Copywriting Archives - Page 5 of 13 - McLellan Marketing Group

Want someone to read your ad? Better sharpen your pencil.

February 13, 2008

I remember my copywriting professor telling us that when we were working on print ads, we should spend at least 1/3 of our time on the headline — it was that important.

Your headline is either a speed bump your audience won’t brave or a whiff of freshly baked cookies, enticing them in. Your call.

Join me over at IowaBiz.com for some headline suggestions.

Two types of tagline – great and “other”

February 11, 2008

We’ve certainly talked taglines before. When they’re right — they can be an incredible tool for a business. Sadly, they’re not usually right.

Kevin Horne (from whom I stole this post’s headline) wrote about a British paper having some fun with their readers, asking them to come up with a tagline that describes what it’s like to be British. My favorite…."at least we’re not French." Good to see that geographic rivalries exist outside of the states as well.

Kevin goes on to list 3 taglines that were dead on. Ironically, none of three are being used today. They were great and replaced with pablum. It happens way too often.

Let me add to that list with an example that is enough to make a marketer cry. Michelin Tire’s tagline "because so much is riding on your tires" was brilliant. It spoke to the buyer’s deepest emotion and fear.

And then, of course…they changed it. Ready for the absolutely remarkable tagline that would justify walking away from "so much is riding on it?"

A better way forward.

Yup….you read it correct. I often wonder how someone presented a particularly bad idea in such a compelling way that everyone around the table bought it. This is one of those instances.

"Hey….let’s trash the tagline that differentiated us, identified a clear advantage, triggered the buyer’s deepest emotions and has incredible mind share already with something that says absolutely nothing and ANY tire company could use."

No wonder they changed it.

Why do you think most companies don’t really understand taglines?

If content is king — meet the royal court!

January 26, 2008

Whether we are talking "old" marketing or "new" one thing hasn’t changed. If you aren’t relevant, you won’t survive the scrutiny of an audience that is time starved and attention span short.

To make this point, Junta42 has released their Top 42 Marketing Content blogs. They define content marketing as:

"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action."

As you can imagine, I’m honored that my blog was included, as well as Daily Fix where I also get to show my pretty face.

Truth be told…there are lots of lists out there. And it’s always nice to be included. But, I figure the value in them is that they introduce us to thinkers and writers we might not have met before. So, with that caveat — if you want to learn more about content marketing, take a lesson from these masters.

Many of these are on my must read list, but I discovered some new blogs as well. Even if you just add a couple to your feed reader, you’re going to be glad you did!

Do you do viral video?

January 14, 2008

YouTube has changed our connotation of the word video. Depending on your age…it might have meant something you rented at the "video store." Or, you might have even taped TV shows on one.

For those of us in the communications world, video used to only mean high end production pieces that would tell your company’s story in 4-7 minutes. (Still a very viable communications tools — just not an exclusive meaning anymore) or you might send away for one if you were considering buying a BowFlex.

But today, when you said video, it’s just as likely that someone will reference a Paul Potts video that was viewed by over 20 MILLION people or the Diet Coke + Mentos video was was watched nearly 5 MILLION times.

So as marketers — I think we need to be paying attention and asking ourselves if we too should be producing video content for our business or our clients’ business.

Over the next few days, I’d like to explore this topic with you. We’ll look at high end, slick videos that have gone viral, sentimental tear jerkers that have touched people’s collective hearts and some down and dirty videos that have an effectiveness all their own.

Here’s some statistics to start off our discussion. Think that viral video is just the territory of bloggers and other early adopters? Think again.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project have just completed some research and the numbers are noteworthy. Is this marketing tool mainstream yet? No….but if you look at the increase in percentages, you can see that it’s not too far off.

This first chart shows stats on people who have ever visited a video sharing site like YouTube. Look at how the numbers are trending.

This next chart is looking at activity on an average day. Again, look at the huge percentile growth.

So what’s been your experience so far? Have you experienced a surge of video exposure in your professional life? Are your competitors doing it? Have you considered it?

Interestingly, when you look at the list of the Top 5 viral videos of 2007, you’ll see they’re hardly of the home grown variety. What do you think that means for the less expensive and less agency produced variety?

Source of charts: MarketingCharts.com

Catch more flies with honey

January 14, 2008

What do you get when you add the phrase "you’ll catch a lot more flies with honey" to the other phrase "it’s not what you say but how you say it?"

You get a lesson in copywriting.

Most often, both phrases are used in the context of a personal relationship but they have significance for our professional communications as well.

The other day, I was skimming a newsletter and had to laugh and appreciate a newsletter editor’s insight into this notion of mixing honey and how you say something.

Like most newsletters these days, it has a very US Today (snippets of info) layout. But, the center spread had a large, bold subtitle that immediately caught my eye…and had me reading the entire section word for word.

The subtitle – "For Achievers Only." Now, what discerning reader is going to skip over that section?

