Entries Tagged 'freelance copywriter' ↓

Social media marketing is something that every business should be doing. It doesn’t matter what size you are – SME or a large multinational – social media is the way to promote your business.

But it’s not just about PR, social media is also an effective way to monitor your brand and improve your customer service.

So why aren’t you out there doing it?

My time is precious

Although social media marketing isn’t expensive in the traditional sense – you don’t need to invest in large quantities of hardware or software – it is a drain on your time resources.

“I can’t afford to spend that amount of time playing with social media.”

That is the attitude of many businesses. But can you really call it ‘playing’ when you weight up the benefits it will bring your business?

How many other things offer you:

• Unlimited PR opportunities
• Direct contact with your customers to gain insightful feedback
• A way to constantly monitor your brand
• The opportunity to respond to negative feedback in an instant
• The chance to ‘talk’ directly with your customers at any time

But if you still think you don’t have the time to adopt or develop a social media marketing strategy, just think about how life in the office has changed over the years.

Once upon a time people could only phone you at the office, now they can get hold of you anytime thanks to mobile phones. At one time you would find yourself wading through a pile of mail every morning and dealing with all your clients via post. Then came along that new-fangled thing called email – now, you can’t function without it.

Social media marketing is simply the next stage in the communication development.

Embrace it and win

Learn to make time and your business will benefit hugely from this new technology – listen to me, ‘new technology’ – it’s hardly new anymore so why aren’t you doing it?

Work out what you need to do within your company. Which is going to be best for you? Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, article marketing? Probably a mixture.

Then plan who will be dealing with this. This is your opportunity to talk directly to your customers. And remember, the responsibility for your social media marketing strategy doesn’t have to fall solely on one pair of shoulders.

Although you may want just one person dealing with your Twitter account (continuity of voice helps to generate a strong bond with followers and potential clients), there is no reason why you can’t share the blogging responsibilities.

Many companies are tempted to ‘farm out’ this kind of work. As a copywriter I would be happy to help you, but remember that blogging is your opportunity to get your opinions out to your readers. You are trying to build a relationship with them, so using someone outside your company may make this difficult.

By all means use guest bloggers as this can often bring in fresh ideas which you could use to further develop your blog.

There are a huge number of posts out there about using social media, probably telling you similar things to this one. So why are you still ignoring them?

Don’t get left behind. Your competitors are using social media to keep ahead of the game – they know what their customers want (and don’t want) before you do, they know if there is any negative feedback about their business and can deal with it before you know about it. By using social media they will remain one step ahead of you so isn’t it about time you took the initiative to redress the balance.

Social media marketing will help you stay one step ahead of the game or at least remain on a par.

With the advances in email marketing, it’s very easy for businesses to fall in to the trap of using one form of communication for everything.

There are times when it may not be the most appropriate medium to use so it’s important to look at what you want to say.

The personal touch

If yours is the type of business that likes to remember customers’ birthdays – would you use email?

An electronic card, although convenient and cheap – doesn’t really do it. It doesn’t look as though a lot of thought has gone in to it. Whereas a handwritten card posted to them, shows the human side of your business – one they will want to do business with again in  the future.

Quick response

Despite our best efforts, things don’t always go according to plan. When problems happen and you receive a complaint, think carefully about how you maintain contact.

The post can be slow, so if you need information from your customer that may not be the best way to go. However, once the problem’s been resolved, a written letter of apology always goes down well.

In this case, regular phone contact with one member of staff would be perfect. The customer gets the individual attention they want and they have one point of contact so they don’t have to explain the problem time and time again.

How to…

If you have information or instructions you need to convey, what option would you choose?

Written instructions can be long winded and unclear. Telephoning everyone would be completely impractical. You could run an email course, but would people read it and take it in?

Probably not.

The best method here would be a video tutorial. Placing that online means your customers can watch it at a time that’s convenient to them.

Why do you need to know this?

You need to look at your marketing as a multi-media activity. One size doesn’t fit all.

Think carefully about the information you need to relay before deciding on the most effective way of communicating it.

The strongest marketing strategies will utilise a number of different forms of communication – make sure you pick the right one for your customers’ needs.

“Sally is working hard in her English lessons and is producing some exciting and thoughtful stories. However, her written work would benefit from using a wider vocabulary and bigger words.”

That is what my middle school English teacher thought of my writing skills. I wasn’t using enough ‘big’ words. I’m sure many of you reading this had similar experiences at school. It was as though your intellect was being judged by the number of syllables your words contained.

After reading this, I used to keep a thesaurus beside me and changed perfectly good words for more complex counterparts.

However, as a copywriter, I am now doing the exact opposite – Ha! Take that English teacher.

Keeping it simple

Using complicated words that attempt to utilise every letter of the alphabet may make you feel more intelligent, but that’s not how your reader’s will view you.

I’m going to let you into a little secret – it’s not just you that leads a busy life.

These days, we are all running around like headless chickens trying to get everything done. Therefore the last thing we want is to be faced with ridiculously complex words.

Whether you are writing to personal customers or other businesses, the key to successful copy that works, is  simple language.

Step away from the thesaurus

People often argue that if you are writing for the B2B market, you have to write in an intellectual stuffed-shirt kind of way.

Wrong.

At the end of the day, your copy is going to be read by a human being. After all, despite what Dr. Who would like us to believe, the human race is still running things.

