Freelance Copywriting, marketing and social media tips

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+

Have you ever had an original thought?

Something no one else has ever thought of?

Probably not, after all, with the many millions of people in the world (past and present) it’s a tall order to come up with something completely original.

So where does that leave your marketing strategy?

Is it a bit predictable?

Well, now’s the time to do something about it.

Recently, I was lucky enough to hear Dave Trott speak at the Professional Copywriter Network conference in London.

He talked out how important it is to out-think your competitors.

For example, if your business has 8 direct competitors (your products are the same) and your campaigns are very similar, there’s nothing for your consumers to distinguish between you.

The chances are your market share has stagnated or is reducing – neither of which are good.

So what do you do?

You have to out-think your competitors.

During Dave’s hugely entertaining presentation (if you get the chance to hear him speak, grab it with both hands) he illustrated the point with an example of one of his own advertising projects.

A few years ago Dave was tasked with coming up with an advertising campaign to prevent chip pan fires.

Previously, the issue had been tackled by showing how quickly a fire could take hold, each incarnation more gruesome than the one before. But these tactics weren’t working.

It was time for someone to look at things differently.

Rather than taking the traditional view of ‘to prevent fires we must show the audience what will happen if they have a chip pan fire’, Dave opted to look at it from a different angle.

If there were lots of chip pan fires that meant the fire brigade would be called out to lots of fires. So instead of showing housewives the devastating effect of fire, Dave chose to find a way to reduce those call outs.

So Dave produced an advert that showed housewives how to deal with a chip pan fire safely, therefore reducing the number of call outs.

That’s (award winning) creative thinking.

It’s not looking at the obvious need, but instead turning the problem on its head and looking for another, possibly easier, problem to solve.

So next time you create a marketing campaign, apply a different way of thinking. Look at every aspect of what you’re trying to achieve to see if you can come up with something that’s going to make you stand out.

For more about out-thinking your competition, Dave has a ‘must read’ book out called “Predatory Thinking – A Masterclass in Out-Thinking The Competition” (link to Amazon page).

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+

Why do you blog?

Do you think it will create a steady stream of new customers?

Does it boost your ego?

Is it a way of you getting your knowledge out to the wider world?

Are you doing it purely for financial gain?

During the recent Professional Copywriter’s Network conference in London, this was a subject that came up.

During a panel discussion it became clear that blogging has Marmite qualities – you either love it or hate it.

Firmly in the ‘anti-blogging’ camp was Andy Maslen.

Andy runs a hugely successful copywriting agency and training academy. His argument was that you’d get a far better return for your time if you were to pick up the phone to companies you wanted to work with and talk to them.

That argument definitely has legs assuming you’re the type of person who doesn’t break out into a cold sweat just thinking about cold calling.

But what about using blogging as a promotional tool?

Plenty of successful writers do so – granted it won’t lead to a guaranteed flood of new clients banging on your door (mind you, there’s no guarantee calling people up will either) – but it is a proven way of driving traffic to your website.

And before you shout me down and tell me that large companies don’t ‘Google’ for copywriters, they ask for recommendations, they do – I’ve personally experienced the phenomenon on several occasions.

So is it a waste of time blogging?

No, it isn’t.

Why?

• It is a great way to show yourself as an expert in your field (yes, there are others too, such as talking at events, but you can’t deny blogging’s ability to get your voice out there)
• It helps you reach a vast audience
• It’s a good way of adding fresh, high quality content to your website
• It’s a fantastic way to grow your marketing list (by getting readers to sign up to your newsletter)
• It’s the perfect way to add value to your customers and readers

But if you are going to blog, make sure you add value and do something different. Don’t copy your favourite blogger’s style because:

a)    You won’t get noticed

b)   You won’t be saying anything different

c)    You’ll be downright boring

Write stuff that’s useful and that people haven’t heard before.

Don’t be afraid to put your opinions out there – the more controversial the better – and get a conversation started.

And above all, if you’re going to blog for your business don’t outsource it.

An odd think for a copywriter to say, but I believe it’s vital you develop your own voice and style. Your blog is there to create a relationship – if you get someone else to write it for you it’s a bit like being married, but living elsewhere while a stand-in pretends to be you.

So should you blog?

If you have something new and interesting to day, yes you should. But make sure your marketing strategy doesn’t start and end there. If you’re business is to flourish you must adopt several different ways of marketing it – never put all your eggs in one basket.

Video marketing is a must these days, which means it’s time to get to grips with YouTube.

And that means planning your YouTube strategy.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to create and share great video content that’s valuable and relevant to the audience you want to attract. That’s all well and good, but what kind of video content do you need?

If you follow this blog, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Social Media Examiner. Whilst researching this subject, I came across a post on their blog that basically sums up the kind of strategy you need to make a YouTube impact.

I’ll give you the link in a moment, but to give you a flavour of what to expect, they come up with 5 styles of YouTube video that will get you the results you want:

1. Trailer video
2. Videos that share stats that matter to your audience
3. Share a customer success story to establish a good reputation
4. Answer commonly asked questions to position yourself as an expert in your field
5. Create a ‘how to’ video to teach your audience a valuable skill

OK, here’s the link I promised you – Simple YouTube Strategy

It really is worth a look, so grab a coffee and have a read.

For many, Google+ is a bit of an enigma.

They know they should be using it (after all, it is from Google so it’s got to be beneficial), but have no idea how to use it.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger just happens to be in one of my Google+ circles and one of his updates caught my eye.

He was talking about a post on his blog that offers 64 Google+ content strategies through a fantastic infographic, so I thought I’d share it with you here:

The post also offers 10 tips for effective Google+ing, such as:

1. Link Google+ to your blog
2. Build strategic networks with circles
3. Offer live video chat with Hangouts
4. User hashtags to make your posts search friendly
5. Link to your blog posts to rank higher in Google+ and Google search
6. Use ripples to add influencers to your cirlces
7. Write long posts inside Google+
8. Use direct connect so people can add you to circles from Google search
9. Use tags to reach out to people and brands
10. Display your photo in Google search results

Have a play with it.

Like this infographic? Grab a proven framework for content marketing that works from Copyblogger.

Is it really worth adding a META Description to your blog posts and other web content?

These tags are chunks of information about a web page that the search engines use to suss out what the page is about. There’s a lot of conflicting information about these, so this post will make the current situation clear.

These tags are not used by search engines to rank a web page. That said they are still a very important element that should be included on every blog post and page.

Why?

The search engines always show a description of the page in the search results, so why not make sure it’s something relevant?

If left blank, the search engines will pick something based on the search term used. But you always include well-written descriptions Google (and the other search engines) should use them.

Think about your own search habits.  When faced with a list of websites you automatically read the tags to see which result is the most relevant to you. So if you want your web page to get the click, make sure you write a stonking tag.

How to write a good description

The following tips will help you create great descriptions:

• Write for your readers, not the search engines. Although it’s important to include keywords, don’t stuff them.
• You’re limited to about 150 characters so think carefully about what you want to say.
• If you use WordPress, use one of their SEO plugins to help you.

Think of the META Description as your 60 sales pitch. Use it to tell your reader what the page is about and how it will help them.

A well-written tag will dramatically increase your chances of getting that all-important click. So next time you write a blog post or create a new web page, think carefully about how it will help your reader and tell them in the tag.

Remember, the META Description won’t affect your ranking, but it will help drive search traffic your way.

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+