Marketing Failures: Triple Shot Friday

by

Here are three failed marketing initiatives I experienced this week:

1. Be Careful How You Ask Me for Money

My college sent me a letter telling me to be on the lookout for a letter from two alums. I had a feeling the second letter would be asking me for moolah. I was correct. However, this second letter was printed on three pieces of paper–front side only. The letter could have EASILY been printed on one piece of paper, using both sides.

Failed Marketing Takeaway: Do not waste paper and then ask me to make a three-year monetary “gift” commitment.

2. Audience Rules

A marketer created a print ad for a local publication and wanted me to “spruce up” the copy. After asking him for the pub’s demographics, he sent me census data on the town in which the publication appears, as if that info would tell me who reads the publication (as Dave Barry would say, “I’m not making this up.” I went to the publication’s website and downloaded the info myself. Yes, this is the same marketer I wrote about here.) The ad included the company’s “credo” and a picture of the owner and staff. The credo was written in a “We/they” format:

We see our patients as individuals with specific needs and goals; we believe in providing our patients with the best possible care–always.

The tone was really distant, despite the inclusion of first person. I suggested turning it to “you,” as all good advertising copy should ultimately be about YOU, the prospective customer:

We see you as an individual with specific needs and goals; we believe in providing you with the best possible care–always.

This change alone makes the copy better (and not because it was my doing). However, the marketer said he wanted it to stay in third person because “that’s how credos are written.”

Failed Marketing Takeaway: Comes down to the same stuff I’ve told my writing students over the years: yes, you need to learn the “rules.” But once you do, you also have the authority to break them. When breaking the rules, understand your motivation. If it sounds better to start a sentence with “And” or “But” or (gasp) end a sentence with a preposition, then do it. I’d have been okay if the marketer had said, “Gee, I thought it sounded better in third person.” (I would have disagreed, but that’s more of a judgment call.) Saying we couldn’t do it because of a rule is just plain dumb. (And in advertising, the only rule you need to remember is that your audience rules.)

3. “Preview” Buttons Exist for a Reason

I just received an entirely image-based email that I was very interested in clicking on so that I could learn more about the offer. However, the only thing clickable in the entire email was the unsubscribe button.

Failed Marketing Takeaway: Test, test, test your stuff–be it web pages, contact forms, emails, etc.–before you send it to the masses.

Craptastic Websites & Awful Contact Us Pages

by

I was referred to a business the other day, so I popped on over to its website. The home page was professional looking with clear navigation. It had three boxes for three separate audiences, along with hyperlinked bullet points in each box. So far so good. I appreciate sites that effectively “talk” to multiple audiences and direct said audiences accordingly.

But then everything went to hell.

Those clickable bullet points? Yes, you could click on them, but they brought you to EMPTY pages that simply said {Content}. Ugh. It wasn’t one or two pages. It was ALL of them. At first, I thought it might be a glitch–perhaps the whole site was having an issue–but the home page was fine, and the two bio pages for the two principals were fine as well.

And then I went to the Contact page.

There was a form. And this line was above the form:

“This contact form is not yet active. Please call 555-555-5555 to contact Great-Biz-With-Crappy-Website at this time.” (And no, there was no email address anywhere on the site.)

Listen, if your contact form doesn’t work, then do this: Take. It. Down. Consider how much business you’re losing. Think of the people who don’t even see your disclaimer line and they go ahead and fill out the form, hit submit, get an error message, and don’t come back. How many people are going to think, “If these guys can’t make their forms work or put content on their pages, how the heck are they going to do the job I hire them to do?” (Not to mention what the search engines are going to “think.”)

And why on George Clooney’s good green earth would you prominently display links on your home page that lead to nowhere? Why? Why in 2009 am I looking at a site like this? Why, why, why, why?

I understand that writing effective, compelling content ain’t easy (trust me, I really do feel your pain). Have a smaller site. Don’t mention every single one of your services. Focus on three to four core services, and on each one of those pages you can list some of the other related services (without links), for now. You can write 3-4 pages, right? Or hire someone to do it? Kick your web person in the butt and get him or her to fix the darn form or remove it completely. Include your email address.

Your website is your marketplace. It’s your virtual mortar and bricks. If you went to a store, and all its shelves were empty and no one was manning the register and you kept hitting the little bell thingy to get someone’s attention, but it didn’t work, what would you do?

Right. You’d walk out.

Do You Want a Clever Ad or One That Works?

by

Q: Dear Copy Bitch–I want you to create a print ad with a really clever headline. I don’t want a sub-headline, just the headline. I want it to tease the mind a bit so that it leaves the person to fill in the blanks. I think that’s what makes it memorable–because it engages the reader. Can you do this?

