Professional Copywriter

Although I see my role as a professional copywriter shifting as the world shifts more towards social media, taking me from Copy Writer to Copy Coach, I predict, I'm paying attention to social media, and have been for a while. 

I get Facebook and LinkedIn and, of course, blogging, since I teach people to use blogs as marketing tools.

But Twitter I continue to struggle to understand. For some businesses, it makes perfect sense. Or else, they've figured out how to make perfect use of it.

Take the Liquor Barn for example. I love their tweets! http://twitter.com/liquorbarn Every day they have a Drink 4Cast 4 2Day that's a drink suggestion tied to some historical event, or celebrity birthday, or anything noteworthy of the day. For example, the Earth Day drink forecast was for Rain Vodka.

These are clever, like little bits of trivia. They don't tell you "come to our store" so they are what I call indirect marketing, a bit of feel good that gives warm fuzzies and builds brand.

Is your online copywriter or company doing something clever with Twitter? Do tell! Post a comment! 

"I’m a freelance copywriter in my spare time, and have been for 20 years.  For the last few months I’ve been in a rut, feeling generally uninspired and just plain wondering if I’m just any good at this.  Marketing is continually evolving, the social media thing can be overwhelming, clients expect miracles—you’ve been there, I’m sure.   Anyway, stumbling upon your site today I actually felt excited about what I do.  The passion you have for writing jumps off the page.  I used to feel that same passion and thought it had left me.  Now I know for sure it’s still there."

Although I've been a freelance copywriter for 10 years and I've worked on all kinds of copywriting projects--websites, email, direct mail, brochures, whitepapers, and more--I've resisted doing pay-per-click (PPC) ads all this time.

Why? Probably fear. Unlike organic SEO that takes time to gain traction, PPC is immediate...so I'd know right away if my copywriting was working or not.

But change comes into the lives of all good professional copywriters, including me, and I am embarking on my first PPC ad copywriting project. (Gulp.) 

In doing research for hints and help, I came across this great article of 18 tips for copywriting PPC ads.

Whether you're a freelance copywriter doing PPC ads for clients, or a small business owner tackling that copywriting job yourself, take a look at the tips, they're good.

All right then, enough procrastinating by blogging. Time for this freelance copywriter to earn her keep with some PPC ad work! 

In an SEO newsletter the other day, I read the Twitter question of the week regarding how often should one blog. The answers were all over the place because...

It's the wrong question! 

How often one should blog depends on one's blogging goals. Even as a professional copywriter who ghost blogs for clients, I blog with different frequency depending on their goals.

Below are some of the blogging goals I've come across as a freelance copywriter. Figure out which ones applies to your blog, then you'll know how frequently to blog: 

Blog Goal #1--Internet marketing via SEO: If you're blogging to get found in search engines, then first off I'm assuming you have a great list of targeted keywords picked out. But that's not what this copywriter blog is about, so we'll just leave it at that. As far as frequency, you must blog frequently to win searches. You want to be found in Google? You'd better be blogging at least once a day, preferably more often. The more general (and popular) your keywords, the more often you must blog. For some companies this will even mean hundreds of (very short) blog posts PER WEEK. I'm not kidding. This is not simply blogging. It is Internet marketing, and like all types of marketing, you have to put something in to get something out. In this case, your time.

Blog Goal #2--Thought leadership: You're probably doing this to market yourself, not your company. If you want to build a reputation among your peers, your customers, your friends, you don't have to blog as often, and your blogs will be longer and more meaningful than those of the person pounding them out for SEO. You can blog as frequently or infrequently as you want, because it will be the content that matters, not the keyword usage.

Blog Goal #3--Meaningful blogs that also work for SEO: This is my favorite kind of goal as a ghost blogger, because the content should have real value but it also includes keywords for SEO. If this is your goal, you're less concerned with search engine results, so you don't need the frequency of hundreds of posts per week...but you still need some frequency. As a professional copywriter who ghost blogs for clients, I do one post per day for this goal, as keyword rich as I can make it and as meaningful too.

Obviously if you're using blogs as marketing tools your goals might be a mix of all these. And if you're blogging for other reasons, like to write a book, and not to blog, this copywriter blog post is irrelevant. :-) But I hope this helps you realize that when asking how often to blog, that's the wrong question to ask first. The question to ask first is, "What do I want to accomplish by blogging?" 
 

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…

Yes, this professional copywriter whined yesterday about writers pretending to be copywriters, and ripping off clients as a result. This morning I received the following praise from that client, now a happy copywriting client, and I'm happy to share it, because it tells me that although good writers are out there working as bad copywriters, people can tell the difference given the chance:

"Hi Sharon. I love all the changes and additions you made. You turned this whole project around for me. I was at such a low point about it when you came into the picture, and now I am very pleased with how it is all shaping up, thanks to your very capable interventions. There is a line in L.A. Story (I am from L.A.): Steve Martin meets the new woman in his life (in real life, his wife) and stares at her and says: 'wonderful, wonderful, and yet more wonderful'. That is the line that popped into my head when I read all that you did for this website, because it was wonderful what you accomplished. I was very impressed that you could understand so quickly and intuitively what it was that I do and what it was I wanted to convey. Thank you so much."

