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.

In June I ordered a custom-made saddle, one with a tree to fit my horse and a seat to fit me. Friends were shocked at the cost. Hey, I was shocked at the cost! But I knew the two off-the-shelf saddles we’d already tried weren’t working. I waited months for this saddle, and now that I finally have it, I am utterly and completely blown away by the difference it makes. I’m convinced it was worth every dime. Any doubts I had about the cost were wiped away the first time I rode in it and discovered that for the first time I could really communicate with my horse.

The marketing lesson to be learned here? Make sure it fits.

Make sure your message fits your audience.

Make sure your method of delivery fits your audience.

And if you have more than one audience, make sure you have a different message for each, rather than trying to make one jerry rigged message work for all.

Just like a saddle that only fit one of us never really fit at all, a marketing message that suits you but not your target market will never deliver that great ride—or response--you’re hoping for.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Driving down the freeway yesterday, I saw a van for Insite Inspection with the question “What’s in your crawl space?” stenciled on the back window right above the Web site address (www.terrisinspect.com).

This is a fabulous example of asking the right question!

All marketers and copywriters know asking questions is a great way to get people’s attention, to engage them so they read your ad, Web site, brochure, email, etc. But those questions often miss the mark because people can just answer them without really thinking and move on.

Asking me what’s in my crawl space gets right to a fear factor and therefore gets my attention. Plus it’s a question I can’t easily answer! It makes me think of that dark, dank place full of countless spiders and other creepy things (so Halloween-y) and yes, I do wonder what’s going on in there: Termites? Carpenter ants? Rotten wood? Is there a leaky pipe perhaps? But I certainly don’t want to crawl in there and find out!

Another favorite example of mine is the huge banner hanging by the side of the freeway asking “Are your trees safe?” as an attempt to market the tree-topping company located there. The thousands of drivers passing by that banner each day no doubt think to themselves “Of course they are.” Imagine the reaction if the banner said “Are your trees dangerous?” Now that would make people stop and think! “I don’t know, are they?”

Questions are a great way to engage and to show people right from the start that you’re familiar with their pains and can relate to them. But make the questions—and all your copywriting—relevant to the customer to make them work.

P.s. I checked out the inspection company’s Web writing. Sadly, it slips right back into that writing for the Web that is so common, the “let me tell you all about me” copywriting instead of the customer-centric copywriting that can be so much more effective.

Some of the best marketing around doesn’t come with a big price tag-- just clever thinking. Or, in the case of one Whidbey Island karate school, clever footwork.

Every year my family and I used to snag a place at the curb, plastic flags in hand, to watch the Fourth of July parade in our former hometown of Oak Harbor, Wash. We saw plenty of corny floats, earnest politicians and military color guards in this Navy town. But we also got to see smart marketing in action. The local karate school trotted out with its students kicking, jumping and bowing. And periodically, they would hold out a thick piece of wood and one brave student would cleave it in two with a bare foot. Couldn’t beat that for attention getting public relations. But then they took that piece of showmanship, ahem, a step further.

Once the wood was broken, pieces were handed out to people along the parade route. Ok, that’s an even better marketing move. But the karate school had pre-stamped the wood with their name, address, phone number and the offer of one free karate lesson. What parent was going to say no to that?

It comes down to thinking outside the marketing box—or in the case of the karate school, breaking through that box with a targeted message that’s clever, fun and more effective than all the e-newsletters, advertising copy and public relations they could have paid for.

Which brings up another point. A lot of small businesses don’t have big marketing budgets. But they still need to find a way to grow sales. Turns out, those small business marketing tips can be found online in “Marketing in a Minute.” The recently released e-book by Sharon Baerny, owner and marketing guru of our very own We Know Words marketing agency, hits virtual bookshelves as we speak. This handy marketing book gives small- to medium-size business owners practical tools they need to create buzz for their business without expensive copywriting, advertising and other traditional forms of small business marketing.

Take a peek at www.marketinginaminute.com and see for yourself why sometimes the best marketing, simply means doing things smarter. Hey, if a karate school can kick start business by splitting wood, think what you can do with one of these 104 practical marketing tips!