Answer: First off, clever doesn’t always mean “memorable.” Have you ever found yourself telling someone about a clever ad, only to realize that while you clearly remember the clever concept, you don’t remember the advertiser? I know I have. Second, you might want to reassess your expectations of “engaging” the reader with a print ad, at least in today’s white-noise-rich environment. Yeah, yeah, I know. YOUR ad will engage the reader. She’ll be paging through her favorite magazine and will not only pause, but also stop and gasp at your amazing ad and clever headline that teases her mind so that she can “fill in the blanks.”

Could that happen? Sure, I suppose. But don’t count your advertising dollars on it. Instead, think about the audience: what’s the pain point and how does your product/service/company diminish that pain?

Want a perfect example of ads that do this? Pick up a magazine like Family Circle, which caters to women, including working moms and stay-at-home-moms with busy schedules (I’m guessing the sweet spot for age, but I’m sure I’m not far off: 35-50). I can almost guarantee you’ll find an ad from a print advertiser that’s touting a food product and then a recipe for said food product. The pain point: cooking easy, nutritious meals for the family. The solution: easy recipe.

The goal with your advertising–even those ads that are branding ads–should be effectiveness, not cleverness. If you can come up with a concept that’s clever and effective, great. But work on the effectiveness part first.

Word Confusion: No Peeking at my Peak!

by

Dear Copy Bitch: Got any tips for remembering how to use peek and peak correctly?

Answer: Sure. You need your eyes to look quickly–or “peek”–at something. There are two e’s in eyes. Same for peek. (You also have two eyes, so you can use that hint as well.)

The peak is the top of something, often a mountain. Think of the Alps (“a” in Alps; “a” in “peak”). By the way, if you “pique” someone’s interest, it’s spelled p-i-q-u-e. Think of it this way: Q is one of the craziest, coolest letters in our alphabet (and worth 10 points in Scrabble). If something interests you, it’s probably because it’s cool. So think “cool Q” and write pique correctly.

Is It OK to End Sentences with Prepositions? Short Answer: Yes.

by

Q: Dear Copy Bitch: Is it okay to end sentences with prepositions?

A: The Copy Bitch says yes, especially if it sounds too clunky to rewrite it “correctly,” but grammar purists hate me for it. That’s when I pull out a quote (often attributed to Winston Churchill) to make my point: “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”

Write Copy as if You’re a Criminal Minds Profiler

by

Here’s a question for you, dear readers: would you talk to a 20-year-old male living in Los Angeles in a different manner than you’d talk to a 45-year-old woman living in a suburb of Boston? (This isn’t a trick question.)

A: Yes, of course you would. So imagine my shock the other day when I got a call from a marketer who wanted me to write a headline for a print ad, the third in a series in which he’d created the other two. I asked him where the ad would be appearing, and he told me. Then I asked for demo info on the pub. And he said, “What do you mean ‘demo’ info? Oh, you mean demographics? I don’t think you’ll need that info once you see what I did with the first two ads.”

How can I write an ad for an invisible audience? How do I know if I’m talking to the 20-year-old male living in an urban setting or the 45-year-old woman living in suburbia? I can’t. So, of course, I went to the publication’s website, downloaded the media kit, read it, and sent it to the marketer along with my suggestions on images and headlines based on the people who actually read the magazine.

(Sadly, this situation isn’t an anomaly. It happens more often than you think.)

I love the show Criminal Minds because of how the FBI agents get into people’s heads (granted, we’re talking pretty screwed up heads). When you write copy, when you create a website, a direct mail campaign, a sales letter, a radio spot, whatever…you need to profile the typical audience member with the same precision and level of detail. Really.

How Human is Your Site? Balancing Good Writing with SEO

by

Dear Copy Bitch: How do you balance SEO needs with good writing?

–Laura M., Rome

A: The answer is going to seem overly simple, but here it is: write for humans first, search engines second. Honestly, the most important thing you can do for your website or blog is provide great content. Great content trumps every SEO trick. How do we know this? Think about things that go viral in a matter of days or even hours. Great content won’t be denied.

The best business websites and blogs go above and beyond the typical and expected descriptions of products and services. They go above and beyond showing benefits. I’m not suggesting you lose your service list, your product descriptions, or the benefits you provide customers. And I’m not suggesting you ignore good SEO practices, like having keyword-rich and relevant-to-the-page title tags. But your site needs to do more. It needs personality. Make it human. Make it real. Tell stories. Be bold. Be honest. Be blunt. Is this easy to do? No, not even for us professionals. But your site needs to be as human as you are. So the question is, how human is yours?

[Update: I wrote this post in 2009 or so. As I reviewed it today, August 2017 as I write this, nothing has changed–if anything, you need to be even bolder and more human, if that’s possible.]

