Jim Connolly Marketing

Dead trees and a powerful copy writing lesson!

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Writing marketing copy or sales copy that really works can be a challenge, especially for people with little or no experience.  One of the best ways to learn how to write great copy, is to read great copy and then study what you have read. Why did that particular message compel you to click a link?  What was it about the specific offer you just read, that made you follow-up on it?

Copy writing and Dead Trees

One of the best pieces of copy writing I have seen over the past few years, is just a simple, short phrase.  It’s often used when online publications refer to paper-based; newspapers, magazines and trade publications etc.  The term is dead tree media.  For example, when referring to a headline on the front page of the traditional paper version of The Times, a blogger will often refer to it as the front page of the dead tree edition of The Times.

The reason this is such a clever phrase, is that those 2 words, dead tree, are extremely emotive:

  • The phrase dead tree immediately focuses our mind on the fact that in order for paper to be made, trees not only need to be cut down; they have to be killed!  Even recycled paper was once a tree.
  • By calling the traditional version of a newspaper, magazine or whatever the dead tree edition, we start to think of it as out-dated.  When we see the term applied regularly enough, it can be a very powerful way to reinforce the belief that paper-based media is either dying or dead.
  • When there are 2 options available to the reader; either a dead tree edition of a magazine or an online version, the online version is automatically made to sound more attractive, simply because it isn’t being referred to negatively.

A quick copy writing tip

If you are serious about the success of your marketing, you need to get serious about copy writing too.  Here’s a tip.  Collect all the; emails, marketing letters, articles or blog posts that motivate you to take action and study them.  Study what it was that compelled you to click their link, visit their store, call them or email them.

For example, look at the box below this post, with a call to action.  Every hour of every day, people click the link in that box to find out how they can work with me.  Look at the message and think about how you can apply something similar to YOUR site; something that will provide you with sales leads all day every day.

The bottom line: Your site should (and could) be a relentless, lead-generating machine for your business.  If it isn’t, you could well be missing out on more sales and higher profits than you currently believe is even possible.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

How long should your blog posts be?

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Some of the best blog posts are also the shortest.  Blog posts that offer information rich copy, with all the unnecessary fluff stripped out, get to the point quicker and save the reader valuable time.  This post about social media experts is one of the most read on my blog and it’s just 112 words long!

Why do many commercial bloggers write mainly longer format posts?

From what people tell me, there seems to be 2 reasons. The first reason, is that it’s believed by many that unless a post is more than 300 words long, it will not rank well on search engines.  I have seen enough evidence of this to believe there’s truth in it.  However, if you are in the UK right now and you ask Google: “What is a social media expert?”, you will see that 112 word post I mentioned earlier on page 1 – Out of over 42Million results.

The second reason, which I am going to focus on in this post, is the belief that the longer a post is, the more valuable it will be, and the more people will want to read and share it. My experience over the past 24 years in Marketing, is that the quicker you can make a valid point, without all the fluff that typically weakens a message, the more impact your message has.  Because of this, I think it’s worth adding some shorter blog posts to your commercial blog.

Seth Godin understands the value of brevity

One of the reasons Seth Godin’s blog is so popular, is that his posts are never any longer than they need to be.  Seth’s blog posts are focused, information rich, but never too long.  That’s because Seth understands the power of brevity.  This means some of his posts are just 1 or 2 paragraphs in length.  With Seth’s blog, you get all the juice, without having to wade through acres of bloated content.

Interestingly, I noticed a post on Seth’s blog recently, which is apparently his longest post of the year.  If you look at the number of times people have ReTweeted that post, you will see that it was actually less popular (from a sharing perspective) than many of his very short posts.  BTW: It still achieved over 900 ReTweets, which is amazing!

I’m not suggesting you ONLY write short blog posts

There are good reasons for writing longer format posts, (including SEO.)  I wrote earlier this week about how to write more great blog posts, and it’s almost a thousand words long.

Here’s what I’m suggesting: The next time you have an interesting point you want to make, but you think it may be too short for a blog post, try publishing it anyway!  You may be pleasantly surprised with the feedback you get.  Don’t waste all your short, insightful ideas and opinions on Facebook or Twitter – Write them on your blog and then share them across your social networks.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Not all spam is created equal!

