Why this blog? Because I'm your customer's advocate, reminding businesses that they must talk to customers, not at them, to get heard. This blog is my means of putting helpful advice, tips and reminders out into the world so your marketing will be more relevant, more targeted...and more likely to get noticed. Happy Marketing!

--Sharon Long

I am slowly, ever so slowly, pulling together my "marketing is like dating book." The irony of being a freelance copywriter is you spend all your time writing for other people and don't seem to find time to do your own writing! 

But I've said enough in this copywriter blog about marketing is like dating to have, of all things, dating websites find it and post comments to it trying to get links back to their own sites. OK, this makes me laugh, but also draw two lessons from it:

My freelance work often involves website copywriting using keywords for SEO, but I know that's only one part of getting your website indexed and ranked by search engines. Links into your site are the other. So going out looking for blogs to post comments on to link back to your website is one way to do that. But, and this is a big but, you have to make sure you're posting in an appropriate place! 

Obviously anyone who things a link to a dating website is appropriate for this professional copywriter's blog didn't read the blog. Dumb.

The other lesson, well, it's not really a lesson, is something I hadn't considered: Here I've come up with 9 ways to improve your copywriting based on the idea that marketing is like dating, and people are coming to me via my freelance copywriter blog saying dating is like marketing. LOL! Yep. It sure is! 

I'll make sure to make that part of the book...when I get enough free time away from web copywriting and email copywriting to work on it...

As a copy writer, I try to be and push authentic. By push, I mean encouraging those clients hiring me as their content copywriter to tell a true story. I also try to push delivering the message the right way. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you say as a freelance copywriter if you say it via a channel or at a time unappealing to your audience.

So Pepsi just got kudos from me on two counts by announcing they're skipping the Super Bowl ad frenzy this year. And they give two reasons that make perfect sense to me as a professional copywriter who preaches talk to your customer not at them: 

1) They are spending $20M on social causes. They would be hypocrites to spend another $12M on Super Bowl ads. That is authentic.

2) They recognize what they would be marketing, this from-the-ground-up campaign of Pepsi Refresh, wouldn't fit with the spirit of the typical Super Bowl ad. (And they could fall flat on their face as a result.) That is about delivering the message the right way...and the Super Bowl ain't it, not for this message.

I'm just a lowly freelance copy writer trying to stay true to her principles as I do my work. How validating to have a company like Pepsi validate two of those principles in such a public way! 

Three days ago, a dog named Bear joined our family. Animals now outnumber people by 5 to 1 (not counting squirrels).

Being a professional copywriter who wants to relate everything back to marketing and copywriting, I was thinking about Bear, and how he sleeps on my daughter's bed and is so protective of us. And boy, does he look protective when he's laying there sleeping next to her! They're the same size! 

Thinking how to relate this to my job as a freelance copywriter, I kept coming back to the idea of peace of mind and security. Having Bear around means feeling safer, even if he might turn out to be a big huge chicken, more than a big huge dog.

But it's the idea of security that matters here, the comfort my daughter feels with that big lug sleeping next to her, and the peace of mind I feel when he raises his head and gives a soft bark just in case. It feels good in a world that quite often doesn't.

Does your marketing offer a feeling of security? Does your web site copywriting make people feel safe buying from you? How about your printed collateral, has your freelance copywriter conveyed your marketing message in a believable way? 

I think about Bear, and even the warm fuzzies I feel as he dozes at my feet while I type, and I think, "This feels good. I want to feel more of this."

I'm not alone. Your prospects and customers want to feel more of that too. Work with your best copywriter and make that happen, make those words on the page or the screen convey that you can be trusted, buying from you is safe, that you really do have that customer's best interests at heart, as Bear does mine.

Be like the big dog.

Revising my own keywords as a professional copywriter who writes a blog, I was struck by how easy it might be to use keywords that don't attract your target audience...quite the opposite.

