If I asked you to give me an example of powerful copywriting what you say?

• Something that catches your attention immediately
• A headline which draws you in
• Simple to read copy with lots of headings

Hopefully your answer was something along those lines. Powerful copywriting is all of those things.

The problem is when some people try to write strong copy they get it all wrong. Bear with me and I’ll explain.

Shouting copy

A few days ago, I was writing some web copy for a client and my husband was working from home. He works for a German company and deals with a lot of customers located around Europe.

That particular day he was engaged on a phone call to one such customer. Instead of his usual voice, I heard a rather strained conversation being conducted in very slow, broken English.

He, like many of us, is guilty of adopting the technique of speaking very s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly when speaking to a non-native English speaker.

What does that have to do with copywriting? Well, it is something you also see in print in the mistaken belief it is getting your message across strongly.

The problem is, people try to replicate the ‘hard sell’ type of copy for their own websites, newsletters and emails. You know the kind of thing I mean – long copy, bright colours, bold text and lots of highlighting. Don’t get me wrong, that type of copy has its place and (believe it or not) works – but it isn’t a style that should be used for everything.

Building confidence

The problem with that type of text on your website, or in your newsletters, is that it doesn’t instil confidence.

Your words have to convince rather than your font size and colour.

Your copy has to resonate with and engage your reader so they are drawn into your copy. Then, by focusing on the benefits, you will convince them they have to have your product or service.

Don’t use brash and in-your-face sales techniques – chose your words carefully and:

• Create a strong headline
• Capture their attention immediately with benefits led copy
• Keep your font uniform and only change size for headings and sub headings
• Use only one colour for your font (preferably black or white)

Your copy will look professional and readable.

Would you want to look at a site full of colourful text of varying size? I doubt it, and neither would your readers. If you want to be taken seriously, make sure you approach your marketing materials in the same way.

Be professional, be clear and concentrate on your benefits.

What kind of success rate are you getting with your email marketing at the moment?

Pretty good or could do better?

Your electronic marketing strategy should be constantly evolving – test, test and test again until you create the optimum format and content strategy for your audience.

Just in case you’re looking for inspiration to inject some new life into your efforts, here are a few tips that might just help you improve your stats.

1. Mobile

More and more people are reading their emails from mobile devices so you must find out how your email looks.

Not only that but you have to make sure the recipient opens it on their phone so think about how you work out whether an email’s worth opening or not. You probably look at the sender’s name first and then the subject line. If it looks interesting you’ll open it, it not it gets consigned to the bin.

A great way of boosting your email’s chances of being opened is to add a line of text above your header – something like this:

Now when your email is received the recipient will see who it’s from, the subject line and the added text which reads Email marketing secrets revealed.

2. Subject line

This is the make or break. It has to be intriguing, promise your reader a great offer or breaking news – something that’s going to benefit them in some way.

But a strong subject line and a weak email body will see their enthusiasm wane and your email deleted. And if they’re disappointed by one they’re unlikely to open any more and may even unsubscribe.

The moral is, make sure you deliver what your subject line offers.

3. Long or short?

Many people argue that long copy always out performs short copy. But when it comes to an email, no one wants to be reading War and Peace.

The beauty of email means you can offer a tempting nugget of information and then add a link that will take the reader to a full article which is a great way of providing loads of information without boring the pants off everyone.

4. What next?

Once you’ve got them to open your email and read it…what next?

If you don’t have a strong call to action asking them to do something you’ve lost a great opportunity.

5. Check, check and re-check

Proofreading your email and checking all the links work before sending is vital.

Sending something out that’s full or errors and broken links won’t do you or your reputation any good. If you can, get someone else to check it for you before hitting send because once it’s gone, it’s gone.

These 5 simple tips will help you give your email marketing a boost in the arm.

Do you have any other tricks you use? Leave a comment and share your success stories (or horror stories).

If you’re an online marketer you need traffic – and a lot of it.

Why?

Because your traffic is your customers and more customers means more money.

How do you actually get more traffic though? And, once you’ve started to get it, how do you convince them to buy from you?

There are various things you can do to encourage more people to your website and make it more visible in the search engine rankings. And no, that doesn’t mean plastering it in bright colours with loads of flashing images.

