Be Brief
One of the worst mistakes email copywriters make is trying to shove the entire story into the email message. Think about when you open a marketing email in your inbox. Do you read every single word in there? Probably not. It’s more likely that you scan for important points so you can glean the overall message, and decide whether you want to take any action. So if you’re sending email with hundreds of words of copy, you’re making it much more difficult for recipients to decide whether they want to click through … because they can’t quickly sift through all of the information in your email!
Instead, find a way to summarize what the reader will get in a compelling way, and let them click through to a page on your website for more information. Take a look at how this HubSpot customer and Certified Partner Precision Athletics drafted a brief email that encouraged readers to click through for more information:
There are a few lines of copy used to set up the purpose of the email and, of course, thank the recipient for utilizing their free training session. But after that, Precision Athletics gets to the point of the email — delivering success stories from those who have completed the training program to motivate the email recipient.
Keeping your message on-point is the key to writing brief email copy. What’s the point you’re trying to make with your email? If you know the action your email is supposed to drive — recipient buys a grill the size of a Foosball table, recipient remembers to buy their Bruce Springsteen tickets, recipient gets motivated to work out — you’ll have a much easier time drafting succinct email copy that remains focused on that one end goal. And if writing succinct email copy isn’t enough of a motivator for you to narrow down your goals, remember that having just one primary call-to-action in your email marketing results in better click-through rates than emails with competing calls-to-action!
Use Actionable Language in Your CTA
That’s right, emails have calls-to-action, too! Well, the good ones do. First and foremost, your email call-to-action should be extremely easy to identify. Remember, people scan their emails, and if there’s one thing you want your recipient to pick up on, it’s your call-to-action. If you’re sending an HTML email, you may decide to include a button like this AmazonLocal email did below.
“The On-Demand Brand: 10 Rules for Digital Marketing Success in an Anytime, Everywhere World” characterizes the challenge of demanding attention from a new generation of consumers who want what they want, when they want it, and where they want it. Here are the new marketing rules I support:
- Insight comes before inspiration. Innovative marketing starts with customer insights culled from painstaking research into who your customers are, and how they use digital media. Then it’s time to innovate through the channels or platforms that are relevant.
- Don’t repurpose, re-imagine. Digital quite simply is not for repurposing content that exists in other channels. It’s about re-imagining content to create blockbuster experiences that cannot be attained through any other medium.
- Don’t just join the conversation, spark it. Create new online communities of interest, rather than joining existing ones. Ask why it should be, and why customers should care. Then give them a reason to keep coming back. Keep it real, social, and events-based.
- There’s no business without show business. Remember Hollywood secrets. Your brand is a story; tell it. Accentuate the personalizable, own-able, and sharable. Viral is an outcome, not a strategy. Make people laugh and they will buy.
- Want control? Give it away. Several companies, including Mastercard, Coca-Cola, and Doritos have let customers build commercials and design contests, with big rewards for the customer and for the company. That’s giving up control, with some risk, to get control.
- It’s good to play games with your customers. Games are immersive, but shouldn’t be just a diversion. They need to drive home the value proposition. Don’t forget to include a call to action, like leading people to the next step of the buying process.
Emails are key to communication in the office. Yet, as a rule, they are badly written. So by consistently sending sharp, well-composed electronic messages, you will make yourself stand out from the crowd. Take careful note of the following:
1. Hone your subject line
Try to be more specific. Instead of giving your email the name ‘Byrne project’, call it ‘Byrne project: new deadline for phase 2’. Your email is already more interesting than most.2. Don’t bury the lead
If you want to annoy people, make them read three paragraphs before you get to the point. If you want to rise in the company, state your purpose in the first sentence or two and then get to the why and how of the matter.3. Request further action
End emails with a suggestion or a request for action. An example would be: ‘I will call you on Monday at 10am to discuss this’ or ‘When can we get this done?’. Otherwise, nothing is likely to happen.PLUS: 10 Best One-Liners
4. Be human
People who would never dream of being cold and abrupt in person, often come across that way in their emails. Being businesslike doesn’t mean being impersonal. Try to remember that the recipient, like you, is a human being.5. Proof your email
Just one misspelling, grammatical error or typo can make a sender look careless and disrespectful. Sending ‘clean’ emails lifts you above the sloppy crowd.
Video has become an essential marketing tool. It’s a great way to tell your story, show the human side of your business and communicate highly complex ideas in an easy to digest manner. But while video has the power to deeply engage, it also has the power to bore the viewer to tears—and creating compelling video is different than writing, say, a compelling blog post.
Starting a camera and spouting out a thousand words of brilliant prose does not make a compelling video. There are proven techniques and tools that can help make your videos engage, hold attention and wow the viewer. Here are 10 tools that can help you get started.
1. Prezi. This is a interesting take on the slide presentation as it allows you to create one giant and more easily connected idea and then use the tool to zoom, pan and fly all around the presentation to create a really dynamic feel. It’s not the easiest tool to master, but check out some of the incredible examples on the site to get inspiration.
2. YouTube Editor. I like this tool because it’s free, and because you’re using YouTube to host and stream your videos anyway, it gives you some nice editing capability right in YouTube. You can also add annotations and transcripts to your videos making them more SEO friendly.
3. Camtasia. This PC and Mac desktop software is the market leader in the screencapture video world. Screencast videos are a great way to demonstrate how something online works. Camtasia has some nice features that allow you to add focus to areas on your screen as well as annotations and URLs.
Today is March 4 and you know what that means. It’s National Grammar Day! Here are ten ways to celebrate.
