as “red-letter” days. Over the years, the definition evolved into regular use to describe a really good or great day in a person’s or organization’s life, a day in which something happened that was a cause for celebration.

Today, any day in which something really positive happens can be a “red-letter day.” I have tried to extend that literally and metaphorically; a day someone receives The Red Letter in his or her in-box is a red-letter day. Stretching it even a little further still, my hope was to achieve a more substantial message: a day working with FredComm is a good day, a red-letter day.

Tying the whole thing together with a great nickname which has a literal meaning (my red hair) that helps people identify with and remember me on sight – that’s just the icing on top, so to speak.

There, more than you ever wanted to know. Hope you have a Red Letter day!

Circular Logic in Content Goes Nowhere Fast

Online marketing and social media people write thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of words each day about blogging, copywriting, SEO, content development, inbound marketing, social ROI, metrics and on and on.

A couple of weeks ago I read a few hundred of those words that… well…. let’s just say when I was done, all I knew for certain was I wanted to get back the time it took to read the post.

The “expert” was trying to get at metrics for measuring success. More specifically, he wrote, most people are not measuring the best metric. OK. Stage set. I wanted to know what the “right” metric would be. I read on.

The problem, he said (I’m paraphrasing here and will be throughout), most people think the best measure of success for a post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or their company blogs is engagement. Not how many views, but time spent, likes, comments, mentions, shares, @replies, click-throughs, retweets and the like.

Yep. With you so far.

The problem with that, he continued, is that none of those measurements gets to what is really important in the online marketing game: value. It’s one thing for site visitors to spend time reading a post, article or page, but are they getting any value out of it? Do they learn something useful? Most importantly, when they’re done are they a little closer to making a purchase or seeing your company as a leader in your category? If not, then your post was pretty much worthless.

To really make a difference to business growth, you need to deliver content that provides real value to prospects and customers. Further, he wrote – and by that point I was imagining someone glaring at me, gnarled hand vigorously shaking a ruler in my direction – companies and organizations MUST MEASURE VALUE.

Value! Of course. So, how do you –

But the problem with that, the venerable Social Media Guru went on, is there’s almost no way to measure value. At least not yet.

Huh?

So, what social media marketers really need to do is measure –

Wait for it…

– engagement!

That’s right, he said. Until someone comes up with a reliable way to measure online content’s value to prospects and customers, the best one can do is pay very close attention to engagement. You know, retweets, likes, comments and the like.

Well. Hmmmm. Gee.

My reading on social, inbound marketing, blogging and so on has been educational. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

• Everyone wants to be seen as an expert. Not everyone is. Clearly.
• Regurgitation is the rule. Many so-called experts are re-writing content someone else wrote a year, a month or even a week ago. I’ve read what’s essentially the same post presented in different ways more times than I care to recall.
• There’s a lot of garbage out there. Not everyone employs ham-handed circular logic, but there’s a lot of superficial, obvious and even nonsensical content floating around.

Which brings me to my 1 Tip for Online Marketing “Experts” – Never write a post that takes your readers in a circle, right back to the point where they started, with nothing of – ahem! – value to be found on the journey of the circumference.

DUH.

But hey, it’s easy to play the critic, right? Fact is, there’s a lot of good content out there, too, written by really smart people who know which way is up and try to help you move a little further in that direction (and pay for their services). That just wasn’t the case this time around.

I have to give the circular post writer credit for one thing, though. His piece was the ideal illustration of his point. I spent four to five minutes reading it (good engagement), but gained nothing, didn’t feel a nudge toward deeper thought on the subject and definitely was not entertained (zero value).

Well done, Sir.

To avoid this kind of thing in your content, contact Fredricks Communications today.