In a way it’s more important to write simply for the B2B market because you are writing for people who are incredibly busy. They want to be able to glance over your copy, be shown the benefits of your product and how to order. That’s it.

A freelance copywriter is not there to make you sound intelligent

Sorry, but we’re not.

You hire us to write strong copy that sells. Therefore when the first draft is sent to you, don’t complain that there aren’t enough three syllable words in it.

The copy’s function is to inform, convince and sell.

Let me repeat that – we are not here to make you sound intelligent. We are here to sell your products to your readers.

If, as a business, you have decided to enter the world of email marketing, there are a few things you should know.

• It is relatively cheap
• It is quick
• You can reach a wide audience in one go
• You can get information out quickly

But to get the full benefit of email marketing your approach has to be consistent. Your customers like consistency and reliability.

Follow up

Email marketing is ideal for communicating an offer to your customer base. It could be a discount or special offer or it could be in the form of information – a new report, case study or reference manual.

When your flood of responses arrive all wanting a copy, you must make sure every request is actioned. Being short handed isn’t an excuse. Your customers will expect you to have planned ahead – if it was a winning offer, they would assume you’d have enough staff on hand to deal with the enquiries. After all, a great offer isn’t any good if you don’t have the man power to deal with it.

Announcing…

Email marketing is also a great way to communicate new events, future offers, products or improved products. Why not survey your customers by using an online free service such as Survey Monkey. That way you’ll get feedback directly from your customers which you can use to enhance your products and services.

Keeping your customers informed in this way will show them you care; you have their best interests at heart and should you happen to get a few extra sales along the way, even better.

Reciprocity

That is one of my favourite words referring to good old fashioned ‘give and take’.

By sending out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly tips to your mailing list, you are building a relationship of trust. You are giving them something for nothing – a very powerful thing.

Of course, what goes around comes around, so if you are seen giving them extra information free of charge, they are more likely to come to you when they need your products and services.

Keeping regular

A monthly newsletter to your customers is always a great idea. They hear from you regularly. You can use it to give more general information they may find useful. In an earlier post I mentioned the importance of segmenting your mailing list. Your newsletter is your opportunity to pop up into your list’s inbox regularly with fantastic information.

But, if you are going to do a newsletter, make sure you do send it regularly (whether monthly or bi-monthly). People will begin to expect it and if it suddenly doesn’t show up, they could be left wondering what’s happened – perhaps you’ve gone out of business?

It takes time to put together a great newsletter, but the effort will be worth it. That regular contact will ensure your company is always in the back of their minds.

Announcing…

Finally, another great benefit of email marketing is that it allows you to shout about your new products, services and offers.

Your mailing list will be the first to know what is happening. Give them an early bird offer to make them feel valued and to encourage them to remain subscribed to your mailing list.

Why you need to know this

If email marketing is done badly, it could harm your business. Done well, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

In previous posts we’ve looked at how to improve your website’s search engine optimisation and generally how to get more traffic to your website.

Traffic is one thing but what your business really needs is more people buying.

After all, 1000s of visitors are all well and good for bragging rights at the pub, but if none of them buy it’s not great for your bank balance. Therefore you need to improve your sales through your website as well as the number of people who visit it.

Welcome to my website

People are most likely to buy a product when it’s been recommended by a friend. Of course, making friends with everyone who comes to your site in an attempt to then convince them your product is what they need, isn’t a realistic ask. But talking to them through your website is realistic.

By removing any corporate/industry jargon and creating a friendly, chatty air about your site will help enormously. Talk to them directly by using ‘you’ and ‘your’. As they read, it will be as though they are chatting to a friend and your ‘sales pitch’ will come across in a non-aggressive way.

You’ll become the personal friend providing a recommendation for your product. An approach that is far more likely to succeed.

And then he said…

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said this, but people buy from people. And I’m going to continue to shamelessly repeat myself because it’s true!

Include testimonials from past clients and not just the glowing ones. Give your reader a balanced view by posting less than glowing comments too. Even better – post the not so good ones and add a post script showing what you did to resolve the matter or improve the product. This will show your human side and show you as a business that listens to its customers and acts.

Even better than testimonials are case studies – if you can include real situations explaining what problem your customer had, why they came to you and how you solved their problem and show how their life/business has been improved as a result (draws in a deep breath – Ed.) – you’ll create a very powerful selling statement.

Picture perfect

I’ve also been known to say that pictures don’t sell, copy does. I stand by that but you can’t deny the power of the ‘before and after’ shots or an image that shows the problem and your product as the solution.

If your reader can see in an instant what your product will do for them, they’ll be hooked.

The back-hander

There are times when people will want more than just a stonkingly good sales piece. Incentives are always a great addition to your sales message. But make sure they add value to your customer – after all, everyone likes the feeling of getting something for nothing.

The million dollar question

Of course all of the above will be totally useless without a strong and commanding call to action. It might seem daft, but you really do have to tell your reader to buy.

You’d be amazed at the number of websites out there that omit this little gem. What’s the point of going to the pains of producing superb sales copy that talks to your reader it you don’t tell them how to order?

You need to know this because…

Well, if you don’t know about this and use it, your website will be an expensive brochure. It will sit there in cyber space doing absolutely nothing.

It is a sales tool, pure and simple so make sure you make it work for you.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter