Jeffrey Rohrs, VP of Marketing at ExactTarget, spoke at an ExactTarget conference in Seattle yesterday with a fabulous presentation called “Subscribers Rule!” He made many great points, above all, that email marketing is different from everything else we do as marketers. Again and again he emphasized that email is a long-term tactic, a marathon not a sprint. Amen to that. Search engine optimization and pay-per-click and blogging are going to get people to your site. Email marketing is how you nurture your relationship with them over time.

So how does all of this relate to my world as a Seattle copywriter, and yours as a marketer? The word that popped into my head as he spoke was “respect.” And one way we respect our email subscribers is by giving them the content they want. That doesn’t mean that we offer a newsletter, but bombard them with promos. That means we carefully and slowly build our in-house list, not buy a list and blast a bunch of strangers. It means our email subject lines are carefully crafted to help the customer know what our email offers.

It also means having something of real value to offer them in the first place. Which is why I continue to promote email newsletters as an “indirect” marketing tool. Even for small business email marketing, email newsletters make sense.

Jeffrey recommended we celebrate, love and protect our subscribers. Investing the time and energy into developing content that is truly useful to them, not us, is key. Think of a subscriber like a friend or a colleague: You’d want it to be a mutually beneficial relationship, right? You wouldn’t constantly be asking your friend or coworker for something, it would be give and take. Same with your subscribers.

Are you going to get an immediate payback on taking this long-term, carefully thought out approach to your email marketing program? Probably not. Are you going to cultivate stronger, deeper, longer term relationships with your customers? Probably yes.

Which will you choose?

I really do love small businesses and small business owners, but they can make me crazy…

My best example right now is the small business owner who is pissed at me because they put up their new Web site and aren’t getting any hits. This is apparently my fault because my copywriting agency did the writing for the Web site. Never mind that their Web developer neglected to use the title tags and other meta tags we’d written. Never mind that it’s poorly coded and designed. Never mind that they chose not to do all of the pages we’d suggested for more content. Never mind that it only went up three weeks ago. Never mind that no sites link to it yet. Never mind that they have no content management strategy for updating the site. Never mind that I had explained all of this to him months ago when we first started on the project.

Just because someone is running and marketing a small business doesn’t excuse them from educating themselves about marketing. I’m not saying they should be an expert. (I joke that I don’t want to know about taxes, that’s why I have an accountant. But I still know what taxes get paid and when, I just don’t have to know the nitty gritty.) But they should know something.

Not all are like the client described above. I’ve worked with plenty of small business owners who took the initiative and learned enough to have a dialog about their marketing, whether it’s an email newsletter, web marketing, blogging or direct mail.

And thank goodness for those clients! Copywriters and marketers can’t do their jobs with clients who don’t know anything and aren’t willing to learn is the lesson I’m learning this week. Sadly, it’s usually the small business that falls into that category.

And for any small business owners who now feel compelled to know it bit more about web marketing and SEO based on this gripe, start here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769.

Thanks to my annoying friend Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, I finally saw the light about blogging back in July. He had been after me for two years to blog, but it wasn’t until I got the whole search engine optimization part of it that it made sense to me to do so. I stopped writing my email newsletter and started blogging instead. (Side note: I have recently decided to do both because they are different mediums and I like delivery my copywriting message both ways. Email me at sharon@weknowwords.com if you want to get the newsletter, I’m aiming for a June start.)

Once I started blogging though, I found myself going back and forth between blogging for SEO and blogging as a means of putting useful, relevant information out into the world. The latter is always my primary goal, to further my cause of convincing marketers to talk to customers not at them, but then I want people to find the blog too, so they get the message which leads me back to keywords and SEO and…can you see where I’m going with this?

It has been like a flip flop, until I finally realized that it was no different than writing Web copy for a client. When the copywriters at We Know Words take on a Web writing project, we first write the copy regardless of the keywords so we can master the tone, message, voice, length, etc. Then after the client and the copywriter are both happy, we go back and optimize the text using keywords. (We also get more natural sounding Web writing that way. I can usually tell when a Web page was written with keywords and SEO top of mind.

Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve definitely seen how it can help one win search wars. (See other blog posts on “soap is dumb.”) But to really create a win win for all, the blogger’s challenge is to find the balance between the search and the reader.

