Content Is People

Photo Credit: sndrv

Most direct mail marketers regard a letter with a 3% response rate to be a smashing success. When you’re targeting a consumer market numbering in the millions, a 3% success rate actually means something.

But B2B is a different kettle of fish. Its market, by definition, is on a smaller scale. Sure, direct mail – or marketing copy of any kind – can still generate new leads, expand the client-base and soften up the marketplace before the troops land. But most B2B revenue models need skin in the game in order to compete.

In B2B, the best marketing content is people – sales people… Whether on the phone or on the convention floor, they’re the folks who talk to the customer. And, if they’re any good, they’re probably listening as well. If anyone knows what the customer is asking, or buying, or reading, it’s the sales staff.

That’s why marketing strategy should follow sales strategy, and why marketing copy should do likewise.
Sales staff are like actors hired to tell your company’s story. They’re out there on that stage every day performing variations on a theme. As the guy hired to write the script, I generally request some time with the actors.

Unlike marketing and executive folks, sales staff are only one degree removed from my copy’s target audience. In some respects, they make an even better focus group than the customers. Their jobs depend on knowing what plays well with the audience, and what lands with a thud.

Go figure, but that’s useful information to me.

Knowing the actors doesn’t hurt either, particularly if I’m writing sales materials like brochures and PowerPoint presentations. Some sales staff prefer to do the talking, and use printed content either for emphasis or as a leave-behind for the prospect.

Knowing up front how they use my business copy allows me to draft an appropriate level of detail. Clearly, illustrative material needn’t be as granular, whereas a leave-behind had better anticipate and answer any customer questions, and include a clear call to action.

The first rule of B2B copy isn’t to sell, sell, sell. It’s to do no harm to the people who use it. It shouldn’t be overly clever, or promotional or expository. It shouldn’t upstage the salesperson, or impose textbook marketing rules that fall apart after first contact with the customer.

Like any well-designed tool, business copy should integrate so seamlessly into the business mission that the two are virtually indistinguishable.

Specialist or Generalist? How to Choose the Freelance Path for You.

Photo Credit: piccadillywilson

Is it better to be a copywriting specialist or a generalist? Should you do one thing very well, or be a jack of all trades?

Today’s the day that all-around copywriter Peter Bowerman, and white paper expert Michael Stelzner will go head to head on that topic in an online debate.

I predict the debate will conclude that choosing to be a generalist or a specialist is a matter of personal preference. (If the conversation continues beyond that, I predict it’ll focus on how to pitch the path you’ve chosen.)

So, let me begin where I think today’s debate will end:

You choose your path, and then your marketing strategy, not the other way around.

Archilochus, the old soldier poet from ancient Greece once said:

“The fox knows many things, and the hedgehog knows one big thing. But they both gotta hustle if they expect breakfast.”

Okay, I may be paraphrasing that a bit. The point is you can choose to be a fox or a hedgehog, but without clients you can’t eat. Either way you go, you need to communicate what value your services return.

The hedgehog
A specialty makes it easier for prospective clients to find you – in fact, they’re already looking for you. They’ve already decided they need to outsource a white paper or case study. Or they need someone intimately familiar with their particular industry or market.

They’re not quibbling over whether they should hire a writer. They’re actively searching for the best writer in the niche.

The trade-off for specialists is often geographic. Although their target market is actively searching for their services, it’s a smaller market than what generalists enjoy. So, specialists need to build visibility and credibility where their market congregates.

Luckily every market congregates on the internet. So, pitching a specialty through SEO tools is an easy approach. Launching a blog is a little more challenging, but it builds credibility. Specialists reaching for the brass ring will find the time do speaking engagements, or publish a book on their area of expertise.

The fox
Generalists have to hustle more, a lot more. They can solve a wider range of copy-related problems, but fewer businesses are looking for them. So, raising visibility isn’t as critically important as building trust.

The hard reality generalists need to accept is the market doesn’t particularly value how well they write. Unemployed staff writers and journalists are flooding the freelance market. Meanwhile, websites like oDesk.com and Elance.com are awarding assignments to low bidding writers, and writing shops in Asia are underpricing even them.

The market perceives generalists as a commodity, and prices them accordingly.

So, generalists who hope to survive and thrive are wiser to avoid piecework, and instead build and maintain strong relationships. Finding sustainable work as a generalist is an inside job, gained by referrals from past clients and through word of mouth.

The majority of businesses out there don’t intuit the value of good copy, much less the value of outsourcing it to a freelancer. So generalists need to get close to their prospects and listen. They need to be able to identify business problems that good content can solve. They need to have a realistic idea of how better copy can solve it. And they must be able to make a compelling case for the value of their solution.