I guess I share this too because I don't toot my horn very often (too Catholic for that?) and this praise put a huge smile on my face, knowing I did a good job, knowing I helped someone out, and knowing she knew it too.

I hope if you're reading this, you're also taking a good hard look at the copywriting you're getting, making sure you've hired the best copywriter for the job, not simply the one wielding the pen and claiming he knows how to write.

Sigh...

Why is it people think anyone can be a copywriter? I just did a rush job as a website copywriter trying to save a project for a poor soul with hardly any budget or time. She had been sucked into what I think sounds like a shifty web designer deal. He hired some friend of his to write her website. She didn't like the copy. She turned to me in desperation, with little money and a hard due date of today.

I deleted 90% of the crap I was given that the supposed freelance "copywriter" had done. It wasn't poorly written. It wasn't wrong. But it wasn't doing its job. This guy had gone off on some tangents that while potentially helpful information to a prospect later in the sales cycle were totally irrelevant and useless as far as the website's job: marketing this person.

Not only did I delete most of the thousands of words, I completely redid the sitemap. None of the copy made sense, none of it, not even the structure.

In only seven hours, I did the best I could and the client now thinks I'm a goddess. (I even did some basic SEO, but very little.) But it's not going in my freelance copywriter portfolio because I know how much better it would be if I'd had the time. And this woman has to move forward with a "good enough" website, having wasted money on the schlep.

Too many freelance writers pass themselves off as freelance copy writers. They think because they can write, they can write copy. And people seem too accepting of whatever their writer gives them. So we get literally millions of bad websites, poorly written direct mail, spam instead of email copywriting, ads that do nothing but take up space in a magazine...I could go on and on.

The best copywriter is the copywriter who knows marketing as well as she knows words. And she knows her strengths. I am strong as a:
 

• Website copywriter
• Email copywriter
• Whitepaper writer
• Case study writer
• Newslettter writer

I do not do, because I don't know how to do:
 

• Script writing
• Speech writing
• Presentations (OK, I can do these, I just don't want to)
• True journalism
• Catalog copywriting
• Those convoluted direct mail pieces that have letters and postcards and...

I know my strengths, I know my limitations, and I'm honest about both. Every professional copywriter should be.

People, if you are hiring a freelance copywriter, be picky! Don't assume simply because they say they are a copywriter that they are. Ask for proof. Don't be afraid to question the samples you're given. Expect more.

This is your marketing, your branding, your voice, your reputation. Do you want the best copywriter for the job? Or any ol' freelancer with a laptop?

 

The marketing tips in my free ebook are from many years ago. More years than I want to admit to! Let's just say, my office has been moved twice since I wrote those tips.

This morning, I started wondering if the ebook was out of date. Maybe I am being an irresponsible copywriter for continuing to offer it to people. One of my biggest pet peeves as a professional copywriters is marketers who give clients out-of-date advice! Was I doing that? 

Literally minutes after I was pondering this, I received a request for the marketing tips ebook from a potential client. I unabashedly asked her to give me her honest opinion about how helpful or not it is given how long ago it was written. I sent her the ebook, and very soon after received this good news:

"I went through all the statements of tips and a number of the paragraphs. I can't wait to read the whole thing through, with my highlighter in my hand! I think it is a wonderful booklet, and it is very generous of you to give it away. I think the ideas are definitely relevant, not only for marketing but for daily life with others. Thanks."

Part of a professional copywriter's job is keeping up with the other pieces of marketing, not just the copywriting. That means delving into information like MarketingSherpa's new Wisdom 2010 report, 34 pages of stories from the marketing trenches on everything from social media to email marketing to search to...you get the idea.

The words I write as a freelance copywriter don't stand alone. They have a context, whether in a website or an email or a brochure or a press release. And they might not even work if they're not targeted to the right audience and delivered in the right way.

So all of us freelance copywriters have an obligation to stay current, not just catchy. For me, I'm paying more attention to social media. I've been working as a blog copywriter for almost two years now, but there's more to adjusting to social media. I'm looking at how I can provide content as a copywriter that fits this new paradigm of Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter. Or if I even do! Does socia media require a professional copywriter to be effective? I don't know yet! I know it takes a blog copywriter to create quality blog content at the right frequency. :-) But as far as the rest of it, I do not know yet.

It's also interesting to see an increase in requests for script writing. Video is definitely on the rise! And kudos to the companies that realize a good video still requires a good, professionally written, script! 

Even if you're not a freelance copywriter or professional copywriter, take a look at the Wisdom 2010 report. We can get too isolated sometimes, too caught up in the marketing efforts we're embroiled in at our own companies. It's good to get a fresh perspective and start taking a new approach to marketing, including copywriting. :-)