1. Send someone you love a Grammar Day e-card from the Grammar Girl site.
2. Peruse the online Chicago Manual of Style.
3. Challenge your skills by taking the Newsroom 101 writing tests.
4. Buy yourself a grammar t-shirt.
5. Set up an RSS feed for the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar blog.
6. Ridicule people who put their bad grammar on display.
7. Have fun with number six and continue ridiculing people who put their bad grammar on display.
8. Read about what drives real grammar and spelling snobs.
9. Join the Facebook Group Knowing the Difference Between “Their”, “There” and “They’re”.
10. Leave a comment chastising me for all the grammar mistakes I’ve made in my life.
Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.
Sometimes it’s darkest just before the light. Here are 11 great articles to assess the times we’re in, and plan for better days.
Five C’s for Communicating in this Crunch
We’ve developed a gut-check list of “Five C’s” to help guide communications on dire economic subjects, from news releases to corporate Web sites to internal communications.
10 Tips for a Challenging Economic Environment
9. Communicate authentically. Strong leaders acknowledge the challenges they struggle with and, by doing so, build trust among followers. Rather than being a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.
Marketing and PR tactics, budgets likely to change during recession
What companies don’t realize is their marketing budget will go a lot further and create much more buzz in a down market. As your competition pulls back, you should become much more aggressive. When you do, you will achieve top-of-mind status and grab market share as the economy stabilizes and will be able to remain on top during the next upswing in the economy.
Are You a Media Savvy Leader? How Agency Heads Can Boost Results in a Tight Economy
I think the inability of the PR business to really comprehend what Web 2.0 is about is shocking. So, real leaders get in there and they take a look at the trends in media and online and get active there. For example, if you’re going to offer a CEO blog, you have to be prepared to spend an hour a day doing it—not every other day. Also important is understanding and respecting the online world’s mindset of sharing—it’s all about developing conversations with constituents.
Your website can thrive in a recession
It is 14 times cheaper to allow a customer to complete a task on a website than to have the customer complete the same task over the phone. The Web is 35 times cheaper for completing such a task than a face-to-face interaction. Isn’t that a compelling business case for a website during a recession?
The range of possible futures confronting business is great. Companies that nurture flexibility, awareness, and resiliency are more likely to survive the crisis, and even to prosper.
Time to Reboot: What to Expect in Politics, Policy and PR in 2009
For those in consumer PR, this will be a tough year as product-side clients retrench. But if you are engaged in advocacy PR, public affairs or crisis communications, 2009 may be a robust year for your business, especially if you can hitch things to the “change” agenda in Washington and on Wall Street.
Social Media Begins Forcing the Totally Transparent Layoff
The combination of social media technology such as Twitter—where people post updates about themselves online at Twitter.com—and a cultural shift toward greater personal disclosure means more and more employees will document details of their dismissal, said Jennifer Benz, a communications consultant based in San Francisco.
Give Data a Human Touch to Weather the Economic Storm
The key, say many experts, is to use customer data and analytics for its original purpose: forging stronger customer relationships.
Market Smarter in 2009: Make the Right Choices
Remember two words: frequency, consistency. Even with finite resources, it’s vital to maintain a level of frequency and consistency. It is crucial to stay in front of your customers and prospects. You should never disappear for stretches at a time. If that means you need to focus marketing efforts on a few of your strongest market sectors, do it.
5 Lessons on Marketing for the Recession
Lesson: Keep hiring channels open and be pickier than ever. For anyone who hasn’t read Hard Times or any of the Studs Terkel interview compilations, they are an incredible insight into people’s attitudes and behaviors throughout history. I highly recommend
Face it every writer has days when they sit down to write and the words just don’t flow onto the page. You write one sentence and check how many words you just added in hopes it will miraculously be sufficient. The problem writers have is, when their heart isn’t in their writing, it shows. (Here’s how to overcome your writing demons).
To help you get your writing on track, here are twenty-one tips to prevent you from getting to the point where you have what I affectionately call blank-screen-syndrome.
- Create a list of articles you want to write but don’t have the time. I find that it’s easy to get inspired to write pieces about other topics when the pressure’s on to write a specific topic. There’s nothing like a deadline to make anything else seem exciting.
- Feed your mind. Read a book and/or other sources of insight such as blogs and news sites to get ideas. This isn’t an excuse to get a snack or other indulgence.
- Develop a story around a trending topic, even if it’s not in your area of focus. The objective is to stretch yourself to find a way to write about the hot topics. This can be useful for bloggers and company content where you need to keep your content relevant.
- Keep a swipe file. Sign up for a wide range of newsletters focused on your main topics to see what other writers and bloggers are covering. Save those articles that provide new insights or a different format for inspiration. This doesn’t mean you should simply copy someone else’s ideas or articles.
- Collect relevant questions you and others have on your main subject area.Think like you’re writing an endless FAQ. A list of questions gives you a hook to build your content around. This is particularly useful for blogs and company content.
- Get a jump before you quit. Before you quit a writing session, write down the ideas you have for the next session; form them into an outline added to the current document to make it easy to pick up where you left off.
- Close your digital door to remove distractions. This means close your social media sites, chat and email. To this end, it’s useful to have a dedicated space for writing.
- Make an appointment to write. Set your timer or alarm for a specific time and that’s when you have to start writing.
- Change writing environments. If you always write at your kitchen table, and you’re now stuck for new ideas, try writing at a coffee shop or local library.
- Seek inspiration. Do something that provides you with a muse. Go to a play, or museum.
Joe Pulizzi over at the Content Marketing Institute recently shared a fascinating video presentation from Coca-Cola about their upcoming marketing strategy.
The short version?
Content marketing has arrived.
For more than 100 years, Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s foremost practitioners of what they call “one-way storytelling.”
(You and I call that an advertisement.)
But Coke — in the form of their brilliant VP of global advertising strategy, Jonathan Mildenhall — is looking around and realizing that the 30-second television ad won’t take them where they want to go next.
