Copywriting Service

I’ve heard this question from several small business owners lately: “Why have a Facebook page for my business?” As I re-evaluate what I do as a professional copywriter in the age of social media, i.e. the age of user generated content, where the customers create the copy, not the copywriter, I see my role shifting from Copy Writer to Copy Coach. So I take this social media marketing stuff very seriously!

To answer the question of “why,” I made some notes which you’ll find below. If you have anything to add, definitely post a comment! That is social media!

It’s Web 2.0, user generated content (UGC)…people want to talk back to you, and they want to talk to each other about you. Now that is their expectation, that they will be able to. And Facebook enables that.

It’s free.

It works for B2C companies with loyal customers who want to be engaged by the brands they believe in. If you have a ho hum product or service no one gets excited about, a Facebook page is likely a waste of time.

Facebook pages show up in search results, so it can help with your SEO and getting found when people search online.

You can have a vanity URL that’s easy to share and direct people too, like www.facebook.com/yourcompanyname.

Facebook (and Twitter) icons are now commonplace on websites and in emails, encouraging people to fan (or follow) your company. This is still new enough that people will.

For a small business, a Facebook page can replace a website. You can do all the marketing you want via your Facebook page, even solicit email signups. The only thing it can’t do is online transactions (i.e. letting customers buy from you).

If you go this route, your Facebook page is far easier to maintain and update than a website, and you don’t need to pay for hosting.

You can engage prospects and customers in a way you simply can’t with a website or even a blog.

It’s automatically viral. When someone becomes a fan, that shows up on their profile page. And they can easily invite others to be fans. Imagine someone doing anything like that with your website! It’s inconceivable.

Facebook integrates seamlessly with Twitter and blogging. I don’t want to turn this into a “why use Twitter,” but there is an SEO benefit to using Twitter, and when you have your tweets integrated with your Facebook page, you are updating your Facebook page without effort.

I also don’t want to turn this into a “why use blogs for Internet marketing,” but there are several benefits to blogging, among them SEO and credibility. And, like tweeting, your blog can be automatically posted to your Facebook page, keeping content fresh.

Maybe Facebook is going to become a bigger and more important marketing tool than websites. Facebook can be where you engage, build relationships with customers, and market. Your website might only be where business done, downloaded, bought and sold.

Your customers are on Facebook. It’s the third largest “country” in the world in “population.” That’s how many people use Facebook. In the age of social media marketing, guess what? You follow them. You go where the customers are. And the customers are on Facebook.

Still not convinced? Watch this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8.

And by then I hope the question is: “Why not have a Facebook page for my business?”

Need a Copy Coach to help you get started? Sharon@weknowwords.com standing by…

Everyone's inbox is full of emails, much of it poorly written email marketing. That's why I enjoy the emails I get from ServiceMagic. They have attention-getting subject lines, and copywriting that's fun to read but helpful too.

Their most recent email to me had the subject line "All parties end up in the kitchen somehow..." and then the header text when you open the email said "Unless your sink is smelling up the place." The rest of the email newsletter gives advice on getting rid of a stinky sink odor, then offers a link to look for home cleaning pros to help.

I'm a freelance copywriter. I read pretty much everything with a critical eye. And this email newsletter passes the test every time because it does what I encourage my copywriting clients to do:
 

• It provides useful information, without a catch.
• It builds trust.
• It has a call to action, so when the recipient is ready to look for a service, she can.
• It's fun.

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? 

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.

Please excuse me while I gush while enthusiastically endorsing a product. I can’t help myself. Homestead.com rocks, pure and simple.

I’m a freelance copywriter and, unlike some other copywriters who like to wear designer hats as well, I stick to what I know: copywriting. That makes me better at what I do because that’s all I do! But it also means I work in the worlds of marketing and website copywriting, and that makes my friends think I can design and build websites.

I can’t.

But thanks to Homestead, I did! I just built an already successful website for a friend! When you see the site, it’s obvious I’m not a designer, but hey, this Seattle copywriter built a website! And with much more ease than I would have using FrontPage or Publisher or any of the other novice website building tools out there.

The site didn’t need to be complicated, but it did need to be clean and easy to use and a site that would rank well in search engines. It is all of those things thanks to Homestead. It’s already showing up on page one of Google for a specific search term, and page two for a very generic one. Amazing! (Yes, partly that's due to my skills as an SEO copywriter, but still, I don't usually get websites to rank that quickly!)

