Focus on the goal of your website

When you're building or writing your website the first thing you should consider is:

What exactly do I want this site to do?

Now the fist thing to come in to your head will be - Sell, be read, make me famous etc (depending on who you are)

But once you've got that you need to delve deeper, who do you want to sell to? What type of people are you looking to read your site? What do you want to be famous for?

You need to delve down and focus on your core market, you can't possibly reach an entire population, country, world, universe so don't even try all you'll be is bland and no one buys bland.

Focus your site on what you want to deliver, what really burns in your soul (or your warehouse)

David Ogilvy speaks from the past about the future

I just found this video of a film David Ogilvy sent to a conference years ago. The film is very old which adds a huge amount of gravitas to the message. What Ogilvy, the pioneer of Direct Marketing says is still true today, even more so with the dawn of the Internet.

If your marketing is meant to sell products then forget clever creative, flowery copy, cryptic text. Sell the product or service, ask for the response - making it easy to do so. Measuring marketing spend has never been easier than with the Internet, even more so than it is with Direct Mail. Testing is quicker and easier and the results can be in almost instantly.

Take the time to watch David Ogilvy as he talks to you from the past and see how you can apply this to how you are marketing today.

Really good advice for writing copy

Seth Godin points to this really good article on writing copy. There are some really good points in here which I'll be trying to put into my own ranting, writing whatever you want to call it.

I've no idea if anyone is reading this but hopefully you are and will be kind or cruel enough to tell me whether I'm interesting or crap. Knowing either will be useful because how can I develop otherwise.

Anyway here's the link: How to say nothing with 500 words.

Enjoy

Disagreeing with Seth

It's a first. This morning I read Seth Godin's blog as I do every morning.

Today however I was surprised to see that for the first time I disagree with him.

In his post Letters, Brochures and Email he says that you should never write an email like a Direct Marketing letter. I think he should have added a caveat that you should never write like that if it's a one to one email with a colleague or customer you are interacting with. But when you are trying for a sale of any kind, long direct marketing writing is what wins.

The theory has been tested to death over the years before the Internet was even thought of. I'm sure it's horses for courses but sorry Seth don't agree.

Why Marketers should be concerned with Return on Investment

I get a daily email from Drayton Bird, a master at Direct Marketing. Check out Drayton's books on Amazon.

Today's nugget from Drayton is about why Marketers should focus on getting cash in the till above all else. Here's probably the best section from the email. It's a story you may have heard about Sergio Zyman, former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola.

One of his best stories tells how he showed his first Coca-Cola ads in 1993 to his boss Roberto Goizueta, who said, "I don't like those ads." "Look, Roberto," he replied, "If you're willing to buy 100% of the volume worldwide then I'm happy to do the advertising that you like. Otherwise I've got to keep doing it to those damned consumers."

I think this say it all really.

how much is customer worth to you? - Drayton Bird

I'm on a mailing list for Drayton Bird's Helpful Ideas. He's sending out 51 helpful ideas each day. Today's was number 35. Today's helpful idea is - how much is a customer worth? Not many people think about long term customer value. Drayton helps to explain why you should.

Remember, the currency of your business is customers - and act accordingly.

So the big marketing question is, "how much is customer worth to you?" If you've been in business for a while you can measure how long customers stay with you, and how much profit they provide in that time.

Then you discount the sum to determine what you can afford to recruit and retain a customer, allowing for a profit.It is true that some sales are not repetitive, but in those cases you can often, if not always, cross-sell other things.

The importance of customer value came home to a client who sold what they call an fmcg (fast moving consumer goods) product here - and packaged goods in the U.S. He asked me, "If the gross margin on one sale is 80 pence, how can I afford to send out direct mail at 100 pence a time?" I asked him if he knew the average value of a customer over time - not just one sale. He said he'd never given it a thought. And I said, "You can easily afford it if you know your average customer buys 200 packs a year and stays with you for five years - and you think not about making an immediate sale, but making and keeping a customer". He became my largest client. The same principle applies if you work out how many cars you can sell a customer over a lifetime. You can afford a series of very expensive direct communications - DVDs, books, lavish mailing packs and so forth.

But it all starts by thinking in terms not of expenditure, but return on investment, and taking a lot of trouble to try and assess what a customer is worth.