To do that, they’re turning to the tool that’s quickly becoming the most important strategy for smaller businesses — content marketing.
For anyone who still thinks that content marketing is some kind of fad, take a look at the thinking (and dollars) going into Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy, aimed at doubling worldwide consumption of Coke by the year 2020.
The videos are compelling, but they’re also packed with advertising jargon that can be about as intelligible as Klingon.
And yet, this is a peek into a great marketing and advertising mind — and there are some juicy strategies we can carry off and implement in the real world.
Here are a few of my favorite ideas from Mildenhall’s presentation
The term “content marketing” sounds like a hip buzzword to describe the latest marketing craze, but in reality, the concept has been around since the first newsletters came rolling off the presses.
And if there’s one single reason why companies around the world continue to incorporate “content marketing strategies” into their yearly plans – it’s because it has been working for hundreds, if not thousands of years!
Let’s go over a short recap as to why content marketing is a good marketing strategy to employ for today’s online audience:
- Show You’re an Authority on a Subject – When you offer unbiased and valuable information on a given subject matter, you earn trust with people who visit your blog or website. And as well all know, increasing the trustworthiness of your brand, tends to increase business.
- Search Engine Traffic – Ten years ago, piling on content was a surefire way to grow traffic, but thanks to content farming and Google catching on to other SEO trickery, it’s not that easy anymore. However, the more content you create, the more search engine traffic you will accumulate simply because you will be increasing your longtail search visibility. But more importantly, well written content gets linked to – and backlinks are vital for climbing search engine rankings.
- Build Your Marketing List and Readership – And as you commit to writing great content day in and day out, hopefully you are building up a list of readers whether it’s through Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans or email and RSS subscribers. As your marketing list grows, the more flexibility you have to promote and share offers to your subscribers.
The following resources below will help anyone learn about why content marketing is important to any business and how to get the most of it.
For Beginners
For beginners to people looking for primers on content marketing, these links will get you on the right track.
1. What is Content Marketing – Copyblogger’s introduction to the world of content marketing. If you don’t know what content marketing is, then this is the perfect place to start.
2. The Beginner’s Guide To Blogging & Content Marketing – Learn how to source freelance writers, promote your content, and more with this free e-book.
3. Creating Consistent Content: A Content Marketing Plan – This post will help you create a content marketing schedule and (hopefully) stick to it.
4. Why You Need To Be Doing Content Marketing – This post outlines 10 content marketing goals worth pursuing.
5. The Time For Content Marketing Is Now – A call to arms post on why you need to be jumping on content marketing now. Post also includes stellar examples of content creation done right.
6. The Periodic Table of Content – Types of content broken down into ‘elements’ on a periodic table. An easy way to look at what types of content there are and approximately how long each type of content should be.
7. 7 Content Marketing Myths: Selling the C-Level – It’s not easy to get executives to buy in to new marketing initiatives – use some of the tips in this post to learn how to sell the c-level on content strategy.
8. The Content Marketer’s Guide To Web Content – This is an introductory post to the different types of content on the web with some examples of where + how you can use them. If you ever need a primer on content, this is the post to refer to.
- Make a list of critical vs. non-critical activities. As in, which ones will impact my customers and the current or future survival of my business? Then, focus only on those essential activities. Eliminate, delegate, or postpone everything else.For me, that meant I cancelled a bunch of non-essential social, community and volunteer activities. This is a great way to find out what you’re really, truly passionate and energized about. I found I easily ditched my boring Dreamweaver course but nothing was going to get between me and my djembe drumming class (great therapy!).
- Figure out what you can reasonably do and what you can’t, with the understanding that you need to get some rest and take extra care of yourself during a stressful time. I had over a thousand emails/alerts in my inbox, most of them to satisfy my endless cravings for information. Without mercy, I deleted everything that didn’t require action.
- Set expectations up front. For me, clients consistently identify reliability as one of my core brand attributes. While waiting for hours in the hospital, I sent each of my key clients (and suppliers) a personalized but brief note. I let them know I had a family situation and that I expected to meet my deadlines, but there was a small chance I may need a bit of extra time. All thanked me for letting them know. Turns out I met every deadline.
- Be authentic (but not needy). Many of my client and peer relationships have turned into valued friendships. People in my network genuinely wanted to know how I was doing. Although it would’ve been easy, I refrained from giving them an aloof, conversation-closing “everything’s fine.” I showed them the real me and shared what I truly felt – fear, hope, exhaustion, gratitude, imperfection. In less than 30 words (they want to know you’re OK, but enough already).
- Ask for help from your support system. It doesn’t need to be big. It doesn’t need to be lasagne. Despite my fierce need for independence, I asked my mastermind group, my friends and some of my close clients to send their positive, healing thoughts, if they were so inclined. They were grateful to feel like they could help. I was grateful to feel supported. Strangely, it made us all a little closer.
Here’s a few things to remember when you’re creating a strategy:
- Social media thrives on interaction, so make sure you’re giving your fans and followers something they can’t just read off your website.
- Add some personality to messages so that your fans know there’s actually a person on the other side of the connection.
- Remember that different communities have different personalities, so don’t just spam them all with the same line. If you’ve done your job correctly, people who belong to more than one social community may be following your account on each, so it is a red flag to see the same line of content on each. That flag says you’re spamming me.
2. Turn blog posts into advertisements.
If you’re blogging consistently, you’re on the right track. But if all your blog posts are about your own product or service, you’re really just advertising. Don’t do this! Provide value for the readers of your blog. They didn’t come to your blog to read about how awesome XYZ service is, although you can definitely link to that service or even mention it at the end of a post. The more in-depth and interesting your blog posts are, the more people will realize that a) you know what you’re talking about, and b) you’re not just giving them a used car salesman-type pitch. The best blog posts get the reader to think highly of the author, which makes them think highly of the company, which makes them remember that company when they have a need for your product or service. Be subtle. Give readers the perception that you’re awesome, but don’t shove it down their throats.