Here are 4 ways to help boost your traffic. Remember though, gaining more traffic isn’t going to happen over night. It is something that’s going to require commitment on your part.

1. Keywords

This is hardly going to be a surprise as keywords are vital when it comes to online marketing.

You are the person who knows your business best and your market. As such, you should have a fair idea of what they are likely to be searching for when they need your products or services. So by using those keywords, you’ll attract more of your target market.

Of course that doesn’t mean stuffing them in your web copy left right and centre. You must incorporate them sensitively within your SEO website content, articles and blogs. Oh yes, keywords aren’t just for your web copy. Everything you write and publish on the web has the potential to drive traffic so make sure you optimise all your opportunities.

The main thing to remember is to ensure your choice of keywords is correct and relevant to what you do. After all, loads of traffic is all well and good but not very useful if they are not looking for what you offer.

2. Adding video

Have you noticed how many companies are now using video marketing?

More and more people are watching videos online so it makes sense to give them what they want by adding one to your website or setting up your own YouTube channel (which can be linked to your website).

What should your video be on?

Well, you can make short videos that showcase your products, act as interactive ‘how to’ guides, case studies and even video testimonials. The possibilities are endless.

3. Picture galleries

When you walk into a physical shop you have the advantage of being able to see what you’re going to buy, you can touch it and even try it out.

But online marketing doesn’t allow you to do that – well, other than see it.

No one likes to buy something without seeing it first so make sure your website offers high quality images of your products (coupled with detailed descriptions) so they know exactly what they’ll be getting.

4. Regular contact with customers

Keeping in touch with your customers will open up sales opportunities and allow you to add value by giving advice and tips.

Whether you do that through newsletters or email marketing it gives you the ability to maintain regular contact with your customers and prospective customers.

These 4 ideas are simple to instigate but very effective and can make a huge difference to your traffic.

Your website needs traffic if it’s going to be effective. If you’ve invested heavily in your online presence it makes sense to ensure people see it.

But it not only has to attract visitors, it also has to convert them into buying customers. You can read more about conversion here.

Keeping in touch with your customers will set you apart from your competition.

All too often businesses take your money and wave goodbye. But they’re missing a trick. Regular contact with your customers (and prospective customers) is vital because it keeps you in their mind when they’re in need of your products or services.

An effective way of doing that is by producing a monthly newsletter.

Newsletter content

Many businesses stumble at the first hurdle because they don’t know what to include.

Your newsletter can be used to convey great information, industry updates, special offers, announcements, helpful hints—anything that will add value to your customers.

Of course a newsletter isn’t a lot of use without anyone to send it to. The best way to develop your mailing list is to grow it organically—home grown will always bring in better results than a bought in list.

Here are 3 ways to ensure your newsletter works:

1. Opt-in

If you want someone to opt-in to your list you have to make it easy for them. If you hide the opt-in form deep within your website they’re not going to go looking for it.

Make sure your sign-up box is highly visible, preferably on every page and simple to complete.

Make sure you also make them aware of what you’ll be sending and how often and reassure them that you won’t share their details with anyone else.

2. Content

Your content shouldn’t be overly promotional and whatever you do, don’t jump in immediately with a sales pitch.

Start with a recommendation, article, or comment on industry news. Follow that up with a hint or tip that your customer will find useful. Once you’ve given them something for free you can then bring in your offer or a case study to promote your products/services.

If you’re still stumped and have no idea what to write why not enlist the help of a freelance copywriter to write the content for you.

3. Two way traffic

Make it easy for  your reader to interact with you through your newsletter.

After reading your news they may want to get in touch so don’t use a “no-reply” email address. Make it simple for them.

Always remember that your newsletter is about adding value to your relationship not selling. Be generous with your information as this will develop trust and with trust comes sales.

Regular communication with  your customers is a great way to keep them informed and to keep your name firmly etched in their minds.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is through email marketing. 

New subscribers will eagerly await your first email to land in their inbox. They will probably continue to welcome them until, one day, the honeymoon period is over.

You will begin to realise your emails aren’t being opened as often (or at all); your messages are now unloved, unopened and unwanted.

What do you do?

Panic?

Send flowers?

It’s time to take action.

