|
February 02, 2021 SUMMARY: Think
Different. Just Do It. Melts In Your Mouth, Not In Your Hands. Mere
words. Of
course, those words have driven billions of dollars in sales. This
is the power of marketing copy. But don’t worry the bar is not as high as
those famous slogans. We believe even a few simple tips may help you boost
your efforts, which is why today we bring you these examples from Spiceworks
Ziff Davis and an engineering service. |
by Daniel Burstein, Senior
Director, Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute
This article was originally published in
the MarketingSherpa
email newsletter.
Tip #1: No matter what language you write in,
speak human
Copywriters and others who write for advertising, marketing or
business purposes can learn a lot from human beings. I say that as a writer
myself. Because a funny thing happens when we get into work – sometimes we
forget how to be human.
Here’s a tactic I’ve found helpful. When I’ve reviewed a piece of
business or marketing writing, I’ll stop the person. Let’s forget about what
they put on the page for just a moment. Just talk to me. What are you trying to
say?
What they say to me is almost always far more compelling than the
stilted, formal writing they have on the page that is trying to force the
reader to believe something or act in a certain way.
Because again, once we put on that business writing hat we feel so
intent on getting a point across in a formal way. We forget we’re just human
beings speaking to other human beings. We end up speaking Corporatese or
Industryish or (worst of all) Buzzwordian. And we fail to speak human.
Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute
shares a great example of this phenomenon in Conversing with the Customer: Beware of using too many nouns (MECLABS
is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).
Tip #2: Identify how your organization can
provide value and/or solve pain points for your target audience
Here’s the problem with companies that mimic a strategy – they can
capture the visible aspects but totally lose the essence of what makes it so
successful.
Take content marketing. Some companies treat it like advertising
and just promote, promote, promote. But it works best when you “buy” your
audience’s attention by providing value.
For example, when Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD) published its
annual State of IT report, it invested months in conducting primary market
research, analyzing year-over-year trends, and finally producing the actual
report. And that investment in quality content delivered results – the report
received coverage in more than 45 publications, brought 16,000 unique visitors
to the website, and influenced more than $250,000 of pipeline in less than
three months.
And that is just one piece of content. The global marketplace for
connecting technology buyers and sellers is a regular content publisher. “SWZD
generated over 75 pieces of SWZD branded content in 2020 with heavy focus on
thought leadership to support B2B marketers during COVID-19 and research
reports to help drive technology decisions,” said Priscilla Meisel, Content
Marketing Director, SWZD.
Meisel’s top piece of advice if you are going to invest in your
own content marketing reports, “Before getting into the nuts and bolts of
writing an asset, look at market shifts and gaps that complement your business
and marketing objectives. Then, you can begin to plan, research, write, review
and finalize an asset.”
Tip #3: Keep paragraphs short and add as much
white space as possible
If visitors get to your webpage and see a wall of text, will they
find it easier to bounce than to wade through that writing?
“People prefer to consume information in tiny pieces – so give
them that,” said Eulises Quintero, Content Manager, Titoma.
And this is especially true on mobile.
Quinteo says you should break down your paragraphs as much as
possible – it’s okay to write one-sentence paragraphs. Never go above three
sentences for a paragraph, and in between paragraphs, add a double space to
create white space.
The engineering service started implementing this writing style by
the end of March 2020 and quickly saw bounce rates decrease from an average of
20% to 5%.
Creative Sample #1: Before – engineering service blog post with
wall of text on desktop
Creative Sample #2: After – engineering service
blog post with spaced out text on desktop
Creative Sample #3: Before – engineering service blog post with
wall of text on mobile
Creative Sample #4: After – engineering service blog post with
spaced out text on mobile
No comments:
Post a Comment