Content Marketing Group

I’ve been thinking on my listening skills lately. Or lack thereof, due to some communications issues that have come up. I think I’m a really good listener, in my personal life, but turns out I’m not as good as I could be. I want to jump in and fix things for people sometimes. Or I get tired of hearing the same old story, so I jump in then too. Or I think my idea is so brilliant, I have trouble keeping my mouth shut. Or… you get the idea! Hey my business is We Know Words. I'm sometimes ready to overwhelm with mine!

But good listening skills are paramount in my career as a freelance copywriter. Every project with a first-time client starts with a kickoff call during which we go through a long list of questions, whether they hired me as Website copywriter or a print project. The goal is for me to learn about the copywriting client’s customers: what are their pain points, what do they want to do better, etc. And listening is primarily what I do during those calls. That’s how I’m able to help my copywriting clients talk to their customers, not at them.

But there’s another level of listening, beyond personal, beyond being a conscientious copywriter. And that’s asking customers to interact with us as businesses, whether we’re in small business marketing or big.

Customers want to have their say! That’s why we have an explosion of Web sites like Yelp and YouTube. Customers don’t want to just be fed content, no matter how great the copywriting. They want to contribute it too!

Is your business a good listener? You’d probably say yes, thinking if someone calls customer service, they get listened to. But there are multiple ways to engage your customers and solicit their input:

• Ask for feedback in your email newsletters, or use a survey tool to ask customers to vote
• Ask for comments on your blog
• When you ship an order, entice the customer to comment on your Web site, about their experience or the product
• In your email copywriting, when you send out transactional emails like order confirmations, ask for input or comments that way
• If you use blogs as marketing tools, put their comments in your blog
• Set up a wiki so customers can contribute content that way
• Have a Facebook group where customers can write on your wall

But then, as all good listeners must do, pay attention!! Don’t just solicit the input then ignore it.

Asking for and listening to customer input has multiple benefits, for small business marketing to huge corporate marketing. Today, for example, I listened in on a discovery call a copywriting client was conducting with a prospect. Why? So I could hear what the prospect had to say, not the client’s translation of it. Now when I work on their email copywriting, I’ll be able to play up the aspects the prospect loved, clarify the aspects that were confusing, and reassure about the aspects that were a little scary.

We got that info straight from the horse’s mouth, and my client listened.

Plus customers like to be listened too, so you're creating all that goodwill too!

Got a way to get input from your customers and to make sure you listen to it? Post a comment! J

I’m experimenting this year. No, not with my hair or my clothes or my cooking. With my networking. I’m going to try networking primarily online this year, rather than in person.

I’ve spent the past eight years involved with a variety of networking groups, including BNI, my local chamber, the PSAMA, and particularly the Seattle Direct Marketing Association (SDMA). In fact, I was an SDMA board member for four years and was president two years ago. I love networking, and that’s how I’ve marketed my copywriting business since starting We Know Words back in 2000. I love meeting new people, I love talking to strangers, I love learning about the marketing challenges others face and thinking up ideas for helping them.

But as someone who doubles as a copywriter and a marketing maven, I also have an obligation to my clients to be as up-to-speed on new marketing trends as I possibly can be. And that means not just knowing about them, but using them too.

Clients have moved beyond asking me about copywriting topics like email copywriting and SEO writing. Now they ask me about blogs as marketing tools, Twitter, Facebook, wikis and other Web 2.0 and social networking tools. I’ve dipped my toes into the social media waters, but haven’t plunged in completely. The only way I can do that is to market online vs. in person.

As my friend Joe pointed out yesterday, marketing in person is a lot more fun! Yes, that closet full of Ann Taylor clothes might get a little dusty. But in order to stay useful as a copywriter who is also a resource for her clients, this copywriter is reading up on Twitter, blog carnivals, blog pinging and more. Using blogs as marketing tools also is akin to SEO writing: You have to follow all the same principles of keyword rich content and frequency of updates to make it work.

The irony is, like the We Know Words copywriting Web site, when I get busy with copywriting clients, it’s my Web site, my blog, my marketing that gets pushed to the side. Not this year, however!

Have you switched from in person to online networking? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Either post a comment here, or email me at sharon@weknowwords.com.

A few months ago, I roughed out the text because I was getting quite a few questions about small business blogging from fellow small business owners. This is by no means a definitive guide, but someone suggested this morning that I post it to my own blog, so here it is:

Why do you want to start small business blogging?

First, be clear on your goals. I hope you are small business blogging for three reasons:

1. Search engine optimization
2. Thought leadership
3. Relating to customers

What will your small business blog be about?

