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!!

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!

I don't know why we don't see more articles on copywriting. Words rule. Content is queen. I couldn't blog without words. You couldn't market without words.

So I get excited when I see an article, especially a really good article, on copywriting. And no, I'm not talking about the copywriting article I had published in MarketingProfs.com last week.

MarketingSherpa has a great article on email copywriting. The title is a little misleading, referring to YouTube as it does, but the content is right on the money...and pardon the pun, because it's about email copywriting for nonprofits.

It's 12 copywriting tips worth reading...and implementing. Nothing new to me as a copywriter, but I like being able to pass this along as a reminder to other marketing folks. My favorite takeaways are about being emotional, spending hours on the subject line, and being provocative. Those are all tough aspects for me to convince coypwriting clients on. The article talks about how long it takes to write a short email, for example. Which clients don't understand. But it really is harder to write short copy than long copy! I've said many times great copywriting comes from great editing. And this is especially true in email marketing, where your word length truly has to be just long enough, just short enough.

Twelve tips is about nine more than I can realistically expect anyone to remember, so how about we focus on the three I liked the best. Next time your copywriter gets an assignment from you, let her be emotional and provocative, and let her spend as much time as it takes to write shorter, more effective email marketing copy.

I just had a copywriting article published in MarketingProfs.com (hurray!) which has led to a flurry of requests from potential copywriting clients (double hurray!). Since I’ve finally started getting serious about my “Marketing Is Like Dating” book, I’m exploring those themes here. Hence this blog post, which comes from getting the article published…

 

When I first went to two of my mentors with my book idea, they both thought it brilliant, but they both asked about gender. Was the marketer one gender or the other or did it matter? I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t thought about it, I just assumed the marketer was the “man” because the marketer’s role is similar to the traditional man’s role in the dating world. (Note: Both of these mentors are men.) The marketer pursues, woos and courts the customer.

 

Getting that article published proves my gender breakdown is viable, because I as the marketer (marketing my copywriting agency We Know Words) play the role of the man in the relationship with these prospects who are reaching out to me. They have made initial contact by emailing me and asking me to contact them. That’s equivalent to a woman making eye contact across the bar to let a man know she’s interested.

 

These prospects “make eye contact” but it’s my responsibility to make the first move, to walk across the bar and actually strike up a conversation. I must make the first move by calling these prospects to see if there’s a spark, meaning any interest in working together.

 

Yes, the marketer is the man.

 

P.S. As part of the book and this blog, I’m soliciting your input. Right now I’m particularly interested in dating disaster stories. The book has nine principles that apply to marketing communications and each one is also a “dating” principle. It will be full of dating analogies. So send your dating horror stories to sharon@weknowwords.com and I’ll see if I can match it up with one of my principles. And I promise to ask for happy stories at some point. Maybe. Depends on how my dating life is going probably. J

One time I was so late in sending a thank you note to a relative that I ended up never sending one. That was over 20 years ago, and I still feel bad about it. But it got so awkward, you know? It became a matter of what was worse, sending the note ages after it was appropriate, or ignoring the situation.

That's how I feel about my blog right now! It has been sooooooo long since I blogged! It's hard to get back to it! But I am back, for a quick note from the Seattle copywriter.

Although I get so busy I don't keep up the way I should, I push blogs as marketing tools for good reason. They work. My blog is one reason I've been so busy with copywriting and web writing. Clients have been finding We Know Words because using blogs as marketing tools is equivalent to being an SEO copywriter: you blog with keywords, you get found.

I'm happy to say I convinced client ClickMail Marketing to begin blogging on email marketing. Hurray! You can find their blog at www.clickmailmarketing.com/whitelist. And, yes, I help with it. So I can tell you it's a useful blog on email marketing, one you should check out.

Other marketing tools I've helped them with that I can recommend are the whitepaper on driving ROI after your email gets to the inbox, download it at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/whitepaper.html. And we've started publishing the ClickMail Marketer for advice on email marketing. See a sample issue at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/newsletter.html.

