Entries Tagged 'Marketing' ↓

I just finished registering for the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as an “industry attendee” vs a blogger. They’ve eliminated the blogger designation as part of a “stricter credentialing process” and, still waiting to see whether they consider Otis Regrets a legitimate source of industry information who will qualify as a member of the working press, I bought some insurance through a standard registration to get under the early bird deadline.

I’m been pretty diligent about logging a couple of stories a day at shows like this in return for my blogger credential; now maybe it frees me up to do fewer and deeper articles. If I don’t get a press credential, what I miss out on is a box lunch (whose main virtue is that it’s on premises, so you don’t have to take time out to eat lunch) and a tote bag. I will be okay.

CES also wants to tighten registration on attendees in general: “Due to the investment made by our exhibitors, International CES show management wants to ensure that its attendees are members of the trade.” CES is not a very tchotchke-rich show and I am guessing fairly few rapscallions fly across the country to spend several days padding around enormous rooms of strange machines; the main threat would seem to come from local lookie-loos, either retired or underemployed, and I’m sure they will find a way to get in.

See you at the buffet.

What do you do when you get an assignment in an entirely new area, for a product you’ve never written about? Here are a few seat-of-the-pants research strategies to wrap your mind around the project.

1. Read what your audience reads. Is the campaign running on audience-specific websites? Or mailing to subscription lists? Reading the pubs can give you clues about what interests your prospects and what level of writing they’re used to seeing. One timesaving tip for magazines: look at the publisher’s column in the front of the book. These are usually fairly vapid puff pieces which appeal to what the publisher or editor thinks the audience wants to read. You can do better writing than this, and you will, but looking at the topics in the publisher’s column gives you quick insights.

2. Study the competition. The web offers a wealth of free competitive research for copywriters. Find out who your client considers major competitors and also do searches using their keywords to see who else comes up, then study the way those competitors are marketing themselves. As a bonus, you may find links to research and stats you can repurpose for your own client. (But be sure to follow the links to their source, rather than quoting a competitor directly. The stats may be erroneous or proprietary and besides, plagiarism is never okay.)

3. Read the product manual or documentation. Some manuals are overly technical or poorly written, but every now and then you’ll find that a good technical writer has done the groundwork of testing a product and finding the best way to assemble and use it for quick satisfaction. That’s a boon for you.

4. Talk to the product manager. In a technology company, the product manager is the link between engineering and sales. They know how the product works and they are able to explain it in a way that makes sense to a non-technical audience. They also know how the hot buttons that appeal to their target audience in demos and at trade shows.

5. Talk to the sales team… maybe. Some salespeople focus on “people skills” and pride themselves on being able to close on the strength of their personality, not product benefits. You’ll come away with a string of generalities that aren’t convincing when you set them down in writing. But if you ask them what are the most common concerns or objections they hear on a sales call and how they respond, even non-technical salespeople may reveal strategy points that the internal marketing people don’t know about.

6. Talk to customers. This is a tricky one. Somebody who actually uses the product can be a great source of insight as well as potential quotes or even copy platforms. However, your client may not be comfortable putting you in front of a customer directly. And the customer may expect that there’s something in it for them—they’ll get their name in print with a testimonial (perhaps a terrible one they have prewritten for you) or maybe some free samples. So be careful. Tell them at the outset that you’ll try not to take much of their time and thank them profusely, letting them know by implication that thanks are all they’re getting from you.

Excerpted from my new book, Copywriting that Gets RESULTS! Get your copy here.

Pandas, tigers and bears... oh, my.

In the Biblical Book of 1 Kings, Solomon must judge which of two women is the mother of a baby and, as a marketing experiment, he offers to split it in half. The bogus mom says “go for it” while of course the real mother says “she can have it, spare my child!”

This lesson was not lost on the new crop of marketers who seem to be in place at the World Wildlife Fund. They worry about which species you might like to support, so they give you a choice. Select a panda, polar bear or tiger, and to hell with the other two.

