I like Vertical Response as a lower cost small business email marketing platform, and I usually like the CEO's blog, but my feathers got a little ruffled when I read the 2010 checklist of 10 things small businesses should do this year.
As a freelance copywriter, I do work for small businesses. And the two things practically every small business owner have in common are: lack of time, lack of marketing knowledge.
This checklist of 10 things made me squirm in my seat...and I work in marketing!
I pity the small business owner who reads that, gulps, and throws his or her hands up in the air in despair. These folks are too busy running their businesses to implement even half of a list like this.
Years ago in my early days as a copywriter (yikes, that was 10 years ago!), I read this marketing advice: Do a few simple things. Do them well. Do them consistently.
For me as a freelance copywriter, I confess I started out with a three page marketing plan when I started my business. Hey, I'm in marketing! I should have a long, convoluted marketing plan, right? Over the years as I got busier (i.e. had less time) and smarter (i.e. had more experience), my marketing plan shrunk to less than a page.
Small business marketing has to be simple, easy and affordable. There's no one-size-fits-all plan for it. It might be small business email marketing. It might be blogs as marketing tools. It might be networking.
But it has to be a short list of simple things a busy guy or gal can do well and consistently. Not a list of 10 pie-in-the-sky ideas.
But starting with the new year last Monday, I see my role changing... from being able to give advice to doing certain marketing tasks myself.
I already work as a ghost blogger, something I plan to do even more of in 2010. But I'm still figuring out my place in social networking, as a content provider.
And maybe that's where I'm not sure? I'm in marketing, but my role in marketing is as Seattle copywriter. I have to know marketing to be a good copywriter. But what do I need to know to be a good social media content provider? Maybe it's even too early to say?
I know how to be an SEO copywriter. I know how to use blogs as marketing tools. I know small business email marketing. I know how to do all these specific things that require specialized knowledge.
But what is the specialized knowledge required for copywriters in 2010? Are we now faced with copywriting 2.0? Or even 3.0 (if I missed the boat the first time around)?
As I told the copywriting client this morning, it's my job to stay ahead of the marketing curve, in order to be the best freelance copywriter I can be. But I've yet to figure out my place in the new marketing world order.
Something to think on. Any thoughts on it, from other copywriters or people who hire copywriters?
Some copywriters say write your email subject line first. The make the body of the copywriting carry through the promise of the subject line. Another freelance copywriter might tell you to write teh body of the email, then go back and write the subject line, spending just as much time on the 5 words in your subject line as the 105 in the body of your email.
This Seattle copywriter falls somewhere in the middle. I first work with the copywriting client, of course, to learn about the customer (in order to stay true to my "talk to them, not at them" copywriting approach), the email strategy, etc. We come up with the goal of the email, then I suggest possible email messages.
I then start copywriting the body of the email, then I check my subject line "cheat sheet" for inspiration. Although the core message of the email won't change, the subject line can determine the hook or catch for the message in the body of the email. For example, if I write a subject line like "3 ways to something something," I will tweak the body of the email to fit into three steps or ways.
At the same time, I brainstorm 4 or 5 possible email subject lines.
Then I go back and forth between the email subject line, headline and body of the email, copywriting all at the same time.
At this point, I've lost you, right? Because really now you don't care about my approach to email copywriting and subject lines. Right now you're only interested in the aforementioned "cheat sheet," aren't you!
It's not really a cheat sheet, it was an article in MarketingProfs.com way back when, a list of the 100 best performing subject lines for their newsletter. It helps me as the freelance copywriter to read through them when working on email copywriting, inspiring me and encouraging me to think differently about my approach to email subject lines. And hey, the article was titled "Steal this..." so I did!
I hope if you're in charge of writing email subject lines and email copywriting, you find similar inspiration!
Find the MarketingProfs.com article at http://www.marketingprofs.com/rb/1/?rbid=2854&file=&adref=pfnl1.
Last week as part of our 12 days of Christmas festivities, I took my daughter and her friend to the Washington State History Museum and then to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We got to the restaurant early, before 5:00 even, but because it was the holiday break, there was already a wait for a table.
The hostess said 10 minutes but sat us in less than five. The two girls were both surprised and impressed! Plus we got a table in the trolley when the hostess had only replied “maybe” when we requested it.
That shows the power of under promising and over delivering. And the power of the experience. Our dining experience started out on a positive note, and even if things had gone wrong from that point forward, our attitude was bound to be good and our meal enjoyable.