Second, decide what your focus will be. What the heck are you going to blog about? What can you talk about that other people might not be? What topic gets you excited and would be easy for you to write about? For example, my friend with an Indian restaurant wants to blog. Possible “themes” for her blog are: vegetarianism, Indian culture, running a small family-owned business, having an ethnic restaurant in a redneck town, cooking, Indian food, recipes, being a single mom running a restaurant, food allergies, etc.

Another example is my local florist. I’m trying to get her to start small business blogging because she’s very online marketing savvy when it comes to pay-per-click, but less so for SEO. I’m also trying to get her to blog because she’s so knowledgeable and well-respected and she could be even more so. I’d love to see her write a blog as the florist expert, offering advice like when to start choosing the flowers for your wedding, seasonal suggestions for wedding flowers, plants as corporate gifts, catering advice, maybe she talks about her favorite catering venues. She could talk about the price of flowers as impacted by gas prices, how to keep flowers fresh, etc. I see it as “advice” oriented.

Or consider my small business blog: Although I’m primarily a Seattle copywriter, my real passion is marketing, and my beliefs about being customer-centric. (Stated at the top of my blog: helping people talk to customers not at them.) My goal with my small business blogging is to get people thinking a little differently about marketing, while still using keywords that are helping my blog get found for copywriting. In the future, I’ll be doing more consulting and speaking, so my keywords will shift, but the blog’s theme will stay the same. So on the other hand, my goal is also to get people thinking about me in a certain way.

Your small business blog title

Third: Decide on the title of your blog. Make sure it reflects your blog’s focus, but also your keywords if you’re small business blogging for SEO. For example, when I started a blog for an email marketing agency, I chose “Email Marketing ROI” for the title, so the URL included those words. (It now has a different name.) And that was the theme of the blog: improving email marketing ROI by providing useful information.

Set a small business blogging schedule

Fourth, set a schedule for small business blogging and adhere to it. Blog at least two times a week, but if you want search engine results, do it more often. I have a Task in Outlook that pops up a reminder for me every Tuesday and Thursday. In that task list is a running list of topic ideas (more on that later). If you have produced an email newsletter or another publication, you know you have a production calendar to stick with. Think of your blog the same way.

Round up the bloggers

Fifth, consider having more than one person at your company blog. It doesn’t have to be the CEO or the marketer writing the blog. In fact, the best blog content might come from someone who works with customers every day, or on the shop floor. The first person would have insight into customer concerns, and the other into production. Both would produce great blog content that an executive or marketer might not think of.

Be clear on your keywords

Sixth: If you’re blogging for SEO purposes, determine your keywords. Use a free keyword research tool like SEO Book (http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/) or Google Adwords (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), or maybe you already know your keywords you want to win? Then look at how competitive the search landscape is for the terms you want to use. Remember, more specific keywords won’t be used by as many people, but they’ll get you found by the smaller group of people who are a more targeted audience for you. The less often you plan on blogging, the fewer keywords you’ll be able to use enough to compete. But come with 4 or so keyword phrases. Long-tail keyword searches seem to do well in blogs. Keep this list in mind every time you blog and use your keywords, in a post title and in the post itself. I usually write a blog post, then go back and sprinkle in a keyword or tool. And I admit it, I don’t focus on the SEO part enough sometimes because I get caught up in the topic. J

Do you want editorial control?

Seventh, think about editorial control: If more than one person will be small business blogging, do you want administrative control so content is reviewed before it goes live? Will someone be proofreading blog content before it gets posted?

Developing your voice

Eight: When you first start, you don’t necessarily have to post those initial blogs. Just write them in a Word document first, or even on paper. You’ll want to write a few to get your voice, a sense of how you want to come across. But do be yourself, do be natural and a real person.

Coming up with topics

Now the “hard” part (not really): small business blogging!! The biggest hurdle for people seems to be topics. What will we blog about? If after reading this you still don’t know what you’ll blog about, let me know…

Keep a running list of topic ideas. Then when it’s time to blog, use one of the ideas (then make sure you delete it from your list!). If you have a recurring task in Outlook, like I do, you keep your list there. Then when Outlook pings you, you’ve got your idea list right in front of you. But once you start blogging, you’ll start seeing topics all around you. I use one of the topics on my list maybe every 3^rd or 4^th time because something will have happened that prompts a blog post in the mean time.

Look for ideas in the newspaper, trade magazines, in other blog posts. I even get ideas from the radio and from conversations.

I haven’t done this yet, but try and use photos sometimes. Not cheesy ones though, don’t include photos just for the sake of photos. Or clip art, ugh! But real photos of real people, like your staff or your customers. Videos too…

I saw a blog that copied and pasted in press releases verbatim. I wouldn’t recommend this because search engines hate duplicated content. It’s better to blog on the press release and link to it. And if your company creates press releases and posts them online (and you should!), write a summary of the press release in your blog and link to it.

