Want to Market Yourself More Successfully? Stop Selling and Start Giving

Recently I found myself chatting with a marketing consultant who expressed some frustration with a client's attempts at writing his own PR: "He's a great businessman, he's a strong writer, but he tries to turn everything into an ad."

A salesperson's first instinct is to sell. When given an opportunity to appear in print, we all feel an urge to bombard that empty space with the details of how great we are and why. But we must remember that the only articles that interest readers is one that gives them something of value instead of simply lunging for their wallets. If you want us to make an emotional investment in your brand, ell us why we should care about what you do and how you do it.

You can promote your value through any and all kinds of marketing content. For example, you can issue a press release announcing an item of community interest. Your company's grand opening, improved product line, or expanded service area is a news piece, and your audience gains immediately by knowing more about what's happening in their town or neighborhood. A sufficiently large announcement attracts the regional or national press. In any case, a good press release informs first and advertises second.

What about other forms of marketing writing that use subtlety to win readers' interest in your business? Again, the key is to give them something attractive and meaningful to their daily lives. Here are a couple of examples:

Solve a problem. How many of us have needed a quick, authoritative answer to some vexing question, from how to unclog a drain to how to choose a business broker? Post an online article providing ready answers to a question, and you've taken a thorn out of your lion's paw. Add your company's contact information to the bottom of the article, and that lion will reach out to you the next time a similar thorn comes along.

Entertain. A funny, touching, or exciting human interest story makes a great feature article. Entertaining your readers is a surefire way to grab their attention and make them want to learn more about your products or services. And true-life stories can be powerful testimonials. Touch their hearts and they'll think of you when it's time to buy.

I once knew an insurance agent who made a point of saying, "I don't sell insurance; I help people buy it." When we educate instead of sell, we help our potential customers get what they want. By increasing your value to your target audience by enlightening and entertaining them instead of hard-selling them, you earn their trust, respect, and loyalty. If you'd like help crafting the kind of content that can capture their hearts and minds, contact me so we can position you as the best thing that ever happened to your customers!

Winter Marketing Content for a Happier New Year

Winter means different things to different people. For much of the country, this winter has meant devastating snowstorms and countless flight cancellations. Many folks think of winter as a time for seasonal sports, cozy evenings by the fire, or getting an early start on those annual tax returns. But what does winter mean for your business? Does your industry naturally lend itself to this time of year, or do you find yourself wishing your target market would thaw out a bit faster than the local scenery? Either way, you can bring in more revenue by using the season in your marketing content. Here are some tips and tricks for turning winter's chill into a profitable hot streak.

Create Holiday-Themed Promotions

While it's true that the super-hot shopping holidays such as Black Friday, Hanukka, and Christmas have passed, winter still offers some opportunities for holiday-based marketing. For instance, many businesses offer sales and other special deals during the MLK Day weekend, while others hop on the humor bandwagon with Groundhog Day promotions. Valentine's Day offers all kinds of marketing opportunities. Then there are the less well-known observances such as Dress Up Your Pet Day, National Popcorn Day, National Cheese Lover's Days, National Chocolate Cake Day, and National Puzzle Day -- and that's just counting January. Can you see how some businesses might profit by launching email, direct mail, and social media campaigns to promote their products and services on those days? Might your business be among them?

Appeal to Winter Comfort and Utility

Winter obviously gets a lot colder in some parts of the U.S. than in others, but that doesn't stop a lot of us Southerners from complaining whenever the mercury drops below flip-flop temperatures. Depending on your geographic reach, your target audience may be searching for everything from snow shovels and thermal gloves to windshield de-icer -- or they may simply feel like stocking up on hot chocolate, firewood, and cold/flu remedies. Even if you sell your products and services all year round, you may find some clever ways to attach their benefits to seasonal wants and needs. How can your offerings make people feel happier or more comfortable this winter? That's the message you want to build your marketing content around.

Use Seasonal Metaphors

Maybe you can't think of any immediate or obvious association between your products or services and the winter months. That's when some cute metaphors can step in to save the day. For instance, you might encourage your audience to "come in from the cold" and take advantage of a red-hot deal. Or you could use the new calendar as a springboard for promoting products and services that help your customers get a fresh start on a great new year. Leverage the excitement and potential of the year to come through your blog posts, email campaigns, TV/radio spots, and print ads.

Winter can be bleak and hostile, or it can introduce a whole vista of marketing options and strategies for your business. Once you've put your winter marketing plan in place, all you'll need is the visual and written content. A skilled graphic designer can provide the former, while an experienced freelance copywriter like me can provide the latter. So contact me, and let's get started on a winter wonderland of profits for your business!

Taking Center Stage: Marketing Content for Events and Festivals

After two years of COVID-based cancellations, San Antonio's Fiesta finally returned in full force at the end of March, concluding on April 10th. This festival, which typically draws some 2.5 million attendees, featured over 100 events all over town, from cook-offs and band battles to parades. But of course San Antonio isn't the only metropolis that celebrates its identity and culture through major festivals. Austin has South by Southwest, Albuquerque has its International Balloon Fiesta, and you may have heard about a little shindig called Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A ton of business changes hands during these mega-events, with countless brands getting a welcome boost to their visibility. So how can your own organization get in on the act and grab a slice of all that action? Here are a few routes you can take, along with specific types of marketing content to help you claim the spotlight.

Creating Your Own Event

If you want to generate some serious interest in your company, you don't have to wait for the next big local or regional event -- you can simply create your own. This project might prove as simple as hosting a wine tasting, networking event, business seminar, or some other get-together that combines business with pleasure. Since you can't rely on the kind of public awareness that the big events enjoy, you'll need to generate as much advance word as you can. That means creating and distributing at least one press release announcing your upcoming event, along with direct mail marketing pieces to send to your current client and prospect lists. You'll also want to blog about this exciting development and post updates to your social media channels so your online followers will get fired up and mark their calendars.