William Lee and Rick Patrick are the co-creators of “Talkingstick,” a performance series that is part of the increasingly popular storytelling movement where people stand up before a live audience and tell stories. I know Master Lee (his stage name) and Mr. Patrick because we play poker together, and I’ve noticed something interesting about them: As experienced storytellers, they are so familiar with spotting exaggeration and lies that they can quickly identify a bluff in a poker game.
It is well established that being a good storyteller is a useful skill in careers (and not just for journalists and poker players). We need to tell stories all the time — to position ourselves in the job market, to pitch a new business idea to investors, to explain why a failure was actually a success, and so on.
I recently attended a “Talkingstick” show and sat down with Master Lee and Mr. Patrick to learn some of the techniques they use to tell good stories. Here’s what I learned:
1. Keep it simple. The brain gets overwhelmed when trying to process too much information.
2. Openings and closings are very important. When Master Lee and Mr. Patrick organize their shows, they make sure to begin and end the evenings with their strongest material since this is often what stays with the listener. That is the same reason skilled public speakers often memorize the beginning and ending of a speech but allow themselves to improvise more in the middle.
3. Be mindful of your story’s spine. If your story has six parts, all six parts must be essential. Beware of tangents: if something goes too far astray, you will probably lose your audience’s attention.
Read full article in New York Times
When you think of social media marketing, you may only consider the potential for introducing new customers to your products and services through social interaction. However, social media marketing is an effective way to keep your existing customers happy – and happy customers drive repeat sales that can significantly impact your bottom line.
Here are five easy tips to help you increase your revenue stream from existing customers with social media.
1. Reward frequent purchases
Since it costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, why not increase revenue by encouraging your customers to make purchases more frequently? If you sell products, you can entice customers to come back more often, and if you sell services, you can promote add-on services and upgrades.
Offer exclusive deals and specials to your social media community, basing the discount on the customer level or frequency of purchase. For example, you could offer a coupon to your Facebook community, providing them with a discount off their fourth purchase.
2. Encourage more spending per purchase
Another way to increase revenue from existing customers is to encourage them to spend more at each purchase. You may set a goal to increase each transaction by 25%, for example. Once again, create exclusive deals for your social media community. For example, offer a coupon for $40 off a $150 purchase to increase product purchases.
For service industries, consider bundling your offerings together, providing a discount for multiple services that will entice your customers to spend more. You could use Twitter to drive awareness of the deal with a call to action.
3. Continue engaging customers to keep your communities strong
No one wants to see an endless stream of deals and promotions with very little customer interaction or information sharing. Be sure to continue with your engagement strategy as you add deals and promotions to your tweets and postings.
The rule of thumb for an effective content mix is 20% company-related content and 80% relevant third-party content and direct engagement with your fans. So mix in the promotions carefully, and you will continue to have a thriving community.
First, you need to identify your audience. There are several methods to identify your audience, such as determining keywords that are bringing users to your website, creating user personae and more. Once you’ve identified your audience, you should create content that speaks to each user persona. Do not stray from this concept, because you will lose readers or followers. Readers are finicky at the beginning of any article or post. If you don’t capture their attention with the title, the remainder of the content might as well be in a language they don’t understand.
For example, let’s say you operate a blog about the exam for certified public accounts. Who is your audience? There are a few user personae we can identify without doing much detailed analysis. You can easily create personae for your audience in the same manner.
- Students: those in their early 20s who are working on an accounting bachelor’s or master’s degree, with the intent of taking the CPA exam eventually.
- Entry-level professionals: early- to mid-20s professionals working full time at a public accounting firm, after attaining a bachelor’s or master’s degree. This group is most likely to be actively involved in accounting practices or preparing to become a CPA.
- Career changers: adults looking to change careers or re-enter the workforce.
- Educators: accounting professors who might need to discuss CPA exam content with their students.
- Professionals: licensed CPAs who are concerned about the future of the profession.
Let’s say we want to target entry-level professionals, because this is likely the largest of the five personae we have identified. Many of these individuals have probably taken entry-level jobs as an accountant but have not yet sat for the CPA exam. One of the greater stresses about this exam is finding out one’s score for each section. Though the exam is largely computerized, it can take a few months for scores to be reported to the appropriate governing body. So “CPA exam score release” is a hot topic and sure to draw attention from entry-level professionals because this demographic would be interested in knowing exam scores.
This would be a perfect theme or title to create your content around. When reading this blog for the first time, readers will immediately be locked in because the content pertains to their situation — not their past, not their future, but what they are actively involved in at the moment. Most readers and discussion groups talk about what’s happening now. What’s buzzing? By focusing your title and content on “the now” of your target audience, you have a much better chance of each reader reading your article or post from beginning to end, which is the goal of any writer.
When selecting a topic, there are a few tips to keep in mind.
- Pick one that relates to at least one of your user personae. This drives at least one group of users to your content and is sure to relate to them.
- Topics should be useful or answer a question. This encourages social sharing, allowing your content to reach beyond its page.
- Pick a controversial or trendy topic. Readers usually show initial interest in current topics and trends compared with those of the past. That is, unless you are comparing a “now” topic with a past topic.
- Limit the sales and marketing aspect of your content. If you’re only trying to sell a product or service, you will probably fail. No one likes to feel as though he or she has been sold, but everyone likes to buy.