Link to other sources. If you read a blog that makes a good point, write your own blog post with your take on it, and link to the original blog. Ditto for online news articles, video clips, etc. You can link to anything. Consider subscribing to a couple of email newsletters or other blogs just to get your own thought processes going. Your reactions to what you read are also valid blog content.

Link to studies and reports that are released. Some bloggers are the filter for their readers, helping their readers find important information without having to look for it.

Talk about what’s going on with your business: Are you going to be at a tradeshow? Will there be live music at your tavern? Are you moving?

Be creative in thinking about what content will be interesting. Like my business is a copywriting agency, but I don’t tell people how to be copywriters. I try to help people be better marketers. If you owned a coffee shop, you wouldn’t necessarily blog on your coffee shop, that would get boring fast, but you could blog on the coffee industry perhaps, because you could still use your keywords.

Include customer testimonials with an introduction, maybe “We received a great email from Susan Smith about her new vacuum, and just have to share it with you…”

Never forget that small business blogging is about being real. You could even include a recipe! Say you had a staff potluck and Joe’s potato salad was a huge hit. Talk about the party and include Joe’s recipe.

Please don’t post just to post. I have a friend that does that because his only concern is SEO, and that means he’s putting a lot of useless stuff out on the Internet. L I want subscribers to my blog, and if I did that, just posted blogs based on keywords, subscribers wouldn’t stay very long because I wouldn’t be providing useful information!

That’s my start on blogging basics. Please, please let me know if it was helpful or not by commenting!!

Friday morning I was in Denver conducting a copywriting workshop with the copywriters, creative directors, Web site managers and content editors for a national company. I was brought in by the director of marketing to address the messaging in their email marketing specifically, but after reviewing their email examples, it seemed a broader approach was needed.

So the workshop consisted of reviewing what it means to talk to your customer, not at them, to write customer-centric copy that’s about the customer, not about you. The original plan was to critique one email promotion as a group, then have everyone rewrite four more on their own and compare notes. We ran short on time, so instead I put up a few of their emails on the screen and ripped them apart, nicely. I didn’t say anything that surprised or offended.

It seems the copywriters and creative’s hands are tied. They’re up against corporate, up against legal, up against people who don’t understand marketing or copywriting or—most importantly—email marketing. These poor folks end up going the safe route, using clichés like “don’t miss” and vague words like “great pricing” or “exceptional pricing.” They end up with meaningless email subject lines. They have to work around the images they’re assigned rather choose an image that fits the message.

Yuck.

What breaks my heart is that this company is perfectly positioned for messaging that’s emotional and empathetic. Their copywriters and creatives could kick ass if allowed to craft email marketing copy appropriate to the audience, and not to corporate’s preferences and tastes. Lesson here? Let your marketing team do their job! Trust them to know their stuff. They don’t question how the CFO handles the financials or how the CEO handles the board of directors. Why are they hindered?

But this company isn’t stuck, they see where they can improve. In the future, they’ll be segmenting their email marketing into targeted demographics, and they’ll be able to do more specific and therefore effective messaging, talking directly to the pain points and concerns of a particular market. I got the sense that their copywriters are chomping at the bit for that day to come!! Then all we discussed that day will come to fruition and their email marketing will work that much harder for them.

Despite their challenges and frustrations, running that workshop was a blast. I’m lucky. I love what I do, I love talking about copywriting and messaging, and I love being with people hungry to learn more and improve. And they all loved what I had to say. It sparked much-needed dialog among them, it got them inspired to strive harder for more compelling copy and to stand up to the powers that be that want to water down their copy. What more could this Seattle copywriter ask for?

Although we’re often locked away expressing our brilliance with words behind closed doors, sometimes a copywriter gets a chance to go public. This copywriter gets another chance this spring.

In March, I’ll be part of an email marketing panel presenting for the Northern California Direct Marketing Association. We're calling it Extreme Email Makeover: Marketers will submit their email marketing campaigns to have them reviewed by the panel. We’ll be covering deliverability, content, design and mobile deployment, and giving attendees the chance to learn from the email marketing mistakes of others.

It's a great panel, and I’m delighted to be part of it as the copywriter and messaging guru:

• Michelle Eichner - COO and Vice President of Client Services, Pivotal Veracity
• Morgan Witt - Director of Marketing Strategy, Juice Media Worldwide
• Cameron Kane - President, Strategic Design Group
• Michael Kelly (moderator) - Director, Sales and Business Development, ClickMail Marketing
• and me as President of We Know Words and Past President of the SDMA

Read more about it at http://www.dmanc.org/calendar.html (scroll down to the March 19 event).

And if you’re in the area and you can make the event, please do!