Participating in an Existing Event

If hosting your own event isn't feasible, why not participate in someone else's? You might rent booth space at one of the enormously popular local festivals, or you might simply get together with a few other businesses and put together a collective expo of sorts. This approach allows you to share at least some of the promotional burden with these other organizations. You may even piggy-back on another small business's event in return for shouldering some of the costs. Make sure you've put together plenty of print marketing pieces such as brochures and onesheets to hand out at the door. Don't forget to order plenty of branded swag bags and promotional products to accompany those print pieces. Asl your print shop to equip you with branded standup banners, tabletop displays, and other oversized marketing pieces to draw visitors to your booth or table.

Building Event-Related Marketing Campaigns

Okay, so you've decided that you can't get directly involved in this festival or that event. There's nothing stopping you from tying your marketing efforts to that festival or event through imaginative leaps and compelling content. You see this approach all the time in seasonal marketing efforts, with various businesses leveraging Halloween, Valentine's Day, Independence Day, and other big days on the calendar to promote sales. Why not use your local big event for the same purpose? When excitement's already in the air, you want to ride that breeze! Think about how major holidays or seasonal changes might inspire unusual marketing campaigns that nevertheless make perfect sense for your brand. Then promote your event-related sale or public awareness campaign through a combination of blog posts, videos, social media comments, direct mail, and email notices. It sounds like a lot of work, but you can always hire a professional copywriter to produce a lot of that content for you. So contact me, and let's make the big splash your business needs!

Writing Marketing Content for Regional or International Audiences

As usual, it's a hot, sunny day here in Texas, which of course means that it's time for a Coke. But if it were a hot, sunny day in Minnesota (yeah, I know, just humor me), it wouldn't be time for a Coke; it would be time for a pop. If you found yourself battling a mighty thirst in California or New York, you would find yourself asking for a soda. No, these aren't different beverages -- just different ways people in scattered parts of the U.S. tend to refer to the same beverage.

Confusing? It can be, especially when you're trying to aim your marketing content at a specific regional audience. As you might have noticed from the examples above, the terms and phrases used in different regions of the country can vary significantly. While you might still get your point across, the use of a term or phrase alien to your target market may either blunt the effectiveness of your message or call attention to you as being "not from around here," and therefore not truly attuned to the needs of a specific population.

Differences in style and tone can prove even more challenging when you seek to market your products or services to audiences in the UK, Canada, Australia, and other English-speaking countries. Simple differences, such as the addition of a "u" to words like "color" and "labor" represent just the tip of the linguistic iceberg. Other subtle differences include the use of "shall" instead of "will," "have got" versus "have gotten," and so on. Tone-wise, American marketing content almost always tends to take a more aggressive, in-your-face edge to it than, say, British marketing content, which employs a less direct, more polite approach to appeal to local audiences.

How do you manage to navigate through these potential pitfalls? Well, depending on your audience, you may not have to. If you're selling to the entire English-speaking world, your best bet is to create the most global, universal content possible. This strategy may produce uneven results, but it has the best chance of producing good results right out of the chute. You can then look at the areas where your approach isn't working and make tweaks, localizing the content to suit those individual markets.

What about those regional differences here in the U.S.? First and foremost, you or someone at your company needs to be in touch with a specific regions' colloquialisms. If you're selling to your own corner of the country, then you can focus on the particular vocabulary employed by your target demographic, whether it's down-home rural talk, slick cosmopolitan banter, or Middle American plain speech.

When in doubt, consult a professional copywriter who has experience and training writing for multiple regions and audiences. (My own early training as a playwright and screenwriter helped me learn how to listen to different dialects and regional turns of phrase, incorporating them into the speech of a variety of characters.) That way, you can focus on the core points of your marketing content while your skilled copywriter crafts those ideas into text your target market will love -- and respond to.

3 Tips for Creating Holiday Marketing Content

When the word "holiday" comes to mind, does your mind automatically fast-forward to the end of the calendar year? The holiday season may have good reason to hold this grip on the public consciousness due to the mad rush of buying and selling clustered around November and December. However, smart business owners and marketers recognize their opportunities for building marketing campaigns around the many specific holidays, large and small, that pop up throughout the year. Here are three quick tips to get you thinking about your holiday marketing strategies and help you make the most of those special occasions.

1. Think About Your Target Market

Some holidays seem to affect practically everyone, while others might have special significance for specific populations. For example, Independence Day is a big deal across the U.S., but your customers in the UK or Japan probably couldn't care less about it. Cinco de Mayo holds a special place in the hearts of the Mexican-American population, especially here in Texas. Mardi Gras is an important holiday, not just for New Orleans alcoholics, but for observant Catholics in general. 

The calendar is stuffed with days that commemorate major achievements or promote awareness for specific pockets of individuals. Ask yourself which of these holidays might have a special meaning for the buyers of your products and services. Then latch onto those days for dear life, dream up special promotions for them, and market them with appropriately compelling content.

2. Put Your Brand's Unique Spin on the Holiday

Don't fall into the trap of creating generic, forgettable marketing campaigns for your chosen holidays. This danger can prove especially tricky for those holidays that always seem to spur the same consumer responses. Say you sell flowers and Valentine's Day is approaching. How many of your competitors will produce essentially identical offers, marketed with the same bland sentiments? This might be your cue to go in a different direction by employing a different tone, going for a different emotional response, or promoting a somewhat different gift package than the norm.

Whether you're running a marketing push for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Labor Day, or whatever other day matters to your audience, make sure that your brand's inimitable style shines through. Never stop reminding those individuals or businesses of the qualities that make your brand what it is. The holiday may take the center ring, but you're still the ringmaster.

3. Start Early!

We often complain about seeing images of Santa Claus and reindeer the day after Halloween, and not without reason. Even so, don't those images get you thinking about Christmas -- and mightn't those thoughts get you to start filling out your holiday shopping list? If that marketing waited until the before Christmas to make its appearance, would it make any difference to your buying behavior?