It’s easy to move things around, insert photos, format text, change colors, link, use alt text, include meta tags, change navigation and more. It even lets you add an email signup, then manage that email list.

Not only that, it is cheap! For only $20 per month, we got the domain name, up to five email accounts, and monthly hosting. Plus use of the software to build the site. I pay that much just in hosting my We Know Words copywriting website!

Then today I got into the site stats. So easy to access, use and understand! Much easier than with my own copywriting website, much!

You can make it an ecommerce site too, for a higher monthly cost, but even that’s only about $50 a month, far cheaper than setting up an ecommerce site on your own.

If you’re looking to build a website, and don’t want to pay a designer $1500 or more to do it, take a look at Homestead.com. If you have some design skills, you’ll be able to make it look good, but if not, you can still create a functional website for hardly any cost at all.

OK, done gushing. But what fun to get the chance to gush! It’s not very often something impresses me to this degree. And it’s nice to know some companies are still out there making products and services that really work, not just that make them money.

P.S. This friend admittedly got some kickass freelance copywriter services too, so that has helped with his search engine rankings. But hiring a freelance copywriter is much cheaper than hiring a website designer, so if you have to choose, maybe put the money into the copywriter, use Homestead to build your site, and save yourself a bundle!

You can market your business on the Internet without being or using an online copywriter. Use press releases  and an online press room. And here’s how, in an article written a couple of years ago by Marina Parr, when she worked for We Know Words as a copywriter. It’s great advice for anyone with a Web site who wants to improve their SEO! So here it is again…

Who needs on online press room? You do. But the reasons go beyond reaching the media and gaining coverage in next day's newspaper. These days a press room is just as much a "customer room" as it is a place aimed at journalists. Build one correctly, and you're able to use online press releases to tell your company's story directly to whoever is searching on the Web, boosting your credibility with both media and your potential customers. And with customers shopping online for everything from flowers to shoes to cars to enterprise management systems, they are just as likely to end up researching you at your press room as the reporter at the local paper.

Fact is, your online press room's real power is in boosting your visibility on the Web, a cluttered place where search engines crawl through content everyday looking for new, updated information. It's the kind of information that you can naturally add to your press room through online press releases, recent articles and awards, and much more without using and online copywriter or SEO copywriter. So not only are you telling your story to Wesiteb visitors and journalists alike, but your press room's fresh, search engine friendly content is helping people find you in the first place by using press releases for SEO.

An online press room, at its heart, is all about you. It's your best chance to use online press releases to tell your story from all angles, whether it's facts and figures, photos and bios, or logos and slogans. Configure it correctly and fresh content will build your web presence, help the media "get it right" when writing about you and help you connect directly with customers who may not have been looking for you in particular, but will be glad they found you! And you'll be glad to find out you can achieve that kind of SEO without using an online copywriter.

Now that you're convinced you'd benefit from online press releases and a press room, here are nine tips to help you build one relatively quickly and painlessly (really).

Nine tips for building an online press room that builds your online presence

Tip 1: Consider your online press room as an extended About Us page. This is your opportunity to present facts and figures-from when you started your business to where you're located to how many people you employ. It's also a place to flesh out your company's philosophy, give kudos to key employees, note awards you've won and post articles that have been written about you-or in some cases, for you.

Tip 2: You can pump up your online presence further by using press releases for SEO, sprinkling keywords that people naturally search on into the online press release copy you post. It's a simple way to boost your search engine rankings-and get found.

Tip 3: And when you suddenly have a story to tell, your press room positions you to communicate directly with the media, giving journalists instant access to critical information about your company. In addition to being used in online press releases, that information can be boiled down into two to three sentences for journalists to copy and paste into their own stories with little editing. It makes it that much easier for you to help the news media define who you are, rather than them defining you.

Tip 4: Even though you're using press releases for SEO, this is still online PR. Make sure your press room includes all the ingredients the media needs to write and report their stories. That means including key contact information--both email addresses and phone numbers--so reporters on a deadline can reach the right people right away. Also be sure to include a corporate bio and include basic data, including when the company was founded, the number of employees, location, gross annual revenue and other objective, background information that can be dropped into a story.

Tip 5: Think in terms of pictures when thinking about online PR. Nothing tells your story better than pictures that add a human element. So be sure to include photos of founders, directors and other key players. It also helps to have a jpg of your logo, as well as a scenic shot of your operations. Again, you help shape your story by providing reporters with the photos you choose.

