I’m vindicated! JupiterResearch says work that transactional email!

 

I’ve long advocated for email copywriting in your transactional emails to take advantage of an opportunity to reinforce your brand, cross-sell, or even grow your in-house email list. And a new report from JupiterResearch, sponsored by StrongMail, not only validates my opinion but takes it a step beyond: JupiterResearch is saying time to get promotional in those transactional emails, people! And for this Seattle copywriter, that means make your messaging promotional too!

 

A transactional email such as a welcome email, order confirmation or shipping confirmation email is another chance to market to your customer. They’ve already purchased from you (like a widget) or requested something from you (like a whitepaper), so they already have a relationship with you and expect to hear from you. Take advantage of that warm, fuzzy feeling to say “Hey, by the way, you might also be interested in our gadget to go with that widget you just bought.”

 

It was interesting for me as a copywriter to read that transactional emails often aren’t owned by marketing. OK, that makes the lack of email copywriting make sense! So the first thing we need to do is change the mindset about the transactional email…and any other opportunity we have to touch a prospect or customer, like packaging, customer service, etc. Although I’m just a copywriter, I’m constantly preaching that everything you do is marketing. This just proves it, but also proves how narrow-minded we sometimes are, with clearly defined ideas about what marketing “is” or “is not.”

 

Peoples, marketing is everything and everywhere. It’s 24x7, round-the-clock. And it should most definitely be happening in your transactional emails. So pull those dry, straightforward text-based emails out of the system, do some kickass email copywriting, and stop wasting opportunities to sell and brand.

 

Now. J

 

Yeah, so I guess all this Seattle rain gave me some attitude today!

Last week I blogged on blogs as marketing tools...again. And I got a great comment from reader Jan:

"Don't get me wrong I love blogging but you still need to drive people to your blog similar to a web site. Your client needs to have a thriving blog with lots of visitors before they could all find her info and hop on over to try the sweets. How have you built your audience?"

Jan was responding to a blog about my friend Harpreet and how she could use blogs as marketing tools to marketing her Indian restaurant Pnjab Sweets. Jan's right. People have to go to the blog to read about Diwali and be enticed to buy sweets.

Blogs can have different purposes: SEO, thought leadership, replacing a Web site, etc. In Harpreet's case, I'd encourage her to do two things with her blog: use keywords for searches she'd like to win, and engage with her audience. She has so much she can talk about: Indian culture, food and holidays; running a small, family-owned business; being a vegetarian; how her restaurant makes everything from scratch...even how rarely she gets to wear her fine Indian clothes. She's also gorgeous and the sweets made by her Indian restaurant are picturesque, meaning her blog can be visually appealing too.

Here's what I'd suggest to Harpreet, to answer Jan's question:

• Determine which keywords she could win and use those regularly in her blogs
• Include the link to her blog in her ads and in articles that get written about her Kent restaurant (she's a popular subject!)
• Include a link to her blog in her email signature
• Put it on her business cards and all the gorgeous packaging her restaurant has
• Link to it prominently from her Web site

Using blogs as marketing tools is more organic than pay-per-click advertising, that's for sure. It takes time to biuld an audience and to get indexed in the search engines (the latter goes faster than with a regular Web site, however!). But done consistently and correctly, blogs as marketing tools make a lot of sense for a small Indian restaurant like Punjab Sweets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

And these are all traits admirable in a marketer too.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

The landing page.

 

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

 

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

 

So why am I complaining?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Lessons here:

 

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

 

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

 

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

If you want to grow your in-house email list, use blogs as marketing tools. Huh?

 

Hold on, let me explain…

 

Think from the end: People sign up for your email newsletter or email marketing when they are at your Web site, right? So one way to grow your email list is to drive more traffic to your site.

 

People go to search engines like Google and Yahoo because they have a problem to solve. You want them to find your Web site when searching, right?

 

That’s why I suggest you use blogs as marketing tools. Done right, a blog helps with search engine optimization so you get found online when people are searching for solutions to a problem. That’s because search engines like fresh, up-to-date content, which blogs are assumed to have, so search engines rank blog content faster than static web sites. And because blogs are by their very nature more targeted in subject matter, making them naturally keyword rich

 

Blogs as marketing tools are not ends in themselves though. You use your blog to drive people to your Web site: They search online, they find your blogs, they then find your Web site by clicking on a link in the blog. Once they are at your site, you sell them on the idea of signing up to get emails from you. That’s how you build your in-house email list using blogs as marketing tools.