My daughter’s class will be taking a field trip to JA Biztown next month, a facility sponsored by Junior Achievement that gives kids the chance to work, earn, spend and save as part of a mini community for half a day. It’s an amazing setup. They’ll have checking accounts and paychecks. They’re assigned jobs like CEO, CFO, sales manager, and mayor. One team puts together a newspaper that day, another runs the TV station where kids broadcast commercials for their micro businesses. Each little business (i.e. group of kids) has to start the day with a business loan, then determine how they’re pricing their products to make sure they’ll earn a profit by the end of the day. They buy insurance and lease their storefronts; they pay utility bills and buy supplies. It’s incredible.

I’ll be one of the volunteers helping out with management of about 150 kids that day. When I went to the volunteer training, I got a sneak peek at the place. Wow.

It’s amazing to walk into this huge room that is the tiny city, with miniaturized versions of Washington Mutual, Home Depot, Ikea, and other big companies. As a parent, I was touched that all of these businesses are part of this unique educational effort, donating money and resources with no immediate return on investment.

As a marketer, I was struck with the brilliance of these businesses that donated something else too: their brand. But here’s where they see the long-term benefit of their participation. By being part of JA Biztown, Washington Mutual, for example, is planting the idea of WaMu as bank into kids’ minds. When they’re older and opening that first checking account, they’ll think of Washington Mutual without even knowing why.

I was telling another mother about this and she said in a slightly disgusted voice, “But isn’t that brainwashing?” Probably yes. Maybe all marketing is at some level an attempt to brainwash.

But more important is foresight, cultivating future customers, making a short-term investment now for a payoff down the road. Companies often don’t want to invest in indirect marketing like email newsletters, blogs, and other activities that aren’t immediately measurable but ultimately impactful. Too bad. Maybe those marketers should spend a day at JA Biztown for insight into what these other companies are doing. Hey, with 150 kids, at the very least we might need a few more volunteers.

A common problem I’ve seen ever since I started Web writing is people getting stuck on keywords. That’s because clients have a hard time thinking of the keywords in terms of the words their prospects use when searching online.

Clients want to use descriptive words, words drawn from their marketing collateral. They lean towards the words they use when thinking and talking about their product or service. Either that or they want to use really big, broad keywords that won’t get them anywhere in Google.

Here’s an easy way to change your frame of reference when beginning to brainstorm keywords: Think pain points and problem solving.

Consider your prospects’ mindset when they are searching. Your prospects are online using Google or Yahoo or some other search engine because they have a problem. It might be that they want Indian food for dinner. The pain is lack of knowledge because they want samosas and abu gobi, but they don’t know where to find a local Indian restaurant. They can solve the problem if they can find a restaurant close by. Your site will get found if you use keywords like Indian restaurant, Kent, WA 98032 or East Hill Indian food, etc. (the idea is to be geographical because that’s how they’re thinking).

It might be that they are troubleshooting their business intelligence (BI) software. The pain is the software isn’t working the way they want, and they are trying to solve the problem by looking for technical answers online. You can get found if you use keywords around troubleshooting, maybe mention specific problems…and when they land at your site, you can start selling them on YOUR BI software as better than the one they’re having problems with.

I have found lately that I spend so much time thinking about SEO and keywords and Web writing that I’m losing touch with how most marketers think about search engine optimization but I hope this brief blog helps!

In the March issue of Deliver magazine, I read an interesting article on big businesses marketing to small ones.

Funny, I’ve been so focused lately thinking about small businesses being found online and the growth in numbers of people using search engines to try and find local businesses, that I didn’t even think about the small business owner searching online for products and services that they might want to buy from the bigger guys. And sure enough, one of the pieces of advice in the article is to be found online, meaning big businesses have to follow the same practices as small businesses marketing on the Internet. Search engine optimization using relevant, keyword-rich, updated content!

No matter the size of your company, search engine optimization is where it’s at because search engines are where your customers look. Make sure your SEO writing gets you found.

In February, Marina and I will give a presentation on using online press releases to promote your business on the Internet.

For too many marketers, especially small businesses struggling with Internet marketing, online press releases are a missed opportunity. That’s because too often the term “press release” makes marketers think of a boring piece of paper mailed to journalists who don’t really care.

