Newly single, I find myself the recipient of much dating advice. Imagine my surprise and delight last week as one of my clients turned friends turned my marketing advice back on me as dating advice! It’s such a great analogy, I’m using it here…to make the marketing point once again.

Over lunch I was lectured on casting too wide a net, and told to be more selective and targeted in my dating efforts. Just like I tell clients to be with their marketing efforts. If you market in a generic way to a general audience, you’re a lot less likely to connect with a perfect prospect because your message is watered down and doesn’t speak to anyone in particular. If you market to a narrowly defined, targeted group, your message can be very specific to their needs and pain points and you’re a lot more likely to make that connection.

Think of your marketing like dating: Do you want to do Match.com and hear from all kinds of potential suitors who don’t interest you at all? Or do you want to be strategic and meet people you have something in common with? (Not sure yet fulfills that means in the online dating world; I’ll keep you posted.)

Quality is better than quantity, in marketing and dating both.

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

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

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

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

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

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

My head is swimming with blog topics this week, all around email. First I went to the StrongMail email marketing conference Monday morning, then yesterday downloaded a fantastic report from MarketingSherpa on common email newsletter mistakes. So bear with me, but there are so many topics to take on…and so many seem like they’d be no brainers but I see our copywriting clients make email mistakes all the time.

Heavy on my mind right now is how many times marketers forget to make use of their non marketing emails. For example, I’ show the Welcome email can be the most often read email. So after someone subscribes to your email newsletter, for example, you’d send them a welcome email. But are you using it to reinforce your voice and brand? To remind them of all the benefits they’re going to get as a subscriber? To confirm for them that they made a smart choice when they handed over their email address? Or is your welcome email (if you’re using one, and you should be) generic and dry and dull?

Another missed opportunity is the transactional email. For example, yesterday I posted a press release (about our upcoming talk on online press releases) at PR Web, and received just a straightforward, boring confirmation that thanks me twice and has the order details in it:

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for your recent order of $80.00 with PRWeb.

Order Summary

Invoice/Tracking Number: xxxxxxxxx

Date Paid: February 05, 2008

Payment type: Credit Card (Visa)

Paid to: PRWeb

Order Details:

- PRWeb Press Release - $80.00

Order Total: $80.00

Again, thank you for your order.

Sincerely,

PRWeb Staff

Excuse me, but that’s it? I just spent 80 bucks on this, and yeah, I want a receipt, but how about something more? Something like:

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for entrusting your news to one of the Internet’s most popular press release distribution sites. After the release date (noted below), be sure to keep an eye on the useful metrics so you can track how well your press release is doing. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at ….

Then give me the order details. (And can we just outlaw the word "sincerely"? There are so many other wonderful ways to sign off!)

That’s not so hard, is it? To be a bit human and to reinforce their marketing message?

As copywriters, we try and push our clients to be real, to have a distinct voice and sound like real people rather than generic, corporate boringness. We don’t always succeed. It’s scary to be real, to be different. It’s much more comfortable to just sound like everyone else. We’ve even had clients flat out say they want their Web site written to sound like a competitor’s. I guess I get it. I mean, I have a teenage son who would hate to stand out from the crowd. I guess when it comes to copywriting and marketing communications, most businesses have a teenage mentality and prefer to blend in. Kind of hard to get noticed that way, in my humble copywriter opinion.

So what a treat I had last week when 37 Signals demonstrated how being real can make a real impression. They had a down day and they were perfectly honest about the problems. They didn’t hide behind any generic, corporate speak, their copywriting said exactly what was happening and expressed their apologies. Below are just a few snippets to give you a taste:

As they announce all systems were offline due to a problem, we users got an explanation and a simple “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

When they located the problem, they stated what it was and said “Again, we're terribly sorry for this disruption of service.”

As the day went along, they kept us users posted. This was my favorite when talking about the technicians working on the problem: “We're breathing down their neck as heavily as we can. And we profusely apologize for this unacceptable interruption of service.”

And finally:  “We should be in the home stretch now. Again, we're incredibly sorry for this disruption. This is not how Fridays are supposed to be.”