Proper holiday marketing requires advance planning and early implementation. Early marketing touches might drop little hints about the upcoming holiday, with later ones revealing more and more details about your special offers and events. You have to build the excitement and awareness over time -- so there's no time like the present to lay out your strategy. Don't forget that high-quality marketing content also takes a certain amount of time and effort to complete. Contact your professional marketing copywriter to discuss ideas and get that content going!

Want a Strong 4th Quarter? Push These 4 September Marketing Themes

For obvious and understandable reasons, many companies have experienced shaky, unpredictable, or downright rotten business during the first three quarters of 2020. Maybe you've found your own enterprise bumping along on a rickety roller coaster this year. But even in the face of change, certain key elements of life remain, including seasonal milestones. September has always played host to some key themes for sales and marketing campaigns, and there's no reason you can't or shouldn't work these themes as hard as you can to boost your fourth-quarter success. Let's look at four flags worth rallying around.

1. Autumn

Autumn is always, well, autumn. The leaves change color and fall, the temperatures start to drop (even here in Texas), the shadows lengthen, and the world generally takes on a particular flavor and color that puts people into fall-weather mode. In other worlds, everything changes, however slightly. If change is indeed in the air, why not emphasize that point in your September marketing content? Your clients or customers will definitely welcome any shift that gives them reason to feel reassured, energized, and positive. Now is the time to roll out that exciting new product, helpful new service, or stunning new brand.

2. Labor Day

Despite the layoffs and furloughs that have jeopardized so many incomes, people are still working. Sure, many of them are working from home now, and individuals who lost their jobs are either seeking new employment or starting their own businesses. It follows, then, that Labor Day might hold an especially valuable place in your 2020 marketing calendar. People want to work, appreciate the ability to work, and generally think about work with a special intensity right now. Can you create marketing content that addresses their concerns, supports their feelings, and gives them fresh optimism? If so, you've got a message the world wants to hear.

3. Football

What's up with football this September? College conferences have cancelled their entire seasons, while the NFL is prepared to alter its season calendar in the event of coronavirus-based delays. Even so, you'll see football fans raring to talk about their teams, participate in fantasy football, and grab opportunity to enjoy their favorite sport. And when they can't have football, they actively miss football. Give them what they want -- or a whiff of it, anyway -- by creating football-themed content for your fall marketing efforts. You just might win big.

4. The Holiday Season

Yes, the holidays are still coming. Your target audience may have gotten sidetracked from their normal razor-focus on early holiday planning and shopping, but that doesn't mean that they aren't ready to hear about your special offers. It's up to you to turn their attention back toward the approaching end of the year. Holiday-themed marketing offers a comforting sense of familiarity and order that can restore your customers' sanity and prime their enthusiasm to have some fun for a change.

As you can see, September offers loads of marketing opportunities for clever, on-the-ball businesses. If you want to make that list of fourth-quarter success stories, contact your marketing professionals and put them to work right now!

Practicing Social Distancing? Focus on Social Media Marketing

If you'd never heard the phrase "social distancing" until a few days ago, you're probably familiar with it now. Social distancing is all about adopting specific strategies that prevent large groups of people from coming together -- typically to limit the spread of germs during an epidemic or pandemic. If you own a business, you may have asked your employees to telecommute. If you have customers, those customers may be looking at different ways to get their products and services. It's a confusing time -- but you can respond by making sure your customers can find you via social media and related digital marketing efforts.

There's no denying that social media can be a good thing or a bad thing, especially in its ability to spread panic or misinformation all over the world at the speed of light. But it's also a tremendous boon, not only for distributing genuinely valuable information, but also for keeping everyday communication lines open. People who are practicing social distancing can still share Facebook posts, blog articles, Instagram photos, and any other media that tickles their fancy.

These people also shop, even if they can't do much shopping in brick-and-mortar environments for the time being. Customers may not frequent stores for their discretionary shopping, but you can bet that they'll be burning up the Internet looking for online alternatives. They'll also forego in-store browsing for online browsing by searching for specific solutions through social media and Google. So ask yourself: When they search for a particular product, service, or answer to a burning question, how likely are they to land on a helpful video, blog article or webpage created by your brand?

Social distancing also changes the way businesspeople interact. Expect to see networking organizations using online conferencing platforms such as Zoom instead of shaking hands and exchanging business cards in person. If you rely on conversations with your fellow business owners to discover new opportunities and trends, you (and they) will be spending a lot more time sharing that information from your computers or smartphones. LinkedIn is about to become hotter than ever. Are you currently uploading content and contributing to conversations there?

In short, now's the time to work on your social media presence. Pick out the social media channels most likely to appeal to your target market, and start inundating those channels with relevant, helpful, compelling content. Make sure your website content is updated and effective so that when your blog articles, videos, and other social media posts lead prospects to the site, those prospects will continue the journey through your sales funnel until they become customers.

Social distancing doesn't have to be a contradiction in terms. Take the necessary steps to join the massive online conversation and get your brand's voice heard. You'll continue to reap the benefits long after the world has returned to "business as usual."

How to Win Your Business's Marketing Super Bowl

If you keep even the teeniest part of one eye on the national marketing and advertising scene, then you know where all eyes will be turned on February 2nd. Yes, it's Super Bowl time again. The Super Bowl serves not only as a showdown between the NFL's two winningest teams, but also as a showcase for the splashiest, craziest, most arresting commercials you'll see anywhere. At the same time, you'll be looking at some the biggest one-day investments you'll ever see a brand make, with the average 30-second TV spot commanding $5 million.

If you've seen your share of Super Bowl ads, you know that some of them make clear powerful selling points, while others don't seem to have anything to do with a brand's products or services at all. How and why does this approach work, when does it not work, and how can you win your own marketing "Super Bowl" against your competitors?