Word Confusion: Using “Then” & “Than” Correctly

by

Q: Dear Copy Bitch: I always misuse “then” and “than.” Do you have any tips for using these correctly?

A: I learned a great tip a couple of years ago from a writing magazine (I don’t remember which one, which is why I’m not naming names). Think of it like this: than has to do with comparisons. Then has to do with time. There’s an “a” in comparisons as there is in than. There’s an “e” in time as there is in then.

Examples:

  • I think George Clooney is hotter than Brad Pitt. (comparing George to Brad)
  • First, I’m going to eat ice cream, and then I’ll work out. (giving the timing of my eating and exercising)

Failed Marketing Expose: Make Your Free Content Truly Free

by

So this surprised me: one of the “big players” in marketing and copywriting has a really cool, short newsletter that comes out on Wednesdays. It’s filled with info that I would gladly provide a link to on this here blog, because it’s info business owners can implement right away.

Today’s newsletter was no exception, so I hopped on over to her site to get the permalink, and guess what? Her newsletter archives COST MONEY. They are NOT accessible unless you pony up $$ for it and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Now let me remind you: I signed up for her newsletter for FREE. I enjoy the content (it’s one newsletter I’ll read right when it comes in b/c it’s always short). I’d probably rebroadcast her newsletter every week through the blog, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But I can’t because you have to pay for her archives.

I think her archives could be a great way to promote her paid-access areas. Make ’em free, marketing lady. Make ’em free and allow me to SHARE the great content. Isn’t that’s what it’s all about?

Note: I have no problem with the idea of bundling those newsletters and turning them into a book that people pay for. But a cost-to-play newsletter archive isn’t the place to make a buck. Use that content to get more subscribers, to lure people in, and to show people your marketing/writing chops (or whatever type of chops you have).

[Updated: August 2017]

Why I (Sometimes) Hate Writing Websites

by

This might sound weird coming from a copywriter, especially since I have a whole page devoted to my website copywriting clients. Especially since I’m knowledgeable about SEO copywriting (not all copywriters are). Especially since website writing tends to bring in the big bucks. (Reminder: SEO = search engine optimization.)

But when the web project isn’t set up right from the get-go, well…let’s just say they aren’t my favorite thing. (Note: I have gotten better at sniffing out the projects that aren’t the right fit.)

So how do web projects fall apart before they even start? Please know that this isn’t ego talking, but an SEO copywriter should be involved in the project from the very start. Yeah, even before you find a web developer. Why?

Simple.

Many web designers and developers don’t know the ins and outs of SEO. Designers are focused on creating engaging designs. Developers are often excellent programmers and coders. Both probably know something about SEO (it’s hard not to, at least today). But do either stop and think deeply about marketing? About messaging? About who the audiences are? About the keyword phrases people will use to get to the site? A good SEO copywriter will likely have strong marketing chops and think about these things and talk about these things first. And guess what? The answers to the messaging and audience questions will affect both design and site architecture (if you want the site developed correctly, that is).

Most of my website clients come to me as an afterthought. They think, “Oh, we need a website, so let’s find a web developer.” It’s usually the web developer who makes the referral to me, but by then, too much has happened. While it might seem logical to start with the web developer, it’s not an effective strategy.

If you’re building a new site, start with an SEO copywriter first.

Buy her expertise for 2-3 hours and have her work as a consultant. She’ll pick your brain on marketing messages, goals, expectations, competitors, keyword phrases, audiences–in other words, ALL the things you need to know before you can really do anything else.

Once all this info has been researched and digested, you should hire someone to do the keyword phrase research based on your keyword seed list (some SEO copywriters do this; others will refer you to search engine optimizers). Your keyword phrases will influence site architecture, the site map, and the design. At the same time this research is being conducted, you can begin talks with web designer/developers.

If you’re re-launching or revising your existing site, start with an SEO copywriter or SEO first.

Same thing. Buy the copywriter’s expertise or the SEO’s expertise FIRST. In fact, I’d say you should start with the SEO first, in this situation, even before turning to the writer (SEOs will review technical stuff; not all writers–even the good ones–are well-versed in that).

Note: there are web developers who really know SEO and tout this as one of their offerings. Still, most of these will involve a writer from the start, or close to it. There are also developers who say they know SEO, but it’s more cursory knowledge (which isn’t necessarily bad or misleading…after all, they’re developers, not SEOs). And there are a lot of indy developers who rely on writers and SEOs for the optimization part. Do your homework. Good developers will welcome working with writers from the get-go and/or respect the fact you’ve started your website project with a writer. Beware of the ones who don’t “get” this.

If you’re at the beginning of your web marketing project and need some advice, let’s chat. (Or check out my web writing portfolio to see examples of my work.)