Our goal with this talk is to get people familiar with the new world of online press releases and how to use them to market your business on the Internet, both by building credibility with an online press room, and using press releases for SEO (search engine optimization).

Of course not everyone can come to Kent, WA, to hear the talk. So check out the article Marina wrote for those who can’t make it. Titled “Market your business on the Internet with online press releases and a press room,” the article offers nine tips for building and benefiting from an online press room.

If you are one of the few marketing souls or small business owners who can make it to Kent on February 21, see details about our presentation “Using Press Releases to Promote Your Business on the Internet.”

I used to be a strong advocate of email newsletters, probably because of my publishing background, but also because I believed in them enough to create a list of 25 reasons to publish an e-newsletter. I came across that list the other day rummaging through a file. I laughed to myself at how much my thinking has changed in the last 4 years. But then as I read through the list, I realized most of those reasons translate to blogging! So below are the 18—count them, 18!—of the 25 reasons I used to use to support enewsletters and now offer up as reasons to blog.

Blogging can:

1. Help your search engine rankings by putting useful, relevant content online
2. Give prospects an easy way to learn more about you, and for clients past and present to keep up with you
3. Strengthen your brand and market position
4. Lead to referrals
5. Drive traffic to your Web site
6. Market without coming across as marketing
7. Increase your credibility and that of your business
8. Evolve and change in a way printed material can’t
9. Offer cost effective testing and adapting
10. Communicate quickly and efficiently
11. Establish a dialog and enhance customer loyalty
12. Educate your customers in new ways to use your products and services
13. Generate leads
14. Reinforce other marketing efforts, offline and online
15. Cost the same, no matter how many people are reading it
16. Lower costs compared to printed marketing
17. Be tracked, showing you how many hits and where they come from
18. Build an ongoing relationship with your target market

I still believe in marketing with enewsletters, because what I’ve been preaching for years is still true: it’s not just what you say but how you say it. Delivering the right marketing message with the wrong marketing medium doesn’t work. So use blogs when they’re right, and create newsletters when they are.

Last night in a bar I just happened to meet the head of marketing for a well-known international company. Of course the question “what do you do?” was asked. He was intrigued to find out that I own a marketing communications agency because he’s tired of his company’s PR firm and ready to fire them.

Earlier in the day I met with the head of marketing for a new client who said they are able to generate more press coverage for their clients than their clients can do manage on their own, to the point where their clients are saying “why are we paying for PR firms for this when you can do it so much better?” And no, they’re not a PR firm.

Both of these conversations happening in one day got me thinking about press releases, public relations and how people get information these days. Neither of these men said they were doing away with PR or press releases. But both talked about dissatisfaction with PR firms.

So I’m wondering if PR can be more self serve these days than in the past just by using the humble press release? Press releases are not just for sending en masse to a bunch of journalists who probably aren’t interested. With blogging, email, social networking, word of mouth, search engine optimization, online press rooms, and sites like PRWeb, press releases can be an integral part of your overall messaging strategy. Because you want to communicate with all your audiences--customers, prospects, vendors, partners, investors and the media—and you don’t know where or how they’ll find information about you.

Come up with something interesting to say, write press releases with keywords for SEO, post your press releases to your Web site and news distributions sites with a keyword rich title, and communicate the same messages via your blogs and email marketing.

And maybe you’ll be firing your PR firm too?

Yes, optimize everything you put on your Web site, then think of other types of writing for the Web that would be appropriate and optimize that too. Because online, content rules. And the more quality, useful, relevant content you have on your Web site, the more the search engines will like you.

Even if you think you’ve done all the search engine optimization (SEO) you can, I bet you can find at least one more place to put up keyword-rich content on that Web site.

Here’s an easy one: press releases. Write them, optimize them with keywords, post them on your Web site (as html, not pdfs!). And better yet, submit them so they get out into the broader world. We just submitted a press release to PRWeb for our small business marketing tips ebook. We optimized the press release for search engines as part of writing it, and now we’re posting it on our site too, to add to our own content. It didn’t take much longer to write an optimized version, honest.