I was having a debate with my friend Darby the other day. He said “inspiration is what happens when you run out of good ideas.” Thinking about my ongoing struggle to find good copywriters, I said not good ideas, just ideas.

The timing of the conversation was perfect because I’d already been lamenting what seems to be a complete and utter lack of good copywriting these days. After talking to Darby, I was thinking I might change his saying to “Good copywriting is what happens when you run out of clichés.”

It’s as if there are a hundred or so key phrases, and copywriters just shuffle them around. Maybe it’s like those poetry magnets people have on their refrigerators? Maybe all these copywriters have magnets that say “wow your senses,” “solutions,” “needs,” “you’ve come to expect,” etc., all stuck to their filing cabinets. Then when they have a new project, they just shuffle the magnets around and plug in the client name and voila! It’s writing for the web in a snap!

The problem is, clients often trust the copywriter to give them good stuff, not “me too” copy. Yet they don’t want to question the “expertise” of the copywriter. Clients? Be aware (beware?): Anyone can claim to be a copywriter, anyone. You don’t have to go to school or be certified or anything. Be willing to say you think something sounds dull, drab, lifeless. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: Would you want to read it?

The other problem is, when you write copy the way we do at We Know Words, you sometimes have clients who want the generic. For them, it’s too scary to stand out from the crowd. They just want to be blah and boring and boorish, to play it safe by not playing at all. Then selfishly expect their customers to pay attention anyway.

If you’re writing or settling for generic copy, you’re not just adding to the overabundance of bad Web content and useless marketing collateral. And whether you’re a big corporation or a small business, you’re doing a disservice to your customers too. They want someone to sound different, to reach out to them and have something worth saying in a voice that stands out from the din.

Good copywriting is what happens when you really know the audience, start from scratch, dig deeper, struggle and struggle and struggle, ruthlessly rewrite and edit, and always push just a little more for copy that’s attention getting, compelling and worth reading.

I’m not sure because I came to marketing communications through the back door, but it’s my impression that “old school” copywriting was a lot about features and benefits. Or I guess I should say is, not was.

Ever since I became a copywriter, I’ve detested those words. I know what they are supposed to mean and to accomplish, but the words never sounded right to me. And all too often a client’s idea of a “benefit” was not the customer’s idea of a benefit. It was foisting the marketing message onto the customer instead of finding out what the customer really wanted and speaking to that. (Again, talking to your customers, not at them.)

So a few years ago I stopped using them. Instead, we started phrasing the same type of information as:

“Our service/product is…” (feature)

“So you can…” (benefit)

That simple change in phrasing made a huge difference in how we get customer-relevant information from our clients! It helps the clients make the leap from thinking about what they’re marketing in their terms to thinking in their customers’ terms.

Try it. Next time you’re writing a web site, crafting a compelling brochure, or mulling over email marketing copy, make a list of the things your customers can actually do if they buy from you.

I was trying to buy a pair of shoes from a one-stop-shop that shall go nameless. I had money in my pocket and two pairs of feet. (Ok, I had my two rapidly growing boys with me, and a desperate need for new shoes). As I went along the shoe aisles in this mega-store, there was not a soul in sight to help me as I faced disorderly piles of shoes of different sizes in different places.

It was a definite do-it-yourself moment. And I thought, what was this store’s marketing team thinking? Had their corporate mar com folks thought up how a typical customer would navigate this section of the store? Had anyone with a communications background or marketing mindset even been in the shoe section lately? Apparently not.

Because when I finally did grab a pair of shoes that actually fit, there was an anti-shoplifting tag that took over the entire opening of the shoe. In other words, this store was so afraid their customers might steal, they were doing their darnedest not to let us buy. I literally could not get my son’s foot past the anti-shop lifting tag.