There were undoubtedly some customers annoyed that they couldn’t use 37 Signals service that day, but for me, seeing this personal language, this willingness to be honest and apologetic, well, it more than made up for any inconvenience. It made this copywriter’s day.

This Seattle copywriter’s life suddenly seems filled with clients turned copywriter. Not that we don’t regularly have clients rewriting our copy, typically high tech ones. (If you’re a copywriter with high tech clients, you know what I mean.) I’m used to having to go back and explain to the techie marketers why we do marketing writing the way we do.

But wow, we have lots of people turning into copywriters all of a sudden, both marketing folks and non marketing folks.

Problem is, we know what we’re doing. We know about writing for the Web, what type and how much information goes on the home page. We know how to speak to the customer, not at them. We know what makes a good headline, and what goes in a brochure vs. on a landing page. We don’t make this stuff up. At We Know Words, our copywriters are constantly reading email newsletters, case studies and more to keep up with the changing world of online marketing and new marketing techniques.

In my humble opinion, hiring a freelance copywriter and then rewriting her copy is akin to redoing your taxes when your accountant is done with them, or redoing the paperwork when your lawyer is done with your incorporation forms (or divorce paperwork!).

So if you know you need a copywriter—and obviously you do or you wouldn’t have hired one--how do you work with her? Listen! Let her do her job. She really is the expert, just like your accountant and your lawyer. It’s her job to make you stand out, not blend in, to get prospects to sit up and take notice of you.

If you want killer copy that’s going to help you market your business, find a great copywriter, answer all her questions about your goals, customers, products, etc. Then stand back and trust her. You know your business, she knows hers.

Now, how can I sneakily make sure this blog post gets in front of the clients who are working under the delusion that they can do my job…?

Although we’re often locked away expressing our brilliance with words behind closed doors, sometimes a copywriter gets a chance to go public. This copywriter gets another chance this spring.

In March, I’ll be part of an email marketing panel presenting for the Northern California Direct Marketing Association. We're calling it Extreme Email Makeover: Marketers will submit their email marketing campaigns to have them reviewed by the panel. We’ll be covering deliverability, content, design and mobile deployment, and giving attendees the chance to learn from the email marketing mistakes of others.

It's a great panel, and I’m delighted to be part of it as the copywriter and messaging guru:

• Michelle Eichner - COO and Vice President of Client Services, Pivotal Veracity
• Morgan Witt - Director of Marketing Strategy, Juice Media Worldwide
• Cameron Kane - President, Strategic Design Group
• Michael Kelly (moderator) - Director, Sales and Business Development, ClickMail Marketing
• and me as President of We Know Words and Past President of the SDMA

Read more about it at http://www.dmanc.org/calendar.html (scroll down to the March 19 event).

And if you’re in the area and you can make the event, please do!

I envy the freelance copywriter who can cite an exact response rate for a direct mail campaign. Much of the copywriting we do at We Know Words falls more into the category of what I call indirect marketing. Our copywriters are often busy with writing whitepapers, email newsletters, case studies, guides and writing for the Web. It’s a nice change of pace when we write email marketing or landing pages, where we can get definite feedback.

The truth is, as much as executives might like it to be otherwise, not all marketing is measurable. Yet it is still valuable. Just about everything a small business or large corporation does in some way is marketing that has nothing to do with metrics. Can you measure the positive yet subtle effects of clean uniforms, courteous customer service folks or brand appropriate content? What about a tagline, or a well-written how to guide? Convenient parking at your location? Free mints by the cash register? I could go on and on. Marketing is a promise you make to your potential customer that their experience will be a certain way. And it’s a promise we are making each and every day in business, whether we’re copywriters, graphic designers, marketing managers, or the “director of first impressions” who greets people as they walk into your office.

Just because we can’t measure something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

p.s. I apologize for the seemingly random font sizes in the blogs lately. It's getting fixed on the tech end, nothing I can do about it for now!

