Un-Selfishing your Presence

When I was about 7 years old, we got my dad the best Christmas presents ever…three new Atari games: Frogger, Pitfall and Space Invaders. The brilliance of our gift was that we looked like great kids, my older brothers and I, but we weren’t at all because my dad didn’t play with Atari - we did. So, in effect, we bought the games for ourselves.

They weren’t really the best presents ever, they were the most selfish presence ever.

Cheesey as it may be, this little fable teaches us an important business lesson – and it’s simple. Whether you’re a company or a freelancer or a whatever you are, you have to do some marketing, right?

When you (and your copywriter) create your outreach message – make sure that you:

• Listen to your audience first.
• Find out what they want.
• Answer their questions.
• Solve their problems.
• …as opposed to yours.
• Because this isn’t about you.

If we’d listened to my dad, for example, we would’ve found out that he really wanted cheesey music a Loggins & Messina record (literally vinyl), a toy for his mid-life crisis Mazda RX7, Cardinal’s baseball tickets or a cigar…not Frogger. Not even close.

The result for us was lousy allowance rates, fewer trips to get ice cream and some eye rolling…what’s yours?

Image courtesy of sokabs

Filed under Critical Copywriting, How To, Marketing | Tags: copywriter, copywriting, Julie Roads, Marketing, marketing message, marketing writer, Writing Roads | Comments (2)

how to craft your marketing message

Whether you’re creating your website, blog, ads or a print brochure, you have to decide on a message, a personality, an identity for your business or company. And, this will be communicated to your audience via your design and the WORDS you choose. Here are some things to think about as you begin to formulate your message (or reformulate for those of you in a makeover situation) and the feeling you would like to evoke:

1. Writing and Design must be united. Imagine a site where the words sound like they were penned by the Queen, while the design looks like it was composed by Austin Powers. OY. If it’s possible, find a writer and a designer that have a solid relationship and thrive on working together on projects. The words must support the design. The design must support the words.

2. Ask yourself some serious questions. What makes you different from everyone else in your industry? What is your background and how does it influence your work? How do you want people to feel when they see and read your marketing materials? A good copywriter and a good designer will ask you these questions…and many more.

3. What does your audience want? Don’t make it all about you – because it isn’t. Your clients/customers are the most important factor in this equation. Listen to them by reading blogs and/or joining online communities that discuss your company, product, service or industry. People are talking, so find out what they’re saying.

4. Make it personal. People identify with brands that don’t feel like gimmicks. If you haven’t noticed this lately, many companies are putting the personal spin on their brand – either by telling personal stories (Visa), making their CEO’s real people (Dave from Wendy’s), giving their company a relatable, familiar spokesperson (the Verizon guy) or even making their product into a real person (Mac vs. PC ads).

5. Be true, be you. There may be many CPA’s but there is only one you. Show your personality, reveal yourself and you will attract people. You will also repel people, but I think this is a good thing as it filters out those that won’t appreciate you ahead of time.

6. Test it out. The internet has made it possible to test products, messages, etc. online for relatively low costs via ad words, social bookmarking & networking sites and blogs. Use these tools to market effectively.

P.S. I love my Mac.

Filed under How To, Marketing | Tags: Blogging, blogs, copywriter, effective copy, graphic design, how to brand, Julie Roads, marketing message, marketing writer, relationship marketing, social bookmarking, Social Media, social networking, Writing Roads | Comment (0)