Fighting email marketing list fatigue

1. Frequency

Are you still sending the same number of emails? When your subscribers opted-in, you would have made it clear how often they would hear from you. If you’re sending more it could be time to scale back a bit.

2. Stale content

Are you starting to cover the same old stuff?

Perhaps the layout and content is becoming too predictable? If so it’s time to inject some life into them.

3. Incoming!

Bombarding your customers with news and new offers will get wearing. If you have new products to announce stagger your emails so they don’t receive 4 or 5 from you within one month.

4. Subject line

These are never easy to write and although you may have been buzzing with great ideas initially there’s a chance they’re becoming mundane and ineffective. 

People will only open an email if the subject line catches their attention so perhaps it’s time to have a rethink about your subject line approach (or call in a copywriter to help you generate fresh and appealing content).

5. No one’s home

Email addresses change so if one of your recipients hasn’t engaged with your mailings (i.e. they haven’t opened it) for 6 months or more, send out a ‘reengagement’ email. This would be an email that asks them to take an action if they want to remain on your list.

If you don’t hear anything it’s safe to say that either:

• The email address is no longer active, or
• They no longer want to receive your emails

So it may be time to remove them from your list.

6. Spam

Spam filters may be stopping your emails getting through so make sure you test them.

To make sure your email marketing continues to be successful, regular list maintenance is essential to ensure that:

• Your readers are happy with their content
• All email addresses are active
• You are avoiding spam triggers
• Your subject lines are being effective

STOP – LOOK – LISTEN

Those three words were probably drilled into you when you were a child.

You would also do well to remember them when copywriting.

That might seem a strange thing to say but when creating sales and marketing content, many people just dive straight in. That’s because it’s usually one of those jobs that is squeezed in between other projects.

And there’s the problem – content creation shouldn’t be seen as one of those jobs you have to fit in now and then. It’s vital for your business from an SEO perspective and for getting your message out to your audience effectively.

Stop

Before you start to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, stop and think about what you are doing and why. Every piece of copy must have a purpose so ask yourself:

• What is going to be the best platform for your message?
• What do you want to achieve from your copy?
• How do you want your audience to react?
• What do you want to tell your audience?
• What end result do you want to achieve?

Creating content is like creating a new product. You wouldn’t dream of making a new product without carrying out R&D first, so why just sit down and cobble together some half hearted sales copy?

Look

Although your content is important, so too is how it looks.

If it doesn’t have instant readability appeal, no one will read it. In which case there wasn’t a lot of point in writing it in the first place.

Using headings, subheadings, bullet points and images will make your content more attractive and accessible. A solid wall of text is a real turn off but a page with plenty of white space, bullet points and small chunks of text, is a far more interesting prospect.

Listen

You not only have to listen to the needs of your business and customers, you also need to listen to yourself.

Your content has to tell your reader what’s in it for them and represent the voice of your business.

Once you’ve written your content, read it out loud. This will help you make sure it flows, makes sense and will provoke an emotional response in your reader.

As you can see, content creation is much more than just stringing a few sentences together. A lot of thought, planning and shaping has to go into every piece of content you produce.

So remember - stop, look and listen before you publish.

Are you a serial blogger?

You know, the type of person who churns out a post, forgets about it and then churns out the next.

The content you produce for your blog is very valuable so you must make the most of it. Unlike other forms of communication, a blog post won’t disappear or be used as tomorrow’s chip wrapper.

Once you’ve hit ‘publish’ it’s up to you to make the most of that content and keep it alive.

If you want a long shelf life on everything you post, follow these 6 simple steps.

1.  Follow up

The world is constantly changing so your original blog post may need updating at some point.

Rather than going back to it and adding new information, write a follow up post and link it back to your original one. This will help drive traffic to your existing content as well as add value to your reader by updating them on new ways of thinking.

2. Internal links

If possible, relate new posts to old ones by linking to them, especially if they are linked by subject or (as in the case of number 1) are providing extra/updated information.

3. Re-Tweet

Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. It’s a great way to promote your content to a wider audience and a way your readers can spread the word for you by re-tweeting it.

Plus, you can always breathe life into past posts by tweeting them from your archives, especially if their content is relevant to something happening in the news.