As I revised my freelance copywriter blog keywords this past week, there were several suggested to me that I knew wouldn't work. Anything with "wanted" in the term was another freelance copywriter looking for work, not a potential client. And search terms that used simply "writer" and not "copywriter" meant people with smaller budgets. (Clients that can afford to hire a professional copywriter will search using the term copywriter, not writer. Anyone who found my blog and therefore Website using the search term "writer" is therefore not a good lead for me, in my experience.) 

Better yet are specific terms like web copywriters, blog copywriter, content copywriter, email copywriting...even if those are competitive search terms that I'll have trouble winning through blogging for SEO, I'd rather fight harder for search terms that I know will help qualified copywriting prospects to find me, rather than use search terms that I could easily win...but then instead of making money as a professional copywriter, I'd be spending time trying to explain to someone why I'm not the kind of writer they are trying to hire. And I definitely don't want to spend time fielding emails and phone calls from freelance writers looking for work, those using words like "wanted" in their searches.

Just because a search term uses a word you want to be found for doesn't mean it's a search term you should focus on in your blog. Be clear who is using those terms and why, rather than investing precious time in blogging using keywords that might generate traffic but won't generate clients or sales! 

I just got an email from a client annoyed because I didn't ask him for the results of my last email copywriting project (the opens and click throughs). I realized I'm so used to my copywriting work getting done far in advance of any end product that I don't think to ask, it's true.

For example, I was the ad copywriter for IG Creative on two ads they did for Washington Federal, to appear in the Puget Sound Business Journal 2010 Book of Lists. I enjoyed being the Seattle copywriter for them and was proud of my work...but two months went by before the Book of Lists was published so I completely forgot about it until yesterday.

One ad was for the back cover, one was a full page ad inside. As the copywriter, I was to work within strict guidelines that were part of a rebrand. I love challenges like that! So for example as ad copywriter for these, I had to have one, single strong compelling word (like solid in one ad and proven in the other) but then a sentence before it that the word actually belonged so. So the word becomes a graphical element, but still makes sense as a word too. (Does that make sense?)

It was also a fun challenge because the ads had to be somewhat similar but still different. At first I tried too hard to make them the same, but IG Creative straightened me out and I like the "just similar enough" result.

And believe it or not, it was a challenge to do copywriting for a bank because so many banks make so many false claims and I was working against that cynicism!

These ads are also huge. It was funny as the Seattle copywriter to have all that space...but to know the words had to be few...and exactly right. It's easier to be a verbose copywriter using lots of words to convince! Harder to be a concise one. :-)

Thank you to IG Creative for hiring me as the copywriter for these ads, I'm proud of them. And thank you to my client not happy with me for being honest about it so I can do a better job of follow up on my copywriting projects, whether email or websites or ads or whitepapers or whatever... :-)

I just met with the founder of PureAyre to coach him on blogging. We met at the Kona Kai coffee shop where I often run into people know, because that's this copywriter's home away from home. This morning as I ran into people, I introduced James and literally gushed about their product, an odor eliminator...not because I was trying to impress James, but because I am a true believer in their product.

I'm a freelance copywriter. I get paid to say good things about clients' products and services. My copywriter services exist solely to get prospects interested in what my clients have to sell. When it comes to a product that really works, like PureAyre, my job is easy on the one hand: The stuff is awesome! And hard on the other: People don't believe it, they think it's too good to be true. Even the people I talked to at the coffee shop, you could tell they were dubious. "Why is this Seattle copywriter going on and on about this stuff?" they were wondering.

So it was interesting to get my GiveMore quote of the day:

"Don't be consistent, but be simply true." Oliver Wendell Holmes

When your product is truly as good as you say it is, your copywriter can be true to your prospect, to your product and to herself.

Is your product or service so good your copywriter can simply sell by telling the truth? If not, make it so. If so, you rock.