 

Then your email marketing is for continuing and building the relationship. Ideally once they are at the site, they sign up for your email newsletter or email promotions. They are opening the door to hearing from you by doing so, giving you permission to market to them.

 

Think of it as a three-step process involving a series of yeses:

1. Yes, it looks like this blog is relevant, I will click on this search result
2. Yes, I like what I see in the blog, I will click on a link to this web site to learn more
3. Yes, I like what I see at this web site so I want to sign up for emails and hear from this company again in the futu

The customer has found you and engaged with you, and you’ve grown your in-house email list. All because you blogged.

 

And this use of blogs as marketing tools works no matter the size of your business. In fact, it might just be the most effective way to go about small business blogging and small business email marketing!

I’m perfectly content to drive myself to and from SeaTac airport due to SeaTac Park. I chose them originally because their Web site answered all my questions and I loved their branding. The colors are bright and cheerful and the SeaTac Park mascot is a Volkswagen bug. The tone is friendly and helpful and easy. I stick with them because the service is always prompt and the employees always friendly. And I praise them and make referrals to them on a regular basis.

 

So keep in mind my affection for this SeaTac airport parking lot when I pick on them for a minute…

 

Recently SeaTac Park gave me a flyer for a loyalty card. It spells out what I’ll get if I choose to sign up for the SeaTac Park loyalty card with a bulleted list of benefits. I had to laugh when I read it though because one of the benefits involves email marketing:

 

“Be in the system to receive blast emails and special parking offers from SeaTacPark.com”

 

Their branding is straightforward which I admire, but this goes just a little too far or they are simply misusing the word. Because no one wants to receive “blast emails.” Blast emails are the ones that go willy nilly to everyone, by marketers who don’t get email marketing.

 

Email marketing done correctly, even small business email marketing which is what SeaTac Park is doing, should be select, targeted, relevant and useful.

 

Blast emails are unsophisticated email marketing that adds to the clutter in everyone’s inbox. Blast emails make small business email marketing even harder to do well as a result, because of fatigue on the part of the recipient, because it increases the numbers of emails we get and therefore the competition for attention.

 

I hope SeaTac Park isn’t really blasting out their emails. I hope that was just a poor choice of words on their part, by someone who doesn’t know about small business email marketing. I wouldn’t know because I didn’t sign up for the SeaTac Park loyalty card in part because I don’t want to get blast emails, even from a small business I champion.

 

No one does.

As much as I push blogs as marketing tools, I confess my own is the first to be neglected when I get busy. But I still keep learning more about marketing with blogs and blogging, so I can pass that wisdom along to my copywriting clients. (I’m really pushing small business blogging, because I am a blogging believer! Even though I neglect my own!)

 

The other day I was reading up on blogging best practices, and came across a blog that said to link out, link out, link out…. This blogger was really pushing the concept of getting your blog fodder from reading other blogs and linking to them.

 

To me, that’s a strange concept. I find my blog topics come from living, breathing, doing…seeing real-life examples of marketing and copywriting at their worst and at their best both. If I focused on reading other blogs and commenting on them, what would I really be adding to the conversation?

 

It’s my own experience, like the grief I had the other day on Verizon’s web site trying to view a photo a friend sent me, or the conversations with clients who just don’t understand email marketing but think they do, or a story from one of my kids…

 

Maybe it’s because I blog on marketing, and marketing is something that goes on all around us all the time. Whether it’s my daughter trying to talk me into buying her a Slurpee, or a man asking me out on a date, or me as Web site copywriter helping a client with SEO…it’s all marketing all the time. So maybe that means I don’t have to turn to other bloggers for blog fodder. Besides, that sounds boring. I’d rather live and comment on living (as related to marketing, of course) than spend any more time online.

Friday morning I was in Denver conducting a copywriting workshop with the copywriters, creative directors, Web site managers and content editors for a national company. I was brought in by the director of marketing to address the messaging in their email marketing specifically, but after reviewing their email examples, it seemed a broader approach was needed.

 

So the workshop consisted of reviewing what it means to talk to your customer, not at them, to write customer-centric copy that’s about the customer, not about you. The original plan was to critique one email promotion as a group, then have everyone rewrite four more on their own and compare notes. We ran short on time, so instead I put up a few of their emails on the screen and ripped them apart, nicely. I didn’t say anything that surprised or offended.