Getting things right when you write!

If you write any thing like me you probably have so many ideas to get onto your word document that they get mixed up. This happens especially when editing, you get half way through and decide to change tack in a sentence. In the creative haze it's easy to read what you want to read and over look errors. There are a couple of ways to help this.

1. Use your spellcheck function, and make sure it's set to the correct language! Microsoft think that all English is US English. If you're audience is in the UK they won't appreciate z's in specialise and Americans want a z.
2. Always, always have another person proofread your copy (maybe two or three).
3. Listen to what they say.
4. Use the 30 minute rule. Pretty much every thing can wait 30 minutes. Put your copy to one side for half an hour and then re-read it. Your spot a lot of thing you didn't before.

I just realised this is my 101st blog entry. When I started I didn't think I'd ever get this far - well done me!

Where does all the jargon come from?

I'm sure you've sat in meetings where people come out with so-called "business speak".

'Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes' is my all time favourite.

Well I've found if not The source, a bloody good source of new business gibberish. Have a go at the Web Economy Bullshit Generator. It brings a whole new least of life to crap!

Solve your customers problems, not tell them what you've been doing

I just received an email news letter, I'm sure you get load of these as well.

I had a quick scan down the copy as it's about a product I use a lot and I'm having issues with. So the timing of the email was great for me.

But once I started to read the copy I realised that the news letter wasn't written for me it was written for the MD of the company. The first 4 paragraphs told me about what the company had been doing.

To summarise the copy was all about "We".

We've been busy, we've done this, we've don that - you know the score.

I'm sure this company are really proud of what they've achieved and so they should be.

But in the end I selfish. I want to know what they can do for me? How can they solve my problems? Why should I spend my cash with them?

If they had started these paragraphs with You or Your, the readership and final actions, which is what counts, would be greatly improved.

The lesson? Always put the customer first, they don't care about you. They are selfish like you and me, give them what they want.

Invest in copy

Seth Godin, points to one of the greatest sins in advertising.

• Just do pretty pictures

People forget the copy. On a bill board, pictures are king, the copy should be minimal (how much can you read at 40mph?)

On press ads and all other handheld print, not forgetting websites. Copy is king all the pretty pictures will get you is two more seconds attention. In that two seconds you need to grip the customer and get them to buy.

Only words can do that. Invest in them and they pay off 100 times.

Proofreading - the 30 minute rule

I've been writing copy for a long time, articles, mailing packs, websites, emails, shopping list and now a blog.

I'm not the greatest writer but I like to think creatively. Doing that means that on occasion I come up with an idea that really works well. The problem is that my mind works quicker than my fingers and in my rush to get a piece of writing out I read over my mistakes and even when I try really hard they can still creep through. That kind of kills the idea.

The obvious thing is to have someone proofread everything. That's fine, but I work at a small company and everyone is very busy. Sure they look and read but they are busy and trust that I've got things right. So they look past things too.

This is a real demon I'm struggling with, my keystrokes are my job. So a little thing I've come up with may help. It may help you to. I don't claim to have invented this, maybe I read it somewhere. Sorry if this is actually your idea. Anyway here it is.

30 Minute Rule

When you finish some copy and everyone has had their input and all the corrections have gone in and you're ready to send it out.

STOP!

Put the copy to one side for 30 minutes and then re-read it.

You'll read it with fresh eyes and may spot those little things which will haunt you if you send out your communication with them in.

Nothing will spoil for 30 minutes, but a rushed out email, mailshot, ad, website or god help you shopping list. Could haunt you for a very, very long time.

Write how you speak!

Over on Tom Peters Blog, he posts about people speaking and writing in a way they can't understand themselves.

This is one of the first things I did when I started my current job last year. The staff seemed to take on another body when they had to write a letter of email. They suddenly use words they'd never used before and didn't understand. Even worse the customers didn't understand either.

The letters and emails looked like a dictionary had been emptied on the screen.

The best advice I've ever had was from Courtney Ferguson a great DM copy writer (I wish she had a blog). Her advice was write how you speak, be personal, engage, do something unexpected. Her copy is joy to read and the best bit is it sells too. You don't notice it though. That's the best bit.

I pass this on to anyone who'll listen. Please do the same.