Web writing can be a tricky business for a professional copywriter: You're never quite sure what you're going to be working with for a design, sitemap, clarity of message...I wrote my first website in 1997, if you can believe it, way before I even knew what a professional copywriter was! And in the 13 (gulp) years since then, I don't think I've done two website copywriting projects that were the same.

I really like what we were just able to do for Contract Controllers, a CPA firm, and this was a first for me: They had a set template and sitemap for me to work with, because of the company doing their site. But they were smart enough to know that even with a design that wasn't one-of-a-kind, their message better be! 

So they called me in as their professional copywriter. (Am I being self serving here? Probably, but this blog really is about them!)

They were great to work with, and the project went smoothly for this website copywriter. But I give them kudos for recognizing the need to stand out, to have a unique message.

I was a little frustrated with the company putting together the site because they wouldn't let us use unique Title tags (critical for SEO!). And certain elements couldn't be changed. But for the most part as the freelance website copywriter, I'm a happy camper because Contract Controllers got a decent looking site that tells their story.

See the site at http://www.contractcontrollers.com.

2010 is the year I figure out how my role as a freelance copy writer will change in the age of social media. Blogging I got down. I've been pushing blogs as marketing tools for a long time now, and even teaching small business blogging. I think I have a pretty good handle on LinkedIn as a marketing tool. Twitter I'll never figure out. So I've primarily been paying attention to Facebook as a social media marketing tool.

But my friend Jeff just summed up how to use Facebook as a small business with his Facebook page for his painting business.

Jeff did an excellent job applying the principle of KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. And he zeroed in on what people want to see: before and after pictures and real-life painting success stories. And in a format that's easily shared!

This freelance copy writer says kudos to Jeff for harnessing the small business marketing power of Facebook in a way that's a great--simple--example for others! 

I'm a professional copywriter. That means it's my job to know words and how to use them, for websites, email, SEO, print, ghost blogging, press releases, etc.

But I've also made it part of my job as a professional copywriter to know about the tools and means used for serving up the copywriting that is my craft. That means learning about online press rooms, for example, or keeping up with changes in search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting. And much, much more! (You'd be shocked how much I know that has nothing to do with being a professional copywriter!) 

My embarrassing ah ha moment happened when I realized blogs would make perfect press rooms. I happen to know a little something about online press rooms (again, not related to being a copywriter, but related to knowing how to present my work). We did a presentation andarticle on online press rooms few years ago.

But that was before I really understood blogs as online marketing tools.

Using a blog for your pressroom is brilliant because it's easy to upload your content, the search engines will find and index those press releases faster (because they prefer blog content over static website content), it's easily searched, you can add static pages with your contact information and company bio...I honestly can't think of a reason NOT to use a blog for your online press room! 

If you've been thinking, yeah, we really need an online press room, but you haven't wanted to put the time and money into it, try a blog. I bet you can be up and running with your press room in less than half an hour. For tips on what to include, definitely read our article at http://www.weknowblogs.com/blog/sharons-marketing-missive/0/0/you-dont-have-to-be-an-online-copywriter-to-market-your-business-online-use-press-releases.

Fridays are a fast day for me. Not all day, just until dinner. But I just made this Friday harder buying salivating over the toasts and bagels pictured at the Global Toaster blog.

It's not that I'm obsessed with toasters. I'm obsessed with blogs as marketing tools. And by that I mean blogging for SEO.

The Global Toaster blog is the best blog I know of for showing how quick and targeted blog posts can be.

For me as a copywriter, it's kind of funny, because I love words and I love to write and I love to market...and that all adds up to wanting to write longer blog copywriting blog posts. Even the ghost blogs I write for clients tend to be longer. I rationalize that I get to be more verbose because it gives me more room for the SEO keywords too.

But Jane Toast, the clever and witty author of the Global Toaster blog, puts this SEO copywriter to shame. Her posts are short and to the point, but still entertaining and keyword rich.

I check out her blog on a regular basis to inspire me as the SEO copywriter to do a better job with my own blogging.

