How to Put Your Marketing Content on a Summertime "Weight Loss Plan"

Summer is swimsuit season, which also makes it weight loss season for many self-conscious individuals. But while you're subsisting on salads and watching the scale like a hawk until you're rescued by the return of sweater season, ask yourself whether your marketing content could stand to lose some extra flab as well. Here are some tips for helping your writing lose weight.

Go On a Verbiage Diet

The English language has an astonishingly huge number of words, most of which you'll never need. Heavy words make for heavy writing, which in turn makes for heavy reading. You can't take that risk when you're trying to spark excitement in your audience. Luckily, for every slug-like five-dollar word in the vocabulary, there are plenty of smaller ones that can do the same job. Use short, simple, peppy words to give your readers a tasty, low-calorie experience.

Remove the Fat...

Okay, you may not be concerned enough about your waistline to consider liposuction just yet, but that doesn't mean you can't perform some beneficial, (mostly) painless surgery on your marketing content. Go nuts in the draft -- that's what drafts are for -- but then examine the results with a surgeon's eye and cut anything that seems redundant, overstated, or just plain unnecessary. You'll see your writing grow more slim, attractive, and compelling right before your eyes -- and before your prospective customers' eyes as well.

...But Leave the Muscle

One problem with starvation diets and other radical weight loss strategies is that they can weaken you by robbing you of energy and muscle mass. Similarly, it's possible to starve your writing in your efforts to make it more compact. If you're cutting content, make sure you retain all the information you really need to convey. If you're too close to your products or services, it's easy to omit a critical detail out of an assumption that readers will know what you're talking about -- when in fact they haven't a clue.

Get Active

Most doctors and fitness gurus would agree that safe, effective weight control depends on a combination of healthy diet and regular exercise. Does your marketing content need to get moving? Inspect it closely to see how many passive verbs you've stuck in there, replacing them with active verbs wherever possible. The more dynamic you can make your writing, the more engagement you'll get from your audience.

Once you've restored your marketing content to its ideal weight, keep an eye on it in the months to come. Consult a professional copywriter if you need help producing slim, trim, effective content all year round. The marketing calendar doesn't include a sweater season!

Start the Presses! How to Write the Right Press Release

So you want to take the business world by storm by calling attention to your products, services or achievements? Your first thought, quite rightly, is that you need a press release. But every time you submit these little nuggets of self-promotion to your chosen media, they seem to disappear into the ether without a trace. How do you create a press release that does the job well enough to get published and make a meaningful  impact? Here are some things to keep in mind when crafting a press release for your company or organization.

Follow the Inverted Pyramid

A press release is a marketing document in news article's clothing. No self-respecting journalistic publication will host a press release that's obviously nothing but a gushy self-plug. (Those "sponsored content" pieces you see online are clearly marked as such, so they get a pass.) Your piece needs to read like news, and that means starting with the proper format. Structure your press release in the journalist's traditional "inverted pyramid," top-loading the article with the most critical facts before moving on to supporting details and additional data of interest. It's also critical that you answer the "5 Ws" of journalism -- What, Who, When, Where, and Why -- in your press release. Above all, the subject of your press release should seem newsworthy. Ask yourself, "Why do readers need to know about this?" Then make sure your readers can readily see that relevance.

Balance Objectivity and Subjectivity

With the exception of editorials, journalistic writing strives to maintain an objective point of view. Gushing, condemning, or endorsing the subject matter just isn't done by competent, responsible news writers. So how in the world are you supposed to generate the enthusiasm necessary to attract prospective customers or business partners in your press release? That's easy -- put the editorializing into the mouths of others.

Press releases, like other types of stories, typically feature multiple quotes from individuals who are either directly involved in the events or adding their two cents as an expert in the subject at hand. You, the writer, don't have to play your emotional hand as long as you have company representative and industry pundits ravings about how exciting this new development is or how brilliant a solution this new product provides. Your quotes are the beating heart of your press release; the surrounding narrative is the brains.

Become Your Own Newsroom

Don't rely 100 percent on your target news publication rushing your story to the presses, no matter how well-crafted it may be. Publishers juggle tons of submissions at any given time, forcing them to give preference to those lucky few with the perfect combination of relevance, writing skill, and word count for the current issue's particular needs. Instead of depending entirely on other publishers, be your own publisher as well. Post your press releases to the News section of your website, and use your social media channels to drum up interest and provide inbound links to those juicy stories. 