How could you use that same idea in your business? Do you dabble some honey on your copy?

Precision adds to credibility

January 6, 2008

I flew into Marco Island, FL on Saturday to speak at a conference. During the flight, the pilot came over the PA system to tell us that he’d "have us on the ground in 37 and one third minutes."

My first thought was…guess he knows what he’s doing.

In marketing materials, copywriters have a tendency to use round numbers or catch all phrases like "well over two thousand." What if instead the writer had used 2,482?

Which one feels more real? More accurate? Which one gives the communications piece more weight and credibility?

Exactly. So be exact.

Consumers Spill: White Lies They Tell Businesses/Business Owners All the Time

December 9, 2007

~ I really care about you or business’ success.

~ You looked so good in your TV commercial. You should never pay for professional talent.

~ I don’t know how much I have to spend.

~ I behave just like everyone else in my demographic.

~ I don’t mind waiting for you to finish your personal conversation before acknowledging me.

~ It’s okay to ignore me if you don’t know the answer.

~ Let me get right back to you on that. Thanks so much for the cold call.

~ No, no….everything is fine. We’ll be back soon.

Of course, the consumers don’t utter these words. They just behave politely and sales people and business owners make erroneous assumptions every day, based on those behaviors.

Which of these lies are you choosing to believe?

Note: This post was instigated by Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame. He wrote a post claiming that you can always get blog post inspiration from the cover of Cosmo magazine and challenged his readers to give it a try. Hat tip to my friend Director Tom for reminding me to take part.

Roberta Rosenberg: Re-framing the Fruitcake: Taking a Fresh Look at Your Product/Service Marketing

November 24, 2007

I teach an online course for budding copywriters. One of the examples I use as illustration of "the big marketing idea" is that of a Texas bakery who had a perception problem. Their product was delicious. Their delivery was speedy. Their customer service was impeccable. Customers loved the product and purchased these baked goods via store and catalog faithfully, especially at Christmas.

At this point you're probably thinking, "Okay, Roberta. If everything was so great – product, delivery, customer service, loyal customers — what kind of major problem could this bakery have had?"

Your tip-off is the title to this post. The Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana, Texas made fruitcakes and they still do. They've been making and selling fruitcakes for over 100 years. Now I'm not exactly sure when the holiday fruitcake became a favorite Christmas time joke gift (like The Singing Bass plaque from a few years ago), but it has. You know it and I know it.

In fact, when I did a Google search for "fruitcake jokes", Google returned 342,000 references. That's a lot of references, especially when compared to "latke (potato pancake) jokes" which came back with only 81,100 citations.

So what do you do, how do you sell profitably to new customers, when your main product is a holiday joke?

YOU CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE!

That's what Garry Hennenberg, master copywriter, did. With a flick of his pen and a click of his keyboard, fruitcake became (drum roll, please) "Native Texas Pecan Cake!" (cue rim shot!)

Now that's genius. The bakery's holiday direct mail promotion waxed strong and poetic about this delicious taste treat, so perfect for holiday gift giving. I'm sure it used much of the same advertising copy that it used before. But by calling fruitcake something else, the entire sales promotion/the marketing argument was completely re-framed for the prospect market. Rather than get sidetracked by "fruitcake as gag gift", prospective customers could be encouraged to give "Native Texas Pecan Cakes" as a gift from the heart.

And if you're wondering, yes, this promotion sold a LOT of fruitcakes. Like I said, pure genius.

How many slow moving products or services are you sitting on that couldn't benefit from a little re-framing of your own?

Jonathan Winters, a comic madman and another genius to my mind, was known for being able to take any object handed to him – a broom stick, for example – and within seconds, he'd transform the stick into a cane for an old man, a rifle for a soldier, a cigar for a giant, and so forth to the delight of his audience.

Here's another example. Arm & Hammer, the baking soda manufacturer, has been around for over 155 years. In the last 50 years they've marketed the heck out of that humble little yellow box of baking soda Grandma used to bake us cookies and with the power of re-framing, turned it into a marketing juggernaut. We've got it in our refrigerators/freezers/litter boxes as a deodorizer … we use it as a safe, effective, eco-friendly cleaner … heck, we even brush our teeth with it to make our smile a little more sparkly.

And it's all still just baking soda.

Jonathan Winters re-framed a slim stick of wood and made his audience see Babe Ruth at the plate, ready to let one fly toward the bleachers.
Arm & Hammer "re-framed" baking soda and made it a personal/household staple and they're still finding new ways for consumers to use it.
Collin Street Bakery re-framed their fruitcake from holiday gag gift into a native Texas delicacy that folks just had to have and give.