But I just learned not to do that on Fridays. Because now my stomach is grumbling and I have about 8 more hours of fasting to go.

It was really the egg and muffin toaster that did it...man, that makes me hungry! 

If you're using blogs as marketing tools and SEO is a big part of it, definitely check out the toaster blog for inspiration. Just make sure to do it on a full stomach, OK?

As a freelance copywriter who helps out clients with small business marketing, I am constantly on the lookout for new information to pass along to copywriting clients, especially as social media takes center stage.

I'm already pushing blogs as marketing tools, but these days I'm looking out for nuggets on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, trying to wrap my head around how these tools can be put to use for small business marketing.

So this article of using Facebook for your small business caught my eye when someone retweeted it, but it's more of the same: talking about the how, but not the why, and definitely not about the "how to make money" part of the how.

I'm a copywriter, yes. Words are my business. Web writing is my business. Email copywriting is my business. But I also owe it to my copywriting clients to be up to speed on other marketing channels, so I can make sure my work as freelance copywriter fits with their other marketing efforts.

What small business folks lack more than anything are time and money. What they need more than anything is sound advice.

And that doesn't mean telling them how to set up a Facebook page, and to make sure they have lots of friends and family to get to follow them. That means telling them how to make money, how to market their business and convert prospects to customers using Facebook.

But sadly that means looking beneath the surface of the shiny new thing that is Facebook. And articles like this only encourage more small business folks to jump on the Facebook bandwagon, wasting precious time on a tool they don't know how to use let alone necessarily need.

Am I simply grumpy because I didn't get to ride my horse today? Or am I grumpy because I too am a small business owner and I wants facts, not Facebook.
 

Yesterday I sat through another disappointing SEO webinar. It was "sold" to me as a copywriter as SEO copywriting tips for 2010, implying it would offer new information. But it was simply a rehash of old information I as an experienced copywriter already knew.

Seriously, maybe I do know everything there is to know about SEO copywriting for now, including optimizing press releases. This webinar talked about how to build an online press room, a topic the We Know Words copywriting staff presented on two years ago!

I realize not everyone knows as much as I do about search engine optimization and Web writing. That's because not everyone works as a website copywriter. I get that. But please do not sell me on a webinar by promising that it will be new information! If it's the same old, same old in 2010, fine. Tell me that and I'll know I'm still in a position to do well by my clients. But don't pretend it's more than it is.

I don't SEO staying the same for a while! That gives me time to ramp up on my role as a freelance copywriter in the age of social media...

Yesterday I started on a new website copywriting project and it struck me how important it is to know what your prospects know when determining what your website should say. In this case, the people come to the website already know they have a need (the patient is aware of the disease).

Not only that, they've heard of the company. (Which is why this is not an SEO copywriter project in this case.) And they've had contact with a sales rep from the company already.

What does that mean to me as the copywriter? It means there's a heck of a lot of stuff I do NOT need to say. These prospects are already interested. They are in the research phase. They have questions, like "Why should I choose you?" 

As the website copywriter, I don't have to sell them on the whole idea of what this client is selling. Nor do I have to introduce them to this company.

Instead I as the client's freelance copywriter get to delve into the competitive differences of this company. Plus I can streamline the sales process by answering the questions prospects typically ask right there on the website. Finally, I have room for "proof points" in the form of real-life stories that prove my client's claims.

Knowing where in the sales cycle or research cycle the prospect is helps me as the online copywriter to provide the information they are really looking for, not fill the website with fluff they already know...and that will make them just click away with a yawn.

Last night we went bowling, something we rarely do so I'm not very good at it. I'm definitely a better freelance copywriter than bowler! In the middle of the second game, my friend said "Hang on to the ball a little longer." I did...and bowled two strikes in a row.

That one little split second change improved this copywriter's bowling game dramatically. Which got me thinking about tweaks, and how one little tweak can make a big difference in copywriting, whether it's web writing or small business marketing or blogs as marketing tools.