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

Blogging can:

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

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

Christmas cards have lost their meaning. In fact, I dread them because I have to figure out which ones can be recycled and which are all metallic and can’t. Oh, and I can’t recycle those photo cards either, nor do I keep them. It’s not that I’m Ebenezer, I love Christmas! But not the meaningless cards that add to the clutter of my life without adding to the spirit of the season. Really, how many cards did you receive this year from people you really wanted to hear from and otherwise wouldn’t? Here are my favorites useless cards from this past month:

• A photo card from a family I don’t know or even recognize in the photo (cute picture though!)
• A card from a former client who chose not to work with our copywriting agency any longer…and he didn’t sign the card, some assistant did
• A card from someone I have met briefly at a three chamber events and never said more than 10 words to
• The usual card from my cousin in Ohio who won’t respond to any emails asking what’s up, how’s life, but sends a card each year…without any note or anything

Let’s face it: Christmas cards have become obligatory and automatic. They are no longer the thoughtful communication of holidays past.

And you know where I’m going with this, right? Yep. Marketing. In many ways, marketing has lost its meaning too. It’s done on automatic pilot without much thought (sometimes without any thought at all).

Is your company marketing to people who don’t even want to hear from you? Are you assuming more of a relationship than really exists? Are you marketing AARP memberships to people in their 30s? In short, are you wasting money on pointless marketing?

This year, resolve to be relevant. Practice meaningful marketing.

• Send email newsletters only to people who’ve said “yes” and opted in
• Make sure your newsletter copywriter gives people useful information
• Target your marketing—Know thy audience
• Clean your lists
• Only market to prospects that make sense (Hint: the fact that someone is human does not automatically make them a prospect)
• Blog—If people like what you have to say, they’ll come back. Even small businesses can reap huge rewards from blogging (more on this in later marketing blogs)
• Make sure your Web writing meets your Web site visitors’ needs

Etc., etc., etc. Before your next direct mail project, before your freelance copywriter starts typing, before you lay out that email marketing campaign, ask yourself if you can make your marketing more meaningful.

Oh, and maybe do the same before sending out cards next Christmas too.

“People like to buy, not to be sold.”

I heard that recently and it’s so true. Imagine walking into Ann Taylor and seeing a red pencil skirt that looks adorable on the mannequin. You’re interested in buying it, meaning you want to touch it, check the price, and try it on. You want to think about where you can wear it, what top would go well with it, do you have the right shoes for it…and of course you want to make sure it doesn’t make you look fat. Those are all questions you can pretty much answer for yourself if you’re thinking about buying the skirt.

Compare that to seeing the skirt and walking towards it and boom, a salesperson is right there telling you, how cute it is, how there’s only one left in your size, about the fabric it’s made from, cross selling you sweaters and shoes, guiding you into the dressing room with the skirt and an arm full of tops and accessories...you’d feel forced, and that skirt wouldn’t have nearly the same appeal.

I think of the first as marketing, the second as selling. In the first case, the customer is coming to the product, and that’s the job of marketing communications, right? To make the introduction, to be the skirt on the mannequin that gets the prospect’s attention and makes her want to learn more.

Yet time and again, I see companies--especially small businesses--going straight for the sale without the marketing warm up, meaning they have no or shoddy marketing materials. That’s like sending your sales people out to catch fish but without a pole.

So whether you’re in charge of marketing a big business or a small one, make sure your marketing and messaging are up-to-date, effective, and as appealing as that cute red skirt before you send your salespeople out onto the floor.

As for the skirt, well, by the time I got back to Ann Taylor without kids in tow, it was gone. Sigh…

I attended the Web Community Forum’s “Community Building in the Age of Facebook” seminar in Seattle today. Obviously we’re asking questions about how Facebook might work for marketing. but mostly it reminds me--as a marketer--that it’s our job not just to stay current with what’s happening, but to stay ahead of it.

On the other hand, it’s also a reminder that you have to choose the right method for delivering your marketing message. We must be customer-centric not just in what we say but also how we say it. Even if it’s true that “Facebook fundamentally changes the way we communicate” as one speaker claims, you have to qualify that “we.” My mom’s not on Facebook. My son is. So Facebook’s only relevant in certain markets…and that’s true of every marketing medium. Just because something’s hot doesn’t mean it’s right.

I love stories. And I see them all around me. I’ll be sitting in a bar or restaurant, and I’ll look at the people around me and start figuring out their stories, the couple on a first date, the girl who likes the guy across the table but is only getting the attention of the one next to her, the tension between a husband and wife. I see stories in people’s clothes too: The clothes you run in tell the world how serious you are about that running. What you wear on a date, to a meeting, even to run to the store sends a message to the world about how you view yourself and your place in the world.

