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!

How to Blog When You Don't Have Time to Blog

"I can't go on. I'll go on." Does that famous quote from the writer Samuel Beckett resonate with you a little too strongly when you try to create blog content for your business? You know you need to be blogging to increase your brand's visibility and boost your inbound marketing efforts, but you find yourself locked in a battle against the clock. Let's face it, we're all busy people, and writing takes time. Even so, you can use some clever workarounds to break through those barriers and keep your blog alive, whether you have time for it or not. Try these ideas on for size.

Use Your Voice, Not Your Fingers

Many people who have the gift of gab freeze up when they have to write instead of talk. Some feel intimidated by the blank screen, while others get bogged down in the mechanics of typing, deleting, and re-typing. If you struggle to string one word after another on the keyboard, try ditching the keyboard (temporarily) in favor of a voice-to-text program. Speak from the heart on your chosen subject, and watch the screen fill up with text that mostly matches what you meant to communicate. You'll probably need to go back and make some corrections, but at least you'll have broken through that barrier. If you aren't a touch typist, you may find that the composition goes much faster than the hunt-and-peck method ever made possible.

Tease It Now, Write It Later

Blogs need not focus entirely on "evergreen" articles that address your target audience's major challenges or interests. They may also include your expert analysis and opinions concerning breaking news that affects your industry or your readers. But when a major event occurs, you can't necessarily drop everything you're doing and immediately turn out a definitive post on the subject. What you can do is bang out a quick teaser for what you will be writing on the subject as soon as you get a chance. "Breaking news! This amazing thing just happened. What does it mean for your personal or professional life? We'll be posting a more in-depth look at it soon, so watch this blog!" You've just bought yourself some writing time while still responding to the big event in a timely manner.

Write More When You Do Have Time

Okay, so you don't always have time to blog. But what about those occasions when you do have a little extra time? That's when you should throw it into high gear and overproduce. Create a blog article stockpile that you can draw on when you have not time to compose fresh materials on the fly. If you really want to get ahead of the game, create a 12-month editorial calendar and start writing blog posts that can go out at those various times of year. At least you won't be scratching your head over possible topics.

Outsource Your Blogging Responsibilities

If you really can't make time for blogging even after trying the options noted above, why not hand your blogging burden over to someone else? Maybe you know another expert or influencer in your field who would be more than happy to contribute a guest post. Or for a more comprehensive solution, maybe you could hire a freelance copywriter with the necessary skills and experience to keep your blog populated with top-class content that engages your audience, shows off your expertise, and promotes your brand. Now you have all the time in the world to run your business instead of writing about it!

Content Writing Revision: Making Fixes Versus Starting Over

If you've ever tried to cook an elaborate dish only to have it emerge from the oven looking less than appetizing, your mind probably raced with corrective options. If it probably tastes okay, can you get away with simply disguising the exterior? Is it simply missing some finishing touch or other to make it perfect? Or do you need to scrape it into the trash bin and go back to Step One of the recipe? These kinds of decisions extend beyond the kitchen to a variety of other efforts, including marketing content creation. What do you do when a piece of content just doesn't live up to expectations -- make a few edits here and there, or start a new draft from scratch? Let's look at the available options, and when you might choose one over the other.

Proofread or Edit?

When many people think of editing in terms of written content revision, they tend to focus on fixing obvious errors in grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and other mechanical flaws. However, these fixes fall more properly under the category of proofreading. Proofreading represents that final step in making sure an otherwise-perfect piece of content is free of these surface errors. A trained copywriter will always proofread a draft carefully before submitting it. Even if the draft requires other revisions, at least the copy will appear clean and competent.

Editing digs deeper into the revision process. If your contants feels rushed, draggy, or disorganized, it may need an editor to cut, expand, or relocate large chinks of it. If the tone sounds wrong for your message or seems unlikely to appeal to your target audience, a copywriter with editing experience can find different words to alter that tone. At this point, the content is still salvageable as-is, even if it needs an extensive facelift.

Back to the Drawing (or Writing) Board

A top-to-bottom rewrite becomes necessary when the options noted above can't save the content without a ridiculous amount of effort. In many cases, it's easier, faster, and more cost effective for a professional writer to start over, using the previous draft simply for reference. Time and time again, I've found myself spending more time trying to resuscitate a flawed draft that I would've spent drafting something completely new. It's just easier to get it right the first time. A mostly-perfect draft from a seasoned pro will almost always require little to no revision -- a happier outcome for everyone involved.

Whatever degree of revision your website, blog, or other marketing content may require, a skilled professional copywriter can help you make it shine. Contact me today to turn that lump of coal into a diamond!

3 Reasons to Be Thankful for Professional Copywriting Help

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Hopefully you already feel that you have plenty to be thankful for. The holiday certainly promotes that feeling as we chow down on multi-course meals, watch endless hours of football on TV, and generally decompress from the everyday strain of working life. But if you're a business owner, you're always looking for more ways to boost your bounty -- and handing over your marketing content creation burdens to a professional copywriter can offer a cornucopia of benefits. Take a look at these three reasons you'll give thanks for your association with this kind of marketing content expert.

