Archive for April 2012

Creating Your Audience through Content Marketing

April 30, 2012, 8:33 am

As 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. Brian Clark of Copyblogger recently wrote an article for Forbes illustrating this idea through the example of Procter & Gamble. 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 — housewives. The answer? A new form of entertainment called 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. 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. And every few minutes, 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 was singing the praises of a new dandruff shampoo day in and day out, eventually you’d want to buy some just to see what all the fuss is about. Procter & Gamble had become more than a product manufacturer — it was now a media producer.

This same approach is alive and well today. We call it content marketing — advertising combined with 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 until the urge to buy or at least contact you 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 your brand as the real deal.

Blogging can prove especially valuable for selling your expertise to an audience. Say you’re a tax attorney trying to establish your credibility and convert prospects. 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 — start turning to you first as their own personal guru on the subject. And when it’s time to get their taxes done, who do you think they’re going to call? That’s content marketing.

Now it’s your turn to create your own business’s media channels. Drive demand and build your own buzz through the power of content marketing. Who knows? You just might become the hottest show in town.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

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Writing and Rest: A Productive Combination

April 16, 2012, 8:47 am

I like to sleep. Unfortunately I also like making money, and a freelance writer earns money for writing, not for napping. But a strategic approach to sleep and/or rest can make a big difference in how well you use your time, whether you write for a living or operate most any other kind of business. Here are a few tips that I’ve found helpful:

Find your rhythm. Everyone’s body clock has a built-in “siesta time” — a period of day or night when your brain seems to slow down and creative inspiration must give way to sheer technique and stubbornness. A skilled writer can keep slogging away during these hours, but the slower pace devalues that billable time. Personally, writing comes more easily to me in the mornings and evenings, so I try to reserve afternoons for more mundane business practices. If you can adapt your daily schedule to match your peak performance windows, I highly recommend doing so.

Sleep on it before you start. I find it challenging to launch right into a new project, especially if I’ve never written anything for that client before. Even if I’ve just concluded a phone interview and have all my other informational ducks in a row, my mind still needs some time to absorb the data before working with it. If this describes you too, I recommend going over all your background info before bedtime and then letting your subconscious sort it out as you sleep. Chances are that you’ll wake up in the morning feeling prepared and ready to write — in fact, your grey matter may have already gotten a head start (if you’ll pardon the expression) on the writing.

Sleep on it before you submit. So you’re up against a deadline and you need to shoot that draft off to the client ASAP. We’ve all been there, but I would urge you to stop, spend some time away from the draft, and then take a second look at it before hitting “Send.” Ideally, you might have time for some actual shut-eye to clear your head. But even if you’re really up against the clock, you can still take a walk around the block, return some phone calls, watch a few minutes of mindless TV — anything to distract your mind from the job at hand. You can then review it with fresh eyes and catch any little rough spots before passing it on.

Do all that other stuff everyone says to do. You know what I’m talking about — eating a balanced diet, getting some sort of daily exercise, drinking plenty of water, sleeping regular hours and so on. I know that I get so fixed on what I’m doing that I go into a kind of hypnotic trance, with mealtimes or bedtimes becoming abstract concepts instead of rules. How many other freelancers and business owners out there are guilty of the same failing? If you’re a one-person shop, then it only takes one sick or fatigued worker to shut the entire shop down. For freelancers who subsist mainly on active income streams, no production means no money. So keep the machine well-oiled and give it the occasional rest.

Sleep tight!

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

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How Copywriting Can Use (or Rebut) Complaints

April 2, 2012, 8:30 am

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.

Consider the technique, so popular in the world of politics, of tearing down the other guy. If you want to position yourself as better than competition, go right ahead — but I wouldn’t build a whole campaign around it. Your audience might wonder if you feel insecure about Brand X because you spend so much time slamming it. The reader of your ad 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.

I’ve mentioned previously that 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 a local-search directory for products and services. If so, hopefully your listing collects rave reviews from satisfied customers — but the occasional furious accusation or criticism, whether true or false, 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 come away with nothing.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

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