Tip 6: Both in your online press releases and your press room, offer easy-to-find links to other information customers or reporters might be looking for: information about the company and its principals, information about your product or service such as product sheets or case studies, recent articles written about your company, etc. An online press room has to be straightforward and not overly salesy. Reporters will spot the hard sell and click away, and so will regular customers who happen to wander into the press room, either on purpose or by chance.

Tip 7: To use press releases for SEO, regularly create online press releases and submit them via an online service like PR Newswire. Or simply add them to your site as separate pages, and link to them from your press room. Regularly can be just twice a year, if necessary, just make sure it's regular (keeping in mind that they more frequently you update content on your Web site, the happier the search engines will be with you). And even if you don't spend the money to submit them online, still add them to your Web site. It shows both prospects and search engines that you keep your site current. After all, these days your online press releases about getting covered in the New York Times; as they're about telling your story to a potential customer as much as to a journalist.

Tip 8: Include a descriptive sentence or two with links to your online press releases, so journalists and regular folks know what they're clicking on. Too many press rooms provide long lists of press releases without enough supporting information telling someone why they should click on a link and what they'll find if they do. Without that summary information, visitors won't bother to click-and you miss the chance to enhance how you're viewed and written about.

Tip 9: Don't treat your online press room as a last-minute afterthought. Think of it instead as a portal to the rest of your Web site-and your company's credibility. Your press room can be-and should be-one of your most information rich, keyword loaded, always changing sections of your Web site. Your press room is also your opportunity to provide visitors a more personal look at you, your employees and your company. And because people don't always enter Web sites through the home page, prospects searching online for information might find your online press room first. So make the most of it by giving it plenty of your attention.

In short, your online press room is really a full view of you and your company, as well as a tool for SEO. Think of yourself in front of the dressing room mirror and take advantage of every angle-from the pictures you post to the articles to the press releases you use for SEO to a three-sentence corporate summary that can be quickly copied and pasted. You're in charge of how you present yourself…and how you get found online in the first place. The power is in your hands. Use it!

And if you find that this sounds too hard and you do want to hire an online copywriter or SEO copywriter to help, go for it. That or use blogs as marketing tools instead!

Note: This Seattle copywriter has been cleaning up a very cluttered We Know Words copywriting Web site. I’ve deleted a ton of files and pages and consolidated and made it much more manageable. I see now what Gerry McGovern means by being a “putter upper.” If blogs had been as easy (and if I’d understood them as well) back in 2002, I would have built a blog to market my copywriter services, not a Web site! Anyway, as I streamline the We Know Words Web site, I find stuff I don’t want to get rid of, so I’m moving it here to this copywriting blog instead. Plus I came across this little plug, and realized I might not have ever plugged my marketing tips ebook in this copywriting blog, oops! OK, enough preface…

Most small business owners can't afford professional marketing help. Nor do they know enough about marketing to do it well. That's why I compiled this ebook, "Marketing in a Minute."

Small business owners want to grow their companies. But growth requires sales, and sales require marketing, and many small business owners struggle with marketing... and time. So they don't necessarily have the skills, nor do they have the time to learn how to do the marketing.

That's where these marketing tips come in. They are short, easy to digest and easy to apply. Without investing in any expensive marketing program. "Marketing in a Minute" offers 104 such marketing tips, written for the realities of small business budget and time constraints.

So where does a marketing ebook crammed full of 104 marketing tips come from? Does one just sit down and write it? Not in this case. It took years to create this book...

In 2002, I took my copywriting prowess and started writing weekly tips and dispensing them via email to small business owners who desperately needed marketing help but couldn't afford to hire a marketing agency like We Know Words. The marketing tips were deliberately short and basic, but offered new ideas for those too focused on running a business to be a real marketer. The tips were nothing fancy, just text and just enough to fit in one's Preview screen. They covered print, Web writing, email marketing and more. I dubbed them "Sharon's Marketing Minutes" and made sure each one could be read in a minute or less. (Hence the title, "Marketing in a Minute.")

I wrote the weekly tips for almost 2 1/2 years until I ran out of time, but not out of ideas. The feedback was always so positive, and more than one subscriber confessed to archiving the marketing tips for future reference. When I announced that I was going to stop writing the marketing tips due to lack of time, many subscribers emailed to say, "Put the tips together in a book."

It took years, but most of the marketing tips are now gathered together into one extremely useful resource for small business owners and those in charge of marketing for a small business.