Remember, email marketing makes sense for any size business, and I strongly recommend small business email marketing. But as easy as it is, there are lots of parts to it, so big business or small, make sure you educate yourself on email to make sure you're doing it right. These tools from ClickMail will help.

And of course if you need a Seattle copywriter to help out with the content, you know whom to call, er, email. :-)

Today I got a fun email from a company that normally sends me a fairly dry email newsletter. The timing was perfect. Even though I’m primarily a copywriter, it’s my job to know about many aspects of marketing, especially up and coming trends. I’d been thinking on all the case studies and whitepapers I read about social networking that apply to B2C marketing, but was wondering how well the approach will work for B2B.

 

Then I get the “Can Water Cut It?” email from Flow International with a link to a video featuring Flow Man and asking the question “Can Water Cut a Titanium Golf Club?” Flow makes industrial strength water jets that can cut anything. See the video at http://www.canwatercutit.com. You can also watch them cut a cell phone and a blender.

 

The videos are tongue in cheek and deliberately amateurish and the approach works. I just watched them with my 10-year-old and her friend and they were impressed. But more importantly, the manufacturer with extreme cutting needs is going to be blown away watching these! And watch them he or she will because they are fun, not “work.” Compare cutting up a coworker’s annoying cell phone to watching a dry online demo!

 

As soon as I got the email, I contacted Doug at Flow. Doug said they started the videos after attending the Online Marketing Summit in Seattle (where I ran into Doug!). And the videos are working. Flow is starting slow with a gradual introduction but they’ve already gotten leads from the videos!

 

On the site they let people like us submit ideas for things to cut. And people are! Doug says, “We've already received a bundle of interesting ideas on what people would like to see cut (for example, plasma TVs to laptops to boulders to bread).”

 

Just this morning I read an article about integrating email and social media. Flow’s “Can Water Cut It?” videos are a perfect example of doing just that.

 

Kudos to Flow for figuring out how to harness social networking and video for marketing an industrial product in a B2B marketplace!

 

OK, back to copywriting on a rainy Seattle afternoon… 

 

When I first fell for a cowboy, a friend teasingly sent me a link to a Garth Brooks song about whatcha going to do with a cowboy. And it’s has been stuck in my mind the past few days but with “website” instead of cowboy. Here’s why…

 

Sunday night at a wedding reception, I fell into a conversation with the owner of a medical billing company. Although she and her partner have a successful and growing small business, they do not have a website. Usually I avoid talking about work at social events, but small business marketing is a subject near and dear to my heart so I couldn’t help myself. I talked shop…

 

Because they’ve grown without one, they haven’t felt a website was necessary, and I explained that maybe they don’t need one but suggested reasons why they might.

 

For example, all their business comes from referrals and word of mouth. A website can be a great first introduction. I know people looking for a Seattle copywriter almost always look at the We Know Words website before they contact me for copywriting. And that works well for both me as copywriter and them as prospect: My website is a pre-qualifier. If you don’t like the attitude all over it, you probably won’t like my customer-centric approach to copywriting (as opposed to generic, me too copywriting and web writing).

                                                                                                                                            

with a website, this company could give a sales pitch to potential customers by having a website these prospects could go to after getting a referral.

 

And that can save time. Instead of prospects calling the small business to ask questions about their services and rates, they could get the answers themselves by going to the website.

 

In talking to the small business owner further about the idea of a site, it turns out there’s a lot of information they need to update clients with on a regular basis, and she realized the website could work for that. Plus I pointed out they could use an RSS feed to push the updates out or at least to let clients know there’s new information.

 

Small business marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. But it doesn’t have to be copycat either. Maybe the smart approach is to first figure out what you want to do, then look at how a website could help you do it. A website just for the sake of a website is silly. But a website that helps you sell and saves you time and lets you do a better job of serving clients makes a lot of sense.

 

Is it time to revisit your small business website and make sure it’s pulling its weight? Is there some function you could have your website do to save you or staff the time of doing it?

 

Whatcha gonna do with that website?

