Day 2 of my MarketingSherpa “Marketing Wisdom for 2010” freelance copywriter insights...

Here's a great example of talking to the customer, not at them, this professional copywriter's mantra: Tyler Garns of InfusionSoft submitted a great example of simplifying the marketing message. His company went from a big promise to a small one, from promising an all-in-one solution to promising an email marketing solution. They found the all-in-one message didn't resonate with their small business audience. Turned out, the small businesses were only looking for email marketing.

I've used this example before, but it is worth repeating because this comes up so often in my work as a professional copywriter: Are you selling new mattresses or a good night's sleep? If your prospect views their problem as poor sleep, and they don't know a new mattress will help, do not sell them the new mattress. Do sell them the good night's sleep.

I guarantee if you take a hard look at your current copywriting and messaging, you'll find you tend to talk at customers. You tend to assume they know they need whatever you're selling. And chances are, they don't.

Take one piece of existing marketing collateral and force yourself to reframe it in customer-centric terms. How different is it? 

Seems like being a web site copywriter means working in a time warp sometimes. I get my part done, but then development still takes a while. I guess that means being a freelance copywriter makes me good at delayed gratification! Since I have to wait to see the fruits of my labors! 

Today a website copywriting project when live, and it's once again for me a delight to see my words at work. The K & H Print website was a great copywriting project for several reasons. Jay, the CEO, really pushed me in a way most clients don't. :-) For which I am grateful because I had to dig a little deeper and it was character building! My suggestion that they use video to tell their wonderful story was not only accepted, but embraced, and my colleague Mavis Lamb made that all come together for them. I got to work with Adhost, a favorite company of mine. And I got to really delve into this 101 year old company and what makes them tick.

This was a somewhat intensive website copywriting project, even though SEO wasn't part of it. And I enjoyed every minute of it, and I'm very proud of the results.

Take a look, click through, enjoy. Especially the home page. That's where the CEO really pushed me and I'm glad. I'm proud of the result.

As a copy writer, I try to be and push authentic. By push, I mean encouraging those clients hiring me as their content copywriter to tell a true story. I also try to push delivering the message the right way. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you say as a freelance copywriter if you say it via a channel or at a time unappealing to your audience.

So Pepsi just got kudos from me on two counts by announcing they're skipping the Super Bowl ad frenzy this year. And they give two reasons that make perfect sense to me as a professional copywriter who preaches talk to your customer not at them: 

1) They are spending $20M on social causes. They would be hypocrites to spend another $12M on Super Bowl ads. That is authentic.

2) They recognize what they would be marketing, this from-the-ground-up campaign of Pepsi Refresh, wouldn't fit with the spirit of the typical Super Bowl ad. (And they could fall flat on their face as a result.) That is about delivering the message the right way...and the Super Bowl ain't it, not for this message.

I'm just a lowly freelance copy writer trying to stay true to her principles as I do my work. How validating to have a company like Pepsi validate two of those principles in such a public way! 

Three days ago, a dog named Bear joined our family. Animals now outnumber people by 5 to 1 (not counting squirrels).

Being a professional copywriter who wants to relate everything back to marketing and copywriting, I was thinking about Bear, and how he sleeps on my daughter's bed and is so protective of us. And boy, does he look protective when he's laying there sleeping next to her! They're the same size! 

Thinking how to relate this to my job as a freelance copywriter, I kept coming back to the idea of peace of mind and security. Having Bear around means feeling safer, even if he might turn out to be a big huge chicken, more than a big huge dog.

But it's the idea of security that matters here, the comfort my daughter feels with that big lug sleeping next to her, and the peace of mind I feel when he raises his head and gives a soft bark just in case. It feels good in a world that quite often doesn't.

Does your marketing offer a feeling of security? Does your web site copywriting make people feel safe buying from you? How about your printed collateral, has your freelance copywriter conveyed your marketing message in a believable way? 

I think about Bear, and even the warm fuzzies I feel as he dozes at my feet while I type, and I think, "This feels good. I want to feel more of this."