First, you need to identify your audience. There are several methods to identify your audience, such as determining keywords that are bringing users to your website, creating user personae and more. Once you’ve identified your audience, you should create content that speaks to each user persona. Do not stray from this concept, because you will lose readers or followers. Readers are finicky at the beginning of any article or post. If you don’t capture their attention with the title, the remainder of the content might as well be in a language they don’t understand.
For example, let’s say you operate a blog about the exam for certified public accounts. Who is your audience? There are a few user personae we can identify without doing much detailed analysis. You can easily create personae for your audience in the same manner.
- Students: those in their early 20s who are working on an accounting bachelor’s or master’s degree, with the intent of taking the CPA exam eventually.
- Entry-level professionals: early- to mid-20s professionals working full time at a public accounting firm, after attaining a bachelor’s or master’s degree. This group is most likely to be actively involved in accounting practices or preparing to become a CPA.
- Career changers: adults looking to change careers or re-enter the workforce.
- Educators: accounting professors who might need to discuss CPA exam content with their students.
- Professionals: licensed CPAs who are concerned about the future of the profession.
Let’s say we want to target entry-level professionals, because this is likely the largest of the five personae we have identified. Many of these individuals have probably taken entry-level jobs as an accountant but have not yet sat for the CPA exam. One of the greater stresses about this exam is finding out one’s score for each section. Though the exam is largely computerized, it can take a few months for scores to be reported to the appropriate governing body. So “CPA exam score release” is a hot topic and sure to draw attention from entry-level professionals because this demographic would be interested in knowing exam scores.
This would be a perfect theme or title to create your content around. When reading this blog for the first time, readers will immediately be locked in because the content pertains to their situation — not their past, not their future, but what they are actively involved in at the moment. Most readers and discussion groups talk about what’s happening now. What’s buzzing? By focusing your title and content on “the now” of your target audience, you have a much better chance of each reader reading your article or post from beginning to end, which is the goal of any writer.
When selecting a topic, there are a few tips to keep in mind.
- Pick one that relates to at least one of your user personae. This drives at least one group of users to your content and is sure to relate to them.
- Topics should be useful or answer a question. This encourages social sharing, allowing your content to reach beyond its page.
- Pick a controversial or trendy topic. Readers usually show initial interest in current topics and trends compared with those of the past. That is, unless you are comparing a “now” topic with a past topic.
- Limit the sales and marketing aspect of your content. If you’re only trying to sell a product or service, you will probably fail. No one likes to feel as though he or she has been sold, but everyone likes to buy.
Here are six rules of thumb that will help you write a sales message that actually helps you move an opportunity forward. I’ve got a few examples below, too, so you can see how to turn a bad message into a better one.
1. Write like you talk.
Sales messages are meant to be spoken. Even when somebody reads the message, you want readers to feel like you’re talking to them personally. Therefore, whenever you write a sales message, ask yourself: “Does this sound like something I’d actually say to a real person?” If not, your message won’t work well.
Before: “Engineers efficiently evaluate and improve their designs using our software tools. We are dedicated to building the most advanced vehicle system simulation tools.”
After: “Engines designed with our simulation software are more fuel-efficient than those that aren’t.”
2. Use common words rather than biz-blab.
Unfortunately, when most business folks sit down to write something, they turn into Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss and start writing in gibberish, stuffing sentences full of important-sounding terminology that means little or nothing. The cure is to use simple nouns and verbs that have a precise meaning.
Before: “We provide ‘one stop shopping’ for all of your HR needs. Through a single relationship, you have access to HR services for the continuum of the employment life cycle.”
After: “We help our clients with hiring, compensation, compliance, and training, so that they can spend more time running their business and less time and hassle dealing with HR details.”
3. State facts rather than promises.
Promises are only meaningful to people who already trust you, and that list probably doesn’t include prospects who aren’t yet customers. In fact, most people view a promise from a stranger with skepticism if not outright suspicion.
It’s more effective to provide a quantitative, verifiable fact that creates credibility.
Before: “You’ll love our dedicated account managers, comprehensive inventory, reliable delivery and competitive pricing.”
After: “Our customers save as much as $100,000 a year when they purchase directly from our account managers.”
Pregnant mothers are being pooled to place ads on their round, shiny stomachs as part of “tummy branding.” Some argue that this is how news is created. To some, this is “desperate branding” in action. Welcome to “guaranteed-to-fail branding,” a process that ensures a top spot on the list of branding failures. These projects are sometimes called “reality branding.” There is no limit to these weird processes.
Roy Disney said, “You need branding when your product has nothing to offer.” Roy’s uncle, Walt, invented Mickey Mouse and created the Disney empire. At the time, the word “branding” was reserved only for cowboys branding herds of cattle by the fiery iron.
The word “branding” is dangerously overused. Many people use branding as a cure for all kinds of problems in all kinds of businesses. To lay claim to a deeper understanding of this elementary word, branding agencies all over the world have developed some cute variations of it, from “emotional branding” to “primal,” “sensory,” “musical,” “internal,” “external,” “holistic,” “vertical,” “abstract,” “nervous” and all the way to “invisible” branding. However, to see these distinctions, you will need special 3D spectacles.
The list of branding types is almost like the three MIT wizards who took an academic conference for a ride by submitting a paper in all fake jargon: “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy.” Their paper was accepted.
Haphazard Branding
There are hundreds of such branding terms pointing to the same thing. Let’s analyze and see how this historical process of branding ownership marks on animals got transformed into a word circus, bending the state of mind among corporations, institutions and many governments.
Branding is often presented as a culturally, emotional or lifestyle crazy, sugarcoated packaging process. Sometimes it is like rap music, with spinning colors or psychedelic pastel overtones accompanied with hip-hop idea drivers. Other times it comes with esoteric concepts to camouflage the products or services just long enough to get the customers’ attention. Most of the time, it comes as juicy ideas under some new blanket term of branding that is designed to create a safe and secure feeling for the corporation while waiting for the thunder from the charge of anxious customers.