 

It seems the copywriters and creative’s hands are tied. They’re up against corporate, up against legal, up against people who don’t understand marketing or copywriting or—most importantly—email marketing. These poor folks end up going the safe route, using clichés like “don’t miss” and vague words like “great pricing” or “exceptional pricing.” They end up with meaningless email subject lines. They have to work around the images they’re assigned rather choose an image that fits the message.

 

Yuck.

 

What breaks my heart is that this company is perfectly positioned for messaging that’s emotional and empathetic. Their copywriters and creatives could kick ass if allowed to craft email marketing copy appropriate to the audience, and not to corporate’s preferences and tastes. Lesson here? Let your marketing team do their job! Trust them to know their stuff. They don’t question how the CFO handles the financials or how the CEO handles the board of directors. Why are they hindered?

 

But this company isn’t stuck, they see where they can improve. In the future, they’ll be segmenting their email marketing into targeted demographics, and they’ll be able to do more specific and therefore effective messaging, talking directly to the pain points and concerns of a particular market. I got the sense that their copywriters are chomping at the bit for that day to come!! Then all we discussed that day will come to fruition and their email marketing will work that much harder for them.

 

Despite their challenges and frustrations, running that workshop was a blast. I’m lucky. I love what I do, I love talking about copywriting and messaging, and I love being with people hungry to learn more and improve. And they all loved what I had to say. It sparked much-needed dialog among them, it got them inspired to strive harder for more compelling copy and to stand up to the powers that be that want to water down their copy. What more could this Seattle copywriter ask for?

Okay, not really narrow minded. But narrow…

 

Yesterday at the PSAMA lunch in Seattle, Alan Brown from DNA talked about how you market as a challenger, as opposed to front runner. With great local examples from the MS Society, Boeing Employee Credit Union and Pemco Insurance, he again and again reiterated the importance in having a narrow focus. He didn’t call it that, “narrow” is my word. He pointed out the advantage of taking a position, even though positioning can mean sacrifice.

 

But positioning can get people to listen. If you narrow your marketing scope, your marketing message, your marketing method, you might be heard by fewer people, but you are more likely to be heard.

 

Then later on the phone, a mom friend wanted to talk about her husband’s business and the direction they want to take it. (Yes, I’m the queen of free marketing advice, I swear. The downside of being so nice: even your neighbors hit you up for advice!) So, great—no, brilliant—focus. I loved hearing about it. Then she went on to say “but we also want to offer this service and that service” and she talked about lumping it all under one umbrella with a generic term that no one would know the meaning of.

 

Ugh.

 

I did my best to persuade her otherwise, to go with the one targeted niche idea and market that one narrow business only. We’ll see if they listen. The idea of offering fewer services rather than more does seem to challenge people, whether they have a small business or a big one.

 

If you have a niche, put your resources there. If you can speak more narrowly to a smaller audience, do. Sure, you are sacrificing the “masses,” but guess what? The masses aren’t listening!

 

It’s often my job as copywriter to figure out what the benefits are; clients are too close to their products and services to see clearly.

 

This week I’ve been working on an email marketing campaign for a series of whitepapers. It’s much easier for me to play the role of customer and distill what the benefits of each whitepaper are. The existing messaging emphasizes the so-called features, what the whitepaper “is.” The outsider (i.e. copywriter or marketing writer) can much more easily figure out the benefits, what I call the “so you can” parts: “Read this whitepaper so you can…” What is the end result of downloading and reading a whitepaper? That’s what the customer wants to know, not the content of the whitepaper, but what she’ll be able to do if she reads it.

 

And it makes me laugh how often I walk into a situation where the marketing team is just scratching their heads, trying to come up with the real benefit, and I can sum it up right away. That’s because I have the outsider’s view.

 

Too many companies pay too little attention to their copy. They keep it in-house, they trust the marketing people to do the copywriting. They end up with me-too Web sites and ineffective marketing campaigns. Then they wonder why their marketing does such a poor job of generating leads! Hint: It’s probably talking at customers, not to them, because it’s too subjective.

 

Maybe that’s why I’m becoming such an advocate for blogging as a marketing tool? Blogging by its very nature is more focused (or should be) on information that’s useful to the customer. It can unintentionally sell just by being real and authentic and objective.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This morning as I put on my copywriter hat and started on a project for a new client, I first reviewed their brand guidelines…and have been itching to blog about it ever since. In my opinion, your brand is more than your logo. Your brand--your marketing--is everything you say, do, wear. It’s how your employees act, how well your product delivers on your marketing promise…everything.