You might even profit from retroactive press release publication. I was once hired by a finance company to write 12 months' worth of "old" press releases covering the company's busy, exciting first year in the industry. The client posted each press release on the company website with an appropriate time stamp, making it look as if the pieces had been posted as the events occurred. This filled out the Company News section nicely and added welcome weight and authority to the business's online presence, while helping to set the tone for future postings.

Follow these basic tips, and you're more likely to get significant results from your press releases. You can make the process even easier and more effective by outsourcing the actual writing to a professional. See you in the headlines!

Content That Converts: Writing for Your Sales Funnel

We've all seen tons of websites that just didn't do it for us for whatever reason. Maybe you got hit with a gigantic wall of text covering everything the company does, thinks, and believes, when all you wanted was to find the right replacement part for your lawnmower motor. Or maybe you clicked onto a page promising to solve that exact issue, only to slog through more generalized, irrelevant content. It's enough to make you jump ship for a competitor's website, isn't it? Well, your online presence may be suffering the same problem -- a low conversion rate caused by folks ejecting themselves from your sales funnel.

Attention-grabbing Articles

If you've been in sales for long, you know of course that the sales funnel is your system from grabbing a large number of visitors and narrowing that number down to red-hot qualified leads. You scoop them into the top of the sales funnel by coming up in their online search for a particular problem, topic, or question. For instance, someone in the Austin area searching for "lawnmower trouble" might be rewarded with a link to your blog article on "Lawnmower Troubleshooting Tips for Austin Homeowners." The article itself might invite readers to click through to your website for more helpful information. So now you've got Austin homeowners coming to your site for answers to their lawnmower problems. Assuming that's what you wanted, congratulations!

Web Wrangling

But there's still the rest of the funnel to guide your prospective customers through -- and without the proper content, you'll lose them somewhere along the way. You might even lose them right from the home page, in fact. Some businesses try to land the sale immediately, which not comes across as pushy but also turns the home page into a gigantic mess of "Here's way more than you wanted to know. Now click here to purchase." Sales don't work that way! You have to route your visitors to specific areas of the site that offer solid, specific solutions. Make sure your site navigation is clear enough that they can find these portals quickly and easily.

Landing Leads

Your customers-to-be are now in the midpoint of the sales funnel: your product or service landing pages. These pages do a lot of the heavy lifting in converting your prospects. Now that you've gout your audience pared down to a specific need or interest, here's your chance to demonstrate your detailed understanding of their problem, along with an exciting sales pitch for your solution. There's a good chance that your visitor might be intrigued enough to make a purchase or contact your business at this point -- but don't count on it!

Fulfilling Followups

Yes, there's usually one more level of the sales funnel to negotiate. Your visitor may be almost ready to buy from you, but maybe not right this minute. It's imperative that you grab their contact information at this point so you can continue to follow up with them later. You do this by enticing them to sign up for a special offer such as, say, a free ebook on "How to Keep Your Lawnmower Working for 50 Years." You can then send them periodic email blasts and e-newsletters to keep them interested until they finally buy.

As you can see, different parts of the sales funnel call for different kinds of marketing content. Once you've achieved this fine tuning, you'll be able to keep those visitors moving through the funnel until they emerge as genuine leads. Contact me if you'd like some professional help as you write your way to higher conversion rates!

Why Is a Freelance Copywriter Like a Microwave?

My microwave went kaput not long ago -- the second small, cheap unit to have lived up to its price tag in a matter of months. Since this particular freelance marketing copywriter doesn't have a lot of kitchen expertise, this failure might seem like a major crisis to be resolved with an immediate replacement. But I'm obviously not having much luck with these contrivances, and since I can't afford to take out a membership in the Microwave of the Month Club, I'm content for the moment to steam and bake and boil and broil the old-fashioned way. Everything comes out just as well as it did under radiation. Why, then, are microwaves so popular in households the world over? Here are some reasons:

• Speed - Microwave ovens can drastically reduce the time needed to produce the final result.
• Convenience - Pop the food in, press some buttons, and wait a bit. No muss, no fuss.
• Energy savings - Microwaves don't burn nearly as much as energy as running your burners and oven for an hour or more at a time.
• Redundancy - It's a handy backup to your other cooking appliances.
• Space savings - A microwave is like a little kitchen in a box, doing the job of multiple specialized tools within a single small "footprint."