Now I understand there’s a give-and-take in play here. According to the National Retail Federation, retailers lost about $40.5 billion in 2006 because of shoplifting, employee theft and other losses. So loss prevention is not a trifle. But still…if you can’t try on the merchandise, then haven’t you given up on making the sale? What kind of message are you sending your customers? No matter how fresh your ad copy is or how moving you make your marketing communications, if a customer can’t try it on before they buy, it’s going to seem like a bit of a bait and switch. We’ve got shoes aplenty, but none that you can try on without injuring yourself and others.

To be fair, these tags took up prime real estate in only some of the shoes. Other tags were placed in a different portion of the shoe—ensuring loss prevention and the chance to actually let a buyer buy. And because the tags were placed on just one shoe, you could take a chance that if it fit one foot, it might fit the other. But my son couldn’t go for a test drive of walking around the store. Or, in his case, running…really…fast.

If I may be so bold, it’s time for marketing teams and other communications folks (let alone store managers) to come out and see the products they’re trying to move with email marketing campaigns, Web writing and more. Because the best marketing in the world won’t work if customers can’t touch, feel and try on what they’re trying (desperately) to buy.

This week someone told me no one ever looks at a home page. I have two responses to this: One, don’t ever forget the power of a first impression. Two, your home page has a very important job and can’t be treated lightly (we’ll cover that topic in another blog).

The power of the first impression can never be underestimated. Just think about what you wear each day. Your clothes are a huge part of the image people form of you, the mental one in their mind when they look at you and make a ton of assumptions about you just based on your clothes. I agonize over meetings with potential clients not because I’m worried whether or not I’ll get the job, but because I don’t know the “dress code” of a company until I’ve been on-site. I can make some assumptions: the software company will be more casual, the law firm will be dressier, the creative firm will wear black. But I have to dress so that I fit in and make the right first impression. Walking into the creative firm wearing the conservative office attire expected by the law firm means the creative folk will assume—before I ever even open my mouth—that I’m not part of their world. Ditto if the reverse were true.

And that’s just one example. There many more: how you dress for dates, social functions, meeting your future in-laws for the first time, even what you look like when you run to the store on Saturday morning. The importance of your clothes and the stories they tell is limitless.

So think of your home page as that initial meeting with a potential client and make sure you’re dressed to make the right first impression. Again, it’s about being appropriate. A Web site that sells all kinds of cheap items, one that is frequented by people who know exactly what they’re looking for, that site can be cluttered and in-your-face with pricing and specials and shipping deals. The law firm’s Web site (to circle back to our earlier clothing example) must be professional and credible. No screaming or clutter allowed, because that would be akin to showing up in their office wearing nightclub attire. As with the clothes, the examples are endless.

Your home page is that initial meeting, it is your first impression, it’s your one and only chance to tell people “you’re in the right place” before they click the back button and go elsewhere. Which they will in a matter of seconds if they don’t think your site is what they want. If you landed at a law firm’s home page and it looked like a computer parts Web site’s home page, would you stick around long enough to read the Web content and make an informed decision? Nope, you’d click back in a jiffy.

So if you’re marketing to professionals, be professional. If you’re selling an expensive product, look expensive. If all your audience cares about is the cheapest price, you’re fine with a cheesy home page. And this is the whole package: the design, the Web writing, the headline, the navigation choices, what you put above the fold vs. what you put below…all of those pieces are like your shoes, your pants, your jacket, your hair style, your jewelry. All those pieces add up to the all-important first impression that is your home page.

No one ever looks at a home page? Not if it sucks.

Marketing your business, big or small, in this day and age requires more than great copywriting. (Yes, I did just say that.) You have to be more creative with getting the word out because your message has to cut through so much clutter. And there are so many possibilities for being clever and getting noticed! Even though it’s how most businesses market, there’s no excuse for being blah and boring, none at all. Other than laziness or an unwillingness to be different…

There’s a fabulous running store in my town. The owner is extremely knowledgeable, the shoes and running clothes first rate. And since opening his store, he has done a great job of connecting with the community by organizing a running group and taking office workers on walking lunches and volunteering at area running events. Still he could be busier and there is more he could do to get the word out.