So maybe that’s why I’m always harping on stories in marketing. (Or maybe it’s the degree in Cultural Anthropology??) I’m not the only one who loves stories. Don’t you? That’s why stories are so effective in marketing. They engage, they entertain, and they give prospects a hook, something to hang on to and associate with your business. Stories can also deepen your relationship with that prospect as they become a customer, then a loyal customer, and then an evangelist.

For example, today I met with a juice company that’s a potential client. They have great scientific data, their juice has all kinds of proven health benefits, they’re even spending money on research to investigate these benefits. But…there’s no story. There’s nothing to appeal to the prospect, for the prospect to relate to. They have all the ingredients for a great story, just need to figure out what it is. (I think they’re pretty smart though and will hire We Know Words so they get one.)

A few months ago we worked with www.aocvending.com, a startup. They are in the business of setting up coffee vending machines. And we agreed they also had the makings of a great story: To battle the perception that vending machine coffee tastes bad, we emphasized the coffee “experience” instead. Instead of going with just any coffee, they chose to use a local artisan roaster and organic beans. In the future, I hope they’re able to pursue the other elements of the story we talked about: highlighting flavors of the month, and soliciting feedback from customers on favorite coffee flavors.

Does your marketing tell a story? If not, can it? Once upon a time…

We just had an ugly situation at We Know Words with a client refusing to pay. The VP of Marketing brought us in to help clarify a very jumbled marketing message, then went on permanent medical leave. The executive team at the company decided the marketing message didn’t need any clarifying and refused to pay for work done.

Beyond the obvious David and Goliath tale going on here (big, well-funded startup refusing to pay the small business) is the sad story of how misunderstood marketing communications can be. Here’s a fast-growing startup revolutionizing an industry with a completely new way to do a taken-for-granted task. (I’d be more detailed, but part of the negotiations I had to go through for partial payment included signing a release stating I wouldn’t say anything disparaging about the company. Yep. Sucks.) Problem is, when you’re that new and different, you really have to figure out a simple way to get people to stop and notice you.

This company’s messaging is all over the place on their Web site. They lack one over-arching marketing message, they overwhelm with dozens of benefits, they aren’t addressing pain points directly, they are replicating information in different places making for a cluttered and confusing Web site, other compelling information is missing…in short, the VP of Marketing was right on when she brought us in to help straighten it all out. They didn’t need new messaging written, they just need the messaging they do have straightened out and structured.

Problem is, those execs not in marketing can’t see that. All they see is they are saying everything they want to say, ignoring that the way they are saying it is ineffective.

What do I preach? Talk to your customer, not at them. The way this company is going about their marketing is like asking the customer to stand in a downpour sans umbrella as all the different and varied marketing messages rain down on them. (Yes, it’s pouring in Seattle today, hence the analogy.)

This company will probably succeed simply because they are well-funded and well-connected. But they could make their job and their success easier if they just understood marketing as well as they understand numbers. (And maybe their ethics could use some improvement too…)

From where I sit as the copywriter, it seems marketers have a bad reputation because they throw out solutions without knowing problems. We run into this repeatedly: We’re tasked with a copywriting project, but when we ask questions to learn more about the prospects so we can do a better job on the copywriting, we get “we don’t know” as an answer to simple questions like:

• Can you tell us more about person on the receiving end of this email marketing campaign?
• Why will they care about this email?
• Will they even open this email?
• Why do people go to your Web site?
• How do they get there, via search or word of mouth or…?
• What will motivate people to fill out your online form?

We often find if we can talk to a sales person, we’ll get much more useful information than if we talk to the marketing department…but sometimes the marketing department won’t allow it because they have a different idea of what the message should be. They want the message that’s driven from inside the company, not outside. Then guess what? The sales team doesn’t use the brochure or PowerPoint or other sales collateral because it doesn’t convey the right message. And the prospect ignores it when it is used.

Maybe doing the marketing homework means looking outside the company for the answers? Because in the end, you’ll get better results if you’re talking the customer’s talk, not your own.