The hostess could easily have said, “Oh, it will just be a couple of minutes.” But the restaurant gained an emotional advantage when she said 10.
The girls were still talking about this when we walked to the car after dinner. Their reaction made such an impression on me, I’ve been looking for a copywriting lesson to pull from this. This approach works in marketing and sales, but in copywriting?
As a freelance Seattle copywriter, I try to under promise and over deliver on projects, meaning I often over-estimate the amount of time I think a project will take (and therefore the amount of the final bill), then I happily get the project done in less time and delight my clients with a bill under budget. (This doesn’t happen every time! But I finally after 9 years of doing this learned it’s easier to over estimate and charge less than the opposite!)
But when it comes to the actual copywriter end product--the website, email, direct mail postcard, ghost blog, whitepaper or press release--how does a copywriter under promise and over deliver, and should I?
I do cringe when clients ask me for copywriting that promises the moon and I suspect they can’t deliver it.
Alternatively if someone can offer the moon but I as the copywriter don’t tell prospects that, we likely won’t get their attention in the first place, meaning what we deliver is irrelevant.
On the other hand, I’m relentless at times, hounding clients to give me a moon to promise. I recently worked as a Web site copywriter for a client with a wonderful story to tell…and they reined me back in copywriting wise again and again and again.
I don’t have the answer. I know I don’t like to get less than I expect when I spend my money. And I often do! I’m delighted when I get more than I expect, which happens on occasion. But the sad thing is, I’m delighted when I get just what I expect because I’m so used to the over promise, under deliver that seems prevalent today.
Does that mean my clients must promise the moon…and then deliver even more than that? That would certainly wow the new customers and turn them into lifelong fans. But is it possible?
I don’t have the answer. Only a fond memory of two young ladies learning the power of the under promise, over deliver approach.
Never underestimate the power of a word. One word can change the power of a tagline, a handful of words can change the power of a Website, a sentence can change the power of an email. (And in your personal life, one word can change everything.)
Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, and the success of some of the winners likely has to do with other marketing factors, luck and trends as much as with the name itself. As the Seattle copywriter who considers herself a marketer first, a word person second, I really believe that to be the case. Is Twitter a success because of its company name? Or because it was first to market, or so new, or whatever it was that made Twitter a household name (if not a household technology). Ditto for Flickr, and Wikipedia, and the other winners named in the article.
Marketing is a mixture of art and science, I think. And there are certain factors one has no control over, those kinds of factors that make something go viral...or make it flop. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point," you know what I mean. If you haven't, put it on your reading list for 2010.
I really feel this mixture of what I can control, what I can't. Sure as a copywriter there are certain rules that apply and factors I rule over. How I approach Web writing differs from my approach to blogs as marketing tools differs from my approach to email copywriting and so on. But all I can do is study the target market, work with the copywriting client to determine a message, do the copywriting...and then wait to see what the client does with my work. And it has been butchered many a time, trust me, either by change, or by being used in a totally ineffective way.
So it is with marketing in general. There are some things we can control--like the name of a company--but there are others we can't--like why something becomes a trend overnight. That's why I don't want to read too much into why these company names are winners. I think it has more to do with outside factors and inside marketing prowess than the name itself, although a good name definitely helps! But it's more like one more ingredient that makes your recipe for success even more tasty than the key ingredient itself.
My thoughts anyway.
This sounds like this should be an email marketing topic, and it is in a way, but it's also a copywriter topic, because it's the copywriter who writes the alt text when it's used.
Something like 80% of email clients (that's the software used like Outlook, or AOL, or Gmail) have images turned off by default. I don't know how many users change that setting so they do get images, but I'll be a large percentage of them don't. That means images don't show up in the emails, only the little boxes with red x's do. And in that box is some boring text. For me as an Outlook user, that text tells me I can right click to download the pictures (and then reassures me Microsoft is only doing this to protect me because Microsoft is truly concerned about me...right?).
But that text can do more! If you're using alt text in your email marketing, that's the text that shows up in lieu of a picture.
No alt text in your email marketing is bad enough. Sucky alt text that shows a complete lack of effort is even worse. In the last two days I've received two holiday email that consisted ONLY of boxes and red x's. And the text telling me to right click to download the pictures. And this alt text: "Holiday Card."
I'm a Seattle copywriter. This makes me absolutely nuts. I bet they hired their copywriter to write the text that shows up on the image (that I'd see if I did right click). So why not hire their copywriter to write the alt text?