Imagine the possibilities when put the power of re-framing to work for your own product/service marketing. I can't imagine a better time than right now. (Now will someone please pass me another piece of ~~fruitcake~~ …, er Texas Pecan Cake. I'm starved! :=)

Drew's Note: Roberta Rosenberg is one of the first bloggers that I really got to know and she is wacky, witty and about as smart as you get. She's had her own copywriting business for years and blogs at the Copywriting Maven. Roberta, as you might surmise, is the first of the good guys who is in fact, a good gal. (woman, lady…you know what I mean!)

Mark Goren: Turn the page to more effective persona profiles

November 22, 2007

Back in early September, Drew wrote a post titled, "Write for real people." In it, he took the time to describe one of his tricks for writing – a way for him to picture the people he's writing for. At the time, he called this "the poor man's persona."

But let's say you wanted to go a little deeper, get a little more detailed about the Brand Persona you'd like to write and the people you want to connect to. Recently, I've drawn inspiration from three different books, each giving me something unique to hang on to.

1. The New Rules of Marketing + P.R. – by David Meerman Scott
If the New Rules Scott delivers aren't enough, he puts them into context relative to the people you're addressing. In the book, he writes in detail about how to develop a persona profile and how to apply each using his New Rules.

Key takeaway: the words you choose to describe your target will influence the words you choose to reach it. Have several targets? Develop several persona profiles and match them to the tools/methods that serve the target best. Doing so will help you connect your message on a more personal level.

2. Made to Stick – by Chip Heath + Dan Heath
The Heath brothers analyze what helps make a person remember a story and give concrete real-life examples to back up their claims. In Chapter 3, they talk about the importance of finding a universal language when speaking to your audience.

Key takeaway: Because you're the expert – after all, it's your product or service – you must find a way to address what your prospect doesn't know in a way that will help them understand and remember your message. When developing your persona profiles, consider where your audience is coming from, this will help you find common ground in your messaging.

3. Robin Hood Marketing – by Katya Andresen
In this book, Andresen looks at everything from a consumer perspective to determine what makes a person want to act. Because the book is all about "stealing corporate savvy to sell just causes", it gives readers a different perspective into a consumer's mindset to help you determine how to get people to volunteer time or money to charity. As Scott Case states on the back cover: "Andresen's message is clear: It's not about YOU. It's about your supporter. Tap your supporter's wants, hopes, dreams, and desires and you'll move mountains."

Key takeaway: When developing your persona profiles, think about how you can address your customers' personal goals, the ones that speak to the kind of person they are.

Remember, your persona profiles don't have to follow a specific template. They can always change. Look for cues in what you're reading to evolve the format you follow. The result will be richer, deeper messaging that connects.

Tell me, what tricks and tips do you use to develop your persona profiles?

Drew's Note: About a year ago, Mark Goren left agency life and hung out a shingle to help clients discover and find their voice in new media. Mark's love for books is what first brought us on each other's radar screens and thank goodness (on my end) for that! I hope you are sensing a theme…but like Greg, Gavin and Cam, Mark is definitely one of the good guys.

4 things marketers could learn from reality shows

November 16, 2007

We make fun of them, we swear we never watch them….and yet they are everywhere.

Reality shows.

Long before the writer's strike, they were already here to stay. Having a teenager in the house means I get to watch more than my fair share of them. Like the proverbial train wreck, they're sort of hard to turn away from. They are both grotesque and fascinating.

I realized tonight that there are some lessons for us in the reality show recipe. After all, wouldn't we like our marketing efforts to be mesmerizing?

High Emotion/Drama: There's not a dull moment on these shows. They have a wonderful sense of story-telling build up. You can feel the tension mounting and before you know it — someone is taking a swing at someone else or we've got a full on sob fest.

How about your marketing materials? Are you telling a story that builds up to a satisfying emotional reaction? Are you drawing your audience in?

Messy: There's nothing pretty or perfect on a reality show. But then again, life isn't perfect. It's messy. Especially when you are doing things "live" or on the fly.

I think one of the reasons many companies shy away from social media tactics is because they can't package them up and put a bow on them. It's okay to just get out there and wing it a little. Maybe it will look a little messy from time to time — but it will also look authentic.

Conflict: Most reality shows are some sort of contest. It pits people against each other and within that, secret alliances, grudge matches and villains. We need someone to root for. And against.

We know that all buying decisions are based on emotions. Do you know what emotions trigger a prospect to become a buyer for your product/service? Are you setting up conflicts to evoke those emotions?

Surprise: There are more twists and turns than the roller coasters at Cedar Point. They're always bringing back old contestants or revealing secrets, just to keep everyone on their toes. Adding an element of surprise enhances the three earlier elements — high emotions, messiness and conflict. Surprise also offers relief from those elements. So just about the time you can't handle any more drama, they'll take a twist and offer a sentimental moment.

Are you remembering to surprise your customers? That's a very powerful way to generate word of mouth and stickiness.

So next time you are feeling a little guilty about watching Dancing with the Stars or I Love New York 2 — have no fear. You're just enhancing your marketing knowledge!

« Previous 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 13 Next »