copywriting

Feb

Are your communications aligned with your mission statement?

Posted by admin at 3:28 pm

Coincidentally, I’ve worked on a number of corporate branding projects recently that threw up a similar problem. Although the brand statements and guidelines were developed with intelligence and insight, their implementation was haphazard at best.

Put bluntly, the disconnect between the two is a disaster. Why spend so much time and resources on re-branding if the communications just plod on regardless? Your audience or customers get two different messages. Their expectations are heightened by the brand’s mission statement, but disappointed when trying to actually deal with the company.

Branding is more than a lick of paint

Never forget that the brand perception is what people say of you when you leave the room (or when they visit your website). New graphic charters are important, but they won’t help if the basic communications are wrong.

Simple real-life examples:

the mission statement talks about cooperation and working together, yet the images on the website or advertising are of single people or – worse – generic images;
the brand mission talks about innovation, but the site looks like it was built in 1995;
the brand mission talks about innovation, and the site also talks about innovation. But what does innovation mean? What are the examples? It’s a classic case of “show don’t tell”. Why not inspire your visitors? Make the clients and talented young engineers rush to call you. Ask them for ideas. Copywriting can lay a big role in this – as can interactive applications;
the mission statement talks about working together, but a genuine contact is hard to find. Don’t overlook these elements, and also the career pages.

Branding is not a lick of paint. It’s something which has to be incorporated at every level of a company. The mission statement, production, communication and HR policies all have to be aligned. Don’t forget to develop an activation plan that covers everything from the copywriting to the signage and service.

Can you think of companies where the alignment works? My clients often mention Apple; what do you think?

Dec

Writing Christmas wishes with a wish

Posted by admin at 11:52 am

If you’re struggling to come up with an original idea for your Christmas wishes, I have a word of advice: don’t. Let’s not forget that Christmas and New Year wishes are a little opportunity to tell someone that you are thinking about them. This is one time when you can put your marketing pen aside and just wish people something nice.

Is a greeting card better than an e-card?

I often hear people debating the relative merits of paper cards and e-cards. It usually comes down to a discussion about price. E-cards are faster, cheaper to send and easily customisable. What’s not to like?

Well, how about impact? I remember visiting an office and seeing a paper card I had produced pinned to the wall SIX MONTHS AFTER CHRISTMAS. Compare that to the lifespan of an e-card: roughly 2 seconds. No matter how naff they might be, I always keep paper cards lined up on a shelf for at least a few weeks after Christmas. For me, there is no comparison. Remember also that you usually sign paper Christmas cards, creating a direct human link to the person you are sending it to. Personalise it. Say something nice. Say something simple.

Why not benefit from a seasonal offer?

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to move my finger to the “delete” button, it’s the e-card that comes with a special offer. Is this a sales pitch or seasonal wishes? Make up your mind. Do you send cards to your family and mention in passing that you have an affiliate link at a hotel or a good money-making deal that expires in 72 hours? Why should I be different? Do you think people will react in any other way than to scrub the e-mail?

Separate those messages. A good sales pitch with a special offer is always welcome. Greeting cards that sound like a flaky second-hand car salesman routine I find insulting. And irritating. And clumsy. And amateurish. Are you sure you want that to be the message you are sending?

I was quickly nauseated by all the recent Thanksgiving messages I received with special offers as 1) no-one celebrates Thanksgiving outside the US (don’t forget to target within your list) and 2) if I wanted to buy an e-mail list/consultancy/software upgrade I’d use Google or Bing, thanks. I wouldn’t buy it from someone that tricked me into reading their message. I want to feel upbeat, not that I’m getting an upsell.

In a word: thanks

So take this opportunity to say thank you, to tell people you think of them occasionally outside the sales cycle, to share a little thought about life or the world. On a more philosophical note, remember that giving is good for your own morale. And the simplest thing we have to offer is thanks.

Nov

Levis, riots and teenage aspirations

Posted by admin at 6:40 pm

branding

This ad, surely one of the most achingly evocative for a jeans company, has become iconic in a way. Just as the turbulence of May 1968 fueled a new mythology and counter-culture, will 2011 be remembered as a turning point in youth movements? I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.

But typically for our age, this revolution has its corporate sponsor. The tone, the simplicity and the concept of this ad are almost perfect as an exercise in zeitgeist. The cameras are all hand-held. Instead of copywriting, we get the poem “Go Forth” by Charles Bukowski. The images are fleeting, liberating, breathless. The mad aspiration of youth is magically caught in just 60 seconds. It would take a cold heart not to be touched by them.

Could a brand like Levis condone protest?

Released in August 2011, could Levis have known there would be so many riots (referenced several times in the clip) and the importance they would play? I doubt it very much. Could Levis be seen to condone – even implicitly – the Arab Spring, the London riots, the Occupy movement or Madrid’s Indignants? Whatever the merits of these movements, the answer is clearly “no”.

There are limits, as Levis found. The spot, released a week after the London riots, was promptly banned in the UK. The timing, clearly, was off. But was the intention? Do we think this is appropriate?