Instead of Holiday Card, how about the actual message? Or something like "A holiday greeting from the folks at ABC Company"? Or a compelling message like "Can't see anything but a red x? Right click to see a beautiful holiday email sent to you with all our best wishes. You'll be glad you did!"
Honestly, those cheesy ideas took this Seattle copywriter about 20 seconds to come up with. So please, people, invest a few extra minutes into your alt text! Otherwise your email marketing is better off never leaving your computer!
The best alt text I ever saw, bar none, was in an email from the Washington State History Museum. Being a museum, their email message was loaded with images...and each one had a full caption of text stating what the image was. It communicated to me even without the pictures. This is a nonprofit I'm talking about here. And they are kicking alt text ass, if you ask this copywriter.
If your business does email marketing, even small business email marketing, resolve to use alt text this coming year!
And if you need reminders, do like this freelance copywriter and turn off the images in your email. Then you'll experience how dreadful the emails sans alt text are...and you'll become aware of how much more your own email marketing could do, if you just have your copywriter spend some time on some clever turns of phrase.
I have been using BlackBerry phones for about five years now, ever since I worked as a Seattle copywriter for T-Mobile writing brochures about the BlackBerry. I figured I’d better know what I was talking about so I got one, and fell head over heels in love with it.
Soon a bunch of my friends were yakking away on BlackBerry phones too. The thing was perfect for viral marketing. All they had to do was see my using it to get interested.
Alas this love story lacks a fairy tale ending. Maybe it simply went much the same way that so many love stories do: down the tubes.
You see, I wore that first BlackBerry out somehow. A small but critical piece stopped working. I could hear people talking, but no one could hear me. If only I could have taken it to the nearest cell phone repair shop, but nothing like that exists. The only solution was a new BlackBerry, which I faithfully purchased.
That little scene repeated itself with every successive BlackBerry. I’ve been through six phones in as many years, because the quirkiness of the quality. Every phone had something go wrong, or, in the case of the Pearl, it just sucked.
Still, I bought a new BlackBerry, not another brand, every time I needed to replace my phone. That is brand loyalty. And as a copywriter, I'm very familiar with brand loyalty!
Today I am taking it in the shorts because of my blind faith in the brand. I am using the newest and worst BlackBerry yet. My brand loyalty has been abused. Rather than make ever better products to continually delight the customer, RIM has only made crappier and crappier products, until now I’m stuck with a barely usable BlackBerry Smartphone. Not only does it suck as a phone, but think about how hard it is for a copywrter to have a phone she can't use for texting and email! I'm a copywriter for a reason, I do better with the written word than the spoken one!
As a copywriter, I know marketing. But I also know that the actual thing you sell someone has to live up to the promise of your copywriting and marketing.
This latest, heaviest, barely usable piece of metal and plastic sitting next to my laptop is the equivalent of a snubbing. RIM didn’t care to keep delighting me, only to keep selling to me.
If that’s your marketing, it’s a short-term solution.
Trust me, this copywriter has bought her last BlackBerry. As soon as this one wears out, and I know that will be soon, I’m switching brands.
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!
Just read an article by a very respected SEO copywriter talking about Title tags. If you do any SEO copywriting, or you work with your SEO copywriter, you’ll know the Title tag is a critical part of your search engine optimization (SEO).
(If you don’t know, read a quick tutorial I just wrote for another blog here: http://smallbusinessblogging.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/small-business-blogging-for-internet-marketing-why-your-title-is-soooooo-key/.)
Normally I really respect this SEO copywriter’s opinion, and, knowing how important Title tags are I was excited to read this article to make sure I know everything I need to to be a kick ass Website copywriter…but in this case, I was disappointed in her advice because in all honesty I think she’s just a wee bit wrong.
Why? Because she talked about including the company name in the Title tag. I disagree, unless your business is well known and people are searching specifically for YOU (meaning your business). Even still, if that’s the case, does your company name belong in the Title tag?
People use search engines like Google to solve problems. The problem might be they need a new keyboard for their laptop, or they’re searching for a new horse, or they’re researching an arch pain in their foot…there are likely as many problems to be solved as there are Internet searchers!
But your Title tag has to match their search in order to work. That means the keywords in your Title tag must match the keywords they’re typing into the Google search box.
Is searching for We Know Words solving a problem? Only if the problem is they are looking for my copywriting company specifically. But if that’s the case, they probably already know to go to weknowwords.com. More likely they are searching for a freelance copywriter, or a Seattle copywriter, or a Website copywriter, or an SEO copywriter…meaning they don’t know they want to hire me, Sharon, as their copywriter, they only know they need to find a copywriter.
