You know those SEO copy-written guides and articles you click on and read that exist all over the web? It could be the next tip to DIY your life, a guide on grooming your poodle, or even detangling a toddler’s hair. (Seriously, there are guides for everything.)
Here’s a question. Who creates all that?
Not a machine. Not a bot. Not a system. A real, live, breathing person who loves to write.
Content: it’s everywhere.
We’re living in the era of content marketing: and today, everyone everywhere needs quality content for their online marketing.
From blog posts to tutorials to custom visuals, the demand for content is intense, and there’s a whole team of people lined up to meet it.
These people are called copywriters, and they’re experts in everything—from content to SEO.
[bctt tweet=”The demand for great content is increasing. Read @JuliaEMcCoy’s 25 reasons why every business needs a go-to #SEOcopywriter” username=”ExpWriters”]
25 Great Reasons to Hire an Online SEO Copywriter
Since the demand for content is so huge, it’s not surprising that everyday people like business owners and managers get overwhelmed by the responsibility of creating content. Unfortunately, content is critical and companies who don’t have the time to create it will fall behind in both rankings and traffic. And you can’t do it yourself, you need a copywriter who knows how to write!
If you’re wondering why it’s a good to idea to hire an SEO copywriter and keep him or her on standby for all of your content needs, read on. Here are 25 reasons to invest in an SEO copywriter for your business marketing material.
1. Time savings
Content creation is a hugely time-consuming process. If you’re any kind of content marketer, you’ve probably discovered this already. And it’s dependent on time, because the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Unfortunately, that can become a work and time hole if you don’t have help.
As your business grows, it’s not unrealistic to assume that you’ll spend hours each week creating content, updating social media, reading and responding to user comments, and promoting your material. Unless you already have hours to spare each week (doubtful), this demand is bound to put you at a deficit and make it difficult for you to handle all the other aspects of your business.
Since copywriters are content experts who specialize only in content and SEO, hiring a professional copywriter is a great way to free up your time while also ensuring that your company winds up with professional, creative, high-quality copy that supports the goals and aspirations of your business.
2. An accurate representation of your services
Sometimes, it’s difficult for a business owner to describe a company’s services accurately.
While this may seem odd, business owners spend so much time in their businesses that it can sometimes be helpful to have an external third-party come in to write about what the company does.
Many copywriters specialize in specific industries, so it’s easy to find a copywriter who understands your business and knows how to speak directly to your consumers.
When you find a copywriter who truly understands the nature and value of your business, you can ensure engaging and informative copy every single time.
3. On-trend pieces that sync with your industry
One of the primary challenges of being a business owner is finding the time to stay up to date with current happenings and developments in your industry.
Did you know? A copywriter might know, better than you, what to write for your audience! *GASP*
To remain relevant and exciting, brands need to consistently create content that demonstrates that they understand their current industry environment and can function within it.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done for many CEOs and owners.
When you hire a copywriter, however, you’ll never have to worry about how to handle current trends or keep yourself on the bleeding edge of your niche.
A copywriter can simply synthesize happenings in your industry and use all the current news and events in your niche to create relevant, informed, and valuable content for your clients.
4. Correct grammar and spelling
Let’s face it: writing is a learned skill. Because business owners are so busy with so many other things, many of them simply don’t have the time to worry about things like spelling, punctuation, and whether or not “internet” is spelled with a capital “I.”
Luckily for you, a copywriter LOVES to figure out all that stuff. We find absolute joy in the (corrected) nuances of grammar and delight in beautiful wording.
Let me put it straight. Publishing online content that’s riddled with grammar and spelling errors can hurt your company. People just won’t take you as seriously. Don’t do it; hire a copywriter who can turn out quality, error-free copy for all of your online content.
5. Persuasive content
You know what’s great about your company and why people should choose you over the competition, but can you communicate that to readers?
Writing compelling content is a learned skill, and it’s something that copywriters are incredibly good at. For any business looking to put their best face forward or promote growth and engagement with customers, hiring a copywriter is a great way to ensure your content is persuasive and effective.
6. Perspective
While it may seem unlikely at first that a copywriter could add something unique to your company’s value proposition, copywriters are often very helpful when it comes to adding perspective to your business. Copywriters are objective, third-party people who can help you understand your business on a higher and more functional level and then transmit that message to your customers.
7. Variation
One of the most important factors in content creation is variation. While you as a business owner might not know how to create marketing videos, infographics, images, and text content, a copywriter does, which can give your content strategy a dramatic boost. In addition to helping you create different content types, a copywriter will also know how to pen content at various lengths and expertise levels to cater to all of your various audiences.
8. Creativity
A copywriter’s brain works in mysterious ways. Because copywriters are so experienced in writing copy for different companies, they’ll have perspective and creativity that might be difficult for you to access all on your own.
A copywriter can not only come up with original topics but can also use your existing content to create new formats and styles that can help you stand out from the crowd.