 

And I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do with that cowboy!

This Seattle copywriter has been swamped!! So I have no time for dating the guy who went from sweet to not-so-sweet anyway!

 

Being such a busy copywriter means it’s a struggle to find blogging time—which I shouldn’t admit to because I believe in blogs as marketing tools—but that’s my long-winded excuse for referring to something I heard weeks ago at Online Marketing Summit Seattle…

 

One of the speakers (maybe Aaron Kahlow?) talked about Web sites and how the user has control, the user is like your competitor now. My memory is fuzzy on exactly what was said, but it sparked my take on it as a copywriter/marcom person: The customer now is your competitor. It’s less about your company vs. the competition and more about the customer simply deleting your email marketing, ignoring the Web copywriting by clicking the Back button, or tossing your direct mail.

 

Because “marketing is like dating” is my favorite analogy, put it in that context: Say you’re a man who wants to date a certain woman. You’re not up against all the other men who want to date her. You’re up against what she wants. She will choose to go out with you or not based on criteria like your behavior and appearance. (If she’s shallow, she’ll also check out your shoes and car apparently.) It’s not you vs. them. It’s you vs. her expectations.

 

Now apply that to marketing: Customers today are more likely to decide whether or not to buy from you (date you) based on their criteria, not on how you stack up against a competitor. (I’m talking B2C here.) If you’re selling things like pop, clothes, sheepskin slippers, espresso and cars, the customer will first consider how well you fit his view of himself and how he wants to world to see him, not comparison shop.

 

And it’s your marketing that tells the story the customer bases his decision on! Does your story map to his or not?

 

Be customer-centric. Be focused on what the customer wants, and do your copywriting in his terms. Make your email marketing relevant. If you use blogs as marketing tools, make your blogs personal and authentic. Purge your database so your direct mail goes to a quality list, not a quantity one. Segment and personalize.

 

It’s no long you against “them” (the competition). It’s you against the customer. Meet her criteria and she will choose you. You’ll win.

I’ve been taking some grief from people lately for not blogging and it’s true, it has been on my list but at the bottom as all these copywriting clients who were busy doing other things all summer all of a sudden realize they need a copywriter right now! Don’t get me wrong, I love my copywriting clients! But it is funny how one Seattle copywriter can be so quickly buried by an onslaught of work from clients, no matter how much she might love them!

 

Which is my segue into this blog post, which, I might point out to people like Brent, I’m not writing because I have time to, but because it’s easier than putting up with the comments about not blogging. (Said with affection, Brent. J)

 

This post has been sitting in my head for a few days now, and I hope I do it justice because I’m literally dashing it off in a few minutes…

 

Once again, I come back to marketing is like dating. Today it’s about you gotta keep courting the customer. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows I’m single. It has come up a couple of times…at least. But dating is such a great analogy for marketing! And the dating/marketing lesson I just recently experienced was someone being very sweet and very attentive…and then not. What he doesn’t realize is, it was the sweetness and attentiveness that I liked about him, it set him apart from other guys. Take that away, and what do you have? Just another guy.

 

When you’re marketing, you’re (I hope) being sweet and attentive to that prospect. But once they give you their money and go from prospect to customer, should you stop courting them? Of course not! But companies do. There’s a marketing mindset that’s focused on lead generation, getting new customers, filling the pipeline, etc.

 

But what about the customer you already have? Do your sales people still pay attention after the invoice has been paid? How much of your marketing is focused on continuing to be sweet and attentive to the people who have said yes to you? Who have given you their money and become a bona fide customer? Or is your marketing focused on the next conquest instead?

 

Are you taking your customers for granted once they become customers? If so, do you think they’ll continue to “date” you? Probably not, because, like the guy referenced above, when you take away the sweetness, all you’ve got left is just another guy. They’ll go spend their money elsewhere next time, because you’re no longer anything special.

