Entries from November 2013 ↓
November 29th, 2013 — Customer service
Sorry for the ‘Barnie-ism’ that snuck into that title, I’ve obviously been watching way too much ‘How I Met Your Mother.’
But the thing is it really doesn’t take a lot to excel in the levels of customer service you offer. In fact, if I may be so bold as to suggest, it all comes down to one thing.
Want to know what it is?
The speed at which you respond to emails.
Is there anyone there?
How long does it take for you to respond to emails and enquiries?
A day?
Two days?
Sometimes a week?
OK, I think you’re missing something.
Email is great.
You can rattle off an enquiry without being stuck on the phone for ages (and have a written record of what was said). But because of its immediacy, the sender does tend to expect a similarly rapid response.
If you want to stand out from your competitors, it’s imperative you respond to incoming emails instantly – or as close to it as practical.
Let’s face it, if I get an enquiry for copywriting services, you can bet your Granny that the sender has sent the same or similar email to 2 or 3 other copywriters.
If you take 3 or 4 days to respond, but a competitor replies to them the same day, it doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to work out who gets the most brownie points.
Is all of this pretty damn obvious?
Yes?
Should I have to spell it out?
No, but I feel compelled to do so if some of the companies I’ve contacted are anything to go by.
It doesn’t take a lot – even if you just email them to thank them for their enquiry and a date by which you’ll respond in full to them.
Dealing with customer contact is one of the basic parts of being in business. Responding to enquiries quickly is one of the best ways to show:
- You care about your customers
- You’re efficient
- You’re keen to do business with them
So next time you get an enquiry, make an effort and respond or at least acknowledge the email immediately (or close to it as is practical).
November 27th, 2013 — landing pages
Q: How do you create a landing page that works?
A: Write a powerful headline.
Of course, the content and call to action must be pretty damn good too, but the headline is where the power lies.
The qualities of a powerful landing page headline
You headline should possess the following 4 qualities:
- It should be focused – no waffle, get straight to the point
- It must be relevant – the headline must reflect the offer being made on your landing page
- It must show benefits – tell you reader what problem your offer will solve
- Give it urgency – make the offer time limited
I know what you’re thinking – that’s a lot of information to pack into one headline.
You’re right it is, which is why you should use a combination of headline and sub heading to pack it all in.
For argument’s sake, you’re a company that provides email marketing services to small businesses and you want to encourage them to sign up for your free trial.
How can you apply the 4 qualities above?
Focus: You offer email marketing for businesses
Relevancy: You have a free 30 day trial offer
Benefits: It’s simple; customers have control and can design their own emails
Urgency: You decide to double the 30-day free trial period for the first 100 sign ups
With me so far?
I’ve underlined the important stuff.
So, from that, your headline would be something like:
Simple email marketing for your business
Create & design you own emails to forge strong relationships with your customers.
FREE 60 day trial (limited to first 100 sign ups)
That was thrown together quickly, but it gives you an idea.
The final point to remember
There is just one more thing to remember.
Your landing page is there to sell.
That’s why it’s essential its whole focus is on what the product does best and how it will help the reader not how great you and your company are.
Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+
November 25th, 2013 — twitter
Twitter is all about engaging your followers. 
It’s about building relationships.
Yeah, yeah, so everyone keeps saying, but how are you supposed to do that?
The problem many tweeters have, especially if they’ve been tweeting since the early days, is that they’ve become stuck in a rut. They are pre-programmed to tweet as they’ve always done, even though the platform as made significant improvements since its text only days.
What’s your Twitter habit?
Over the years, you would have formed habits in every part of your life.
Without thinking you’ll get dressed in the morning in the same way, you get into bed without giving a second thought as to which side you want, you’ll even eat the same breakfast cereal over and over, simply because it’s what you’ve always done.
Although you may be perfectly happy with all of that, you could be missing out on something better, you just don’t know it.
The same goes for your tweets. You’ve always used your 140 characters to talk about your work, blogs and life, so you carry on doing that even though there is something better out there.
Tweet with greater impact
I’ve already mentioned how Twitter used to be all about text.
Well now it isn’t.
Today you can add short videos to your tweets (through Vine) and you can even upload photos direct from your iPhone. Plus, if you do both of those things using pic.twitter.com, your pictures and Vines can be viewed directly from the Twitter stream rather than you having to click to view.
Come on, pictures and Vines don’t make that much difference
Really?
Are you going to make me quote figures?
OK, you asked for it. Buffer has been doing some testing to see what impact using images and Vines in your tweets has.
Are you ready to be amazed?
Tweets with images received:
- 89% more favourites
- 18% more clicks than those without
- 150% more retweets
That doesn’t mean to say you should now go mad and only tweet images and Vines. Use them wisely and weave them into your social media strategy. The increased engagement you will receive will help you to increase your traffic and sales.