Including the words “We Know Words” in my Title tags would be a complete waste of space.
I agree with the author that Title tags are so important and I’m glad she’s talking about them. But too many people will likely follow that SEO copywriter’s expert advice and waste precious SEO real estate with company names that don’t belong. L
Here’s another analogy for proving marketing is like dating: Think of personal ads. Why? Because words can woo.
Even with online dating sites like Match.com, you don’t rely solely on the photos. Heck, plenty of people (mostly men for some reason) don’t even put up photos. The words still matter. You read someone’s profile and decide if it resonates with you or not.
Let’s take search engines and search results as an example…
Like your personal ad, you can write these to say anything you want, as long as they also have the search terms you want to get found for. The goal of this search result is first, to get found, and second, to get someone to click through and go to your site, for this copy to resonate with the prospect. You don’t get to use any pictures, so it’s like the personal ads of old, when people put their ads in newspapers.
Now think of the search result someone gets when searching on Google, using the We Know Words copywriting Website as our example. Type Seattle copywriter into Google and sure enough, We Know Words is on the first page (under that horrid local search map, gads I hate those things!).
What people get for a search result is the title tag and description I’ve written for a particular page on the We Know Words Website. In my case, this is really bad, I don’t know that it would resonate with anyone, honestly…
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But besides the fact that this Seattle copywriter is maybe acting like the cobbler whose children have no shoes, my advice is still sound. J Have your copywriter, whether freelance or in-house, write your website copy, brochure copy, email copywriting, whatever it is, as if she were copywriting a personal ad.
If I were to rewrite my title tag and description as a personal ad, keeping in mind that I have to achieve both search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion (getting people to click on the link and go to my site), I could do it as:
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I want to keep marketing writer in the Title tag, because it ranks well in Google, but I’m pushing Seattle copywriter as a keyword a bit more so it’s in there twice now. That’s my SEO. But I also made it more action oriented.
OK, maybe not the best example of having your copywriter write marketing ads, but like the cobbler, this copywriter has to get some client work done! No more indulging in blogging for now!
My friend Mavis is a freelance copywriter like me. But she calls herself a story teller. And it's true. Copywriters are story tellers. Companies hire us copywriters to tell their stories on their Websites, in their email marketing, in their blogs...at least the smart companies do.
People love stories. Maybe it’s because for most of human existence, we’ve relied on oral traditions to pass along information, lore and lessons. Whatever the reason, watch a room full of children enraptured by a story teller, and you’ll see that same attention given to a compelling speaker standing before a room full of adults…if he or she is telling a story.
Here’s a recent example that makes my copywriter point so well, I will simply…tell the story!
Last month I went with a friend to visit his friends, a family of four in Idaho. It was a nine-hour drive from Seattle to their little town of 1,500 residents, and their impressive 32-acre spread. Among the two kids, four dogs, 13 horses and more cats than I could count were 300 chickens being raised for eggs and meat. Matt, the patriarch of this affair, works 50 miles away in the city of Boise. He trucks in cartons of eggs when he heads to the city for people to buy, but people also come to their place to buy the fryers.
When he first started this little side business, he was shocked not only to find out that people would pay $20 for a chicken, but that they’d drive 50 miles from the city to do so. In his mind, the economics just didn’t work out as far as the real cost of that little fryer.
As he told me, the Seattle copywriter, this story, I wasn't surprised at all. I was rather envious that I didn't have more copywriting clients like Matt, with stories that just tell themselves...
That's because those customers are buying so much more than that fryer! They are buying the whole experience of driving out to the country. They are buying the chance to interact with a real country boy (because even at 46, Matt is still very much a country boy!). They are buying a chicken that lived a healthy, wholesome, natural life…as opposed to a factory raised one.
The first time a customer asked if the chicken she was buying had lived a good life, Matt thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. And I’m not surprised. It’s all part of the story.
The story. It’s all about the story. Whether you’re talking about chickens or Hummers, it’s all about the story. The one we tell ourselves as part of the buying process. The one we experience as we buy. The one we tell others about our purchase. We humans love stories.
We copywriters love stories too. Wheter it's Web writing or brochure copywriting, story telling makes our work more fun and more effective.
So go forth, copywriters and marketers, and tell those stories! We're listening!
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.