1. Professional Copywriting Can Boost Your Prosperity

How well did your business do this year? Money isn't everything, of course, and there are many reasons to feel thankful that have nothing to do with income. But when you're fulfilling an immense Thanksgiving grocery order, taking advantage of all the Black Friday deals, and trying to satisfy the kids' Christmas lists, more money beats less money by a country mile. If your company's revenue hasn't quite lived up to expectations, maybe it's time to up your marketing content game. A professional copywriter can evaluate your website, sales letters, and other marketing materials to determine whether the writing needs a facelift. The right messaging, delivered in a properly compelling manner, could make a big difference to your bottom line -- and who wouldn't feel thankful for that?

2. Professional Copywriting Lets You Enjoy the Holiday in Peace

In your career as an entrepreneur, when was the last time you were able to unplug from your business and simply enjoy Thanksgiving (or any other major holiday)? Many businesses get busier and more chaotic than ever at this time of year, heaping stress on owners and other key players. The last thing you need is a pile of marketing content assignments that someone needs to fulfill before the end of the year, especially if that someone is likely to be you. But here's some good news: You can find freelance copywriters who not only keep working throughout the holiday season but actually want to keep working throughout the holiday season. No, we're not masochists; we just like to keep writing because writing pays the bills. So even as you're giving some lucky freelancer a happier holiday, you're taking a lot of work off your plate -- leaving more room for that turkey and stuffing.

3. Professional Copywriting Fills Your 2023 Marketing Pipeline

Ambitious business owners are already looking ahead to 2023. You may be one of those ambitious business owners; if not, you can probably name several direct competitors who fit that description. If you want to stay competitive and launch the new year in style, you need to have your 2023 marketing calendar all ready to go here in the fourth quarter of 2022. When you engage a professional copywriter to provide your business with a steady stream of content for your blog, website, email campaigns and other marketing efforts, you can give thanks for the fact that you've already got 2023 in the bag -- which should mean that you'll have even more to be thankful for this time next year.

Ready to give yourself and your business the best Thanksgiving ever? Contact me today and let;s talk turkey about your marketing content needs!

Want to Make the Best Use of Your Time? Outsource Your Marketing Content Writing

 If you're a business owner, you're painfully aware of the fact that time is money. For us entrepreneurs who have no choice but to trade hours for dollars, time management may be the most important skill we'll ever learn. This applies not only to sole proprietors or micro-business but to large companies -- in fact, the bigger and faster a business grows, the more money can be lost from tiny individual inefficiencies that add up to a massive waste of time. We must always ask ourselves which tasks earn us money and which activities tie up our time and inhibit our money-making ability. Then we need to offload those time-wasting tasks so we can free up more time for the money-making tasks. Makes sense, right?

Writing professional-quality marketing content is one of those necessary tasks that can propel a business to the next level of fame and profitability, but the time investment is brutal, especially for a non-writer. One of the reason so many people -- including some writers! -- fear writing is the fact that it demands so much time, patience, and mental energy. I've been doing it professionally for decades now, and I can tell you from experience that it's draining, so much so that I have to limit my daily output just to prevent serious burnout. So if it can tire an experienced pro, how exhausting must it be for someone who does something totally different for a living?

Your business needs you. Yes, it needs marketing content too, but doesn't it make a lot more sense to delegate that task to a professional and devote yourself to the daily tasks you must perform to keep the money rolling in?

"But I can't afford to hire a writer." Well, that depends on what your own billable time is worth to your company's bottom line. How many hours of your time will your company lose while you sweat over a blank screen or page? I once remarked at a networking meeting that a professional writer can accomplish more in a few hours than a non-writer, burdened with a host of other responsibilities, could manage in a week. I heard several business owners muttering to each other, "More like two weeks," "You mean three weeks," "For me, three months," et cetera.

That's where time leveraging comes in. You hand the job over to a professional who charges a reasonable rate but does the job in so much less time that you still come out way ahead. Plus, you can be reasonably certain the the final product will actually be good enough to help your business make more money. That's what marketing is supposed to do, after all. How annoyed would you feel to have spent all that time (which, as we've established, is money) and frustration writing content that doesn't even work for you?

Most of us already practice this kind of strategic delegation in some way or other. I could probably do my own taxes, for instance, but it would take me forever and I'd probably miss a lot of valuable deductions or make expensive mistakes because I'm not up on the tax laws. By paying a fair sum to a good professional CPA, I can rest assured that I'll get a more effective result without stressing myself out and wasting huge amounts of time. In the end, I've earned far more in billable time than I've spent on the accounting fee. And if it makes sense for accounting, it makes sense for any other aspect of your business that can be farmed out effectively to a qualified pro.

I'll bet your time is worth a lot to you. Spend it wisely!

Don't Let These Copywriting Creepy-Crawlies Haunt Your Halloween

Boo! Okay, I know it's hard to scare people with all the tired old Halloween cliches. These days, October 31st is more about dressing up in goofy costumes, handing out treats to kids, and sharing some laughs at parties. Even finding a genuinely scary movie gets harder as our society grows increasingly jaded. However, I submit that ineffective or self-sabotaging marketing content merits a shudder for any business owner trying to bring in new customers while retaining the current ones. With that in mind, perhaps you should take this coming Halloween as your cue to watch out for the following copywriting creepy-crawlies.