For some reason, if the highly anticipated traffic doesn’t show up, then the term is changed immediately to the likes of “primal branding,” with a twist or a new style dance added to the circus. The same single promotional process is re-named repeatedly.
The idea is that when share prices fall, call the branding team and let it apply its “fiscal branding” to mail fancy brochures to shareholders. When products fail, let the “visual branding” make logos makeover, and when elevators don’t work, give it to the “yo-yo branding” unit, as they are real experts in north and south mobility. Floor please.
Today, branding is a mixed bag of basic, traditional advertising tools, simply waxed and packaged to appear as intellectual advice with an expensive price tag. It is targeted to fit any hungry frame of mind, and is designed to make corporations feel ever so comfortable with terms like “verbal,” “digital,” “audio,” “smelly,” “silent” or “loud” branding, as all these terms are designed to offer great safety and invisible lifelines to sinking ships. But does it work?
Just Promotional Tools
At times it does, as corporations do need solid and real branding. However, it most often fails, frequently due to lack of substance, quality, intelligence and experience. What is now being offered in the name of branding includes perfumed stationery at the banks, as sensory tickles, jingles and chimes for the funeral parlor — just raw promotional tricks.
These approaches fail because they are just basic promotional tools and skills and because they are trendy quick fixes. Branding has been defined so many times by so many experts that it is almost useless to redefine it. Like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder.
The presentation of fancy fireworks at a huge marina as a big branding exercise might be merely ordinary to some other company. Hundreds of hired people walking on a busy street with their foreheads painted with the names of products might be kinky, tacky or too smart, all depending on the culture and mental level of the client.
Pregnant mothers are being pooled to place ads on their round, shiny stomachs as part of “tummy branding.” Some argue that this is how news is created. To some, this is “desperate branding” in action, to others it is getting the word out at any cost.
Welcome to “guaranteed-to-fail branding,” a process that ensures a top spot on the list of branding failures. These projects are sometimes called “reality branding.” There is no limit to these weird processes.
Most of the time, the creative powers overtake the process, and fancy jargon becomes the Band-Aid while the Laws of Global Corporate Image, Rules of Corporate Nomenclature and Name Identities, Cyber Domain Management, Principals of Marketing and Global Branding are all completely ignored as being too rigid, too serious and too formal.
Solid Training, Thorough Skills
Let’s face it, these branding rules are very hard to learn and very difficult to apply because they require solid training and thorough skills. Simple, raw promotional skills backed by big budget fireworks are only “accidental branding” at play, where everyone becomes happy as long as there is some noise. In the recent past, this is how “high volume” or “intense” branding got the center stage. Today, in this budgetless environment, it is only a dream for most agencies to get such mega breaks.
U.S. businesses are still very much overdosed with over-branding. Massive turnover in the advertising and branding industry, compounded by the Internet , e-commerce and outsourcing has created a large glut of branding consultants with too many faceless, nameless consulting services and Web sites.
The market is simply glutted. Western branding agencies are losing their grip by not producing world-class standards and are becoming a laughing stock by adopting, in a panic, monkey-see-monkey-do campaigns.
In reality, you definitely need proper branding today; the type is not the issue. However, first you must have something very good to offer. You also need highly specific and proven branding with highly tactical positioning skills, under proper corporate and brand name identity and image laws, rather than raw graphic and promotional tools.
‘Useless Branding?’
Empty concepts and poorly designed and beaten up products and services can’t be resurrected with some abstract branding terms along with some flashy campaigns. Big money spending will not buy big image anymore. It worked in the past, but times have changed. Today, the latest cyber-branding techniques are in big play. Corporations are opening up to a debate on this subject among senior management and ignoring the old, traditional branding methodologies.
As e-commerce matures by the minute, the masses of customers have successfully ignored the expensive blitzes and pretended to have some type of an early Alzheimer’s condition to justify their memory loss. Nothing sticks in mind any longer.
The blasted, useless messages are instantly forgotten. The 15-minute fame suggested by Andy Warhol is now only a 15-second blip on the global e-commerce landscape. What was previously shoved on 24-7 ad campaigns and lasted at least a year is now completely forgotten the very next day.
Should we now re-define branding all over again? Should this word be re-invented? How about “useless branding?” No, not yet.
– Naseem Javed
– 7-27-05
The value of this Business Plan process is the thinking that it forces you to do about your business, your products and services, your goals and the actions you’ll take to achieve your goals. Even if no one but you ever sees the plan, you will have given purposeful and logical thought to the purpose and direction of your business. This process helps ensure that the many activities you squeeze into your limited hours are time well spent – focused on moving your business forward in an aggressive yet realistic way.
Part 1: Analysis
Core Services
- List the core services (or products) you offer
- Be as specific as possible, but put similar items in a group (e.g., “Editorial Services” includes writing, editing, etc.)