Although I'm "just" a Seattle copywriter, I've always found in the 8 years I've been doing We Know Words that I have to know about much more than copywriting. My clients typically aren't as up to speed on what's happening in the world of marketing, from email marketing to Web writing to using blogs as marketing tools.
That's OK by me, because it gives me an excuse to keep up with marketing trends...and then I get to be the expert for my clients, helping them figure out not just what to say (the copywriting), but when, how, to whom and more (the consulting).

How does a marketer keep up with new developments in marketing though when you are busy doing your day-to-day job and you don't have someone like me (who is delighted to keep learning!) around to keep you current?

Even more importantly, how do we make sure we have marketers entering the field who know email marketing, blogging, social media, Web 2.0, Twitter, etc.? Because it doesn't seem to be taught in college. Heck, even copywriting is something anyone can claim to do! Hang out your sign as an online copywriter and have at it. No one can ask for credentials, because there aren't any!

Which makes me very happy to be on the Advisory Board for the University of Washington marketing certificate programs. UW Extension is looking forward, trying to determine what marketers need to know. And now we have a new program that starts this fall: the Advanced Interactive Marketing program. 

You can read about the program at http://www.extension.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aim/aim_gen.asp, but to sum it up, here's how a marketer can benefit from this marketing program:

If you already know how to harness the technology, this program will teach you how to choose one marketing tool over another based on sound business principles. If you're still completely oblivious about how best to put email marketing, blogging, SEO, web analytics and more to work, then here's your chance for an overview that won't help you master all these online marketing tools, but will help you know enough to make sound marketing decisions.

A program like this is great for people already working in marketing, and I'm so glad they started it! But we still need to be teaching interactive marketing at the college level too. I wonder how long until that happens?

 

I found my notes from OMS Seattle!! I had tucked them into the copy of “Groundswell” I got that day. I didn’t win the drawing for the book, as much as I wanted to, but my friend Carmen did, and she kindly gave it to me as she already had a copy. J When I started reading it last night, lo and behold, I found my notes with all my blog topics! So I admit sometimes this Seattle copywriter is a little spacy...

 

Now, with all these marketing topics to touch on, where to start? How about with this great observation made by Aaron Kahlow, the guy behind the Online Marketing Summit, excuse the paraphrasing: Companies spend a ton of money on lobbies that most prospects and customers will never, ever see. But how many thousands of people will go to their website? And is the same investment made there to make the same great first impression?

 

Because your website is your first impression, and you only have a few seconds to let the visitor know they’ve arrived at the right place before they click away. Your home page has to clearly and immediately state what people can expect to do/find/buy at your website.

 

As a website copywriter, it can be a challenge to get clients to look past what they want to say to what the customer wants to hear. Because with only a few seconds to get someone to stick around, your only choice is to talk to customers, not at them! (See my copywriting mantra at the top of this blog.)

 

And the lobby vs. website analogy is a great one. Imagine an office building with droves of people coming through the door into the lobby, looking around quickly, then marching right back out again. How unnerving for the security guard or receptionist at the front desk! But that’s exactly what happens when your home page fails to communicate right away what you offer and people just click away.

 

(Makes me wonder if the lobby is really for impressing the potential customers, or more for boosting the egos of the executives? Which some websites seem to be built to do! To boost egos, that is.)

 

And the really good news is, this is another place where small business marketing plays on a level playing field with big business! It might take tens of thousands of dollars to create a truly impressive lobby. But a truly useful website doesn’t have to cost much at all!  But small business or big, you'll want to invest in a great website copywriter, of course. :-)

 

Every morning I get a bquote from Bguides.com. If you don’t get them, I highly recommend them. Anyone who has been in my office knows how much I like them: I have printed out many and have them taped all over my desk. (OK, most of the time they’re buried, I admit: I might be a really good copywriter, but I’m also a messy one.)

This morning’s quote tied in perfectly with what I was already thinking about blogging on:

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else." -- Sam Walton (1918–1992), founder of Wal-Mart

Now, he’s talking about sales, but this works for marketing too. And here’s how it ties into what I was already thinking:

Yesterday I was interviewed by potential clients as a Website copywriter. They had sent me some documents and wanted to know how I would position their business based on what they had sent. It wasn’t a fair question to ask of me, since nothing in their documentation delved into their customers’ mindset…which I pointed out, and I launched into my customer-centric copywriting spiel about talking to customers, not at them.