Big-Time Branding

One of the main reasons that major brands advertise during the Super Bowl is, well, simply to remind us all that they're major brands. The sheer glitz, glamor and importance of a major sporting event like the Super Bowl can convey a kind of "halo effect" to advertisers. If your ad is running alongside ads for Coke or Apple, you give the impression of being on the same playing field as these commercial giants. If you are Coke or Apple and you don't run an eye-popping ad during the Super Bowl, then you're potentially sending the message that you no longer belong in that elite crowd.

When you're planning your marketing campaign, think about where your target audience is, and where your competitors advertise in their efforts to pick that audience up. Then make a point of producing a steady stream of videos, articles, online ads and direct mail -- and position those pieces in areas that keep your brand as visible and healthy-looking as possible.

Conversation Starters

When you see a puzzling, abstract, aimlessly funny or downright bizarre Super Bowl ad, your first response may be to think, "What did that have to do with anything?" Your second response may be to ask your water-cooler buddies what they thought it was all about -- or to post such questions on your favorite social media platforms. This ad hasn't generated any direct sales, but it has achieved something almost as valuable: buzz.

Such conversation starters can prove especially useful when you're trying to make a big initial splash, grow your audience to include new demographics, or reclaim a part of your audience that's dropped away due to loss of interest in your brand. True, you may not have millions of dollars to schedule an amazing Super Bowl ad (not to mention the millions more you might spend actually producing the thing). But you can certainly look for unusual opportunities to make an impression on a smaller scale. From promotional stunts and online/mail-in contests to a brilliantly innovative new website design or radio spot, you can get your target market talking about you.

But What About Selling?

Creating buzz is great, but the Super Bowl ads most likely to generate actual sales are the ones that make their points as directly and clearly as possible -- while still offering cleverness and entertainment value. If you watch this year's game, pay attention to which ads confuse you and which ones make you want to go buy something. Then think about your own marketing strategy for 2020.

You probably want to build your brand while also increasing sales revenue. If that's the case, make sure to populate your social media accounts with genuinely relevant and helpful information, from before-and-after success stories to DIY advice. Create landing pages that draw your prospects toward specific products or services. Send out regular coupons, advertise specific sales days, and spotlight particular needs and challenges that your company addresses.

You may not have a team -- or an ad -- in the Super Bowl, but if you're like most businesses, you face some pretty brutal competition every day of the year. Take the examples of Super Bowl ad campaigns to heart, apply them to your own marketing strategies, and watch yourself soar to the top of the rankings. If you need to raise your content marketing game to championship level, don't hesitate to put my freelance copywriting services to work. This is one game you definitely want to win!

Marketing Content for Events: Do You Know What You Need?

Here in Central Texas, events abound at this time of year. Over the next several months, Austin will be bustling with such notable public gatherings as SXSW, the Pecan Street Festival and Eeyore's Birthday, while San Antonio hosts Fiesta San Antonio and a variety of other very visible celebrations. These events all represent opportunities for getting your brand out there and promoting your products and services. But do you have the necessary marketing content to take full advantage of the gold mine that lies before you? Let's run through some of the different marketing pieces you'll want to add to your to-do list.

Blog articles - If you want to catch prospective attendees' attention well ahead of the event in question, why not post some blog articles that specifically reference that event in the context of what you offer? Make sure they know that you'll have a presence at the event, and invite them to visit your booth and chat with you.

Direct mail - "We'll Be at [Such-and-So Event]!" screams the header on those direct mail postcards filling your prospective customers' mailboxes. Better yet, you're including a special coupon or discount that they can claim if they come visit your booth or table. Make it a sufficiently mouth-watering deal, and they'll be there.

Brochures or catalogs - Once you've got people coming to see you at a given event, you'd better have a proper "leave-behind" to hand them. A well-written brochure could be all you need to help you stand out inside that swag bag. If you really want to offer comprehensive information to your event visitors, take the time to craft (or update) a full-color catalog featuring professional content describing your company's history, mission, values, and full range of offerings.

Promotional videos - Will you be occupying a table or booth at an event such as SXSW Interactive?If so, you may find it hard to get attendee's attention amidst the sprawl of noise, banners, and sign-up tables. That's when you need to set up a giant-sized monitor displaying an exciting, funny, startling, or dramatic promotional video. But keep in mind that a video isn't just as series of images -- it's a structured presentation built on a rock-solid script that tells your story.

You see where I'm going with this. It's time to plan your event marketing strategies and tactics across multiple channels. Contact me today so you can get the top-quality print, blog, or video writing you need to turn yourself into the biggest event of them all!

Don't Just Create Marketing Content -- Create Your Audience!

Ever think of starting a media juggernaut that exists solely to support your business? In the past, that idea would have been dismissed as vain, over-ambitious, or just plain laughable. These days, it's considered Smart Marketing 101.

Steve Jobs famously said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." In other words, it's up to you to create the demand for a product or service by introducing it to your target audience within the larger context of how this product or service can enhance their lives. Proctor & Gamble demonstrated this concept by creating a whole new form of entertainment as a marketing tool. The soap company (and that's pretty much all it was, back in the 1930s) needed a way to present its products to a specific audience -- homemakers. It did so by inventing the soap opera.

Daytime drama reached into millions of households via radio and eventually television, giving the lady of the house a daily feast of "stories" accompanied by, of course, commercials for detergent products. Proctor & Gamble had become more than a product manufacturer -- it was now a media producer. If you spent your afternoon doing the laundry, chances were you were also caught up in the latest brain tumor diagnosis, adulterous affair or discovery of an evil twin. Meanwhile, you'd hear about how and why a particular detergent got the job better than Brand X, more often than not from the characters themselves. If your favorite radio or TV character is singing the praises of a new dandruff shampoo day in and day out, eventually you're going to buy some just to see what all the fuss is about.