Have you ever met someone and liked them but figured they didn’t like you? This happens in the dating world all the time, right? But marketers do this without meaning to, telling prospects “We don’t want you” with their words, even though what they really want is to turn them into customers…
Last summer at a party I did not plan on attending, I met someone who gave every indication of not being interested. I hadn’t even planned on attending this party. Worse, I wasn’t even invited. I was supposed to be somewhere else, as I drove home from the barn where I boarded my horse, dusty and sweaty. But my cell phone rang with the persuading voice of a friend promising this party would cheer me up and there would be single men. For the record, that night single men were the reason for my glum mood, so that wasn’t enticing, but the cheerful note in my friend’s voice assured me this would take my mind off my troubles.
I arrived at the party, not knowing a soul but the one friend, and not getting any help from him as he flirted his way through the female portion of the crowd. That was okay, I kind of wanted to keep to myself anyway. But there was one guy I thought cute, and as the night wore on, I engineered myself to be sitting by the fire pit with him when no one else was around. Well, that didn’t matter. His body language, his obvious unwillingness to engage in conversation, the fact that he never asked me a thing but only curtly answered the questions I tossed out there all told me “not interested.” No problem! I climbed in the hot tub with a bunch of strangers and didn’t’ think anything of it.
The irony is, later this guy asked my one friend about me, and ended up calling me and asking me out on a date. When I asked him about that night, and told him I thought he was cold as ice and didn’t give any indication at all that he liked me, he said, “That was me being interested.” Like I’m supposed to figure that out!
But, people. Marketers do this all the time. We sit across the fire pit, at a party, under the influence of alcohol in a fun, Friday evening environment…and turn people off. We do! Our words do! Our words can be horribly narcissistic and make the prospect think all we’re really saying is “go away.”
That’s why your copywriting and message are so critical! When someone lands at your Web site, or gets your email, or pulls your direct mail out of the mailbox, or even checks out your Facebook page, your message needs to speak to them, tell them you want them, tell them you are interested in them as a customer.
Plenty of businesses make the mistake of the guy at the party. They don’t talk my talk, they don’t give any indication they are interested in ME, they simply fold their arms and lean back. Then they complain about prospects (i.e. women) and never look at what they’re doing to cause the disconnect.
Be engaging, marketers. Make sure your copywriting engages, that it talks to your potential customer, not at her. That it tells her, “I’m interested, I really am interested.”
This morning I realized there are seven bottles of shampoo in my shower. This is odd for two reasons: 1) only two people live in my house right now, and 2) I only just noticed and counted the bottles…which have been there for a while. A long while.
This is noteworthy and relevant because those shampoo bottles are like your marketing: easy to ignore. I don’t know how long I’ve been showering surrounded by seven bottles of shampoo (and two conditioner containers). I’m sure these bottles were collected gradually. But until I knocked one over and became aware of the astounding number, it didn’t register that we had such a buildup. That’s because I was so used to all of those bottles that I stopped seeing them.
This happens in marketing all the time. When your copywriting reads the same as the six other Web sites your prospect just looked at, you become just one more unseen shampoo bottle, taking up space and not getting noticed. Ditto for your direct mail, your email marketing, even your blog.
Don’t be just another shampoo bottle hoping to get noticed. Be different, stand out, and get noticed instead.
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.
Yesterday I read an email marketing blog post on surprising your readers, that that’s a type of “relevance,” anticipating their needs, wants or desires by offering them something unexpected but welcome. This is a classic “marketing is like dating” scenario.
It reminded me of a man I dated who was a single dad with full custody of his kids. He could spot things that needed doing as soon as he walked into my house in a way another man couldn’t, because his experience running a household made him aware. I kid you not, this guy amazed me. He was usually early to pick me up, I was usually late to be ready. One typical day when this happened, I had a pile of laundry on the dining room table waiting to be folded. I came around the corner into the dining room, and there he was folding the laundry and thinking nothing of it. Other times he’d step right in to help with dishes. I certainly appreciated his help but I was also struck by his awareness. I can honestly say that he’s the only guy I’ve dated who folded laundry unsolicited! And it delighted me!
As a marketer and copywriter, you too can delight your customers and prospects. Consider Amazon.com’s recommendations, or ecommerce Web sites that suggest other items you might like based on what you’re looking at. Offline, maybe it’s a birthday card with a special offer, an unexpected coupon for a timely item like lemonade during a hot spell. To get more in-depth, how about a whitepaper or tip sheet that clearly explains an issue that frustrates your customers? Or add some particularly useful articles links to your Web site. Or…
If you want to delight your customer/date, the first step is to be aware, to think about things from the perspective of your target audience. Anticipate the need. Get out of your head and into hers. Once you do that, you’ll spot opportunities for marketing and copywriting that might not be as hands-on as folding laundry, but will be equally appreciated.