And as a copywriter, I firmly believe that your words are part of your brand, in all your marketing communications: your email marketing, your web writing, your print collateral. Yet in all the brand guidelines I’ve reviewed in my eight years as a copywriter, only once was voice addressed.

This particular brand guideline even says in there “Our Brand, Our Voice” yet there’s no mention of voice. It offers up 9 pages on the logo, typeface and colors, showing exactly how to use, not to use, going into details of file formats and more. But no examples of messaging or voice other than describing the brand personality with words like “agile” and “synergy” but without any examples of how to do copywriting that fits the brand. Which is akin to telling someone how to bake a cake and telling them to use eggs, flour and sugar…with no more direction than that.

Your logo alone won’t tell your story. You need words that work.

Earlier this week, I attended a stellar WTIA event on Web 2.0. The panelists were entertaining and informative, and the whole dialog around monetizing Web 2.0 fascinating.

But the message that most resonated with me as a copywriter was that content still matters. I don’t mean the user generated content (UGC) that people typically think of when they think Web 2.0. I mean the content that your company and marketing team puts out into the world.

And that’s good news to me, because it means copywriters have a place in making Web 2.0 marketing work!

Done right, the content you generate as email marketing, email newsletters, and blogging can be viral, can start a dialog and engage your customers. So you still need great copywriters, relevant content, and even a strategy.

The best news is that small business marketing can involve Web 2.0 because all of these tools and mediums can be used by small businesses to engage their customers.

Yeah, rest easy, copywriters. Content is still queen. :-)

Maybe this is sacrilege coming from a copywriter, but it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what your customers say that matters.

From clean uniforms to a usable Web site, from friendly service to great product…what your marketing promises better be delivered in the actual experience, start to finish, or your marketing is lying.

Check out the “Trusted Sources of Information” table at http://www.bridgeratings.com/press_08.01.067.Influentials.htm. Note that family, friends and acquaintances are the most trusted but a close second is strangers with experience. This group rates second overall as a trusted source. Strangers are trusted over religious leaders and teachers even. That’s how important your customer’s experience is. All the marketing in the world won’t replace a bad experience because people will talk, or blog, or post a review online.

OK, then, why do you even need marketing? Why do you need a copywriter? Because marketing gets people in the door, to the Web site, or on the phone in the first place. Then the experience either seals the deal or kills it.

Speaking of the customer experience, I want to share a nice email I received recently about this blog:

“I definitely enjoy your blog. I can only assume that this type of thing comes naturally for you in your line of work, but yours is one of the few blogs I always look forward to reading.”

Tim Oten
Chukar Cherries

Thank you, Tim! If you find this blog helpful or not, speak up and let me know! I write it to share my opinions and musings, but want it to do some good in the marketing world too, hoping to change how marketers look at messaging!

I’m a big fan of small businesses. After all, I’m one! But I also prefer spending my money with a small business over a big one. I’d rather walk into the Kona Kai coffee shop in downtown Kent and get a hug from Michael the owner than go to a Starbucks any day, no matter how cheerful the baristas. Same for Pat’s Bar and Grill, and the Peridot Nail Salon, and City Frame, and the Balanced Athlete, and all my other favorite small businesses in downtown Kent.

Yet as much as I adore them all, I see them all making the same mistake: not enough (or zero) marketing. They tell me they don’t have the time or money for marketing, but really, like with exercising, it’s about choosing how and where you’re going to spend that time and money.

For example, one business is currently adding all kinds of services in the hopes that they’ll bring in more people…but they’re not marketing their old services or their new ones. They collect email addresses, but don’t know what to do with them. They buy ads in the local paper, but don’t know if those ads are doing any good. They talk about putting up a Web site, but still don’t have one.

Adding all these services took an investment of time and money that could have been spent on email marketing and blogging instead, two extremely cost-effective ways for small businesses to market. (Especially when a blog can take the place of a Web site for some businesses.) But I guess their mindset is just that marketing is hard, so they’ll stick with what they do know (getting a liquor license, for example) than find out what they don’t.

How do we shift that small business mindset? Let me know what you think... leave a comment or email sharon@weknowwords.com.