November 22nd, 2013 — marketing
You know Christmas is coming when the new series of “I’m a Celebrity” starts. 
A couple of weeks ago, the intrepid celebrities headed for the Australian jungle. For the first time in ages, I had actually heard of the vast majority of them – makes a change.
You may be scratching your head and wondering what on earth this has to do with copywriting, the answer is absolutely nothing, but it is to do with marketing.
Although all the celebs are taking part to raise money for charity, you have to ask yourself what’s in it for them?
The simple answer is promotion – they’re there to market themselves for future TV projects.
Admittedly, this hasn’t always worked in the past – who could forget Gillian McKeith’s disastrous appearance? But many have gone on to do other things.
Having watched several series (all for research purposes of course), I can’t help but notice a recurring theme.
When the celebs first arrive, those that jump and scream at everything usually end up doing the lion’s share of the trials.
Marketing to stand out
Look at this year’s constellation of celebrities; Matthew Wright became an instant target for the voting public with his jumpy shenanigans before he’d even reached the jungle.
For someone who is apparently scared of everything, he’s put up some incredible performances in the trials. So, is he really that afraid of everything, or is it a clever ploy on his part to stand out from the rest to get the most airtime?
Similarly, there’s Joey Essex. Not so jumpy, but his inability to tell the time, or blow his nose (he has learnt to tie his shoe laces though, because that’s a life skill he needed) has encouraged the British public to vote for him to do the trials.
As a result, the two of them have been hogging the TV coverage.
Then of course there’s the love interest – no prizes for guessing who that’s supposed to be (Joey and Amy) – and Rebecca Adlington’s priceless comment the other night when she and Steve Davis were subjected to the sight of Amy massaging Joey’s back – “It’s like watching porn with your parents.”
But a new pretender to the jungle throne has now made an appearance. Kian Egan has been a fairly quiet character until the ‘Hang out to dry” challenge. Desperate to get food for his starving camp mates, Kian out smarted the ostensibly unbeatable Joey to win food for his camp mates – the rise of a new Tarzan? Time will tell.
It’s all about how you are perceived
When you are marketing your business, you present it in a way that you want people to see. This is exactly what each of these celebrities are doing.
Some are quietly working behind the scenes, doing only what’s needed to get by.
Others are pushing themselves, trying to become the leader in their niche (hero, joker, scaredy-cat).
The jungle is a microcosm of business marketing – which are you? The quiet business working away in the background and getting by, or the one that stands out as the leader in your niche?
November 20th, 2013 — Google, Google algorithms, Google search, search engine optimisation, website copywriter, website copywriting
The end of September saw yet another Google algorithm update – the Hummingbird. 
At the heart of this little bird is the difference between what people are looking for and why they are looking for it.
Search engines have always delivered ranked results by matching the keywords typed in the search box to the keywords on a web page.
The problem with that is that words can have different meanings, as illustrated by Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, Amit Singhal when talking about the Taj Mahal: “Was the search about the monument in India, the musician, or a local curry house? What was the intent behind the search?”
Hummingbird’s semantic search capabilities are an attempt to clarify the context of queries. In other words, it tries to understand how we use language and how the meaning of words varies depending on context.
Hummingbird and search marketing
With all the Penguins, Pandas and Hummingbirds in the world, it’s hardly surprising that the face of search marketing is constantly changing.
In fact it was only recently that Google announced it would no longer be providing webmasters with data about which keywords were driving traffic from search results to their websites.
Google’s explicit message being that webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share. In other words, engaging website content.
Hummingbird and website content
It’s important you understand how to make sure your website copywriting and content align with Hummingbird’s aim.
What does your customer need?
It’s important to think about why customers want or need your product or service. For example, if you have a travel site, do you offer information about travelling to the destination, what there is to see, local customs, restaurants, galleries or where the best beaches are?
Analytics
Look at your analytics to discover what people are searching for when they’ve reached your site, but can’t find immediately. This will help you understand what they are looking for and optimise your website content accordingly.
Blogs aren’t the be all and end all
Think about varying your content. Great information doesn’t only come in the form of a blog post; it could also be video, graphics, an eBook, report or white paper.
Just make sure its form and function match.
Language
Don’t just go for an exact keyword match when describing what you do/offer. Use synonyms too, which will provide alternative phrases that people may use when searching for what you offer.
Make sure the language you use isn’t dry and dull. Show your personality through your writing so it informs and inspires.
Social
Make sure all your content is easy to share.
Above all, make sure the content on your website complements your sales strategy by being relevant to your products and services.
A well written website should already have all those features, but it’s worth checking yours out to see if it can be improved in any way.
It may, at times, seem as though Google is playing God with your business, but all these changes are there to make the search experience more rewarding and relevant. Provided you abide by Google’s rules and aren’t tempted to take any short cuts, you should be able to weather these changes with minimum fuss.