Got a dating or marketing story to share, good, bad, or ugly? Post a comment, and let me know if you want it kept private or not. J
How can anyone dispute marketing is like dating? It’s probably the best analogy out there! Every time I look around, I see another example. Here’s a follow up to the last blog post about marketing is like dating, in which I told my friend he was doing the equivalent of asking the same girl out over and over again, always getting no as a response, but continuing to do so…and how marketers do the same thing.
This time we’ll compare marketing to online dating. My experience with online dating is restricted to Match.com and only three months, but I called it “dating on steroids” for good reason! You experience a lot of it in just three months!
Anecdotally I understand that my experience with online dating differs from that of a man due to gender. But since my marketing is like dating analogies are based on men being the marketers and women being the customers and prospects, this works.
As a woman on Match.com, I heard from all kinds of men who didn’t fit the profile I had set up at all. They were often older than my desired age range, or younger. They didn’t fit the education or income ranges I chose. Or they were outside of the geographical area. Many times it was obvious that hadn’t even read my profile because otherwise they wouldn’t have said some of the silly things they did in their emails to me! And let’s not forget the guy who started the email dialog with me then told me he didn’t want to date anyone with kids…even though my profile said upfront that I had kids.
Annoyance and irritation aside, I can see how all these guys are acting like marketers, ignoring what the customer says she wants to try and convince her that really she wants what they have to offer. Like the considerably older man who was sure I’d like dating him if I just gave it a try, never mind he was 20 years my senior.
It’s the quantity vs. quality thing again. All these guys (“marketers”) that reached out to me even though they didn’t fit what I was looking for were also reaching out to plenty of other women (“customers”) who were looking for something other than what they offered. It was the email marketing equivalent of batch and blast. And all it did was annoy me, just like unwelcome marketing annoys people, ensuring they likely won’t ever become a customer (or date).
What kind of dating/marketing is your company doing? Are you attempting to woo prospects who are looking for something completely different? Why? When there are plenty of women/prospects out there who are interested in what you’re selling?
I have a friend wrestling with demons. Not unusual, we all have our demons. His is just stuff in his professional life that he has been battling for a long time, stuff I can’t fix (hard for me, the fixer) and stuff that is keeping him from moving forward because that “stuff” is all about the past. But he had a funny epiphany, and it was all because of my marketing is like dating book.
He’s fighting a battle he has fought for years. I kept saying the same advice over and over. Over time, I’ve been frustrated because I haven’t felt heard. I keep saying these wise things, giving this really insightful (I hope!) advice, without him ever getting it.
Exasperated recently I finally said, “Look. Pretend this is in my book and we’re talking about marketing is like dating. Basically, you’ve been asking the same girl out on a date for years, and she keeps saying ‘no,’ and instead of moving on, you just keep asking. Not only that, you keep complaining about the fact that she keeps saying ‘no’ when you’re the crazy one because you keep asking.”
A looooong moment of silence ensued and I thought for sure I’d crossed some line…
Then, the reaction. His words? “I never really thought your marketing is like dating book was such a great idea until just now. I get it.” That was an epiphany of sorts, but the one that really mattered was the one that enabled him to see that that’s just what he’d been doing all these years. Awareness is the first step, and for my friend, I hope it leads to freedom from the battle as he just accepts “that girl” doesn’t want to date him.
In the marketing world, we do this all the time. We market to people who keep saying “no,” thinking if we’re just persistent enough, if we just keep sending those postcards, if we just keep sending those emails, if we just keep up with our telemarketing, someone will finally say “yes” to our offer.
In the dating world, that would get you a restraining order, not a date (i.e. customer).
Wouldn’t it be better to target your efforts to someone who does want to buy from/date you? As a Seattle copywriter, I’m not expert on database marketing, segmenting, behavioral marketing, etc., but I know those tools exist. (It’s my job as freelance copywriter to craft targeted copy after that work has been done.) However, in my experience, many companies fail to use them. They prefer the quantity over quality approach, marketing to more people who don’t want to hear from them instead of less people who do.
If you can think of yourself as dating, not marketing, it will completely change the way you think about marketing (and copywriting).
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