4. Repurpose content

As you’ve spent time creating the content in the first place, why not reuse it? Spinning it into an article will help get your name out there as an authority on your topic. Plus using keyword rich links back to your website will help your SEO strategy.

5. Optimise

SEO isn’t just for your web copy. By targeting specific keywords within your blog posts you can drive targeted traffic to your blog. Choose well and your blog post could remain a prominent fixture in the search engine results for a long time.

6. Newsletters

Companies that send out monthly newsletters often find it difficult to come up with content. Well, if you blog, why not use some of your posts as the basis for news and information?

All you have to do is use a snippet of the text and add a ‘read more’ link to take your reader to the original post. This is a great way to pass on valuable information and boost your blog’s readership.

Blogging generates great and valuable content so make the most of it.

Do you have any other ways of making the most of your blog posts? If so leave a comment and share your ideas with us.

Email marketing is an excellent way to your message out to potentially thousands of people instantly and relatively cheaply.

But if you don’t do it right your emails will simply be deleted and remain unopened. So successful email marketing doesn’t start when you begin to compose your email copy, it starts when you begin to devise your strategy.

You do have a strategy – right?

Step 1 – Back to basics

At this point in the process you’ve made the decision to start an email marketing campaign. Great, so what’s next?

Well, before you start writing there are a few things you need to think about.

• What’s your offer?—not just the product you’re selling but also the emotional aspect your product – think about how it will make your readers feel?
• Who are you selling to?—who’s going to buy your product? What’s important to them?
• The timing of your offer—are there any trends in the market you can tie into?
• What do you want your reader to do?—your call to action; do you want them to email, call, complete online order form…

Step 2 – Your content

The first decision is do you write it yourself or do you bring in a professional copywriter. Remember it is essential that the email is about what you can do for them rather than being about your company.

But more than just what your email says, you must also think about how it will look. It must look inviting if you want the recipient to take the time to read it. And we’re talking here not just about the design but also layout, font, images etc.

If you want your email to have a big impact you have to look at the whole package, including:

• Font – a sans-serif font such as Arial or Verdana is easier to read than some of the other fonts available. It’s a small detail but it will have a bearing on whether your message is read or deleted. 
• Read aloud – this one is true for all content creation. The best way to ensure your message is clear, unambiguous and engaging is to read it aloud. This will highlight whether the rhythm is wrong, whether there are any repetitions or if it sounds stilted. 
• Pruning – most people toss in unnecessary words when writing. There’s nothing wrong with that but it does mean reading through and pruning is essential to tighten your copy. 
• Rhetoric – extra power can be injected into your email by using rhetorical techniques. The incorporation of three part list add punch and rhythm – remember Tony Blair’s      “…education education, education”?
• Moving forwards – every word has to count in your email so make sure your reader is carried through the text by using words such as ‘remember’, ‘but’, ‘consider’, ‘for example’.
• Variety – solid text is very unattractive so make sure you vary your paragraph lengths (but keeping them short), add sub headings, bulleted lists and sentence fragments to keep your reader on their toes. 
• Benefits – all marketing copy should be heavily benefits led and email marketing is no different. But make sure it is the benefits you talk about (i.e. what it will mean/do for your customer) and not just the features. 
• Second person – creating rapport is essential if you want your email to resonate with the reader. Writing it in the second person (i.e. you and your) will help make an emotional connection needed to get the reader on your side and to take action.
• Keep it short – no one wants to waste their time reading a mammoth email. Keep your communication short. If you want to impart a lot of information use your email to link out to another web page (which will also encourage people to visit your website) so if they want to read more they can.

Because we write emails every day many people are fooled into believing email marketing is simple. All they have to do is through a few paragraphs together and Bob’s your uncle.  But it’s rarely that straight forward.

You have to remember that although the recipient has opted in to receive your emails, they will receive hundreds a day. That’s a very crowded inbox that your email has to survive. By creating a strong subject line to encourage your reader to open your email and killer content, you will maximise your email’s chances of survival.

Give these tips and try and see how you get on.

Do you use any other techniques when composing your emails? If so leave a comment and share them with us. 

If you a business owner today the likelihood is that you dabble in email marketing, or at least have started to think about it.

