Words to the Wise

Marketers typically break search marketing into three major pieces:

• Price (How much you’re willing to spend each time a customer clicks on your ad)
• Positioning (Where visitors will see you ad when it’s displayed)
• Phrase (The keywords and phrases that will get your ad displayed among the results)

You might want to consider adding another part to the mix though:

LANDING PAGE

I’m talking about landing pages - the place visitors land when they’ve clicked on your pay per click ad. Companies spend outrageous amounts of time and money searching for the right combination of terms and phrases for their PPC ad campaigns; monitoring and subtracting/adding new keywords and phrases as time goes on. The problem is, many companies are sending EVERY person who clicks on an ad to either one landing page, or, even worse, their home page.

The problem with this is that search engine users are typically looking for specific things like “Louis Vitton Sweater” or “iBook Charger Cable”. People who search with these specific terms don’t want to waste their time on your home page - they want to be sent to the specific content they’re looking for.

In an effective search campaign, you should be modifying your keywords when a searcher is in the “sales lane.” People who search for terms like “Buy a Vitton Sweater” are much more ready to buy than people searching for “Vitton Sweater.”

The pages these two searcher see could spell the difference between a sale and setting sail.

Simple things like lowering the number of clicks from your home page to your conversion page and conversion-optimized landing pages designed specifically for searchers can bring your conversion the front of the sales process while still allowing visitors to browse your site.

Don’t sacrifice time spent on keyword research, and budget, but do spend more time on the fourth piece of the pie: Landing Pages.

In my early copywriting and public relations days, I was lucky to have some good bosses. Go and look at my resume, and you’ll see the companies I’ve worked for who gave me good bosses. They’re the ones who gave me the freedom to be creative and offer new, big ideas.

I was also lucky to have some really, REALLY bad bosses. Those you won’t find on my resume. I’m not just talking about people who didn’t understand creative work or who were just trying to put their mark on everything I did, I’m talking about some true knobs of epic proportions. Bosses who offered clients crappy work day-in and day-out. Bosses who said one thing and really meant another. Bosses who berated you in front of clients because your ideas were not what they thought the client wanted to hear.

They know who they are. They read this blog. Welcome back, by the way.

What, me? Smug, you say? Never. Actually, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank these less-than-desireable leaders for teaching me how NOT to do business. During my time at these companies, I sat in meetings where my bosses would NEVER offer new and big ideas. Nothing fresh, nothing outrageous, nothing out of the box. Everything they did lacked courage and creativity. It oozed of complacency and the status quo.

As for me, I just sat back taking notes in those meetings. Notes about what NOT to do, how NOT to act, and how NOT to ever, EVER be like these people, ever.

All the jobs I’ve hated, I’ve learned from. Successful people will tell you that learning happens more when you fail, than when you succeed. While, in hindsight, I wouldn’t call working for Knobs, Inc. et al a failure, in the beginning of these jobs, I was certain I was a failure by going against the company grain, offering fresh ideas, and not settling for the obvious solutions. The truth is, I was learning some of the greatest business lessons of my life.

My lesson today for you is to always fail forward. That means that every time you feel like you’re failing, look for the lesson. It’s there. All the time. When you’ve found it, you’ve advanced. At one ad agency back in Connecticut, I was to come up with some ‘fresh’ radio spots for a client. So that’s what I did. The result - five spots my boss HATED. He wouldn’t even show them to the client. He swore at me, threatened me and then threw my spots in the trash.

Was that a failure? Maybe at the time. Today, those five spots have brought me more freelance copywriting work than I could have ever imagined at the time.

I failed forward. You will too.

You know, some days even I don’t get it right. I have (or had) a client who wanted me to write four pages for their website based on four articles they had previously written for some print marketing. The website revolves around a real estate service that caters to For Sale By Owner sellers. I took the information, feedback and direction the client had provided, and wrote the best copy I could for them.

They didn’t like it. And in fact, they flat out stated they wouldn’t even use my copy.

Now, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me (if you find a copywriter who tells you they’ve never had a client hate their work, they’re lying). After the initial shock wore off, I looked inward to figure out what to do.