While I was pondering these benefits, it suddenly hit me that we freelance copywriters are the microwave ovens of the marketing content world. How so? Let's go back over the list again:

• Speed - A skilled, experienced writer can produce top-quality content in a fraction of the time it might take a non-expert.
• Convenience - Pay the fee, hand over the background info, and wait a bit. No muss, no fuss.
• Energy savings - Outsourcing your writing needs frees up your available energy to do a zillion other critical tasks.
• Redundancy - Freelancers are a great backup to whatever writing staff you already have.
• Space savings - Don't want to keep a full-time writer? Hire a freelancer as needed and save "space" on your payroll!

Yes, you can continue to write your own marketing materials, just as I can continue cooking my food using those bulky old appliances. But it's a comparatively wasteful, stressful and tiring process compared to letting the "miracle machine" do all the work. Consider freelance copywriters your "miracle machine" for producing effective marketing content quickly and painlessly. 

Well, that did it; I've talked myself into shopping for another microwave. Sure, I'll have to spend a little money, but I've got better things to do than slave over a hot stove. Don't you?

Web Content Not Working? Could Be Your Design

The title makes this post sound like it's focused on web design, but it isn't really. Why would a copywriter presume to write about web design? It just so happens that web design and written content are two sides of the same coin -- that coin being the revenue you make off of incoming site traffic and conversions.

Let's say your fabulous new business website is failing to turn visitors into buyers. You know it's fabulous because you hired a professional copywriter to cook up some fabulous content, which he did. The text grabs the attention right off the bat, makes a powerful statement, and closes with the appropriate call to action -- so why is it tanking?

Well, for starters, maybe it's sitting in an effective layout. Does the design make it easy for visitors to see where they can find the specific solution to the problem that brought them to the site? If the home page doesn't provide the necessary navigational cues, viewers may never drill deeper to encounter the rest of that fabulous content buried within the site. But the designer doesn't hold the sole responsibility in creating a viewer-friendly web page. If the writer presents an overstuffed wall of text, the designer may find it impossible to set that text in a visually appealing way. Writer and designer must be on the same page (so to speak) from the beginning, working in concert to create a final result that gets results.

Or maybe your written content isn't working because a large percentage of your viewers can't even read it on their weapons of choice -- mobile devices. Unless you're using a responsive website design that takes different forms to fit different screen sizes, your entire site may be squeezed down until the text becomes microscopic. This issue has grown so significant that Google recently decided to give search-ranking preference to "mobile-friendly" sites sporting responsive designs. The higher your search rankings, the more visitors you'll receive -- and thanks to your responsive design, they'll actually be able to read your content.

Landing pages pose challenges of their own. These pages are saddled with the task of pitching their particular product or service so compellingly that the viewer can't help but click through to the order page. This means that the content must take center stage with as few visual encumbrances as possible. If your landing pages are too busy showing off your web designer's visual flair, they may not be able to direct your prospective customers' attention from beginning to end in an uninterrupted flow. It's like having having someone repeatedly running into the room and shouting at you while you're trying to work on an important project.

Is your design doing this to your landing page content?

By contrast, a well-conceived landing page design will enhance the text instead of competing with it. This is another situation in which writer and designer can achieve great things by working as a team. Creating exciting headers and positioning them in the perfect font and alignment, for instance, will break up the text in a way that soothes the eyes even as it compels further reading. The writer can also indicate to the designer where it might make sense to post specific images, trust badges, and other eye candy that will keep the reader engaged.

Web content and web design are equally important pieces of the big branding and inbound marketing puzzle. That's why you should choose writers and designers who communicate well, work together effectively, and understand the roles they must play in your success. Configure your website so it's easier to read and follow, and you've made it easier for yourself to make customers. So... here's looking at you, website!

How to "Friendly Up" Your Marketing Content Like a Pro

"Their website doesn't reflect their personality at all," said the marketing provider committed to revamping a small financial company's online presence. As this marketing provider's go-to writing subcontractor, my mission was clear -- rewrite competent but dry-sounding text to give it a warmer, friendlier tone. But would I be able to do that without sacrificing the sense of clear-eyed professionalism and wisdom so important for a financial firm?