This same approach is alive and well today. We call it content marketing -- a combined delivery of advertising and other information that a specific audience genuinely needs or enjoys. An effective modern marketing campaign might achieve this in the form of drip marketing, a series of direct-mail or email "touches" that collectively build the reader's trust in your company until the urge to buy or at least contact you for more information becomes overpowering. And just as soap opera audiences come to think of the characters they see as living, breathing people, your target market comes to rely on you as the trusted resource for your industry of field of expertise.

Blogging can prove especially valuable for building an audience that relies on your expert point of view on the subject at hand. Say you're a tax attorney trying to establish your credibility and convert prospects who need what you have to offer. By posting authoritative, genuinely helpful articles on a wide range of topics related to taxes, the people searching for that information online -- who obviously need and want such information -- come to rely on you as their own personal guru on the subject. And who better to work on their taxes than someone they already trust? That's content marketing.

Now it's your turn to create your own business's media channels. Build your own buzz through the power of content marketing. Who knows? With the aid of a skilled professional copywriter, your product or service could become the hottest show in town -- with your target market serving as the town.

The Most Important Question in Copywriting: "What's in It for Me?"

I don't have the world's longest attention span. When I receive a direct-mail piece or an email blast, however, I tend to skim over the veneer of cleverness and the endless lists of what a product does or how many years the company has served Satisfied Customers Just Like Me. I cut to the chase -- and as far as I'm concerned, the chase ends with the answer to one simple question: "What's in it for me?"

I've rewritten countless websites and print marketing campaigns for clients who simply took too long to get to that crucial question, or in some cases never got to it at all amidst the personal trumpet blowing and back patting. It's wonderful to take pride in your work, your track record in your industry or dominance of that industry. And yes, you do have to explain the features of your products or services sooner or later. But that's not what we, the prospective buyers, are looking for. We're interested in how you will improve your lives by solving a specific problem, and the longer you take to get around to that little detail, the less chance you have of avoiding a one-way trip to the circular file. 

You've heard it a million times: Push the benefits, not the features. While I wouldn't suggest dumping the features, I would recommend allowing the benefits to leap-frog over them to grab your audience's attention from the git-go. One simple way to do this is by playing the "What If" game right from the beginning -- an arresting opening statement that dares us to dream. "What if you could guarantee your family's financial security for life, starting today?" "Imagine getting the best night's sleep you ever had -- every night!" Determine what your ideal clients' ideal outcome would be, get them excited by making them envision that ideal outcome, and then offer it to them. Closed sale.

If you feel the need to paint even more of a picture for your prospects, or to remind them of the problem that needs solving, you can lead off with a pain statement. If you offer a more efficient lawn mower, for instance, make your reader picture another hot, horrible summer battling that broken-down behemoth in the garage, laying out money for frequent repairs, et cetera. THEN flip the emotional state with a "What If" that describes the fast, effortless mowing experience possible with your super-reliable new MegaCut 3000. Our hero!

Whatever approach you use, make those benefits leap off the page so your readers don't have to search for them. If you need a reminder, put a drawing or photo of a typical customer up on your wall with a caption underneath it reading, "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?" If your answer to that question is compelling enough, we will keep reading -- and we will buy.

Honest Copywriting: Accentuate the Positive -- but Don't Eliminate the Negative

Fans of Futurama will remember Professor Farnsworth hobbling into the room and proclaiming "Good news, everybody!" before informing the Planet Express team that were going to go deliver toxic waste or some other lovely task. To this day, I hear that voice in my head when I hear or read suspiciously optimistic announcements. For instance, my apartment management company recently posted a cheerful little note on my door, to the effect of, "Good news! [Can't you just hear him? Me too.] Our complex has arranged to install fiber-optic cable for all buildings. This will provide our tenants with faster online speeds than ever before!" The announcement then goes to make an oblique mention of certain construction activities that may require our patience and cooperation....

Yes, it's nice to be getting speedier Internet service. But us non-technical types are bound to wonder how much digging and installing will have to be performed, what sort of glitches may occur during installation, and whether this project will even be completed while many of the current tenants are still living here. These are all legitimate questions -- but hey, speedier Internet!

I applaud this example of putting one's best foot forward. Let's face it, there are upsides and downsides to just about any transition, venture, product, or service. In your marketing content, you obviously want to push the positive and downplay the negative. But it really is possible to offer too much of a good thing.

Your target audience may be understandably skeptical if you offer the greatest thing since sliced bread with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. For instance, if you read an ad for a used car which includes nothing but positivity, your first question is likely to be "What's wrong with it?" What are you not being told? By contrast, a used-car ad that includes little qualifiers such as "Some minor hail damage but mechanically perfect" explains why the vehicle's price is so good, reassures you that it will get you from Point A to Point B, prepares you to encounter some imperfections, and adds a touch of transparency that encourages trust.

Providing a balanced, detailed, honest mix of content can actually help you nip specific objections in the bud. Let's say your prospective buyer reads about the efficiency of your new ultra-lightweight vacuum cleaner and is about to scoff, "I'll bet it can't handle ground-in dirt or deep pile." Fortunately, you've already added an FAQ section or a little disclaimer in your content saying, "This lightweight vacuum cleaner is specifically designed for light jobs, reducing the need to lug your heavy vacuum cleaner around." You've now clarified that your little cleaner isn't meant to be a full-time replacement for that 40-pound monster, just a welcome relief for casual cleaning applications.

A little self-effacement can work in your favor. "We may not be your ideal solution, but we'd happy to discuss your needs and tell you what we can do for you." "No weight loss plan is effort-free or equally effective for everybody, but if you're serious about shedding the pounds, this system could be just what you need." "Are we the right dental clinic for your needs? We can't answer that question for you. There's only one way to find out -- visit us." Tempering your promises and admitting your limitations doesn't just present an honest picture; it also presents you as an honest brand.