Other content you can add to your Web site optimize for search: case studies, whitepapers, blogs (like this one)

Just don’t spam. Keywords to remember here are quality, useful and relevant. Be customer-centric. Yes, you’re putting up Web content to help you get found online. But once someone finds you, you want them to stick around. And that ain’t gonna happen if they click through and discover all you’ve done is stuffed a Web page with keywords, or just gone on and on about your company and what you’re selling.

From where I sit, as the owner of a copywriting agency dealing with clients on a daily basis, it seems a lot of companies write their own marketing materials for two reasons: to save money, and because they don’t realize the value in really great copy. But as I’ve been pondering this lately, I’ve been thinking maybe it’s an even bigger problem. Maybe it’s not just that they don’t recognize the damage they’re doing by using mediocre marketing. Maybe these marketers lack awareness, not knowledge.

I recently joined the advisory board for the University of Washington marketing certificate program. One of the board’s tasks this year is to help the university plan for a new program specifically for interactive marketing. We had our first meeting on the topic last week and were asked to brainstorm ideas around certain questions to help determine the outcome of the program. In addition to having a blast being in a room full of such incredibly bright and highly regarded marketers, I was intrigued to find out that—at my table at least—we pretty much agreed that it wasn’t that these people had to be taught how to run a pay-per-click campaign, how to use search engine optimization, how to run an A/B test, or any other particular skill, but they do need to learn what is possible. They must be made aware of all the possibilities in the world of online, interactive marketing first and foremost. And then we agreed that they need to recognize the value in outsourcing and to know how to work with vendors.

These certificate programs are for working professionals with marketing experience, not newbies. Still, all the seasoned experts in my group agreed that it’s more important to make these students aware than it is to give them specific skill sets. In the world of marketing, knowing what’s doable is much more important to an organization than being able to actually do it.

Even for small businesses that don’t have dedicated marketers on staff or the budget to outsource, it’s better to turn to resources like our small business marketing ebook than to guess or stay ignorant.

When writing for the Web, Search engine optimization (SEO) is only one part of the equation. Yes, SEO gets search engines to index and rank your site to help you get found, but then you have to do two more things: you have to get people to click on that search result to go to your Web page, and you have to keep them there once they land there.

Jakob Nielsen this week had great advice about the first task: A copywriter must go against conventional wisdom and use (gasp) passive voice when writing the descriptions a user sees on a search results page. As he points out, users only read the first two words, so you want those words to be the ones that get the user’s attention and get them to keep reading and/or therefore get them to click through.

His explanation is great, see it at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/passive-voice.html. And his explanation of active and passive voice is better than what most of us learned in school, as my copywriting cohort Marina pointed out!

But most importantly remember that writing for the Web is not just writing for Google (or Yahoo or MSN). Ultimately your copywriting should move beyond getting your site listed well to getting it converting well.

My last post was about user generated content. And I just had to smile when I saw that blog generated user generated content! In the form of comments, I mean. Hey, this stuff works! And the comments are thoughtful, adding another layer of insight onto what was just a germ of an idea on my part. Check them out… 

But heavy on my mind this week is—as usual--putting the prospect/customer first.  

 I call it talking to customers, not at them. And that means knowing how they think about a problem (“how they see it”), as well as the words they use (“what they call it”). 

First the problem: Many companies fill their Web sites and marketing collateral with copywriting about all their features and benefits from their own point of view. And who can blame them? After all, these people are living, breathing, eating, sleeping these products and/or services every day. Of course that’s their focus.  

But first you have to know what your prospect sees as the problem. If you sell mattresses, but your customer sees the problem as being tired all day—not as a need for a new mattress—then don’t have your copywriter fill the white space with talk about your great mattress. Instead, use marketing messages about how a mattress can improve sleep. 

Then there are the words they use. A former We Know Words client was an office furniture manufacturer. They wanted their Web site optimized for search engines, and they wanted to call their products work stations and panel systems and to use those terms in the Web writing. But guess what their customers called these same products? Yep, cubicles. In the company’s opinion, a cubicle was a derogatory term, one made fun of in Dilbert cartoons. But that’s the word customers used…and searched on.  

Talking their talk isn’t just for search engine optimization. You have to use your customer’s words in all your copywriting or you won’t connect with them: your ads, email marketing, brochures, you name it. And if you don’t know what words they use, ask your sales force. They’ll know.  

Until next blog!