Of course, that’s not exactly what is happening. WWF wants you to “choose your favorite species” and they will send you a “symbolic adoption kit” consisting of an adorable stuffed panda/tiger/polar bear, matching tote bag, adoption certificate and “information brochure” when you make a commitment of $8 per month.

What is wrong with this campaign is a tone deaf absence of common sense. If you are a person committed to supporting threatened nature, “choose your favorite species” is fingernails on a chalkboard or a punch in the solar plexus. And as an adoptive parent I can tell you the concept of “symbolic adoption” is like that turd in the pie in The Help—gag-inducing repugnant. Adoption is like pregnancy. It is or it isn’t, no qualifiers allowed.

The devils that infest this package do more damage in the letter, whose first paragraph in its entirety is “You hear it every day:” Holy endangered pythons. Can you imagine a worse way to begin a letter than by acknowledging I am going to talk to you about something you already know? Then the final and fatal self-inflicted wound is delivered in the response device which, after all the lead-up in the letter and doubtless the campaign planning, reassures on the panel the recipient sees when opening the envelope that this is a “one-time gift”.

I actually have some inkling where this misbegotten concept originated. When my older son (not the “symbolic adopted” one) was about 4 years old, his big sister gave him an adoption certificate for an Asian tiger he was going to save through her gift. He was bummed because first, he wanted a stuffed tiger and second, he did not think he was up to caring for a real tiger.

You can see the wheels turning at WWF’s marketing department, before they came off. Great idea for grandparents! The kids are confused by the idea of “adoption” so let’s make it “symbolic”. And since polar bears, pandas and tigers are all just so cute, let’s give them a choice which they want to protect!

Sorry if I am on a bit of a high horse here, but we are not selling Bass-O-Matics®. This is a legitimate and well established not-for-profit with a very clearly defined mission. The sin, and let’s use that weighted word rather than just calling it a boneheaded mistake, was in forgetting a/who we are and b/who our audience is and c/where our mission and message intersects with their passion and desires.

If you’re a copywriter with recurring clients, you know this. An experienced WWF copywriter never would have come up with this concept because you have your client’s brand statement stapled on the wall of your studio if not tattooed on your brain pan. Pandas, tigers, polar bears, there’s room for everyone. Can we all get along?

If your company held a giveaway and said I could enter to win an iPad if I bought a product, that would be illegal. “Consideration” is one of the legal no-nos in a sweepstakes which is why the rules always say in big letters, NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

Use of images from Apple's website is also prohibited.

If your company had a giveaway and said I could enter to win an iPad with no purchase required, that would be…. prohibited. Say what? By whom? By Apple, according to their new promotional guidelines.

Apple, which will soon be or already is the world’s most valuable company, has decided it has the right to tell people what to do with products they have already purchased. iPads may not be used in promotions of any kind, period. iPod touches are ok if you buy 250 units. And of course everything must follow guidelines provided by Apple and be submitted for Apple approval.

The use of third party trademarks in marketing is a grey area. It’s not the same as my writing about iPads in this blog (there I said it iPad iPad iPad) where the primary purpose is educational so I’m protected by something called “Fair Use”. But what is very clear is that Apple has a lot more money and a lot more lawyers than you do.

I can’t find evidence of any marketer who has actually been dinged by Apple for violating this policy, which was issued earlier this year but is only recently garnering attention. But I do know at least one of my agency clients will no longer use iPad promotions. They are going to instead give away, and give free publicity to, a competing product from HP.

I don’t have a lot of love for Netflix these days. But at least they are upfront about wanting to put their hand in my pocket. A much more insidious example of corporate greed showed up in my email this week with the subject line: Exciting Account Info, Boingo in the Sky, and a Celebration in Your Honor.

I signed up for Boingo wireless a couple of years ago when you had to pay through the nose for airport wireless access. I noticed that Boingo was often one of the carriers. I signed up for a month on a free trial, then when I tried to cancel at the end of the month they quickly lowered the $29.95 monthly fee to $9.95. I’ve been a subscriber ever since, though I’ve been wondering why since more and more airports offer free wireless now and, when they don’t, the Boingo network less frequently shows up as an option.