As a freelance copywriter, I recently did some informal market research, trying to wrap my head around how to do the copywriting for a product new to me. When reporting what one prototype customer said to a friend, when that prototype customer was obviously wrong, my friend said I should have challenged him.

Uh…no. The customer is always right. If the customer says the sky is green, the sky is green. At least until I through my copywriting prowess move him from potential customer to loyal customer. Then I have some credibility with him that means he’ll listen to something that opposes his worldview.

My job as a freelance copywriter is to figure out what my clients’ customers are buying, not what the client is selling. Yet I run up against this mindset all the time, with clients so focused on how they see their product or service, they’re unable to see it through the customers’ eyes. That’s why I like to talk to customers, and to the salespeople: The sales folks usually understand better what the customer is buying than the marketing department, because the marketing department is too obsessed with the story as they see it, not the way the customer sees it.

In spite of the marketing department, copywriters have to write their copy to sell what the customer is buying, NOT what the client is selling.

Are you selling mattresses or a good night’s sleep?

Are you selling blogging software or search engine optimization?

Are you selling meat or meals?

Are you selling trucks or status?

Are you selling TVs or entertainment?

I could have challenged my prototype customer and pointed out he was wrong. But he wouldn’t have believed me. And where in the world would that get me as a marketer and copywriter? That’s akin to going into a focus group and telling the participants they are wrong and what the correct answers should be…when the whole point of the focus group is to find out what potential customers think so the copywriting can match it.

Companies don’t always like what customers have to say or how customers view their product or service. They often want to sell what they want to sell, not what the customer wants to buy. But then they are ego-driven, more concerned with being “right” than being successful. The smart company tells their copywriter to write copy that fits and REINFORCES the customer’s worldview.

When you oppose someone's worldview, in any aspect of life, not just marketing, they resist you. And you cause friction. And I as a freelance copywriter want to avoid friction at all costs. Whether I'm doing the copywriting for a Website, email marketing, or something else, my words must move the prospect closer to "yes," not push them away.

Seth Godin’s book “All Marketers Are Liars” deals with this topic far better than this copywriter’s blog post does. He refers to figuring out your customer’s worldview, then telling your story in a way that fits that worldview. You’re not really a liar. That’s just a title that sells. But you are a story teller, especially if you’re a copywriter, and a good story tells a potential customer what they WANT to hear…even if you have to let them keep on believing that the sky is green.

I did the math. My research subject was wrong. But rather than say that and challenge my prototype customer which would have gotten me nowhere, I responded with, “OK, you don’t eat that many pounds of such-and-such. Do you eat at least six meals per month at home?” And therein would lie MY answer as the copywriter: talk about meals, not pounds. That fits the customer’s worldview and still enables me as the copywriter to do my job.
 
One caveat: Sometimes a prospect just isn't a good prospect. Sometimes no matter how a copywriter tells the story, it will not fit the prospect's worldview. Take me as customer for example: Is there a story that fits my worldview in such a way that I'd ever buy a Hummer? Nope. So just remember, not everyone is a potential customer, not everyone is a good fit.

When you’re a copywriter, it truly is all in how you say it. So never, ever underestimate the power of words. And value your customer’s opinions and thoughts and worldview. He or she may not be right, but he or she is the one with the money to spend.

i want to get into the psychology of numbers too because that also came into play in this situation, but I'll save that for another copywriting blog post.  

You’re courting your potential customers. Do you realize that? They aren’t customers yet. They are prospects. You are talking to them, but they aren’t really listening yet. And they won’t listen until you stop talking about yourself. At least initially.

What is “courting” anyway? We know it as an old-fashioned term, but what does it really mean?

According to Merriam Webster, to court means: “to seek the affections of; especially : to seek to win a pledge of marriage from.”

In our marketing is like dating analogy, remember that “marriage” is the ultimate goal of your marketing: it means a lifelong customer.

And that’s ultimately your goal as the marketer, to woo someone to try your company/product/service once, then again and again and ultimately to become the ultimate customer: fiercely loyal and long-term, if not life-long.

And as a copywriter, your words must woo. You’re not going to go straight to seduction, I hope. But think of it in terms of dating, how your messaging might start out: You start by expressing an interest in HER, not talking about yourself. This is the biggest copywriter mistake I see, where the company is bragging and self-absorbed. All women have met men like that, and it’s a huge turnoff. The turn on is when the guy shows interest in the girl by asking questions, talking to her about things that matter to her. That is an absolute must for copywriters! But most copywriting is the equivalent of the obnoxious self-absorbed guy in the bar. Read through your copywriting. What kind of single guy does it sound like, the self-absorbed one only talking about himself? Uh oh. Fix that!