Freelancing is a business, and keeping a business is hard enough in a good economy. Whether you choose to be a fox or a hedgehog matters less than how intelligently you market what you do, and how passionate you are about what you write.

Your Story is More Interesting than You

Photo Credit: A Journey Round My Skull

Echoing A Rebel Without a Cause, I titled my high school journal A Hero Without a Plot. Dreaming of the glamorous lifestyle of a writer, I figured all I need do was live an interesting enough life, and my memoirs would practically write themselves and fly off bookstore shelves.

At fourteen, success was about being me – or rather an idealized version of me. All I had to do, I reasoned, was realize that vision of myself, and John Q. Public would climb over his grandmother just to hear me lay down the Wisdom.

My mistake was assuming I was more interesting than my story.

Narrative always trumps character, even for sensations like Susan Boyle and Captain “Sully” Sullenberger. We remember the act long after the actor.

Ever hear of Aron Ralston? No?

Well, how about  the hiker who spent five days with his arm trapped under a boulder before severing it with a knife, rappelling down a 65-foot cliff and hiking eight miles back to civilization? That ring a bell?

See what I mean? Chances are the words “stained blue dress” resonate more strongly with you than the name Kenneth Starr.

Remove our narrative, and we become invisible. Stories are what distinguish us.

The same applies to products and services. Like most characters, your product is just another face in the crowd. It remains indistinguishable without a story, and that story is the unique or superior value you provide.

Marketing and public relations approach narrative overtly, by telling a story in press releases, case studies, trade articles and web copy. That doesn’t mean they represent an automatic slam dunk. If anything, these long-form formats demand more compelling use of narrative to grab and hold readers.

Advertising and branding approach narrative more obliquely, allowing the unique value to take shape in a customer’s imagination. Advertising for Coca Cola, Apple or Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, invoke what the customer might experience, rather than the specific features their products deliver.

You may have spectacular products or services. But you have human customers, and they’re hard-wired for narrative.

I plan on exploring this topic in more detail. So, feel free to share how narrative has helped you or your clients craft more effective messages.

Friday Link Love

Photo credit: dawnzy58

Leading this week’s Link Love is blogger Dave Fleet’s open invitation to lurkers – i.e. readers who frequent a blog, but rarely ever leave a comment – to come out of the shadows and say “hello.”

Since Dave frequently writes about ghost-blogging, I’ve frequently read his posts – often long after comments are timely. Even so, that qualifies me as a lurker. So, I gave him a shout out in the comments section.

Now I’m inviting you to do the same. Any regular readers out there? If not, that’s cool too. I won’t feel as obligated to stick so doggedly to my weekly blogging schedule.

Speaking of ghost-bloggers, Mark Schaefer tackles the issue again, only this time he proposes some ground rules. If you must hire a ghost-blogger, Mark suggests, at least try to do it legitimately.

I respect his attempt, but I felt it was an academic argument. The underlying problem with ghost-blogging is a misapplication of strategy, not tactics. It isn’t merely unethical marketing, it’s ineffective marketing. Have your ghostwriter draft you a nice e-newsletter instead.

Interestingly, Mark’s next post introduces what could be the blogosphere’s first Authenticity Policy, which he and his blog’s readers helped inspire. Drafted and posted by Anne Giles Clelland, President and CEO of Handshake Media in Blacksburg, VA, the policy is posted here.

There’s social media thought leaders, and then there’s just social media leaders. Full props to Ms. Clelland.

How to spot a writer
From authentic bloggers, we go to authentic marketing writers. A post by John White on the aptly named How to Hire a Writer blog, recommends you ask prospective freelancers about their method.

Are you a writer? Then you have a method, right? …RIGHT?

If not, you’d better go commit John’s post to memory, because the toothpaste is out of the tube now.

Last but not least, Corey Freeman, teenage wunderkind gives props on her Writer7 blog to another wunderkind, blogger Alex Fraiser, who with his wunderkind co-blogger, Seth, publishes Blogussion.

The post on Blogussion that caught Corey’s attention, and that I’ve since bookmarked, offers a list of 18 articles to help you write better blog headlines. That sort of exhaustive resource could only appeal to a generation that doesn’t yet feel time is their enemy

Seriously though, I’m digging this new crew of bloggers, and what they’re bringing…

The Fearful Secret of Copywriting Success

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I owe my professional success, in part, to knowing which fights to pick. Picking this one may not represent my smartest play, but here I go…

Let me state up front that I have no professional or personal ax to grind with organizer Michael Stelzner, or the other copywriting luminaries putting their time, expertise and necks on the line at the Copywriting Success Summit 2009. I’ve actually purchased and read publications offered by several of the Summit’s speakers. I frequently read many of their blogs; and I’ve even exchanged friendly correspondence with a few.