The answer, happily, was yes, but the question certainly bears asking. If you're a medical clinic, accounting firm, insurance agent or some other type of B2C consultant, you must tread a thin line between conveying your expertise and projecting a genuine sense of humanness. You want people to feel comfortable and familiar with you, but not to the point of adopting such a down-home, aw-shucks tone that you torpedo your professional image. Here are some ways you can negotiate that tightrope successfully.

Use direct address. Many business make the mistake of falling mostly into the third person in their marketing content: "XYZ Corporation helps homeowners with the following problems...." Yes, the results can seem impressively professional -- but also cold and alienating. You don't want to read about what some company out there does for its target market; you want to know what our company can do for you. You can't come across as friendly unless you're addressing the reader directly. Making this change can be as simple as adjusting, say, your employee bios from third person (in which you're describing them) to first person (in which they're describing themselves).

Limit your vocabulary. You don't have to dumb down your content for an audience that expects a certain degree of skill and knowledge from your company. But you do need to go through that content and replace the five-dollar words with shorter, simpler ones wherever possible. Clear, simple word choices make the content easier to read -- a friendly gesture in itself -- while making you appear less intimidating and more approachable. The concepts are still there, the solutions are still sophisticated, but the language is that of your reader, not "business speak" or "tech speak."

Keep it other-directed. Every marketing student knows that you're supposed to emphasize benefits instead of features in your content. By staying focused on the reader's everyday pains, needs, and wishes, you show a genuine concern for their situation even as you explain how you provide the solutions that make their lives better. This emphasis alone can help transform cold, forbidding lists of "What We Do" into a comforting reassurance from a new friend who wants to help. Even if you have to throw out some of the details of your services, that's okay if it prompts the reader to contact their new trusted advisor (you) you for more information.

So never fear -- you can sound like a real person and an expert at what you do. Your products, services, and experience will continue to speak for themselves. Just make sure you're addressing your ideal clients or customers on the issues they care about, in terms they can understand, and then offer the solution they need. That's what friends are for, right?

It's Not Just the Content -- It's What You Do With It

I'd been blogging for a client in the home remodeling industry for several months when one day I noticed something strange. (Bear in mind that I don't usually visit client websites to check out my own writing; I already know what I did, and I don't feel a compulsion to see my every word "up in lights.") On this particular occasion, I had a sneaking suspicion that something was up, since the client hadn't voiced approval or even acknowledged receipt of the articles. So I went to the site, and sure enough, he hadn't posted what was supposed to be the previous two month's worth of material. Nor had he substituted anything of his own -- the blog had simply gone untouched the whole time. 

Any good writer's gut will sink a bit at such a revelation. Were the articles inferior or unacceptable for some reason? If so, why wouldn't the client let me know so I could make fixes? Had I done something to blow the gig entirely? I knew these thoughts would nag at me until I got to the bottom of the situation. 

So I asked the client what was going on, and he replied that things had been really busy lately and he'd let the whole blog thing slip his mind.

Well, there's not much I can do about that. I can take most of the pain out of the blog-writing process, but I can't make the client use the materials I supply. In this case, there was even a virtual assistant standing by to post the articles; the client had just never bothered to open them and read them, much less forward them to the assistant.

You hear the phrase "The fortune is in the followup" all the time in the world of sales and marketing. Usually, it refers to the need to keep pursuing your prospective buyers through multiple touches to snag a sale. But I'd say that it applies equally well to making full use of blog articles and other written content. There's no point in writing this stuff -- or paying someone else to write it -- if you don't put it work to work for you. 

You might be surprised at how often this sort of lapse occurs. I remember once being hired to write a big pile of marketing content for one client, who then proceeded to forget that he'd ever hired (and paid!) me. On another occasion, I asked a local client whether the onesheet I'd written for him the previous year had been useful in drumming up new business for him. 

Him: No, it didn't really help my marketing, actually.

Me: Wow, sorry to hear that. Do we need to make some revisions to it?

Him: Oh no, the content is fine. I just never printed it up and handed it out.

Again -- nothing I can do about that.

Before you decide that your marketing content isn't working for you, ask yourself whether you've given it a chance to do that work. Are you promoting your website via social media? Do your blog articles get posted regularly and frequently enough to build a readership that could turn into a clientele? Are you putting your print marketing collateral into enough people's hands? You may discover that your content really does work after all -- but only if you work it!