One of my favorite marketing books of all time is Seth Godin’s “All Marketers are Liars.” If you only read one marketing book in your life, read this one.

In it, he talks about world view: You have to know your prospect’s world view to market to them, because you have to frame your marketing message in a way that speaks to that world view, or you’ll be ignored. It’s a matter of perception: You have to frame the problem as the customer perceives it.

I don’t think this can be repeated enough, because it’s so difficult for companies to stop thinking about what they want to say to focus instead on what customers want to hear. So here’s a real-life example that might help you remember what you’re dealing with next time you or your copywriter is crafting a marketing message…

My daughter hates vegetables, no matter how you cook them. Her world view is “vegetables are yucky” and you have to get past that to get her to eat them. But it’s a challenge because her perception is her reality! The other night we had sweet potato fries that were delicious. They were sweet and crunchy and salty and a real treat. Emma eyed those sweet potato fries warily as soon as they hit her plate. When told she had to take a “no thank you” bite, she scrunched up her face and grimaced before even picking up a fry. She decided she wouldn’t like them before she even tasted one. And when she did taste it? Her suspicions were confirmed: Sweet potatoes are as icky as fries as they are cooked in other way. Her perception became her reality.

Next time you’re copywriting a new marketing message, writing your email newsletter or updating your Web content, picture nine-year-old Emma’s grimace. Remember, that’s a perception you are dealing with. As fabulous as your product or service might be, the reality is your potential customers could very well see it differently, and you might have to smother it with ketchup just to get them to try it.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot on small businesses, partly because so many have been contacting me over the past month about copywriting…and deciding they don’t want to spend the money on a professional copywriter after all. :-)

And I get that, that’s why I spent 2 ½ years writing over 100 small business marketing tips! I have a soft spot in my heart for the small business. After all, I own one!

But I was thinking this morning that maybe small businesses have an advantage over big businesses, despite their lack of funds--or at least willingness to part with those funds—to invest in compelling copywriting. And then I read Seth Godin’s blog on conceal vs. reveal and that tied right into what I was already thinking.

So if the small business marketer has as smaller budget than the big business counterpart, why would the small business have an easier time marketing? Because the small business can afford to be honest, real, authentic, different even. As Seth says in “Purple Cow,” it’s being different that’s safe, and being the same that’s dangerous (paraphrased). Small businesses can be bolder, they can have a voice and personality and character difficult for a bigger company to pull off.

The challenge remains however: being willing to invest money in marketing from the start. The small business owner or marketer that will be noticed in the crowded marketplace is the one that makes sure they are making a great first impression with their marketing. And that comes from investing in an image and a message that are appropriate. We’re not talking a $100,000 outlay of cash here. A few thousand dollars would get a small business a great marketing startup package.

So, small business marketers, I think you might have the marketing advantage. Make sure you use it.

The best salespeople can sell snow to Eskimos, as the saying goes. Even so, you can imagine my surprise when an enterprising Eagle Scout showed up at my front door in our new home in Eagle, Idaho selling…potatoes. Yes, potatoes!

My first reaction was to laugh and he laughed right along with me. I liked this kid and his chutzpah on a cold November evening. He and his mom had a minivan loaded down with huge, Idaho-grown spuds. Turns out, his troop sells them every year. And they do a brisk business.

Which made me think about this from the perspective of a marketing writer. How often do companies really embrace their quirks? Mostly, it seems, corporations want marketing copywriters to spiff up their image with slick press releases, sparkling brochure copy and eye-catching web writing. All of that is well and good. But there’s also something lovable and appealing about a company that knows itself and puts that personal quality out to the buying public.

It’s a little like Les Schwab Tires with its fresh-scrubbed mechanics and sales folks running to greet you, selling you some new snow tires, and yep, rewarding you with some free beef! After all, Les Schwab was from Prineville, a Central Oregon town whose denizens know plenty about cattle and cold-weather tires.

Here in Idaho, the potato is more than a vegetable: it’s an emblem of state pride. Heck, Famous Potatoes used to be on many an Idaho license plate. So when I bought some of those potatoes from the Boy Scouts I was embracing a little of what it means to be an Idahoan. And because the Scout at my door is a natural at sales, he made sure to deliver a persuasive marketing message--as potent as any dreamed up by a marketing communications writer.  He emphasized these are “export quality” potatoes, meaning they were grown in Idaho but are a higher grade of potato than Idahoans normally get to eat. These were, in essence, gourmet potatoes!