I'm not alone. Your prospects and customers want to feel more of that too. Work with your best copywriter and make that happen, make those words on the page or the screen convey that you can be trusted, buying from you is safe, that you really do have that customer's best interests at heart, as Bear does mine.

Be like the big dog.

Web writing can be a tricky business for a professional copywriter: You're never quite sure what you're going to be working with for a design, sitemap, clarity of message...I wrote my first website in 1997, if you can believe it, way before I even knew what a professional copywriter was! And in the 13 (gulp) years since then, I don't think I've done two website copywriting projects that were the same.

I really like what we were just able to do for Contract Controllers, a CPA firm, and this was a first for me: They had a set template and sitemap for me to work with, because of the company doing their site. But they were smart enough to know that even with a design that wasn't one-of-a-kind, their message better be! 

So they called me in as their professional copywriter. (Am I being self serving here? Probably, but this blog really is about them!)

They were great to work with, and the project went smoothly for this website copywriter. But I give them kudos for recognizing the need to stand out, to have a unique message.

I was a little frustrated with the company putting together the site because they wouldn't let us use unique Title tags (critical for SEO!). And certain elements couldn't be changed. But for the most part as the freelance website copywriter, I'm a happy camper because Contract Controllers got a decent looking site that tells their story.

See the site at http://www.contractcontrollers.com.

As a freelance copywriter who helps out clients with small business marketing, I am constantly on the lookout for new information to pass along to copywriting clients, especially as social media takes center stage.

I'm already pushing blogs as marketing tools, but these days I'm looking out for nuggets on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, trying to wrap my head around how these tools can be put to use for small business marketing.

So this article of using Facebook for your small business caught my eye when someone retweeted it, but it's more of the same: talking about the how, but not the why, and definitely not about the "how to make money" part of the how.

I'm a copywriter, yes. Words are my business. Web writing is my business. Email copywriting is my business. But I also owe it to my copywriting clients to be up to speed on other marketing channels, so I can make sure my work as freelance copywriter fits with their other marketing efforts.

What small business folks lack more than anything are time and money. What they need more than anything is sound advice.

And that doesn't mean telling them how to set up a Facebook page, and to make sure they have lots of friends and family to get to follow them. That means telling them how to make money, how to market their business and convert prospects to customers using Facebook.

But sadly that means looking beneath the surface of the shiny new thing that is Facebook. And articles like this only encourage more small business folks to jump on the Facebook bandwagon, wasting precious time on a tool they don't know how to use let alone necessarily need.

Am I simply grumpy because I didn't get to ride my horse today? Or am I grumpy because I too am a small business owner and I wants facts, not Facebook.
 

Yesterday I sat through another disappointing SEO webinar. It was "sold" to me as a copywriter as SEO copywriting tips for 2010, implying it would offer new information. But it was simply a rehash of old information I as an experienced copywriter already knew.

Seriously, maybe I do know everything there is to know about SEO copywriting for now, including optimizing press releases. This webinar talked about how to build an online press room, a topic the We Know Words copywriting staff presented on two years ago!

I realize not everyone knows as much as I do about search engine optimization and Web writing. That's because not everyone works as a website copywriter. I get that. But please do not sell me on a webinar by promising that it will be new information! If it's the same old, same old in 2010, fine. Tell me that and I'll know I'm still in a position to do well by my clients. But don't pretend it's more than it is.

I don't SEO staying the same for a while! That gives me time to ramp up on my role as a freelance copywriter in the age of social media...

Last night we went bowling, something we rarely do so I'm not very good at it. I'm definitely a better freelance copywriter than bowler! In the middle of the second game, my friend said "Hang on to the ball a little longer." I did...and bowled two strikes in a row.

That one little split second change improved this copywriter's bowling game dramatically. Which got me thinking about tweaks, and how one little tweak can make a big difference in copywriting, whether it's web writing or small business marketing or blogs as marketing tools.