Even so, this is one copywriter who won’t be shelling out the $297 early bird rate to hear any of them speak at the Summit.

A brief, but relevant digression
Social media guru Chris Brogan has taken hits lately for profiting off the professional network he took years to build with free content and advice. The profits in question stem, in part, from his publication of Trust Agents, a well-received New York Times bestseller about social media relationships.

For more on that debate, visit here and here. My take on the issue is very simple: The decision to put a price on content belongs solely to those who create it. The rest of us can vote with our wallets.

Which brings me back to the Copywriting Success Summit 2009, and why I won’t be attending…

Apologies in advance for pissing anyone off. I recognize I could just as easily cast a silent vote. But there’s a discussion worth having here about whether our profession benefits more from a communal or competitive model. Put another way, should our relationships with other freelancers be governed by capitalism or communism? (For the irony impaired: IRONY!)

I’ll be brutally honest with you. I tend to be a capitalist when I’m providing a service, and a communist (IRONY!) when I’m receiving one.

So, it’s more a reflection of me – not the Summit speakers – that when I read about these kinds of events and products, I find myself wondering whether their expertise reflects an ability to attract new clients, or extract money from new copywriters. Did success lead them to promote their methods, or did promotion of their methods lead to their success?

I digress. This isn’t about me, and it isn’t about them. It’s about all of us.

Here’s my question
What is gained and what is lost when we pay others for the secrets to their success?

Bob Bly, the Godfather of copywriting gurus, once said that tapping the proven methods of veteran copywriters can reduce your learning curve from 100 hours to 10 hours. I agree.

I still have dog-eared copies of Bob’s books, and others from Peter Bowerman and Michael Masterson on my shelf. They were constant references when I launched my freelance career nearly eight years ago. They provided some very sound advice, such as:

• Establish a niche for yourself. It’s easier to grasp the value of a specialist, than a generalist.
• Define your ideal client before getting started
• Demonstrate, rather than promote, your skill at writing persuasively
• Sell the benefits, not the features of your copywriting services
• Learn the comparative application and benefits of marketing tools – for example, email vs direct mail, blogging vs e-newsletters

All very good stuff and – another disclosure – some of these lessons came from online seminars similar to the upcoming Summit. I think it’s wise for budding copywriters to invest in materials and events that will help them cultivate expertise. I do.

But I also believe that there are certain traits to successful freelancers that, by definition, can’t be taught. These I rarely ever see the experts breathe a hint about. Among them:

• Enthusiasm bordering on a compulsive desire for the self-employed lifestyle. (Today’s enthusiasm becomes tomorrow’s hard-boiled commitment when business gets slow)
• Dogged – and I mean dogged persistence at marketing yourself. That includes building and sustaining a network of prospective clients
• A high pain threshold for risk, uncertainty and a sometimes fickle marketplace. It’s not personal, deal with it.
• A rock-solid perspective about when you’re beating yourself up, and when you’re letting yourself off the hook for mistakes
• Confidence – not cockiness – confidence that you know what constitutes good copy
• A self-sustaining and monstrous work ethic
• Attention to self-care: Your creative side is linked to your physical, mental and emotional health. Working on your writing means working on yourself
• Savings: There are no unemployment benefits for the self-employed. Debt and insolvency are not your friends, particularly when you’re sitting at the negotiating table
• And lastly, an ability to be in the right place at the right time (i.e. everywhere)

Just because these things can’t be taught doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be mentioned. Freelancing is not an easy business, and not everyone is cut out for it.

Maybe that’s my problem with seminars, kits and books that make success seem like it’s the product of a secret formula. These materials highlight the potential road to riches, and proven methods that have worked for others. But they don’t talk about the external risks, and they ignore internal factors.

They don’t tell me about me – my strengths, my weaknesses, which flaws I can correct and which I need to work around. This stuff gets brushed aside in the promotional materials because it doesn’t sell. There’s no profit in it.

And yet, I would argue that my second list of bullets plays a far greater role than the first in determining a freelancer’s long-term success.

Bottom line: I’m not out to take food off the plate of any expert who wants fair recompense for his or her expertise. But neither do I want to see the genuinely challenging path of freelance writing to be presented as a cakewalk – if you only know the secrets.

Here’s the fearful secret of copywriting success: Freelancing can be damned hard at times – anything worthwhile generally is.

So do we cultivate the next generation of freelancers by billing them for our hard-won expertise, or by freely sharing our experience and support through networks, blogs and mentorships?

What say you?