Target Markets
- List the market segments you serve
- Be realistic; if you realistically cannot serve large corporations, for example, then don’t include them
- Be as specific as possible, but put similar items in a group unless there is a compelling reason to list them separately (e.g., “School Groups” could include secondary schools and colleges, but these segments might have different needs)
Competition Analysis
- List your competitors and a brief description of them
- Unless a specific competitor presents unique challenges to your business, it is OK to list them in groups (e.g., “Independent Practitioners” or “Small Agencies”)
- The purpose is to provide yourself a picture of what your business is up against as you market your core service
Vision and Mission Statements
- It is useful to have Vision and Mission statements that keep you focused on what is important to you
- Vision Statement should describe the “ideal state” of your business; it should be achievable, but also something to strive for
- Mission Statement succinctly states what your business is about, its purpose, the role it plays in the market
Part 2: Assumptions
Business Principles
- It is useful to develop a set of Business Principles that guide how you will conduct your business
- These principles have a direct bearing on your relationships with customers and clients
- The reason to include it under “Assumptions” is because your Business Principles are conditions under which your business operates; as you will see further in this section, you will list other conditions under which your business operates as well
Economic Assumptions
- List things you know about the economy (local, state, regional, national, international – whatever you believe affects your business)
- Include relevant historical facts (e.g., “the U.S. economy fell into recession in 2001”) and how they affect your ability to do business
- Note the impact of past, current, or anticipated economic conditions on your business and the products/services you provide
Financial Assumptions
- List things you know about your personal and/or business financial situation that affect your ability to do business and to grow your business
- Include things like cash flow issues, savings programs, the financial picture as a result of actions or conditions (a recession, recent investments, loan approvals, etc.)
- Reflect financial “realities” about your business (e.g., the need to control expenses, taxes owed, upcoming capital expenditures, expanding payroll, etc.)
Technological Assumptions
- Since so many businesses – large and small – depend on technology (web, e-mail, phone, etc.) today, it is useful to think about how these issues affect your business’s ability to succeed
- Think about upgrades of hardware and software, the impact of growth and expansion on your technological needs, training that will be necessary, etc.
Part 3: Strategic Summary
SWOT Analysis
- List all the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats about your business
- Be honest with yourself; don’t hold anything back or ignore realities
Key Success Factors
- Out of your SWOT Analysis, what are the key factors that will affect the ability of your business to succeed?
- Examples: strong reputation, broad client base, repeat business, unique provider, etc.
Competitive Advantages / Disadvantages
- Create lists of your competitive advantages and disadvantages based on your analysis of everything else up to this point
- What unique advantages does your business have in the marketplace?
- What distinct disadvantages does your business have?
- Be honest and don’t hold back because you will develop strategies based largely on this informatio
Strategic Goals
- Develop two or three broad Strategic Goals for your business in the next year or the next 3-5 years, depending on the scope of your plan
- Strategic Goals should be “big picture” goals, but they should also be specific enough that you can measure them
- Under each goal, list one to three specific, measurable components
- Example of a Strategic Goal: “Grow Client Base”
- Example of specific, measurable component: “Add at least X new clients by X date”
- Make your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-driven
Tactical Actions
- Out of your Strategic Goals, list specific actions you will take that will help you achieve them
- Examples: Meet with two new prospective clients per month; Join a professional association to expand my network
- Create a calendar that plots when each tactical activity will occur so you don’t forget to do them
When creative concepts collide unexpectedly, this sudden accident incubates a branding process, which can result in a random selection of a weird strategy. This gives birth to an extreme name identity, whereupon a major advertising process kicks in. All things are combined — shaken, not stirred — and that’s how we refer to today’s trendy branding. To avoid a catastrophe, we must first learn the secrets of the various branding tricks and become aware of the bigger risks.
Right now, in good old England, they have big corporate brands like EGG, as in ham & eggs, http://www.egg.com; ORANGE, as in juice, http://www.orange.com; and THUS, as in “thus far, this Scottish Telco is still having difficulties,” http://www.thus.net.
Wandering Off the MMap
And then there’s MMO2, a very big telecom name in the UK, created as a cute play on the then very popular millennium year 2000. It was fashionable to use the Roman numerals for 2000 at the time, and so MMO2 came into being — but it soon became outdated in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Now they’ve just dropped the MM to be proudly rebranded as O2, as in oxygen, at http://www.o2.com.
Naturally, you would need oxygen after such a mm-mega surgery. Accidental naming can create a lot of crashes and cause injuries during the long term care of a major brand.
There is also GO, as in go where? And NOW, as in right now. ETC is also supposed to be a gentleman’s gentleman-type magazine for very straight-up guys.
The influence of such strange and experimental naming is also spreading outside of England. In Australia, Quantas airlines almost called their no-frill airline Oi or Oz air, but settled on JetStar, a name already used by so many others in aviation. In Asia, there is now a short-lived fad for two-lettered corporate identities. And no, you can’t ever find them on search engines.
Dancing in the Air
Here in the U.S. we have TED airlines, as in what’s left of United. With only one single peanut per passenger to offer, United Airlines so brilliantly chopped the Uni from their name to come to this unique invention of TED. Like, half the airline with half the things chopped, except the engines, of course. That deserves half an entry in the half-naming hall of fame. Just as Blue, Jazz, Tango and Song airlines are trying to dance in the air, so TED is now attempting its trampoline routine.
It seems that all over the globe there is a rush to find four-letter words for airline brands. Is this the revenge of the disgruntled flier? Maybe. The fact is, airlines are in the fast-chopping mode.
“Cut everything in half and than half again; do it slowly and do it painfully.” Of course they all are losing big money. Who could be surprised about their losses? But one could question the old branding fanfare. To frequent fliers it became obvious, way before the 9/11 tragedy; it all started with the peanut packets being replaced by one single peanut. Now all you might get is just a picture of a meal, a great take-home souvenir.
The peanuts and monkey business are almost over — now you even pay for a cracker and dare ask for butter. All you are allowed is simply to dream of demanding an extra satin pillow with silky blankets. Today, the stage is nicely set to get a greyhound bus service in the air. Cut the washrooms, give them a used parachute. The naming of airlines has taken a major turn from country-specific to discount-coupon-specific and from first-class to no-class. While Asian airlines are boosting super luxury classes, here in the U.S., it is time to fly a TOM or a DICK or a HARRY. Thank you, Britannia, we are amused with these yoyo monikers.