By all means, give your clients the good news first, wrap it up in a pretty bow, and let enthusiasm carry the day. Just remember that first-time buyers become repeat buyers only when their initial expectations are met. If you want to build customer relationships, make sure your marketing content sets a trustworthy tone.

Creating a Need Through Your Marketing Content

I found a pretty funny old article about how some companies try to put a gender spin on some puzzlingly genderless products. Check out that first item, for example, the Bic Pens "For Her." I don't know what's inherently feminine about these pens,  but apparently they struck home with their target market. Oh, and check out the "Tools for Women" toolbox (You guessed it: a pink hammer, a pink drill, a pink level...) You'll also see "manly" products such as Slim Jim beef jerky and Just for Men hair color (which offers what appears to be the exact same product under a different name for women).

I'm not going after the gender angle here. I'm marveling at advertisers' ability to create the need for a product out of thin air, even when that product already existed. Here Jane doe's been buying pens all her life, and then suddenly she sees Pens for Her and thinks, "Finally, a product aimed at my sensibilities and style." Um, they're pens. Or the guy buys Slim Jims because their "Menergy" unleashes his inner Macho Man. In these cases a niche appeal has been invented out of thin air.

Even a buzzword can be sufficient to snap up that segment of the population who melts at the sound of it. One of my favorite examples of this sort of thing is my old pair of computer headphones, the Sony MDR-V6. This model has gone unchanged for decades and has made a forever home in many a recording studio and TV production house, mainly because of its ability to reproduce fine audio detail. 

But I think there's another reason they caught on with home listeners as well as professionals -- namely, the sticker on each ear pad proudly proclaiming, "FOR DIGITAL." Digital what? Beats me. Digital equipment, presumably, or maybe digitally-recorded music, which was the hot new thing back in the'80s when the MDR-V6 first came out. Never mind what it means; these are obviously extraordinary headphones and I must have them right now because they're FOR DIGITAL.

Steve Jobs famously opined that people don't know what they want until you show it to them. Henry Ford once said, "Before the automobile existed, if I'd asked what people wanted, they'd have said faster horses.” 

So my question to you is: Do you have a product or service that might appeal to a niche audience you never considered even remotely reachable? Does your new toy have uses for the heavy equipment industry? Does your scientific tool do things that kids would love? Could you create a sexy tag line or other compelling marketing content that might gain you a whole new customer demographic? 

In other words -- what's your "FOR DIGITAL" sticker? 

Creating Content for Influencer Marketing

If you've been involved in your organization's marketing efforts for long, you know by now that "If you build it, they will come" works better for baseball movies than it does for self-promotion or brand awareness. Creating content for your own website or social media pages is a must, but it isn't the whole story. If you want your target market to latch onto that content as quickly and as massively as possible, you need to get the attention of the movers and shakers that these people follow, listen to and obey. You can do this by aiming your content directly at those movers and shakers through a strategy called influencer marketing.

What (or Who) Is a Key Influencer?

Key influencers have been with us since as long as there have been human beings to influence, from gurus and great thinkers of the past to modern-day celebrities such as Dr. Oz and Oprah. (Yeah, we've come a long way.) As social media has blossomed on the Internet in the past decade, a new medium of influence has come into being -- and this medium has turned into a powerful soapbox for both bona-fide celebrities and for countless other individuals who have built up a great deal of authority and sway among their followings. These folks are key influencers. If they recommend a course of action, plug a product or service, or profess their love of a particular brand, their followers listen. some of them will take those recommendations to heart and become loyal customers. They may even evolve into key influencers in their own right, spreading the word about their favorite products and companies.

Wouldn't you love to have some influence over the influencers? Well, you can -- if you aim the right content in the right directions.

Putting Those Eyes on You

The first thing you have to is figure out which key influencers your perfect clientele is paying attention to, and which websites and social media channels they're frequenting. LinkedIn Groups, for instance, is a natural home base for pundits in the B2B realm, whereas Facebook might be more likely to attract the B2C crowd. (You can then drill down into into key demographics; for instance, teens seem to have a special love for Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram.) Once you've identified which channels attract the lion's share of your target market, you can figure out which of those users are getting the most views and seem to have the most influence here your particular industry, products or services are concerned.

Now it's time to catch those key influencers' eyes. You might achieve this by:

• Making endorsements or other positive statements about the key influencers in question, complete with links to their blogs, websites or social media channels
• Contacting the key influencers and offering them an opportunity to contribute a guest article or video to your website
• Joining relevant conversations on your key influencers' social media channels so your brand has a clear and active presence there
• Making helpful, insightful comments on key influencers' blogs or other online articles
• Quoting their comments in your website and social media content

Influencer marketing isn't a magic wand, and it needs to be employed with a certain amount of subtlety if you want eyes on you instead of just eye-rolling. But if you create high-quality content aimed at just the right people, and then bring that content to where those people live, you'll soon be wielding some influence of your own.

It's the Fourth Quarter for Preparing Your 2018 Marketing Content

Here in the middle of football season, you have have already seen your share of heart-stopping fourth quarters. Fans, players and coaches alike know the adrenaline rush that accompanies the knowledge that you've got one more quarter of play to do whatever must be done to walk off the field a winner. Well, the same holds true for many aspects of the business world at this time of year. You've got this one remaining quarter of the year to get your tax information in order, get those receivables into your coffers -- and prepare the next year's marketing content.

Isn't marketing a year-round activity? Yes, it should be. But you'd be surprised how many small business owners put their mindsets into "end-of-year"mode, concentrating solely on cleaning things up, shutting things down, and generally putting the year to bed. That's all well and good, but next year starts on January 1st -- and with it, a fresh push toward new goals. Will your marketing efforts be in position to support those efforts right from Day One, or will you waste the first part of the year slowly and painfully bringing your business back up to speed?