I suggest he invest in t-shirts for his runners, t-shirts that have a great tagline, the URL and the phone number across the BACK. That way people who see this group running will know right away a) it is a group, and b) how to get involved. (Face it, the little logo that’s typically placed on the left front of a t-shirt won’t get noticed at all.) Better still, hand out the t-shirts to solo runners who are out there on the trail at the same time as your group. That’s an obvious target market! They are running and in the same place and at the same time as you. Market directly to them! Instead his thinking seems to be that they’ll notice the group running together and be curious and ask about it. But that takes effort on the prospect’s part. Don’t ask them to ask you, reach out to them.

Who’s not going to notice a free t-shirt? Who’s not going to think you’re pretty cool for handing out free stuff? Who’s not going to tell their running friends about it? And he gets the benefit of his name getting out there when the prospect wears the shirt, whether or not they ever buy from him. Compare the price of handing out such a t-shirt to an ideal prospect vs. the cost of an ad in the local newspaper that’s not targeted at all… I bet the shirt wins hands down.

This is not just a small business marketing philosophy. This applies to big business too. And like I said, it has nothing to do with copywriting. But everything to do with getting noticed and talked about.

That said, the same principle applies to your copywriting…it should stand out and be different too. But that’s a different topic for a different day.

Yesterday was about having something worth saying. Today is about keeping your promise…

Last weekend we visited a seaside town. Strolling up and down the street, we kept running into the Candyman, a colorful character singing and handing out coupons and samples of saltwater taffy. Well, of course my youngest was excited to go to his candy store. After all, he was fun!! A bonafide Candyman! But what a disappointment. The place was shoddy and dirty. The carpet and floors were worn, the employees rude and uncaring. And worse, they didn’t even make the candy there. It was basically an outlet store. Even the taffy was a letdown. A big bag of saltwater taffy is a family tradition for us whenever we go to the coast. But we’ve always purchased from candymakers before, and I made the mistake of assuming someone called the Candyman with a store called the Candyman would be making the candy, and the store would be fun, not drab and icky.

By now you’re probably wondering why this is such a big deal, and really, what it has to do with marketing communications, right? Here’s the thing: Marketing is a promise. Whether it’s your Web content, your email marketing, your printed sales collateral, you’re telling prospects “this is who we are, this is what we’re selling, this is what you’ll get.” And then you have to deliver. If your copywriting markets the professionalism of your staff and employees are dressed shoddily or rude, you lied. Ditto for software that’s sold as scalable but won’t. Or the low-maintenance gadget that keeps needing repair. Etc., etc. Maybe your marketing will get you the sale the first time, but you likely won’t get a chance to sell to that customer again.

Your marketing communications make a promise. Make the right promise, and you’ll get the customers. Keep your promise, and you’ll get the repeat customers.

Would you rather market your company with a generic message that sounds like every one else’s (i.e. your competitors), or would you rather stand out? Of course you’d rather stand out. But that means having a reason to stand out. Claims of better, faster, cheaper won’t get you very far. So make your company or product or service truly different.

Take Men In Kilts, for example (www.meninkilts.net). They are window washers wearing kilts driving trucks painted tartan plaid. Seriously. Now, as a potential customer, I’m going to notice this business over all the other window washers wanting my money (okay, they only want my money until they see my 80-year-old casement windows with all the individual panes/pains). Do I think my windows will be cleaner if the man washing them is dressed like a Scottish Highlander? No. Do I appreciate the fact that these guys are clever, bold and different? You bet. Are my neighbors going to notice if the man on the ladder with a squeegee is not wearing pants? Yep. Is that good for viral marketing? Uh huh.

Is this a smart marketing move? YES!

Thing is, it starts before the marketing, and that’s what so many companies don’t get. I tell people we know words, but the words are only the last 10% of your marketing communications effort. Yes, those words better be right, but if what you’re selling is boring, your copywriting is going to have a tough time trying to make it sound otherwise…without misleading.

The moral is: If you want customers to listen, have something worth saying.

Tomorrow’s topic is the other side of this coin: following through on your marketing message.