What can you have your freelance copywriter tweak to improve your company's marketing? How about email subject lines? The heading on your website's home page? The cover of that postcard? Maybe it's even your staff's signature block in their emails, or the title of your next blog post. Or your call to action? How you word your registration form on your landing page? Your banner ad, the executive summary for your next whitepaper, the CEO quote in your next press release...the possibilities are endless.

Copywriters work with words. But not just any words. The right words used in the right way. Tweaking those words can make a big difference. Never stop looking for places to tweak! 

You might end up bowling a strike instead of a spare.

Last night I watched "Seabiscuit" again. Thank you to my daughter for picking that out at the movie place! It was timely given we'd been showing my racehorse (pictured here) to potential buyers over the weekend.

But as a copywriter, not horse lover, that movie is a wonderful reminder of the power of stories. Seabiscuit came along when the people needed something to believe in, a success story of an underdog winning against all odds. It was the depression. It was a horrible, scary time. And here was this scrappy little horse who paddled out with one leg (like mine!) but whose heart was bigger than War Admiral's, the 18 hand powerhouse rival.

As so often happens, the timing was right for this story...which made it an even better story. But Seabiscuit had a storyteller too. And this is the tie in to copywriting. Charles Howard was a salesman and success. And he knew how to tell the story to the press, to work this situation to get the most out of it. If it wasn't for Howard seeing and seizing the opportunity, would Seabiscuit have had more newspaper column inches than FDR and Hitler? He did. Without Howard, he likely wouldn't have.

You have a story. Every business has a story. You need to discover your story, yes. But then you need to tell it. That's where your copywriter comes into play. Your story is told by your website, your brochure, your PowerPoint, your email marketing. These are your story tellers. Make sure your copywriter is telling your story in a compelling and powerful way, whether it's an in-house or freelance copywriter.

Seabiscuit's story could be told by facts and numbers. And how dry that would be. It's more fun to hear about the drama, the second chances, his rough start in life, the men who came together and overcame their own demons to give him the chance to win...that's the story. And Howard made sure it got told.

What is your story? Is it really great customer service? Or is it that time that your entire staff worked at 20-hour shift to get something done for a client? Is it that you've been around since 1950? Or that your family still owns and runs the business, despite wars and economic ups and downs? 

Is your copywriter telling your story? Are your salespeople? 

Copywriters must do more than regurgitate facts. They must tell stories that intrigue, interest and inspire prospects to do business with you, no matter where they read about you, website, email, blogs, press releases, wherever and whatever.

I just got off a conference call for a new website copywriter project. I call these kickoff calls, and I warn my new copywriting clients that they will be answering a lot of questions during such a call. That's because of my mantra about talking to customers, not at them. The only way I as the freelance copywriter can truly write to the customer is by understanding where the customer is coming from, his pain points and challenges, her worldview.

During the past hour, I didn't ask a single question about the services provided by my web writing client. I only asked about their customers. And in doing so, I learned about the services offered...from the customer's point of view. That's exactly what I want, as the copywriter, to tell my client's story from the point of the customer.

And it was a great call because more than once I'd ask a question and the client would pause, say, "That's a great question!" then give me a very thoughtful and insightful answer...because they had to think about it! That tells me it's good info for me, as the copywriter!

Talking to your customers, not at them. It's not hard. It's just different. And effective.

I like Vertical Response as a lower cost small business email marketing platform, and I usually like the CEO's blog, but my feathers got a little ruffled when I read the 2010 checklist of 10 things small businesses should do this year.

As a freelance copywriter, I do work for small businesses. And the two things practically every small business owner have in common are: lack of time, lack of marketing knowledge.

This checklist of 10 things made me squirm in my seat...and I work in marketing! 

I pity the small business owner who reads that, gulps, and throws his or her hands up in the air in despair. These folks are too busy running their businesses to implement even half of a list like this.