Marketing campaigns take time to conceptualize, plan and implement. You need to work out your marketing strategy, assign the content creation to your team (copywriter, graphic designer, social media coordinator, website provider etc.), and then allow these professionals the time they need to get the job done. You then need to approve the job and make sure your shiny new campaign is ready to roll out right at the beginning of an equally shiny new year.

Now is the time to get your marketing content in good shape for 2018. We're in the fourth quarter, and the clock is running out. Fortunately, you have access to a freelance copywriter who can help you generate much of that marketing content quickly, painlessly and professionally. Make the right calls, right now, so you can know you're ready for the next "big game" as soon as the final whistle blows on this one!

Bending the Rules of Copywriting: When the Wrong Words Are Right

One of the things I hear most often from business owners who engage my freelance copywriting services is, "I never do my own writing because I just know I'll get the spelling and grammar all wring." Well, of course effective copywriting requires a lot more than just a firm grasp of spelling and grammar. In fact, some of the most powerful marketing content deliberately plays fast and loose with those rules. Let's take a look at those instances in which breaking the rules can be good.

We've all seen examples of riotously incorrect ad slogans over the years. Half a century ago, Winston offered up the famous declaration "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should," sparking immediate controversy over its misuse of "like" as a conjunction. Would it have been more correct to say "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should?" Certainly. But would the slogan have been swept into the public consciousness to anywhere near the same degree? No way!

(The tobacco industry seems to have had ongoing issues with grammar. "Us Tarrytown smokers would rather fight than switch!" was another faux pas that nevertheless caught on with the public. Perhaps a new medical study is in order....)

Geeks worldwide know and love (or hate) Apple's encouragement to "Think Different." I was just beginning my writing career when that campaign first launched, and I remember some English majors sneering about how Apple's proofreader was asleep on the job. Surely the company meant "Think Differently!" But they missed the point entirely: Apple was using "different" as a concept -- a way of life, not a modifier. 

My various writing instructors used to insist that you have to know the rules before you can break them. In other words, if you understand a rule and then break it intentionally, you're creating a deliberate effect and not an ordinary screw-up. If you're quoting a certain famous cartoon bird, for instance, you can't correct his speech to read "I thought I saw a pussycat," because you'll lose the whole pop-cultural context and you won't be making your point (whatever that is).

So, yes, you can break the rules. You may even want to. But let us know, somehow, that you know what you're doing and why you're doing it -- and make sure the result is genuinely compelling. Heed the wise words of the members of Spinal Tap: "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

This Is Your (Target Audience's) Brain on Copywriting

Do you recall the old TV ad that showed a frying egg with a voiceover proclaiming, "This is your brain on drugs?" As dumb as the analogy may seem, that ad was remembered, quoted and even parodied for years. Why? Because it used certain psychological hooks for engraving itself on the minds of viewers. Let's face it, marketing is largely the art of psychological manipulation. So let's look at how your marketing content can employ specific techniques to place your target audience "under the influence."

The Bizarreness Effect

The Bizarreness Effect holds that creating bizarre images out of otherwise-mundane ones can help lodge those images in the memory. Let's go back to our opening example -- an image of an egg in a frying pan, paired to the idea of a brain on drugs. These two incompatible, less-than-memorable notions form an unforgettable metaphor when you put them together.

Appealing to Both Sides of the Brain

You probably know that the left side of the brain is considered the more rational of the two hemispheres. It's one that responds to facts, reasons and logic -- but it's not the one that makes your target customer buy. That impulse comes from the right side of the brain, which is commonly associated with creativity, emotion and intuitive thought. Ideally, your marketing content appeals to both hemispheres. Your feature statements pile on fact after fact in support of your products or services, while your benefit statements hit readers where they live emotionally by helping them envision how their lives will be improved by those products or services.

Repetition, Rhythm and Rhyme

Just as the major search engines take notice of repeated, relevant keywords in your marketing content, the brains of your target audience will respond to repetition. The more you repeat a statement, the more convincing it becomes--simply because it's being constantly reinforced in the brain. Rhythm and rhyme can then make that statement more memorable, just as they tend to make song lyrics stick in your head. Think about all the great catchphrases you've heard over the years. Still thinking about them? Exactly.

Reticular Activation

If familiarity breeds recognition, then specificity breeds familiarity. If you try to appeal to everybody in the world, in every possible scenario, your message is probably so generic that it has no strong psychological effect on any individual. But if you paint a specific "How many times has this happened to you?" kind of picture, your ideal customer may think, "Wow, I'm having that exact problem right now. These people are talking to me!" That reaction is coming from a bundle of neural fibers called the reticular network, which acts as a kind of high-level "lookout" that waits for stimuli it recognizes as something we need to pay attention to right now, as opposed to the mass of more generic information the brain doesn't have time to bother with. Target your message as precisely as possible, and you'll be targeting that reticular network.

Persuasive copywriting is as much about psychology as it is about sheer writing skill. An experienced marketing copywriter can help you apply both for maximum effect. Contact me today and let's talk about how we can influence your target market!

4 Ways to Work Valentine's Day Into Your Marketing

We're coming up on another Valentine's Day. If you sell gourmet foods, champagne or flowers, this particular holiday is obviously right up your alley. But any business can use this special day as a springboard for a variety of marketing opportunities. Let's look at four ways you can sweet-talk your target audience.

1. Thank-You Notes

There's no easier way to let your clients know how much you appreciate them than by writing and sending out thank-you notes. While you and your team may not have time to pen each of these meaningful messages by hand, you don't have to take completely generic approach either. Think about what kinds of messages would appeal directly to each specific segment of your clientele -- then write a few different variations on the theme of your heartfelt appreciation of them. For a really personal touch (and to help ensure that the letters get opened), you might even consider hand-signing and hand-addressing the envelopes; if that's not possible on a massive scale, you can at least do it for your VIP clients.