The Global Wordplay
Real advertising was invented in England, and let’s face it, they are great at it, just like the global branding that came out of Japan while America provided the largest arena to play out the branding games.
Meanwhile, our good old McDonald’s in the U.S. is unhappy about McJobs being included as a word in the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary, mother of all the English words and a slap to the French because their Larousse dictionary is poorer by a few thousand French words. Wow, we have more four-letter words than the French — merde.
To Big Mac, the jobs of “Flippin Engineers,” “Moppin’ Mechanics” and “Latrine Sentries” are not to be laughed at. True, Big Mac does help tens of thousands at entry-level jobs and helps students as well. Somehow they later become very obese and try to sue them — in revenge?
Here is a new twist: the fast-food freedom fry, fatty chow-maker now wants to sell children’s clothing and introduce McKids in a big way. Why not go for McSleep: Eat and sleep and complete the life circle — indeed, a million dollar tag line on Madison Avenue. Watch out for the naked kids running around at the golden arches drive-ins exchanging and re-fitting pantaloons — French, that is.
America is better off with business name brands, which give us a clear advantage, provide global identity and a leadership position, rather than just simple English words from the dictionary that can get lost in the crowd. Name wisely, or just go to McSleep.
I’ve been a “quality” person after reading Pirsig’s book some 10 odd years ago, and as I try to apply the quality principal to my clients as a freelance Web designer, there seems to be an increasing swing towards measuring ROI from online marketing in terms of the QUALITY of customer delivered rather than the quantities.
This is not really that surprising as the online market becomes more saturated, competitive and consumer-savvy. The interest in the volume of Web site traffic turns to an interest in conversion metrics which turns converts into ways or how often we can keep a customer returning for more.
As the costs of gaining a new customer go up, it becomes increasingly important to get the right (quality) customers, not just any old ones. Of course, the Internet makes it potentially easy to gain customers, but it is unfortunately often just as easy to lose them as well.
All of which got me thinking: Do different forms of online marketing typically deliver different qualities of customer, rather than quantities or volume? This has been my experience thus far:
Search Engine Marketing – can deliver quantity and quality. Quality will depend on the “quality” of your keyword targeting, timing, choice of search engines, etc.
- Affiliate Marketing – perception, rightly or wrongly, that the quality of customers delivered is lower in the long-term scheme of things. However, the volume of conversions can be very high.
- E-mail Marketing – this really depends a lot on the quality of the list, the quality of the offer, the timing, the brand, etc. It is the most effective for converting existing registered users or repeat selling to existing customers.
- Interactive Advertising – for something such as banner advertising, click-through rates drop, as opposed to a PPC text-based link, but I haven’t seen anything or read anything to know about the quality of the customer that gets through. Even though volume is lower on banner advertising, perhaps the quality of the customer is higher (wealthy, frequent visitor). PPC does deliver a high quantity of click-throughs, but depending on the quality of the keywords and program choice depends on the quality of the customer.
- Viral Marketing – volumes can be very high (or next to nothing), but the quality of those customers…? Conversion rates tend to be low but of those few who convert I guess it’s a potpourri of valuable customers and not-so-valuable ones.
Most businesses, and managers with targets to hit, need a mixture of volume of sales and value of customers, so as ever, it’ll be a choose-your-best-marketing mix scenario in terms of what, how and when to use the above online marketing avenues.
I’d be interested in hearing from others about their experiences with online marketing venues and results – email me at hk@sparkmaninternet.com.
~Holly Sparkman
The other day, I found myself thinking about all the ways we use words. Scratch “all!” Let me start over: The other day, I found myself thinking about the ways we use words.
Is the word “all” necessary?
Consider:
How do I love thee? Let me count all the ways.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Would we find Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem as memorable with “all” in the first line?
Consider these:
Arrest all people who break laws.
Arrest people who break laws.
Color in all the blank squares below.
Color in the blank squares below.
All people have their good and bad sides.
People have their good and bad sides.
The above sentences without “all” are stronger and more respectful of the reader. Their attitude is calmer, less preachy and more appealing because they’re missing one little word. Notice I chose not to write “all because.”
Look: There may be a place for “all,” for example, when you’re giving instructions and you want to make certain the person understands: Color in all the blank squares below. However, if I wanted to be emphatic, I would write, Color in the blank squares below. Check your work and make sure you don’t miss any. I think it’s far more respectful when you use a separate sentence to express that thought.
Getting even with “even.”
Even you have faults.
You have faults.
Everyone is trying harder. Even he is.
He is trying harder, just like everyone else.
He collects everything, even pennies.
He collects everything, including pennies.
Even when Jim applied himself, his output was average.
When Jim applied himself, his output was average.
Even if you’re extremely lucky, your chances are not very good.
If you’re extremely lucky, your chances are not very good.
My point? “Even” is another one of those words that act as the moral equivalent of a blinking neon sign. Yes, it can be used to express surprise about an unlikely event; however, invariably, I prefer alternative sentences that avoid using the word.
Delete “just”
I want just the facts!
I want the facts!
Just because you’re intelligent doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try hard.
You’re intelligent. Does that mean you shouldn’t try hard?
We got there just in time.
We got there in time.
You get the point.
Write without “that”
I think that you’re intelligent.
I think you’re intelligent.
I say that a person is only human.
I say a person is only human.
I believe that all men are created equal.
I believe all men are created equal.
This is the gift that we give each other, the gift of love.
This is the gift we give each other, the gift of love.
Some sentences require the word “that;” however, it is often unnecessary. When it is, leave it out!
“All,” “even,” “just” and “that:” I am not suggesting you never use those words. I am suggesting that each time you want to use them, you see if you like the sentence better after you rewrite it without that word. Give it a try!
It’s just better writing.
Scratch that. It’s better writing!