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I was just thinking how the term spam is being used right now, for a lot more than unwanted, unsolicited emails.

For example:

  • If someone sends you an unwanted sales message via a social networking site, we call them social media spammers.
  • When they leave comments on your blog, purely to build links or sell us something (rather than contribute), we call them comment spammers.
  • When they fill forums with cut and paste marketing messages, we call them forum spammers.
  • When they send you unsolicited text messages, we call them SMS spammers.
  • When they subscribe you to their newsletters without asking, we call them newsletter spammers.

Not all spam is created equal!

What you may not have known, is that some of the people who use the kind of techniques outlined above have NO IDEA that we regard them as spammers!

In many cases, they are often acting out of ignorance.  They see others using one of those techniques, so they think it’s OK.  They assume that it must work, to some degree.  They forget that even if a small number of people visit their site after they did any of the above, they may have just ruined their reputation with thousands or tens of thousands of other people in order to get those few clicks.

Whilst it may be popular to assume that everyone who you consider a spammer runs a suspect business, I have found that in many cases the businesses are legit.  The businesses look dubious, simply because they are being marketed using dubious techniques. I’m not talking about those who send automated spam emails to millions off people every day.  I’m talking about poorly informed business owners, who send you messages you never asked for, newsletters you never subscribed to and Tweets that read like a sales pitch.

The bottom line is that anyone, even legitimate people with a great service, can be written off as spammers if they pester or pursue people with their online marketing.  No one needs that kind of reputation, if they are serious about developing a long term, successful business.

So, you want to write more, great blog posts?

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I regularly get email from people, asking how I manage to write blog posts most days and still keep the ideas and content flowing.  It’s easy to see why, when you consider that a regularly updated blog with useful content is more commercially valuable, than one with fewer, valuable blog posts.

So, here are a few of my tips.  Enjoy!

Don’t SEO every post you write

Most of the posts I write here, are not written with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind.  Yesterday’s post is a prime example.  It breaks just about every SEO rule. It’s too short, doesn’t target keywords or use a title tag or have any headings etc.  However, it was a fun post that made a good point very quickly.  Interestingly, most of the bloggers I know, who publish on a very regular basis, do not optimise everything they write either, such as; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Danny Brown and Louis Gray.

SEO is important.  Really important.  I optimise a great deal of the content here and as a direct result, I get hundreds of new, targeted readers every day from Google and Co.  However, I can achieve all my SEO goals without the need to fully optimise everything I write.  So, don’t feel you have to optimise everything. You don’t.

Make time for writing blog posts

One of the reasons people find it hard to publish blog posts on a regular basis, is that they just don’t have the time.  It takes time to come up with an idea for a blog post and then to write it in as interesting a way as possible.  So, if you are a poor time manager, it’s going to be tough finding the time required to write regular, good quality blog posts.

Here’s a quick tip, which has given me several hours each day, or over 130 EXTRA DAYS a year, of extra time.

I don’t watch TV!  Yes, as a fan of boxing and football I will watch the big fights / games, but there are no TV shows I must watch.  My mindset regarding TV changed, when an elderly man once told me; “son, when you reach my age you won’t look back on your life and wish you had wasted more time watching TV shows!”  Interestingly, I recently discovered that Seth Godin feels the same way as me about TV.  He put it like this: “I don’t watch TV. At all. There are so many other things I’d rather do in that moment.”

Play with your kids.  Go to the gym.  Take the class.  Spend time relaxing with your friends.  If you want some more time each day, reducing your TV time is one of the less important things to cut out from your schedule.

Give yourself permission to get it wrong

One of the biggest hurdles facing many bloggers, is that they fear publishing a post that isn’t perfect.  In their search for the perfect blog post, they find that it takes them several hours to write a post; instead of 30 minutes or so.  Give yourself permission to write the best posts you can at the time.  Remember that blog posts can be edited and updated, if you later find you missed something important.

Capture your ideas

We all have ideas flow into our mind, but most people fail to capture them.  As a blogger, if I see an interesting article that gives me an idea for a blog post, I save it.  If I get an idea when I’m out walking, I capture it using an audio recorder.  Make it easy to capture the ideas you have and then put some time aside to get these ideas written down.  Flesh them out a bit.  You will be able to tell very quickly if the idea is good enough to turn into a post for your blog.