So I bought a big bag of special potatoes—great for state pride, a nice contribution to the local Boy Scout troop and a starchy staple I needed anyway. Now I just need to find some way to use all these spuds!

Sometimes marketers and copywriters get too caught up in the words they write, and they forget that the job of those words is more than just to sound good: those words have to do a job.

Every piece of marketing collateral we tackle, from writing for the Web to press release writing to email marketing to even the lowly sales letter, every piece has a reason for being.

This seems obvious, right? But it’s not. Often people, even the copywriters themselves, get caught up in the words and forget to do the reality check. And the result is fluff, which the world has plenty of but it doesn’t sell.

I’m not arguing for hard-hitting copy focused solely on a call to action. One reason We Know Words is a successful copywriting agency here in Seattle is because we give marketing a personality and voice. But even when your turn of phrase is clever and your alliteration a delight, if your marketing isn’t marketing, it’s a waste.

So next time a piece of marketing or copywriting crosses your desk for review, ask yourself: What is the purpose of this marketing piece? What result should it deliver? Then read it with that critical eye, not the eye evaluating prose and checking punctuation.

Is that sales letter convincing the prospect to call? Is that email persuading the reader to click through? Is that Web page enticing the visitor to delve deeper into the site?

This applies whether you’re a big business or a small one. In fact, small business marketing should be even a bit easier, since you’ll have fewer reviewers and more concensus!

In my copywriting world, clients are often extremely picky about what a piece of marketing collateral looks like (i.e. the design) and a lot less concerned with how it sounds (i.e. the copywriting). They are much more willing to pay more for the former than the latter as a result, and they often end up with good-looking marketing that performs poorly.

This is a huge mistake. Not that design doesn’t influence buying decisions, it most certainly does. But so does the copywriting. To prove my point, consider the humble radio ad which markets which no design or visuals at all.

Today my husband told me about a soap is dumb radio commercial Nivea is running. I tried to find it online to listen to it with no luck, so this is just my summary of his version of it: Essentially Nivea is marketing a body wash to men using the message soap is dumb. As my husband described the commercial, the soap has a stupid sounding man’s voice and is talking to the intelligent sounding shampoo, which has a woman’s voice. Apparently Soap is too dense to remember what Shampoo is called, and he calls her hair soap. She reminds him that she is shampoo, and he turns it into soap poo.

Even without hearing it, I know this is a brilliant ad that uses the power of words without the listeners even realizing it. Nivea is taking a “feminine” product, body wash, and putting into a commercial with what we called bathroom talk when my kids were little: the word poo. Using the word poo wipes away any hint of girliness or femininity! (Pardon the pun.)

Plus by making Shampoo (woman) feel disdain for Soap (man), there’s the negative association men will have with soap, that using soap will make women feel disdain for them, or at least question their intelligence.

None of this is obvious, of course. It’s all implied. And effective: My husband rarely remembers what a commercial is selling, but in this case he did. He hasn’t purchased the body wash yet, as far as I know, but he’s aware of it, and awareness is the first step in selling.

People, looks aren’t everything. Whether you're a small business or big, your copywriter is just as important as your designer when it comes to your marketing. Just as important.

My son gleefully sent me a link to a comic offering a huge lesson in marketing. He’s ecstatic any time he finds a Web comic I’ll like because it means he gets to share something from his world with me. :-)

The comic is great, and reminded me of an enewsletter I wrote a couple of years ago about “indirect” marketing.

We spend lots of time and energy and worry on direct marketing—and copywriters are tasked with making measurable results happen as part of that effort. But really there are so many other ways we market and put our brands out into the world, without even realizing we’re doing so. And people notice and talk…about you, your company, your product, your service. They talk about how easy or cumbersome your Web site is to use, how happy or dissatisfied they were with their purchase.

I love my new saddle, but loads of people have heard me complain about the horrible experience I had with County Saddlery.

People talk. So give them something good to say, by making sure your indirect marketing is as well-thought out and consistent as your direct marketing is.