More on courting in the next blog post…

I’ve had several bad espressos from those cheap looking, roadside coffee stands. To the point where I won’t even risk it anymore. I’d sooner go to a Starbucks—which is against my principles as a small business supporter and champion—than risk one more really bad latte. My brain knows they can’t all be that poor quality, those little independent barista booths. But my stomach and taste buds have been burned enough times to avoid anything like that.

I’m wary of the roadside coffee stand, I admit it. Just like women are wary of a certain type of guy. At the risk of stereotyping and offending, say a woman keeps dating artists and finds they are consistently moody and unreliable. After awhile, she’ll probably avoid artists as potential dates, even if a guy is rational and reliable as well as artistic. She’ll end up lumping all artists together into one kind of category, just as I lump all roadside coffee stands into one type of category: to be avoided.

When your coffee really is stellar and worthy of a drive by, how do you stand out if your audience is wary due to all your competitors who serve crappy cappuccinos? First off, you’ll have to make sure you truly serve good coffee. That will get you the word-of-mouth marketing that money can’t buy. Secondly, you need marketing and copywriting that differentiates you and makes you stand out as better.

And this applies no matter your business: If your potential customers are lumping you into a category you don’t want to be in, or don’t belong in, only two things can get you out: Your product or service, and your marketing. The former will be your proof that you’re better, the latter will be your story telling people about your proof.

Is your business perceived as a roadside coffee stand or a flaky artist? Then make sure what your selling is better than the competition, and make sure your marketing and copywriting effectively communicate that fact.

Confused about how and why to use blogs as marketing tools? Here’s a little help…

Last week this Seattle copywriter spent a day at Market to the Max, making sure I’m up to speed on the latest and greatest in marketing techniques and trends. I looked forward to the panel on blogging in particular, for two reasons: One, I’m a firm believer in blogs as marketing tools, and two, my friend Chris Baggott was on the panel, and I’m always intrigued by what he has to say.

The panel was a borderline disappointment, however, because Chris’ view, the only one that makes sense for the majority of businesses, was the minor one. (It was also a disappointment because of the moderator’s inappropriate behavior, but that’s irrelevant to my blogging point.)

Chris’ view on blogs as marketing tools is that businesses, including small business marketing, use blogging to get found online. It’s blogging to win in the search engines. What do search engines love? Fresh, keyword-rich content. What do blogs provide? Fresh, keyword-rich content. (OK, now I’m starting to sound like Chris, better be careful!)

But two of the panelists were too focused on using blogs to establish oneself as a thought leader. That’s all well and good and legitimate, but Mychal at Kona Kai doesn’t need to be a thought leader in the coffee business to make his small business successful. He needs to get people into Kona Kai for food, drink and fun (and free WiFi). His blog needs to attract people in Kent, Washington, not New York or Boston or …

Using blogs as marketing tools in the way the other panelists presented isn’t misdirected, it just wasn’t very helpful information for a room full of people charged with marketing their organizations.

Thinking about blogging? Start with a goal. Do you want to be a noteworthy leader in your industry with thousands of people subscribing to your blog? Go that route. Or do you want to sell more products and services and make more money? Then use your blog as a marketing tool and win the search wars.

 Don’t believe customers are narcissists? Today doing keyword research for a Website copywriter client, I typed “restaurant” into the SEO Book tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/. I had to laugh when I saw an estimated 175 searches per day in Google for the phrase “restaurants near me.” Not restaurants in Seattle, or restaurants near a certain ZIP code, just “near me.”

Keep this in mind when copywriting your Web site, or overseeing your Website copywriter. People are narcissists. It’s not anything bad I’m saying about consumers, it’s true of all of us (although admittedly some more than others!). But we all are the center of our own universes, as my friend Lisa once said. As marketers and copywriters, we gotta get our heads out of our %$#@s and put the customer first, not ourselves.

This is particular true online where marketing tends to be self serve. Whether you’re revamping, evaluating or starting from scratch, make sure you’re building and copywriting your Web site to:

• Meet your customer’s needs first, yours second
• Have your copywriter use words that will resonate with your customers
• Use keywords your customers actually use, not the ones you assume they’ll use
• Delight your customers by being appropriate, relevant and easy…this includes navigation, the words used for buttons and links, the ease of your forms, and more

Still not a customer-centric Web site after all that? Your Web site is your online sales person, or should be. Maybe you could watch your sales people in action to see how they put the customer first. Then apply those principles to your Web site?