Sure, I’m a Website copywriter, among other things, but how could I possibly tell them how I’d position their company without knowing their customers’ world views, pain points and awareness? And how the customers would find their Website or if they’d even be looking? Or how the customers view themselves, as savvy or helpless? All of that comes into play, as does so much else when copywriting Websites. As I’ve said before, don’t try and sell me a new mattress when all I know is I want a good night’s sleep.

If your copywriting doesn’t talk to the customers’ concerns, they won’t listen, no matter how good your Website copywriter. You won’t even get to the point where they can fire you because they’ll never even think to buy from you in the first place.

Oh, and they loved me and hired me as their Website copywriter. Despite all my preaching. :-)

Last week this Seattle copywriter went to the Online Marketing Summit in Seattle. Although most of the information was stuff I already knew, I took notes and had about eight blog post ideas jotted down, prompted by the day’s presentations. I was delighted to have so much blog fodder, knowing I could post every day for a few days and have sweet Sarah, my Client Success Manager at Compendium Blogware (whose job it is to keep the bloggers blogging!), praising me for my blogging frequency. But alas, I lost my notes! And I don’t lose things! Especially anything related to copywriting. Frustrating!

 

One thing I remember though: Although the Online Marketing Summit is, of course, focused on online marketing meaning anything from email marketing to web usability, there were two recurring themes I noticed throughout the day:

 

1) Social media: Again and again presenters either framed their talks around social media, or the attendees asked questions related to it.

2) Face to face: Several times I heard people say something akin to “nothing can replace in-person, face-to-face communication.”

Do you notice those two themes go together? When companies are using social media to market, they are able to act more like they are marketing in person. Think blogs as marketing tools, where you have a real person doing the talking, not a generic, faceless company. Or the segmentation that can be done with email marketing: Your marketing can be very targeted and specific to an audience, making them feel like you are talking just to them. How about User Generated Content (UGC) where the users are creating the content for you, as real people talking to your audience “face-to-face”?

Perhaps most exciting is how doable this is for small business marketing. From small business email marketing to small business blogging, this Seattle copywriter sees plenty of opportunities.
 

Just something to think about… Meanwhile, I’ve ransacked all my recycling bins and my car and my purse, but I remain convinced those notes are around here somewhere. And ransacking my brain isn’t helping: I’m coming up empty, trying to remember all my great blog ideas!

Big news for this Seattle copywriter! I have an article in today's issue of MarketingProfs.com, my favorite marketing publication:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/webnews/8/news8-5-08_0.asp?adref=mpt188

Seriously, this is my favorite email newsletter, and one I recommend all the time to fellow marketers, copywriters and marcom people. The quality of the articles is always high, whether the authors are addressing email marketing, blogs as marketing tools, SEO or small business marketing.

The article is also on one of my favorite marketing topics: The Sin of Assumption. Read it and let me know what you think!!

I was just on a web page looking up the root of a word and I saw an ad for weight loss. No surprise there. But the ad must have been for surgery because the image in the ad was of internal organs. I assume the stomach, I don’t know the human innards very well. And my reaction? Gross! What in the world are they selling!

 

Well, they’re not selling what the customer is buying! They are selling weight loss surgery, but the customer is buying weight loss. The best image to have there is one of a skinny person, silly advertiser! Sure, you use surgery to achieve the weight loss, so that’s what you’re selling. But that makes for a bad ad no matter how good your online copywriter.

 

Think about it…

 

You are selling mattresses but your customer is buying a good night’s sleep.

 

You are selling small business blogging software but your customer is buying search engine optimization.

 

You are selling sports cars but your customer is buying status.

 

Before you do any copywriting, blogging, small business email marketing, anything, make sure you get out of your head and into your customer’s: What is she really truly buying from you? Sell that!