So what DO you do qwhen this happens? Well, if you’re the copywriter, you step back and look at the input and information. Is there something you missed? Is there something you misinterpreted? What can you do to correct the situation while still turning a profit for your time?

If you’re the client, you have a responsibility as well. Were you clear with the direction and guidance you offered? Were your expectations realistic and well-defined?

Many situations that involve dissatisfied clients come down to miscommunication and unrealistic expecations. And, even if things can’t be resolved in a way that completes the project, it doesn’t mean that the client and the copywriter just drop the project and go on their merry ways without some money changing hands. Time is valuable on both sides of the client-copywriter equation. The copywriter has invested time and effort into a project, and a resolution must be found that involves compensation. As a colleague of mine puts it: “If you buy a car and you don’t drive it, you still have to pay for the car.”

With my freelance copywriting service, I always try to get as much information about a project BEFORE I start. I ask a lot of questions, research the market, and make sure I have every piece of info relevant to the task at hand. And I’ll always do my best to complete your project the way you want it: on-target, on-time and on-budget.

Creative briefs can be long and intricate, and they often take up precious time that could be spent actually creating something. However, there is a place in this world for the creative brief as it does help agencies (and freelancers like myself) better understand the task(s) at hand.

The creative brief typically involves questions. Lots and lots of questions. Now, I don’t always use a creative brief. If I believe that a client and I are on the same page about the scope and goals of the project, then I forge ahead. But when I think a creative brief will clear up some questions and help both me and the client better understand objectives, these are some of the questions I ask:

1. Who are we trying to reach? If you’re a real estate agent, are you trying to reach people selling their homes? Or are you trying to reach people in the Raleigh, NC area who are selling a home worth between $300,000 and $900,000 and has been on the market over 120 days?

2. What’s your objective? Is your objective to simply reach them? Or is your objective to send them to a special landing page on your website that gives them a unique offer and information that is tailored to their situation?

3. What are the obstacles? Does your audience have a belief that precludes them from thinking your product or service is for them? Are you one of a dozen companies sending similar offers?

4. What’s in it for your prospect? Will you solve a problem? Will you save them money? Will you MAKE them money? Will you save them from embarassment?

5. What feeling or personality will your communication take on? Will you be the voice of authority? Will you speak to your prospects’ emotions? Will you be out-and-out human?

6. Is the timing right? Some messages are more effective at certain times of the year. Do your prospects need your service right now? If you send them a message now, will they forget about you when they truly do need you? Can your message be used in more than one medium? For example - can you turn your blog posts into articles that can be distributed via the Internet?

7. How does this project fit in with your overall brand? Will this be one piece of the marketing mix? Are there other agencies working on other parts? For example, if I’m writing web copy, I like to be in touch with the web designer to see how my copy will be laid out in the page.

8. Are there any creative mandatrories? Is there a phrase or paragraph that must be used? An image? A logo?

This is just the start. Often, these questions lead to more answers. Fortunately for me, more questions lead to more answers and a better product in the end.

Sometimes, while I’m writing (or re-writing) web content for a client, they ask me if they should start an AdSense campaign to generate some extra revenue.

My usual answer is “no” because the cost of an AdSense campaign for most of my clients is way too high.

“But Jay,” they say, “AdSense doesn’t cost anything. Google gives you the code and you paste it into your website HTML.”

True. Every word of it. But the cost I’m referring to is the depreciation of your brand because you’re adding advertising to a site that wasn’t meant for it.

Why would you want to give visitors to your site an opportunity to leave your site and look for something else? Is the 25 cents really worth it? On top of that, it makes you look like you want their pocket change, not their dollar bills.

Don’t get me wrong. There are certainly times when AdSense makes sense (and cents) on a website. Take my Clayton, NC relocation website for example. It has ads, a job board and may soon have YouTube advertising. But the difference is that my Relocate Clayton site isn’t selling anything. It gives away every word of information for free with the hope that visitors will find the relevant ads enticing enough to click.