When life hands you lemons you're supposed to whip up a pucker-worthy batch of lemonade. Right? But what if you don't get any lemons at all. Yes, there is a marketing truism here and one that applies to anyone involved in marketing, advertising, public relations or communications. It's called the add-on sale. Or, in come cases, what I and other marketing communications writers like to call a package deal. When you get your oil changed, don't they check your car's other fluids? Or when you buy an expensive gift, don't you expect some nifty gift-wrapping, gratis?

Well, I had come to expect the same kind of inclusive, forward-thinking marketing at my local supermarket fish counter. When I buy fish, I always want a lemon to go with it. Always. And that's what I got in the store where I used to shop. Didn't pick up a lemon in the produce section. No problem. They always featured a basket of lemons right on the fish counter. And sure as shooting I always bought one. This isn't a tale of selling more lemons...although the grocery store surely did. It is a tale of selling a complete customer experience, of knowing that I was getting good service, that they were thinking about me and my needs...and meeting those needs.

So when I moved from my little town in Washington state to another little town in Idaho, I didn't really think about lemons. I had too much other stuff on my mind (more fodder for another blog). But when I reached the fish counter and bought my fish I realized that they had no lemons on the counter. I had to backtrack all the way to the produce section with a toddler trying to jump out of the moving cart and a 4-year-old complaining about having to go to the bathroom. Yes, making my shopping trips easier is very important when it comes to customer service.

So am I sour on my new grocery store? Not really. But I am a bit disappointed that I'm not treated to the same level of service. Because when it comes right down to it, marketing and public relations are often about the little things, not grand e-newsletters, whiz bang Web site writing or awesome advertising copy (although all those things help!). Sometimes it's as simple, and essential, as a lemon!

You've got a general plan in mind on how to market your must-have product. You've brainstormed all the steps and they seem to hang together for the most part. You'll start with a trade show booth, demonstrate what your widget can do, then send out an email marketing campaign to your in-house list and follow that up with a direct mailing that knocks their socks off. Problem is, you're headed in the wrong direction and each step will take you further afield.

How so? Have you really considered the best way to reach your target audience? Are they likely to attend a trade show? Or enjoy being hit by email marketing? In fact, do you really know who your customer is in the first place, or is it more of a best-guess hunch.

Without knowing for sure, all of your marketing communications could be leading you away from your prospects, instead of toward them.  

When it comes to marketing, it's all about filling a niche. But first you need to figure out what it is. Often, when we sit down with clients, we ask just those questions. You'd be surprised how vague the answers can be. That doesn't make for great copywriting. And it's even worse when it comes to selling a product or service effectively.

Our marketing team at We Know Words regularly helps clients dig deeper into details. We call it customer-centric copywriting. Because, at the end of the day, it's all about the customer. And if you don't know who your customer is, or their habits, desires, dreams and practical constraints, then you can't make an honest and lasting connection.  

Sure, it can take a bit longer at the beginning to craft an effective email marketing or web writing campaign. But all those baby steps will ultimately lead in the right direction...to sales.

Heavy sigh. It happened again. Someone called to have us rewrite their Web site and of course they think their site is pretty good, they like the copywriting on it, it just needs a little touching up, because they’re going through a rebranding, etc., etc. So I go to their site and see that not only the copywriting is bad, the design sucks, the navigation is clunky, and I’m on the fourth page before I can even figure out what this company sells!

Web writing like that can only come from one place: in house.

If you think you’ll save money on copywriting by developing Web content in house, you might be right in the short term, but you’re wrong in the long term. Because the writing won’t be as customer-oriented or as good as that written by an outsourced, objective and expert Web writer. And that means you’ll lose potential customers—and therefore revenue—over time.

The adage is true: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. And on the Internet, you have what, three seconds to make that first impression. Your Web site is also your virtual sales force. There isn’t anyone standing behind that prospect pointing out the information missing from the site, helping the hapless Web site visitor through poor navigation, or compensating for sucky design. Your Web site is all alone. So it has to work extra hard. And that means having the right message delivered in the right way…right away.

So make sure your Web writing rocks from the start.