So, okay, I could use some exciting account news, and here’s what it is: Boingo wants me to download a new version of their app and, as soon as they do, my account will be tied to a specific wireless device. You get two devices so my laptop and Droid are ok, but if I want to add a tablet or occasionally connect on another computer, that’s another $5 a month per device.

That’s not exciting news, that’s a price increase, and I’ve hopefully avoided it for now by not downloading this Trojan horse of a new app (“It only takes a minute!”)  However, Boingo promises “lots of surprises between now and the end of the year” and I would not be surprised if one of those is the disabling of the current software.

Remember Borders? Several months ago they were a nationwide chain of bookstores where you could browse, cozy up with a cup of coffee, and discover a new author while listening to music or even a live reading.

My own Borders was one of the first scheduled for closing, and they’ve been gone for maybe four months. Like a zombie or a hand from the grave, my Borders Rewards membership kept reminding me of new offers which were no longer relevant until finally I clicked the CAN-SPAM link and killed it.

But today the corpse is risen anew. Some special set of rules allows the liquidators to send my email address a message that says:

Your WOWPoints will be honored. They will be moved to OO.com over the next 30 days. Once there, you can use them just as you do now.

Um, no. I had a relationship with Borders, but I am not interested in you new guys whoever you are. Why is it so difficult to take a national brand with huge loyalty and do something for the customers which is also profitable when things go bad?

Just askin….

Like many Netflix subscribers, I had a notice of a 60% subscription price increase slipped under my door last week in the form of an impersonal email that states the bare facts with zero attempt to placate me or to win me over if I am considering canceling after the increase. (The email concludes with “We realize you have many choices for home entertainment, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us at 1-888-357-1516.” Hardly the best choice for a closing or conversion message.)

This increase is not for traditional Netflix subscribers who get a disk in the mail; it’s for the potentially far greater universe of prospects who came in via streaming. I signed up for streaming Netflix after my family got a Roku last holiday season. We quickly discovered that the “20,000 streaming movies” was actually not that big a number when looking for a specific title so we added the option of getting a disk when we can’t get instant satisfaction for $2 more a month. Nothing about our behavior, therefore, suggests we will be good candidates for conversion to a standard $7.99 a month disk in the mail plan (that’s the basis of the cost increase) and we are indeed cancelling our non-streaming subscription.

But meanwhile, Netflix is paring its streaming offerings presumably so it can get more disk orders. I know this because my teenager wanted to watch Zombieland for the umpteenth time last night and it’s gone! Not fair, Netflix! This is the company that always contacts me to ask about the video quality of the streaming show I watched or the delivery date of my DVD and a back door change in our agreement definitely doesn’t cut it. It feels like Netflix has made a corporate decision to move away from streaming and toward DVD delivery when everything we read about broadband consumption patterns should point them in the opposite direction.

Maybe, with negotiations going on behind the scenes with entertainment content providers, the streaming model isn’t making sense financially with unlimited viewings for one price. I would be willing to pay a small upcharge (NOT the full cost of renting a single DVD in the mall) for streaming access to new releases. I would also consider a “premium” level (let’s say $12.99 a month which is $5 more than the current streaming plan) for unlimited access for many more titles. But please, Netflix, don’t ask me to change my viewing habits to accommodate your new business model… even if it’s the old business model for many of your customers. I don’t think I’m alone in this. When I want to see it, I want it now… waiting for a disk in the mail seems forever.

Most marketers I have met have a terror of giving away too much information in their lead generation contacts. As a result they are constantly trying to get me to write “info copy” which is really a thinly disguised sales pitch. They’re afraid that once the reader has their perspective on their business or industry, the marketer becomes irrelevant and the customer will just go out and do it themselves.

Not going to happen. Properly written information will overwhelm and impress the reader. Rather than taking the nuggets and running with them, they will think, “these people sure are smart. Why would I want to do this myself, when I can just hire them?”

Brockles... the secret sauce of my youth.