 

Right now, answer the question: What is your customer really buying?

 

And about that word I was researching? Sure enough the words smite and smitten are related. This Seattle copywriter thinks that’s pretty funny!

If you’re in email marketing, you’re using a welcome email (aka welcome letter), I hope! It can be one of the most powerful tools in your email marketing toolbox, because it’s the most often read email a business can send to a prospect or customer. (If you’re new to email marketing, or getting into small business email marketing, or just wondering what a welcome email is, it’s the email automatically generated and sent to a new subscriber to your in-house email list, someone who signs up on your Web site.)

 

Sadly most businesses don’t use one or use a crappy one. Yet the welcome email should be required in email marketing. Not only is it highly likely that your customer will open and read it, it gives you a chance to make a deeper connection with them, further your relationship along, and even up sell them or get them back to your web site.

 

Earlier this week I started on whitepaper project for a new client and we were talking about how people would get the whitepaper (because this Seattle copywriter believes how you deliver a marketing message is almost as important as the message itself). I mentioned about using a welcome email and did he want me to do the copywriting for it, and I found myself explaining the welcome letter…which led to a great new term (I think) and this blog post.

 

I told him to think of it as a reinforcement email, and then had my “ah ha” moment: Maybe if marketers thought of this welcome letter as a reinforcement email, they’d both be more likely to use one and they’d make sure to have better copywriting too.

 

By “reinforcement,” I mean this piece of email marketing reinforces to your customer that signing up for your email newsletter or email promotions was a smart decision. It’s like a buy for the customer: She is giving you her contact information. In return you will provide her content of value. It’s an exchange of “goods” and you can confirm for her that yes, that was a good idea. It also reinforces your message regarding frequency and what type of information she’ll receive from you via email, ensuring that she’ll be more likely to look for messages from you in her inbox. It can reinforce your brand in tone and voice (which is why I keep mentioning copywriting). And it can reinforce the beginning of your relationship with this person. She raised her hand and said yes to hearing from you. You can take the next step in the relationship with this email.

 

I hope calling it a reinforcement email instead of a welcome email makes it make sense to marketers, because—like I said already—it is so important, it should be required in all email marketing, especially small business email marketing. If you have a small business, this is one easy way to stand out and differentiate yourself from the big guys…wait, that’s the start of another blog post.

During my re-indoctrination into singlehood, I have met a lot of men. I don’t know why there was the big uproar a few years ago about women over a certain age not being able to marry. As far as I can tell, the world is full of men, both single men and married men wanting to pretend they’re not.

 

No, I’m not digressing. Promise. Hold on…

 

At first, I didn’t know what to expect. And there were a lot of men who were self-centered jerks. I started to think that’s all there was.

 

So then when you meet one of the sweet ones, you really notice. Sad but true. It should be the other way around. It should be that most of the men are sweet and it’s the jerks that stand out. But, no, the jerks seem to outnumber the nice ones.

 

And, oh my, does this apply to marketing!! This totally ties in with my “marketing is like dating” theory!

 

Think how many times you actually welcome a marketing message from a company? Um…never? Well, at least rarely. That’s because the company wants your money but they’ve put that want first, ahead of anything that you might want. And they talk at you, not to you. (Remember my mantra? Talk to the customer, not at them.)

 

So dating the guys who talk about themselves, have little if any interest in you, and want to get straight to you know what, well, they are akin to the marketers who…talk about themselves, have little if any interest in you, and want to get straight to you know what, aka taking your money.

 

Ladies, guys, marketers: I have seen the light. I have recently experienced what it’s like to have someone be nice, caring, sincere and interested in me. Wayne is to his chagrin, a nice guy (he thinks “nice guy” has a negative connotation). A very nice guy, I might add. And marketers could learn loads by his example because:

 

• He’s interested in what I want first
• He asks questions rather than doing all the talking
• He checks in, stays engaged
• He is authentic and real

 

And these are all traits admirable in a marketer too.