What can you have your freelance copywriter tweak to improve your company's marketing? How about email subject lines? The heading on your website's home page? The cover of that postcard? Maybe it's even your staff's signature block in their emails, or the title of your next blog post. Or your call to action? How you word your registration form on your landing page? Your banner ad, the executive summary for your next whitepaper, the CEO quote in your next press release...the possibilities are endless.

Copywriters work with words. But not just any words. The right words used in the right way. Tweaking those words can make a big difference. Never stop looking for places to tweak! 

You might end up bowling a strike instead of a spare.

I just got off a conference call for a new website copywriter project. I call these kickoff calls, and I warn my new copywriting clients that they will be answering a lot of questions during such a call. That's because of my mantra about talking to customers, not at them. The only way I as the freelance copywriter can truly write to the customer is by understanding where the customer is coming from, his pain points and challenges, her worldview.

During the past hour, I didn't ask a single question about the services provided by my web writing client. I only asked about their customers. And in doing so, I learned about the services offered...from the customer's point of view. That's exactly what I want, as the copywriter, to tell my client's story from the point of the customer.

And it was a great call because more than once I'd ask a question and the client would pause, say, "That's a great question!" then give me a very thoughtful and insightful answer...because they had to think about it! That tells me it's good info for me, as the copywriter!

Talking to your customers, not at them. It's not hard. It's just different. And effective.

Your subject line can make or break your email. It's a small but critical part of your email copywriting. "Small" because it's only a few words. Critical because it either gets people to open your email or doesn't.

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.

Today's MarketingProfs email newsletter has a quick read on the best and worst company names of the past decade. As a freelance copywriter who is occassionally hired to help with naming and who works daily with words, I enjoyed the read through of the best and the worst. I don't just know words, I love words! 

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.

 

Because I detest updating my Web site, being a copywriter, not an html guru, I don't put recent copywriting samples up on it. I told myself I would start blogging on projects as I completed them instead, so at least somewhere online, this copywriter would be showing off her prowess with samples.

It's December 28 as I type this copwriter blog, and I think I maybe blogged on recent copywriting projects um...twice?? This year I resolve to do better! And not only because potential clients need to be able to see my work and the types of companies I work for, but because they might learn from seeing these samples too. Or not. Maybe blogging on my copywriter projects is purely self serving! 

This project took a while to go live when my Website copywriter role was over, so I was delighted to see it finally. In those cases, I often have forgotten what I wrote by the time I see the finished product, so it's a pleasant treat to see the Website copywriting with fresh eyes and think, "hey, that's pretty good!"

The Website is www.maxsampartners.com and the challenges were unique. I didn't have to worry about keywords and SEO, but I had a very restrictive template to work within, which dictated not only the word count for each section and page, but the character counts even! Seriously, headings, captions, text, bulleted lists...every section had a set character count to work with.

It was a totally different Website copywriter experience for me as a result, and fun! Fun trying to make sure I was getting the core marketing messages across while still being compelling and interesting and all within a tight space.

And as much as I love being an SEO copywriter, it was nice to take a break from keywords and thinking on all that stuff.

I recently got a new laptop, and opted to leave Outlook with the default settings for images in email. That means most html email showing up in my inbox has little red x's in it. I left the setting alone because I'm curious about how well companies are using alt text in their email marketing. In the past week with my new laptop, I am shocked at how few are, and what a poor job is done by those companies that do use alt text.

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.

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…  

 

Marketing writer - Seattle copywriter portfolio of web writing and ...

Copywriting portfolio of ads, brochures, case studies, datasheets, emails, Web content and more showcases the singular talents of the marketing writers at ...

 

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:

 

Marketing writer - Seattle copywriter portfolio of web writing and ...

Searching for a stellar freelance Seattle copywriter? See complete portfolio of print copywriting, email copywriting, Web copywriting and more.

 

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.

 

See sample tips, learn more about the marketing ebook, and read some glowing testimonials at www.marketinginaminute.com. Or just request the ebook sight unseen by emailing info@weknowwords.com and putting “book” in the subject line.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

More on courting in the next blog post…