2. Special Offers

Valentine's Day is a time for giving gifts that show your sentiments, so why not give your beloved customers something nice that also happens to help drive more business your way? A Valentine's Day coupon, discount, gift certificate or other special offer can serve as the centerpiece for a "We Love Our Customers" campaign. If you can turn your products and services toward the theme of romance, from chocolates to spa days, so much the better.

3. "Share the Love" Contests

Love isn't just a one-way street, you know; hopefully, your customers think as highly of you as you do of them! Why not give them an opportunity to express their love for your products and services through some sort of "Share the Love" competition? Post the announcement (on your website, blog, social media channels et cetera) that you're looking for videos, photos or other submissions that show your customers using your product or service, standing next to your company signage or otherwise showing their support for your brand. You can even appeal to the writers in the crowd by asking them to include you in a poem or short story. Give out prizes for the most creative entries -- while coasting on a wave of positive buzz!

4. Valentine-Related Blog Articles

I've written before about the benefits of crafting seasonal blog articles, and Valentine's Day is no exception. You may be thinking that there's nothing remotely "romantic" about what you offer, but think again. As a professional ghost-blogger I've composed countless Valentine-centric articles about everything from life insurance (showing your family how much you care) to health services (February is American Heart Month). There are countless ways to turn this time of year toward any business or industry -- especially when you have the assistance of an imaginative, experienced copywriter.

Here's to a perfectly lovely -- and profitable -- Valentine's Day!

Creating a Need With Your Marketing Content

Here's a pretty funny Bloomberg article about how some companies try to put a gender spin on some puzzlingly genderless products. Check out that first item, for example, the Bic Pens "For Her." I don't know what's inherently feminine about these pens,  but apparently they're scoring with their target market. Oh, and check out the "Tools for Women" toolbox (You guessed it -- a pink hammer, a pink drill, a pink level...) You'll also see "manly" products such as Slim Jim beef jerky and Just for Men hair color (which offers what appears to be the exact same product under a different name for women).

I'm not going after the gender angle here. I'm marveling at advertisers' ability to create the need for a product out of thin air, even when that product already existed. Here Jane doe's been buying pens all her life, and then suddenly she sees Pens for Her and thinks, "Finally, a product aimed at my sensibilities and style." Um, they're pens. Or the guy buys Slim Jims because the"Menergy" they provide unleashes his inner Macho Man. In these cases a niche appeal has been invented from whole cloth.

Marketing Copy Makes It Cool

Even a buzzword can be sufficient to snap up that segment of the population who melts at the sound of it. One of my favorite examples of this sort of thing is my old pair of computer headphones, the Sony MDR-V6. This model has gone unchanged for decades and has made a forever home in many a recording studio and TV production house, mainly because of its ability to reproduce fine audio detail. But I think there's another reason they caught on with home listeners as well as professionals -- namely, the sticker on each ear pad proudly proclaiming, "FOR DIGITAL." Digital what? Beats me. Digital equipment, presumably, or maybe digitally-recorded music, which was the hot new thing back in the'80s when the MDR-V6 first came out. Never mind what it means -- these are obviously extraordinary headphones and I must have them right now because they're FOR DIGITAL.

Put Creative Copywriting to Work for You

Steve Jobs famously opined that people don't know what they want until you show it to them. Henry Ford once said, "Before the automobile existed, if I'd asked what people wanted, they'd have said faster horses." So my question to you is: Do you have a product or service that might appeal to a niche audience you never considered even remotely reachable? Does your new toy have uses for the heavy equipment industry? Does your scientific tool do things that kids would love? Is there some sexy tag line or compelling copy out there that might gain you a whole new customer demographic? In other words, what's your "FOR DIGITAL" sticker? Contact me and let's talk about creating that need through the right marketing content -- creating new profits for your business as a result!

The Role of Negativity in Your Marketing Content

Does complaining have a place in marketing? Sure it does! In fact, complaining about some problem or other is a time-honored tradition, especially in your pain statement.  ("You scrubbed those dishes till your hands were raw and the plates are still filthy. Don't you wish there was a dishwashing liquid that really made things easier?") But as with most copywriting techniques, there's a right way and wrong way to go about it.

Tearing down the other guy has its downside. If you want to position yourself as better than competition, go right ahead -- but I wouldn't make a whole campaign about it. Your audience might wonder why you're feeling that insecure about Brand X. The reader of your content may ask,"Why doesn't this brand talk about its own positive qualities more?" Even your pain statement can work against you if you hammer away at it like Debbie Downer. Present the problem, yes, but then leap into the solution in time to salvage the reader's mood and get them excited about the solution -- you.

The occasional rant can add a little spice to your blog among the many other kinds of articles you post there. But tread carefully. Just as too much spice can ruin a meal, too much ranting can ruin your online presence. Negativity in large doses will simply drive readers away. I follow a certain well-known copywriter's blog less frequently than I once did for this very reason -- I got tired of reading complaints about this or that bad experience with a client, how the industry isn't what it used to be, etc. If a blog can be said to take on a persona, this one had become a cranky old fart. Don't you do the same, unless your business expressly caters to the "You kids get off my lawn" crowd.

What about replies to complaints? Perhaps your business has a listing on Citysearch or some similar local-search directory for products and services. If so, hopefully your listing collects rave reviews from satisfied customers -- but the occasional angry, name-calling criticism can go a long way toward wiping out your good reputation. The urge to post an equally vicious rebuttal may seem natural. Don't do it! Instead of descending to the level of the complaining post, to take some time to cool off and devise a rational, polite, professional-sounding response. If you can't manage to do that in a timely manner, hire a copywriter to do it for you. I've actually written several such rebuttals in the past for business owners who didn't trust themselves to respond in the right tone.

Too much negative verbiage in a marketing piece is like too much negative space in a painting -- in both cases, you risk ending up with nothing.