The Mummified Blog

How long has your blog patiently awaited its newest entry? The longer you let it sit stagnant, the more it dried up into a useless, mummified husk as a marketing tool. Readers who enjoyed your previous posts may wonder what happened to you. Did you simply give up on providing engaging content to your target audience? Did you actually go out of business? Are you out of relevant insights concerning your industry or profession? Even people who are stumbling upon your blog for the first time may notice the extreme age of the last entry you posted. A mummified blog isn't just poor marketing; it's anti-marketing.

The Invisible Website

H. G. Well's story "The Invisible Man" has offered plenty of scares for readers and moviegoers over the decades, with its tale of a scientist whose ability to make himself invisible leads to madness, mayhem, and murder. In the world of marketing, invisibility can and should send a different kind of chill down your spine. Take your website, for example. A website lacking properly optimized content will likely get driven to the bottom of the search results pages, made all but totally invisible by your competitors' more relevant content. "Borrowed" content can produce a similarly deadly outcome, since Google slaps websites down for anything it regards as potential plagiarism. Duplicating large chunks of your own content can hurt your website's performance as well. You put a lot of time, effort and money into your virtual storefront, so don;t let it disappear.

The Poisoned Apple

Witches figure prominently in Halloween lore, and few witches are more familiar in popular culture than the witch in "Snow White" -- she of the poisoned apple that can put you to sleep indefinitely, or at least until a handsome prince wakes you with a kiss. Does your current marketing content have the same effect on your target audience? Brochure, website, blog, or sales letter content that takes forever to get to the point or tries to explain every little thing about a business works like a sedative. At best, your prospective clients won't remember what they just read; at worst, they'll stop reading almost instantly and come away with a negative impression. Cut the padding and focus on keeping your audience awake. If necessary, engage a professional copywriter to act as your Prince Charming by creating content that wakes up your marketing.

Reputation Trick or Treat

Trick or treat isn't all candy and costumes. If you've ever had your lawn T.P.d or your windows egged, you know all too well how angry tricksters can turn the holiday into a big, ugly mess. Well, angry or disappointed customers can make a similar mess of your online reputation, especially if you don't respond to their ranting, abusive comments on your social media pages. Don't let angry, bitter Yelp reviews or other destructive feedback soil your online reputation. Always reply to negativity with positivity, responding to negative reviews in a gentle, constructive, helpful manner. This approach will be noticed and appreciated by others who see that you really do care about your customers' experience. If you don't trust yourself to respond with the necessary civility and grace, contact me and let me write those rebuttals for you.

Have a happy (and profitable) Halloween!

Why Your Marketing Video Needs a Script

Video plays a huge role in many brands' marketing strategies, and for good reason. Google owns YouTube, after all, so a viral video on that platform can do wonders for your online footprint. TikTok offers similar appeal in a shorter, more casual format. Unfortunately, too many business owners think that all they need to create the next great video marketing campaign is a decent camera. Even if you invest a considerable sum on professional videography, you can still end up with a meandering, ineffective final product. What's missing, you ask? The script, I answer. Here's why you need to add this crucial piece to your video marketing puzzle.

A Script Communicates Your Message

The last thing you want when making a marketing video is to neglect the actual marketing message you want to communicate. But that's what often happens when you try to improvise your way through the spoken narration. An experienced video copywriter knows how to craft narration that places the marketing message front and center. This specialist also understands how to call for specific visuals at the perfect moments so the words and pictures work together for the most powerful impressions possible.

A Script Provides Structure

What shape will your marketing video take? Without a written framework, you may have no clue until you view the final cut -- and the process of getting to that final cut will be a needlessly messy and frustrating one. When you write the script first, you've got a bird's-eye view of the entire video that lays everything out clearly for you, your marketing department, and your video team. Does the opening feel too wordy? Do the internal points need rearranging? Do you like the transition into the closing moments? When you have a script, you can make those adjustments on paper much more easily than once the cameras start rolling.

A Script Can Save You Money

I know your first reaction to this subheader is, "Wait, hiring a professional to write a script costs money." Maybe so, but I can all but guarantee that you'd lose more money through the cracks of a sloppy production that you'd spend on a scriptwriter's services. Time really is money in the video production world. You're paying your videographer, director, editor, and any necessary crew members some pretty substantial hourly or daily wages -- the more disorganized or difficult the shoot, the more billable hours those professionals will need to put in to create a presentable final result. When they're working from a script, they're all literally on the same page. That means less confusion, fewer between-takes discussions or arguments, and less chance that the team will miss some crucial shot or other and have to schedule an expensive reshoot. Spend a little more up front so you won't end up spending a lot more later.

Now that you see the value of a professional-quality script, you're probably wondering where to find  a professional-quality scriptwriter who also knows marketing inside out. Not to worry, because I've been writing video scripts for business for 25 years. Contact me today, and let's talk about your video venture!