I was the featured speaker last night at Saylor’s Restaurant in Sausalito for a Marin Scuba Club presentation on travel writing. I discussed some of the hundreds of articles I’ve written for dive magazines and travel blogs — and told the stories of my inspiration for each article.

I discussed how 4 cancelled dive days of 5 planned in Australia led to my first travel article, how I planned to propose to my wife underwater — and that she nearly drowned, how bathing my infant daughter was the catalyst for a story about diving, how getting narked and running out of air in Belize’s Great Blue Hole became another story, and how I got an article about hiking Half Dome in Yosemite published in a dive magazine in New Zealand.

Thanks again to Fritz Wall of FritzCartoons for creating a special logo for my travel writing exploits.

Read some of my travel articles here.

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Today, I featured this particular :60 video as the start of my BNI Presentation to promote the services of Zeimer’s Advertising Shoppe. Have a look: Gil Zeimer, Freelance Copywriting Promotional Video. It was produced by Brandefy.com using a video template they created.

By the way, I also write a wide variety of projects, from brochures to newsletters to websites.

About The 3 Radio Spots
1) The first radio commercial I ever wrote was for Lindsay Olives, a client of Ketchum San Francisco, one of the largest ad agencies at that time. They liked humor and another writer (Jon Crawford) had created a campaign using “Talking Olives” personalities to bring this tree fruit to life. My script was originally an ode to my Jewish mother, but my Creative Director chose a male character actor when he produced it. Listen to “Yoo Hoo”.

2) The second radio commercial I ever wrote was to promote a KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 investigative report on a series of accidental deaths at Oak Knoll Hospital in Oakland. This was another client at Ketchum. I chose to re-enact one of the operations using the type of banter seen on the “MASH” TV series. Listen to “Oak Knoll Hospital”.

3) Finally, the third radio spot I played was created when I was an Associate Creative Director at Grey San Francisco. At that time, it was a breakthrough to use a humorous approach for Bank of America. I was toying with the idea of using a mnemonic device to personalize fast home loan approvals when I saw an article in “People” Magazine about the world’s fastest talker. I wrote the script, sold it to the client, then contacted the woman in New York and got her to fly to Los Angeles to voice part of the commercial. Listen to “Fast Home Loans”.

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Junior didn’t suffer in vain. His death was the catalyst for his USC colleague and fellow NFL alumnus, Ernie Spears, to promote a nonprofit group called the Pro Athlete Alliance (PAA). This Internet Publishing and Broadcasting Company now provides a free digital magazine and social networking website, which has been created exclusively for current and former professional athletes of all sports. PAA’s goal is to help athletes manage their lives while playing their sport, transitioning from their sport, and successfully navigating the rest of their lives.

I recently was hired to write a series of emails for PAA’s first webinar: “Long Term Effects of Post-Concussion Syndrome” featuring Dr. Ted Carrick. One of them is shown above.

The results from Mr. Spears: “The campaign was a great success — thank you! Briefly: 6,500 NFL email addresses secured; 160+ webinar subscribers; average open rate 35%!; ROI 3%. Fantastic responses from attendees.”

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We used a video template created by Brandefy.com. Have a look.

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With about 60 members, we’re the largest on the West Coast, we closed over $2.2 million during 2012 through referred word-of-mouth business, and host three seven-minute presentations per week. That means my turn in the rotation only comes up once about every five months. So I always make sure to creatively cut through the clutter with my presentations.

This video of my presentation, captured and edited by Jason Steinberg of Steinberg Imagery, set the bar higher and I’m very pleased with the outcome. My thanks again to Kathy Olberts of Quantum Careers, Pam Card of Surefire Online Marketing and Richard Reinholdt of Reinholdt Insurance Agency for being my “King Tut” back-up singers and to Joe Markert of FunctionOne IT who coordinated running the MP3, showing the lyrics on screen, ran my PPT, then a :60 video and a :60 radio spot.

And now, on with the show!

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Among all of the solar companies operating in the San Francisco Bay Area, Skytech Solar is one of the few focusing on residential, commercial and nonprofit solar installations. But their specialty has become installing low-cost solar for San Francisco’s low-income residents.

My most frequent WordPress collaborator, Bradley Charbonneau of Likoma, found a beauty of a background image for the site with the right colors and a lively set of sun rays. He even tricked out the background of the body area so it would be semi-transparent. The result? A sleek looking site with a good dose of style. Take that sun ray graphic away and it’s a different site.

Take a look at their old site to see how much of an upgrade this was for them.

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“After” Website Home Page
Lauren Deane Evans of Good Looking Ideas, Bradley Charbonneau of Likoma, Mischa Purcell of Mischa Photography and I created this very minimalist but effective website to showcase Steve’s financial planning expertise.

Because it’s been designed in WordPress, Steve can also edit the site content himself whenever he needs to. Note how Mischa’s professional photos make a huge impact vs. amateur photos that just don’t do the job.

To invite the right caliber of high-powered female executives to the event, I crafted a campaign of letters and emails for Steve to use as invitations.

However, it turned out that personal referrals to people I knew who were in his target audience led to him filling the table where other methods had not been successful.

As a testimonial, Steve wrote: “ I want you to know that the IWF Gala was a total home run! Both the table and the event were well played. Thanks for your help, both with the IWF table placement, and also the new website.”

“Before” Website Home Page

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On the dais with me were two extremely knowledgeable and talented medical writers, each with decades of experience.

The topic of our 90-minute presentation was “The Scope of Medical Communications”.

I presented a case study/success story on an orthopedic clinic in the midwest that I helped earlier this year with a new website, brochure, ads, outdoor boards, radio and TV scripts.

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“How To Get on Google’s First Page Fast” was written by my colleague, Vitold Chrzanowski, founder of EnLocalDC.com, a top-notch Online Marketing company that specializes in engineering and building Google Local Search Listings now referred to as Google +Local Listings in conjunction with optimizing YouTube videos. In fact, I’ve been working with Vit across a handful of clients over the past six months and he’s quickly attained first page rankings on Google for ALL of them with multiple sets of keywords, including my own site!

This eBook’s mission is to reach out to all those businesses like yours who are seeking how-to advice to take advantage of time-tested and research-proven mechanisms. EnLocalDC wants you to:

• Understand the online challenge and know the landscape.
• Achieve the best possible Search Engine Ranking Page results on Google by using key words AND videos.
• Go behind the curtain to share their most intimate “Secrets” that have worked well and served all of their friends and clients.
• Have an easy-to-follow list of best practices to achieve higher rankings quickly.

If this sounds like a pain-free way to boost your Google rankings (and trust me, it is!), then I suggest that you purchase this eBook today at GroupPrice.com for $15 –– 50% off the retail price.

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