 

Oh, did I mention he’s cute and smart and funny and likes my cooking and has really nice arms? OK, marketers don’t have to do or be all that. But you should be using all the other stuff on that list as a checklist for yourself! Like it or not, you are dating that prospect! And they might hand over their number, they might even go to dinner with you, you might get pretty far along. But they might not convert to a customer if you are acting like a self-serving jerk only intent on getting into their—ahem--wallet.

 

You can be the in-your-face, here-for-the-money-then-I’m-gone type marketer who talks at customers, not to them, who gets the one-time sale, not the long-term relationship. That’s easy, that’s what most marketers do.

 

Or you can be something else. You can be successful over the long haul.

 

Marketing is like dating. I guess it boils down to what you’re really after: a one night stand? Go for it. But your success will be fleeting and will require that you oft repeat it, compared to the marketer with the loyal customer base who gains fans for the long haul.

The landing page.

 

It is fast becoming the bane of this Seattle copywriter’s existence.

 

It’s such a simple thing in a way, the page a prospect lands on after clicking on a pay-per-click ad or after getting an email promotion.

 

So why am I complaining?

 

Well, it could be my ex is bugging the heck out of me right now so I’m in a pissy mood, but I suspect it has more to do with the ignorance around landing pages. Too many marketers go about them all wrong. I run into this all the time as the online copywriter responsible for developing landing page content: What the We Know Words team can do in copywriting is limited by so many other landing page factors over which we have no control…but over which I try and exert some influence, albeit futilely.

 

But I’m not going to blog on how to make your landing pages right because that’d be a looooonngggg blog, and because a great little guide from Pardot will put you on the right path. Go to Pardot’s web site and get it at http://www.pardot.com/company/white-papers/landing-page-conversions.html. It’s just a primer, but surprisingly, the basics it covers are just the very basics I find myself arguing about with copywriting clients all the time.

 

Even if you think you are a landing page rock star, get it and give your current landing page approach a quick checkup.

 

Now, to put my ex in his place…kidding!!! I’m holding back, I promise.

 

When it’s not an email newsletter, of course…

 

This past week I spoke to a prospect with a target demographic of men between 16 and 30 years old who spend a lot of money customizing their cars. They want to stand out and get noticed and are on the lookout for the latest, hottest cool stuff to put on their cars first, before anyone else. These guys are going to be on YouTube, MySpace, etc.

 

Yet on the company’s Web site, they offer an email newsletter signup as part of their small business email marketing efforts.

 

Picture these guys that make up the target market: Do you think they want to sign up for and read an email newsletter? Neither do I.

 

Nor did I think that this company was investing the time and resources into creating content for an email newsletter. So I asked what they really do send out as part of their small business email marketing. The answer: emails about specials and promotions.

 

OK then, that’s what the signup should be selling, “Sign up to get special email specials and promotions.” That’s going to have much more appeal to a teenager than “Sign up for our newsletter.”

 

Lessons here:

 

1. Choose your words carefully. Use customer-centric words. Don’t assume that because you call it an email newsletter but it’s really something else that your customer is going to translate what you really mean. (Again, marketing is like dating: Don’t assume.) This is especially true with small business email marketing when you’ll likely have fewer people coming to your site and fewer people handing over their email addresses. You want to convert as many of those people as possible, so offer them what they really want by using the right words.
2. Wait, that’s lesson two: Offer them what they really want. Yes, you want to use email to market your small business. Good for you! Email can be extremely effective and cost-effective. But first figure out what the prospect wants to get from you.

 

I’m not saying email newsletters are bad. At We Know Words, we love email newsletters because we do the copywriting of them for clients. But we are going to make darn sure that the content is serving the prospect first and the client second.

 

I’m just saying make sure your email newsletter is the right vehicle (pardon the pun) for your email marketing. And although I’ve been talking about small business during this whole blog post, just because it’s top of mind, this applies no matter how large your business. Because I’ve certainly seen plenty of useless email marketing campaigns coming from the bigger businesses too, when they’ve focused on what they want to say, and not on what the prospect wants to hear…