Years ago in my early days as a copywriter (yikes, that was 10 years ago!), I read this marketing advice: Do a few simple things. Do them well. Do them consistently.

For me as a freelance copywriter, I confess I started out with a three page marketing plan when I started my business. Hey, I'm in marketing! I should have a long, convoluted marketing plan, right? Over the years as I got busier (i.e. had less time) and smarter (i.e. had more experience), my marketing plan shrunk to less than a page.

Small business marketing has to be simple, easy and affordable. There's no one-size-fits-all plan for it. It might be small business email marketing. It might be blogs as marketing tools. It might be networking.

But it has to be a short list of simple things a busy guy or gal can do well and consistently. Not a list of 10 pie-in-the-sky ideas.

I've just returned from a meeting in Seattle with a copywriting prospect. And earlier today I had another meeting with a copywriting client. Both times, I was called upon to be knowledgeable about much more than copywriting. I've long viewed that as part of my job, to know about all kinds of marketing, so I know where I fit as the Seattle copywriter, and to give the best advice to the client whether we're talking websites or email or (now) social media.

But starting with the new year last Monday, I see my role changing... from being able to give advice to doing certain marketing tasks myself.

I already work as a ghost blogger, something I plan to do even more of in 2010. But I'm still figuring out my place in social networking, as a content provider.

And maybe that's where I'm not sure? I'm in marketing, but my role in marketing is as Seattle copywriter. I have to know marketing to be a good copywriter. But what do I need to know to be a good social media content provider? Maybe it's even too early to say? 

I know how to be an SEO copywriter. I know how to use blogs as marketing tools. I know small business email marketing. I know how to do all these specific things that require specialized knowledge.

But what is the specialized knowledge required for copywriters in 2010? Are we now faced with copywriting 2.0? Or even 3.0 (if I missed the boat the first time around)? 

As I told the copywriting client this morning, it's my job to stay ahead of the marketing curve, in order to be the best freelance copywriter I can be. But I've yet to figure out my place in the new marketing world order.

Something to think on. Any thoughts on it, from other copywriters or people who hire copywriters?

Your subject line can make or break your email. It's a small but critical part of your email copywriting. "Small" because it's only a few words. Critical because it either gets people to open your email or doesn't.

Some copywriters say write your email subject line first. The make the body of the copywriting carry through the promise of the subject line. Another freelance copywriter might tell you to write teh body of the email, then go back and write the subject line, spending just as much time on the 5 words in your subject line as the 105 in the body of your email.

This Seattle copywriter falls somewhere in the middle. I first work with the copywriting client, of course, to learn about the customer (in order to stay true to my "talk to them, not at them" copywriting approach), the email strategy, etc. We come up with the goal of the email, then I suggest possible email messages.

I then start copywriting the body of the email, then I check my subject line "cheat sheet" for inspiration. Although the core message of the email won't change, the subject line can determine the hook or catch for the message in the body of the email. For example, if I write a subject line like "3 ways to something something," I will tweak the body of the email to fit into three steps or ways.

At the same time, I brainstorm 4 or 5 possible email subject lines.

Then I go back and forth between the email subject line, headline and body of the email, copywriting all at the same time.

At this point, I've lost you, right? Because really now you don't care about my approach to email copywriting and subject lines. Right now you're only interested in the aforementioned "cheat sheet," aren't you! 

It's not really a cheat sheet, it was an article in MarketingProfs.com way back when, a list of the 100 best performing subject lines for their newsletter. It helps me as the freelance copywriter to read through them when working on email copywriting, inspiring me and encouraging me to think differently about my approach to email subject lines. And hey, the article was titled "Steal this..." so I did! 

I hope if you're in charge of writing email subject lines and email copywriting, you find similar inspiration! 

Find the MarketingProfs.com article at http://www.marketingprofs.com/rb/1/?rbid=2854&file=&adref=pfnl1.