One of my favorite services I offer as a copywriter is Web site assessments. That means I review an existing Web site to assess how well it’s meeting the business’ goals and the customer’s goals. In all the years I’ve been doing these Web site assessments, I’ve yet to review a Web site that didn’t have room for improvement to serve the customer better.

Want this freelance Website copywriter and marketing maven to take a look at your Web site? Just say the word: sharon@weknowwords.com.

This freelance copywriter is technically still on vacation today, but catching up on email and blogging now that I’m back home. Travelling seems to always give me plenty of blog ideas, but, being on the road and busy with my kids, I don’t get them jotted down and forget them. But this past week’s trip to Phoenix brought to mind two biggies in my humble marketing maven opinion…and both fit my marketing is like dating analogy.

Monday morning, we took a very short Horizon flight from Seattle to Portland, to catch a connecting flight. This was a smallish plane, only four seats across, nothing fancy. But there’s “nothing fancy” and there’s shameful. In this case, three rows up from our seats, the plastic panel that houses the fan, light and call button was duct taped in place. Ouch.

Marketing happens at every single touch point with your customer. And marketing is like dating. If a man shows up for a date and his glasses are duct taped together, or his pants are hemmed with duct tape, or any other obvious and in poor taste use of duct tape, the woman is going to raise her eyebrows and feel like she doesn’t really matter to this guy after all. Even if he impressed her on the phone, even if he takes her to a nice place for dinner, even if he shows up with a token gift, she’s going to wonder about the duct tape…and the lack of effort and caring the man shows by blatantly displaying it. If he (and Horizon) is so cavalier about that, what else is he cavalier about? His hygiene maybe?

The duct tape was not a confidence builder, rather a confidence shaker.

On the other side of the coin, Sam’s Café in Phoenix offers a great “free prize inside,” (And yes, I’m borrowing “free prize inside” from Seth Godin’s book of the same name.) The restaurant is marketed as a southwestern grill. The food was good, the service okay, but the free prize was a piece of white chocolate with almonds wrapped in a corn husk delivered to everyone at our table at the end of the meal. It was a free prize both as an unexpected treat, and in presentation. As a marketing is like dating analogy, this is akin to showing up for a date with a rose. Or choosing a particularly nice restaurant. Or some other sweet but simple surprise. It’s the extra touch that a customer—or date—remembers.

OK, last day of vacation so I’m off to ride my horse while the sun is still shining! Back to regular copywriting blogs next week, as I continue my commitment to blogs as marketing tools in 2009!

I hate The Ram. When Kent Station opened a couple of years ago, people were so excited to get a chain restaurant in downtown Kent. Meaning they were happy to get The Ram. My first experience there was awful, and after three more tries, I finally gave up on the place. Besides I like the food and the bar at Zephyrs better, it’s more my style, and now I have a martini bar as an option too.

But the other night a friend wanted to go to The Ram, because it would be new to him, and I’d drug him to Zephyrs and Shindig Martini Bar a few times already. Now he knows why I was reluctant to go there. The service was atrocious, the food awful and the prices high.

Hang on, hang on, this isn’t copywriter PMS. This ties into my copywriter theory that marketing is like dating: the customer expecting one thing and getting another.

When you are marketing to potential customers, you are wooing them, trying to get them to date you. You woo them with promises in your copywriting: good beer, good food, friendly service. But if you don’t follow through on your promise, your marketing and copywriting are for naught. Your marketing is a lie and trickery meant to get them in the door to spend their money. And then your marketing goes after the next prospect, just like a serial dater who seems intent only on getting someone to say “yes” to a date so he can start on his next potential date, to win her over.

Great marketing isn’t just great copywriting, killer taglines, awesome email copywriting, fabulous Web sites, kickass direct mail, etc. Great marketing is the whole enchilada. It means a business promises something to me as a customer, then delivers on it. That’s how you win a repeat customer.

If your company is a serial dater, then keep plowing away at marketing that gets them in the door but disappoints. Because you’re only aiming for the next customer anyway, not aiming to keep the one you just got. But if you’re company wants to be in a committed relationship, follow through on the promises your marketing makes. If you can’t, hold off on your marketing until you can, or make your marketing fit what you can really deliver.