Aug

Open letter to an SEO copywriter

Posted by admin at 5:08 pm

website

At least once a year, I am contacted by a customer or agency that has produced some web texts to meet SEO criteria and that wants a copywriter to brush up the text. I’ve never met SEO writers in the flesh, leaving me to wonder if it’s the designer that is doing extra work or whether these people are ever let outside at night. ;- ) So I thought I’d send a message to the anonymous workers on the SEO coal front. If the comments seem a little basic to you, they are nonetheless based on actual website texts that I see in my inbox.

Why choose between SEO and copywriting when you can do both?

If you’re writing for a website, 95% of the time you are thinking about attracting and keeping readers on the page long enough to do something. Unless your client has very large budgets to play with, attracting readers will inevitably mean being spotted in search engines.

I love good SEO. It’s not my specialty, so I won’t presume to talk about it here. But if you are an SEO writer, here are a few tips you can use to bring your website’s pages one step further through a more marketing-minded approach to the copywriting:

* make the process specific to your customer. Don’t talk about the benefits of widgets. It’s Your Customer’s widgets that do the trick. We don’t need another generic description of a service or technology. The web is full of content farms and scraped texts stuffed with keywords. Put your customer’s name out front!
* be more specific in subheads. A subhead that says “Benefits for everyone” is useless for two reasons. It doesn’t help diagonal reading and doesn’t help with SEO. Subheads are h2 or h3. So make them useful: “Your Customer’s laser technology provides benefits for patients and doctors”. “Visitors to Brussels benefit from enhanced travel services”. This brings me to another point:
* add local information where appropriate to help SEO. If your customer only has one or two offices, use that to localize the SEO. “Patients in Paris and Amsterdam appreciate integrated service”.

Now that you’ve run over the text and made it that bit more effective, I have one last copywriting tip:

* make it personal. Go back and read the text as if it was you that was going to book that flight, nose-job or insurance plan. Make the text a little warmer, more real, more from the inside. How? Well, use all the information you received in the brief concerning demographics, the competition and above all motivation.

These simple copywriting guidelines can already significantly improve the SEO copywriting of any website. If you have any further tips, I’d certainly love to hear them in the comment section below!

Jun

Writing e-mail messages: what do you want to achieve?

Posted by admin at 4:52 pm

I just received an e-mail message a few minutes ago which hit my irritation button. Everyone has their pet peeves. One of mine is wasting my time with e-mail. The sender, whom I know, runs a trade fair that I am moderately interested in. So when I saw the address in the incoming mail, I decided to check the message:

XXXX Airshow: an exhibition where aircraft are sold!

Not exactly the strongest headline I’d ever seen. But I am interested and continued:

- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

XXXX AirShow 2011: International Exhibition of General Aviation

- Press Release- June 30th, 2011

Please find enclosed the June 30th Press Release for the XXXX AirShow 2011.

To this was attached a Word document containing the event’s facts and figures, but also a non-clickable URL. Argh! I don’t know where to start with how wrong this is. But ultimately, I wonder what they were trying to achieve.

As I run websites, I often use news items. So why not simply paste the actual news in the message body? I could then read it quickly, see if I’m interested, cut’n paste if necessary and post to the site. Why use a separate Word document without letting me know what it contains? Something tells me their open rates are pretty low.

Remember that increasing numbers of people are mobile and might be paying international roaming rates to download something which could be either text-based or on a site.

Mail shots: focus on the click

The same principle applies when you are copywriting and sending e-mail shots. You have to live with the fact that e-mail messages do not sell products or services. They serve to prepare me for the sales pitch. They act as a qualifier, and should provide just enough information to allow me to decide if I want to click through. That is it. Graphics are nice. The copy can be cute. But keep it short and simple if you want my click. And remember to let people know what to expect. At over 100 e-mails per day, most businesspeople don’t have much time for teasers.

Applying these principles can kick up e-mail click-through rates substantially.

Now, how about a little experiment? Every time you click through from an e-mail message this week, go back to it later and ask yourself what clinched it for you. Why did you bother in this case? You’ll probably be surprised how concise and effective the good e-mails really are.

Are there any tips you can pass on for writing e-mails, or insights into what happens when they arrive in your inbox?

Dec

Four things to do before attending a trade fair

Posted by admin at 12:07 am

I’m currently busy preparing for a trade fair, Midem in January. So like everyone else, I spend a lot of time mining the event database looking for potential partners. I’ve done this from different sides of the table for 15 years now (both copywriting and sales), and I still see the same mistakes coming back time and again.

What do you do when looking for potential partners?

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Sep

E-commerce is not a carrot any more

Posted by admin at 12:03 pm

Remember e-commerce? That shiny new thing that would save business and give us all the exact coordinates of the end of the rainbow? When did it die? Or, more precisely from a copywriting point of view, when did it stop being a desirable goal of its own?

Copywriters love carrots. They’re good for the eyes and we think that readers will always jump at them. So when developing a headline, body copy or e-mail shot, we’re always looking for exciting carrots to dangle in front of the readers’ eyes.

E-commerce is not a carrot any more. (more…)

Dec

PERSONAL BRANDING IS NOT LIKE A PERSONAL COMPUTER

Posted by admin at 11:12 pm

I’ve been working on a few projects recently that can best be described as “personal branding”, coaches or consultants that decide to build their business under their own name. But “personal branding” has a very selfish ring to it. At its worst, it’s an exercise in ego-stroking. But as the “brands” in question were perfectly aware, there’s more to personal branding than “me-me-me”.

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