Email has opened up a new and effective way of keeping in touch with your customers quickly and relatively cheaply.

You can use the emails to give great information, keep them up to date with industry news as well as new products, services and offers.

It only takes a few seconds to communicate with thousands of people.

Because email marketing is a hot topic, I have written numerous posts about it, such as:

How to build your email marketing list

Email marketing – Welcome

How to be an email spammer

How to become the King or Queen of email marketing

Consistent  email marketing

10 words that will make people open your email

Email marketing – When’s the best time to send?

Boost your email open rate

But in this post I want to look at one of the most frequently asked questions…

How often should I email my customers?

It depends…

Your ideal frequency is going to be determined by your business type – what’s right for your neighbour isn’t necessarily going to be right for you.

Take a good hard look at your business. The optimum frequency of your emails will depend largely on:

• What you are offering your customers
• Who your customers are
• What you have to say

People tend to send email son either a quarterly, monthly, bi-monthly (i.e. once every two months), twice monthly, weekly and sometimes daily (or multiple times per day) frequency.

To help you out, here is a short guide to email frequency:

Quarterly

This is great if you don’t have a lot to say. Your products and services probably don’t change that much and you rarely have offers to make.

The main problem with quarterly is it’s not regular enough to make an impression on your readers. By leaving so much time between communications you run the risk the recipient forgetting who you are.

Monthly

Monthly is quite common as it’s regular contact without being intrusive. The content can be a mixture of information, offers, news and views. This type of information exchange is a great way to build and strengthen relationships with your customers.

As a copywriter I send out a monthly newsletter. It provides hints and tips on copywriting, marketing and social media – its all free information that I am giving away and I never sell through it. By the way, if you want to get on the mailing list visit my website and sign up.

Twice a month

This is a compromise if you want to make contact more than monthly but don’t have enough to say for a weekly newsletter. One of the main benefits of twice monthly is that you can use one newsletter to give information whilst the next could be an offer on one of your products. 

Weekly

These are often used by stores looking to sell. Their weekly emails let them communicate offers and new lines quickly and easily to their customers. Plus being retail outlets it won’t come as a surprise to the recipient that they are being sold something.

Keeping up with your chosen frequency is important because your readers will soon get to expect your next issue. If you have to miss one make sure you  tell them to keep them informed.

Email marketing (whether it’s to sell or to offer a regular newsletter) is a great way to keep your company name ‘out there’.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

Online marketers are obsessed about search engine optimisation.

There’s nothing wrong with that, after all they wouldn’t get anywhere without keywords, backlinks and a decent website structure. But by spending every waking hour worrying about them you could be missing the bigger picture.

Google analytics is vital if you want to know what’s going on on your website – where your traffic comes from and the behaviour of your visitors.

One of its key stats – even more important than where your visitors come from – is how effective your website is, i.e. its bounce rate.

What is bounce rate?

The bounce rate shows the percentage of visitors to your website that leave within the first 10 seconds. And that’s not good.

If visitors are leaving that soon it means they aren’t finding what they’re looking for. A site with a low bounce rate (say below 30%) will be a website that is converting its visitors into customers. A site with a bounce rate of 50% and higher is one that isn’t converting – it’s failing.

Factors affecting bounce rate

Traffic to your website comes from a number of different sources:

• organic search results
• backlinks from referral sites
• repeat visitors
• social bookmarking traffic

As a freelance copywriter it won’t come as any surprise that that is one of my keywords. So if people Google freelance copywriter they’ll find me.

But consider what would happen if I’d targeted a phrase like ‘marketing agency’. Many of the people who found my website that way would be looking for a company to deal with all their design and branding needs?

After landing on my home page they’d find great information about my freelance copywriting services but no mention of design or branding. The result would be that they would click away from my site which would lead to a high bounce rate.

But a high bounce rate might not caused by just your keywords. There are other factors that may be causing people to click away from you site:

• too much advertising
• videos and music – especially if they are on auto play
• navigation choices – too many and your visitors will get confused
• slow loading speed
• excessive jargon in your copy will be a huge turn off
• bad design

Check our your Google Analytics page now. If you see your bounce rate is high take a look at your site and compare it with the list above. Take another look at your keywords – are they really reflecting what your site is about?