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	<title>bly.com blog</title>
	
	<link>http://bly.com/blog</link>
	<description>bly.com direct marketing blog</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 21 May 2012 16:57:04 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>New Life for Newspapers?</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/new-life-for-newspapers/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/new-life-for-newspapers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 May 2012 16:57:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=796</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many people believe  newspapers are an antiquated, soon-to-be-dead medium. But if so, why did Warren Buffett &#8212; arguably the world&#8217;s savviest investor &#8212; just buy 63 newspapers for $142 million? &#8220;Berkshire Hathaway doesn&#8217;t fool around,&#8221; said analyst Edward Atorino. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think Berkshire Hathaway does anything where they&#8217;re going to lose money.&#8221; &#8220;We may buy [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>What does GE get out of social media?</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/what-does-ge-get-out-of-social-media/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/what-does-ge-get-out-of-social-media/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 18:35:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=793</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[According to an article in Direct Marketing News (5/12, p. 12), General Electric has more than 200,000 Facebook friends and more than 50,000 Twitter followers. What does GE post on the social networks? Photos, questions, and jokes. What do they get out of all this activity? Hundreds of &#8220;likes,&#8221; comments, and mentions. Getting Facebook &#8220;likes&#8221; [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ask a Stupid Question….</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/ask-a-stupid-question/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/ask-a-stupid-question/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2012 16:07:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=789</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A recent headline on msn.com read: &#8220;Why are teen moms poor?&#8221; Is this a serious question? They&#8217;re poor because they are teenagers who have children. Children are expensive, and most teens earn and have little or no money. Mystery solved, right?]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://bly.com/blog/general/ask-a-stupid-question/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Avoid Logical Contradictions in Copy</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/avoid-logical-contradictions-in-copy/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/avoid-logical-contradictions-in-copy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2012 16:04:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=786</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A TV commercial for the new movie &#8220;Snow White and the Huntsman&#8221; dramatically proclaims &#8212; &#8220;This is no fairy tale!&#8221; It reads well and sounds dramatic. The only problem: it&#8217;s not true. Anything about Snow White is by definition a fairy tale. So the copy is  one big lie. Am I being a nitpicker here? Or am [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://bly.com/blog/general/avoid-logical-contradictions-in-copy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Is Writing the Hardest Form of Thinking?</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/is-writing-the-hardest-form-of-thinking/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/is-writing-the-hardest-form-of-thinking/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2012 14:52:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=783</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In The Writer magazine (6/12, p. 15), my favorite novelist, Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini), writes that &#8220;Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.&#8221; He continues: &#8220;It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://bly.com/blog/general/is-writing-the-hardest-form-of-thinking/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How Not to be a “Follow-Up Pest”</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/how-not-to-be-a-follow-up-pest/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/how-not-to-be-a-follow-up-pest/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:27:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=780</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One area of uncertainty among service providers is how often to follow up with prospects. Not often enough and you may lose an opportunity to another vendor who is more visible. Too often and  you risk being an annoyance. One technique that helps is to make sure you are NOT being a pest when you [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What is a “Guaranteed Best-Seller?”</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/what-is-a-guaranteed-best-seller/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/what-is-a-guaranteed-best-seller/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:06:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=776</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today I received an e-mail from a semi-famous business author. In it, he announced that he was working on a new best-seller. Not to nitpik, but I beg to differ. He is working on a book that he HOPES will be a best-seller. But to describe the book-in-progress as a best-seller in the present tense [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Read This Only If You Think E-Mail is “Greener” Than Direct Mail</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/read-this-only-if-you-think-e-mail-is-greener-than-direct-mail/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/read-this-only-if-you-think-e-mail-is-greener-than-direct-mail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:08:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here are some facts about the eco-friendliness of paper direct marketing (direct mail) vs. electronic direct marketing (e-mail) from my fellow copywriter Marjorie Bicknell:  * Only 1.8% of household waste is from advertising direct mail messages and catalogues. * Direct-mail accounts for just 2.4 percent of landfill waste * 54.7 percent of all paper in the U.S. is [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://bly.com/blog/general/read-this-only-if-you-think-e-mail-is-greener-than-direct-mail/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Building Your Platform — Online</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/building-your-platform-online/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/building-your-platform-online/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:29:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=769</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Publishers today only want to publish books by authors with a &#8220;platform.&#8221; A platform is (1) a visible presence in a market and (2) one or more channels through which you can reach that market. Editors looked for such things as whether the author had a column, TV or radio show, even an infommercial. But [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://bly.com/blog/general/building-your-platform-online/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Easiest Marketing Task in the World</title>
		<link>http://bly.com/blog/general/the-easiest-marketing-task-in-the-world/</link>
		<comments>http://bly.com/blog/general/the-easiest-marketing-task-in-the-world/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:27:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bob Bly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bly.com/blog/?p=767</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What&#8217;s the easiest marketing task in the world? It&#8217;s putting up a web site that looks pretty and reads well &#8212; but doesn&#8217;t have to sell anything or generate any other kind of measurable response. I know, because the most common call I get as a copywriter is this: &#8220;We put up a web site [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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