Think about how hard it is to get anybody to pay attention to anything these days. People poring over what is after all marketing copy is a very nice problem to have. In writing my BMA talk, as usual I went to the web and found all kinds of useful research and insight which people are giving away for free such as this great post on how to put on a webinar (something else I will be talking about). Maybe they don’t care about money, maybe they have some kind of hidden agenda. But they can’t all be going out of business because they are giving information away instead of selling it.

Nobody wants to give away their “secret sauce”…. or do they? Sure the recipe should remain a secret. But as far as free samples, the more the better.

This article is written for the people who hire and critique copywriters… the hallowed “client”.

You’ve got an ad, website or direct mail package to be written and you’ve got a slew of samples, emails and letters from copywriters in response to your LinkedIn or Craigslist post. How do you separate the real candidates from the posers? Here are a few tips:

1. Realize that the samples in front of you are the best work you’re ever going to see from these writers. If they care about the job at all, they will have hand-selected an assortment of work for your eyes. If a writer doesn’t show you anything that knocks your socks off, pass.

2. Look for work that’s a good fit with your own project. Legitimate experience with your major competitor is ideal. At the very least, the copywriter should provide work that has a parallel to your own project, pointed out by the writer. For example, an insurance writer can probably make the transition to selling financial products since both are about security and money. And a writer in one highly regulated industry, such as banking, can probably make the transition to another, such as pharma. Once again, if the copywriter doesn’t provide anything that is a match then they are disinterested or else they truly have no relevant experience.

3. Look for work that shows how they can handle a project from beginning to end. Copywriting isn’t just about a great headline or “I wish I’d thought of that” entry point. It’s also unfolding a product’s benefits in a clear and methodical way. It’s about a call to action that is specific and motivating.  The best samples to demonstrate this are a classic “long form” direct mail package or else a digital campaign that includes landing pages. In these examples you’re not looking for brilliance, but follow-through.

4. Look for a broad fit to your corporate personality. If you’re a stolid B-to-B marketer and all the writer can show you is edgy gen-y work, there’s something wrong. Not with them, but with the matchup. If they had more relevant examples, you’d be seeing them.

5. Evaluate the query letter or email as its own example of copywriting. Selling is selling, and if they don’t make a persuasive argument that is relevant to your needs then you should be suspicious. And especially if their are typos, grammatical errors or misspellings in the document, pass.

6. After you’ve reviewed the samples, if they are in physical vs. electronic form, RETURN THEM TO THE WRITER. This holds true even if it’s a stack of color copies; the writer spent time and money to prepare them. Keep in mind that there is a special circle in hell, right next to Leona Helmsley’s dog Trouble, reserved for marketing managers who “misplace” a copywriter’s last sample of a prized work.

$3.729 at Hess...

...$3.859 at Sunoco.

In an earlier post I talked about regional differences as demonstrated by the way people talk about food on social media. Here is another example. These two gas station price signs are directly opposite each other on Route 50 in Ballston Spa NY, just north of the Highway 67 intersection. Hess is selling regular for $3.729 a gallon and Sunoco for $3.859 a gallon. Down the road past the stoplight, an independent has regular for $3.709. Seven miles up the road in Saratoga, the going rate is $3.899.

You wouldn’t see this where I moved from in California, where gas stations in the same area are universally with in a penny or two of each other. If one station undercuts another by as much as 10 cents, cars would line up around the block. But in upstate New York, you get gas where you get gas, and a few cents a gallon isn’t going to change that.

The conventional wisdom is that urban areas, where most copywriters live, are more open to new experiences while exurban folks are more cautious and conservative. After two years in Saratoga I’m inclined to say this is true. Certainly it’s true that business is conducted more on the basis of whom you know than what you can do. In California we had lots of brilliant tech folks who were a disaster at social interaction. They wouldn’t do well here.

Regional differences are why, as copywriters, we often pull back from the edge a bit in the edginess of our copy and are sure to stress that even though our product or service is “new” it’s also “proven” with absolutely no negatives for trying it. When every customer counts, you can’t afford to ignore the conservatives in Saratoga County or the flyover states even though they may not be the coolest kids on the block.