Learn to deal with critics

Often, when you make a point on your blog about something that is a matter of opinion, your own opinion will be criticised (and rightly so.)  Fear of criticism stops a lot of people from writing about certain subjects that are relevant to their industry / readers or expressing their opinions.  Both of these will limit the volume and (in my opinion) the value of what you publish.

For example, I wrote a post last month about my positive experience with Dell customer service.  I knew at the time that it would attract comments from people, who either strongly agreed or strongly disagreed with me.  If you check out the comments, you will see a number of really pissed-off Dell customers, telling me how wrong I was!  Those comments add balance to the post and allow people to see a far wider range of experiences.

People disagreeing with you or being critical of your view point, are a key part of blogging; however, many people really struggle with it.  This is why I wrote the following post on how to deal with blog critics and criticism.

Publish your best content on your blog, not on Facebook etc

Many people who have blogs that they seldom update, have Facebook accounts that they regularly update with insights, ideas and useful links.  There are many reasons why this is a really bad strategy for a commercial blogger.  One of which, is that it sees you investing your content development time building content on someone else’s platform, whilst yours is being neglected.

Use Facebook, but not at the expense of your own commercial blog.  Some of the info you post on Facebook could be slightly expanded upon and turned into a great little post, which you can THEN share on Facebook!

So, what would you add to that list?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Are you sure you do it often enough?

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I have 2 quick questions for you today, which can help you massively increase your sales:

  • What is the single most powerful form of marketing that you use?
  • Why don’t you use it more often?

2 million in extra sales, with 1 simple idea!

Back in 1997, I spoke with the owner of a building supplies company.  Their biggest source of new business was a highly profitable catalogue, which they sent out every 6 months.  These 2 catalogues were responsible for the vast majority of their sales.  I asked him why he only sent out 2 a year and not 4; 1 per quarter.  He told me that he assumed 2 catalogues a year was the right balance.

I explained that he shouldn’t assume anything, until he had tested and measured the results.  At my suggestion, he gave it a try and saw an immediate, huge increase in business.  He later told me that our 10 minute conversation earned him almost £2 million over the next 18 months, for which he was extremely grateful.

Whilst it’s very important to ensure that you are using the correct forms of marketing (use this marketing check list), and using them in the correct way; it’s just as important to use them regularly enough.

Of course, with marketing there is always a balancing act.  If, for example, the business owner I mentioned a moment ago had sent a new catalogue out every week, the cost of production and distribution would have massively increased.  It’s likely he would get too few additional sales, to justify the massive additional cost.  However, by slowly increasing the regularity of your marketing, you can find the sweet-spot; the point where your marketing is being used with ideal regularity.  Not too frequently and not too infrequently.

Why not take a moment to review the most effective forms of marketing you currently use and see if there’s a possibility, that you are not using it frequently enough?

Marketing messages: It’s all about THEM!

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All too often, small business owners market their services based on what is most appealing to them.  They make offers that they think are great.  They focus on benefits that they think are important.

Here’s the challenge with that approach: It’s very ineffective!

Your prospective clients buy for their reasons, not yours.  If you want them to become clients, you need to be able to see things from their perspective and adapt your marketing messages accordingly.  You need to write in terms that are native to them, not you.  You need to inspire them to call you, email you, visit your store etc, and they will only do that if you give them a good reason to.  This means using their language, to demonstrate the benefits of what you do, based on their most pressing needs.  It’s all about THEM.

I saw someone recently trying to encourage small business owners, to attend a free talk he was giving, about how to use foursquare.  Here’s what his primary marketing message was:

“Learn how to geosocialize with your local commercial spectrum!”

Now, for 99% of the small business population, that phrase will be more likely to turn them off, than convince them to check out the service.  He was talking in HIS language, not his intended audience’s.  He failed to explain in clear business terms, what the benefits of attending his talk would be.  He failed to explain why a busy business owner should take time out from running their business, to go and listen to him.

One of the fastest ways you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing copy writing, is to review your material and ask yourself:

  • Is this written in the language I use, or the language of my prospective clients / customers?
  • Does this message clearly explain, in as few words as possible, compelling reasons why they need my product or service?

If you find your copy is failing on either front, rewrite it.  This time, place all the emphasis on them and their needs.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!