And if you go to The Ram and order the calamari? Don’t be hungry or picky. So sayeth one disappointed freelance copywriter!

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

Four years ago, I remodeled my kitchen. OK, according to my ex husband, HE remodeled my kitchen. But I’m the one who designed it, researched it, carefully sought out the cabinet maker and appliances and fixtures and wallpaper and…you get the picture.

I was so excited to buy a big, fancy range. I love to cook, and had my heart set on a Viking range with six burners. It’s black with stainless steel trim and it looks fabulous in the kitchen. It’s usually the second thing people comment on when they walk in the room the first time. (The first comment is usually, “I love your kitchen!”)

It was a splurge, I admit, the second most expensive part of the remodel. But that range has been a piece of crap. I had to have a repair person out right after we installed it, and four more times since then. Each visit costs me at least $250. In four years, I’ve paid a quarter of the price of that range all over again. I could have bought a good quality Kenmore for what I’ve paid in repairs.

And despite the price of the range, I never heard boo from Viking. No follow up to find out how I liked it, to make sure it was working correctly. Viking took my money and disappeared. Until this week.

Out of the blue I get a letter from them. Looking at the envelope I’m thinking it’s a recall notice of some kind, that all the ranges made when mine was built must have flaws that make them so prone to breaking down. Uh, no. It’s a letter selling me mixers and toasters. It starts with:

“As an owner of a Viking major appliance, you know the style and performance it brings to your kitchen.”

That makes me laugh. Style, yes. Performance, no. Not when half of your cookies burn while the other half are doughy because one side of the oven is hotter than the other! Not when one of your burners’ starter clicks and clicks and clicks when you’re using the burner in front of it!

But Viking is clueless about how unhappy I am with their product because they never asked! They just took my money, went away, and now show up again because they want more of my money.

If this were a dating situation, what would it look like? Probably a man taking a woman out for an expensive dinner and being clueless that the woman is miserable the whole time (for reasons I’ll let you imagine, they could be anything). So the man drops her off at the end of the evening, and drives off thinking all went well while she’s emailing her girlfriends to tell them how awful it was.

Then four months later, he calls her to suggest they get a drink. He’s clueless, she’s amazed that he didn’t ever get in touch with her before this.

What brought this about? Complete lack of communication. The man never asked the woman for her input or feedback. He just assumed that all was fine because he got what he wanted.

Marketers do the same thing. We convince customers to buy our products or services, then we take their money and run, and never ask if they were happy with what they got.

If marketing is like dating, I say this is a case of being respectful: Viking should have followed up to find out if I was happy with the range. The man should have followed up with the woman soon after the date.

OK, that’s enough preaching for a Friday. Have a great weekend!! And be respectful to your customers! Remember, marketing happens before, during and after the sale!

I’m vindicated! JupiterResearch says work that transactional email!

I’ve long advocated for email copywriting in your transactional emails to take advantage of an opportunity to reinforce your brand, cross-sell, or even grow your in-house email list. And a new report from JupiterResearch, sponsored by StrongMail, not only validates my opinion but takes it a step beyond: JupiterResearch is saying time to get promotional in those transactional emails, people! And for this Seattle copywriter, that means make your messaging promotional too!

A transactional email such as a welcome email, order confirmation or shipping confirmation email is another chance to market to your customer. They’ve already purchased from you (like a widget) or requested something from you (like a whitepaper), so they already have a relationship with you and expect to hear from you. Take advantage of that warm, fuzzy feeling to say “Hey, by the way, you might also be interested in our gadget to go with that widget you just bought.”

It was interesting for me as a copywriter to read that transactional emails often aren’t owned by marketing. OK, that makes the lack of email copywriting make sense! So the first thing we need to do is change the mindset about the transactional email…and any other opportunity we have to touch a prospect or customer, like packaging, customer service, etc. Although I’m just a copywriter, I’m constantly preaching that everything you do is marketing. This just proves it, but also proves how narrow-minded we sometimes are, with clearly defined ideas about what marketing “is” or “is not.”

Peoples, marketing is everything and everywhere. It’s 24x7, round-the-clock. And it should most definitely be happening in your transactional emails. So pull those dry, straightforward text-based emails out of the system, do some kickass email copywriting, and stop wasting opportunities to sell and brand.

Now. J

Yeah, so I guess all this Seattle rain gave me some attitude today!