[bctt tweet=”A copywriter can not only come up with original topics but can also use your existing content to create new formats and styles that can help you stand out from the crowd. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
9. Knowledge
Unless you’ve got some serious time on your hands, it’s unlikely that you’re keeping up with all of the latest news about Google’s frequent algorithm updates or recent changes in the content marketing and SEO industries.
Because copywriters need to know about SEO and Google updates to make a living, you can trust that a skilled copywriter will create copy that performs well in Google and pleases your readers at the same time.
Additionally, a copywriter can help you understand how to navigate SEO to avoid Google penalties and stay in the search engine’s good graces.
10. Personalized content made for your target audience
While you know that it’s important to speak directly to your target audience, that’s easier said than done. While you might not be well-versed in things like sales funnels and target personas, a copywriter is.
In light of this, a copywriter can create personalized, unique content that speaks directly to your target audience at all stages of the buying cycle.
11. Unique content
To rank well in Google’s SERPs, you need to create quality, reputable, original content on an ongoing basis. This can be difficult, though!
In addition to the fact that coming up with topics for content is hard enough on its own, it’s also difficult to create years’ worth of content without duplicating yourself or running out of topic ideas.
Luckily, a skilled SEO copywriter will be able to produce reputable, exciting online content without slipping into boring, dry material.
In addition to the fact that duplicate content is bad for your business (you’ll likely lose readers and damage your credibility by posting duplicate content), it’s also something can quickly result in Google penalties.
12. Exciting content
So you’re in the tire pressure gauge business. How do you make this industry sound exciting enough to stand out from the crowd and engage customers?
While it may be difficult for you to create exciting content that your readers will remember, this is second nature for a copywriter. While you can’t change the fact that some industries are boring, you can ensure that your content is as exciting as possible by hiring a professional SEO copywriter to create engaging, interesting content that will help you stand out from the crowd.
13. More online traffic
One of the biggest battles of running an online business is producing organic (non-paid) traffic. While this may be difficult to do on your own, a copywriter has the skills and knowledge needed to drive more organic traffic to your site.
Before you waste your marketing budget on PPC advertising, find a qualified copywriter with an extensive knowledge of organic search, SEO, and content optimization.
Between creating content for social media and developing unique, on-site content, a copywriter can help you drive organic traffic to your site, thus increasing your bottom line and making your business easier for users to find.
[bctt tweet=”One of the biggest battles of running an online business is producing organic (non-paid) traffic… a copywriter has the skills and knowledge needed to drive more organic traffic to your site. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
14. Increased social prowess
To build an online presence and engage correctly with your followers, it’s critical to have a strong social media presence.
While a copywriter can create content for your blog, website, and product pages, a copywriter can also create high-quality material for your social accounts – ranging from Facebook to Twitter.
While it’s unlikely that you know what the ideal number of characters for a tweet or a Facebook post is, a copywriter does. This kind of knowledge on your side can help ensure that you stand out from the competition and use the power of social media to your advantage.
15. Expert content
Even though you’re the business owner and thus an expert on your product, goods, and services, it’s possible to secure an expert copywriter who is familiar with your industry and can create expert, well-written content that will reflect well on your company. This is especially true for businesses in knowledge-dense fields, like medicine, where expert content is of the utmost importance.
16. Less stress
This one’s really simple, but a gamechanger. Content creation is a large job and, without the proper help, it can get stressful quite quickly.
For many reasons. What if you don’t know how to talk to your audience? What’s the difference between the copy you need to write for a blog, and what you need to write for your Facebook audience? How do you stay on top of all the topics you need to plan out for next month? This list goes on. And it gets crazy.
If you’re having trouble keeping up with the content demand, a copywriter is a great way to ensure that you consistently get content onto your blogs, social media accounts, and web pages without running yourself ragged in the process.
17. Consistency
Consistency is half the battle of copywriting and even if you love writing content and are good at it, it’s worth nothing if you can’t get words onto the page on a regular basis.
Like many business owners, you probably have a lot on your plate. Between running the company, dealing with hiring, and ensuring that there’s enough stock on the shelves, it’s likely that you find it difficult to create content on a regular basis. This is why content creation can be such a huge help.
By hiring a professional copywriter, you can ensure that you have a source of consistent content creation that benefits your brand and your audiences.
18. Objectivity
Today’s marketing climate is all about providing value and relevance. While selling is still important, it’s taken a back seat to building relationships.
Unfortunately, many businesses owners hard sell their clients without meaning to. Because you’re passionate about your products and care deeply about ensuring that your company succeeds, it might be helpful to hire a copywriter to write objective, quality content that helps your readers and provides value to a wide variety of audiences.
19. Using the correct voice
Unless you’re an experienced online copywriter, it’s likely that you’re not familiar with the correct voice to use in online marketing copy. First, second, or third person is a valid question to ask, and it’s one that an online copywriter won’t have to struggle with.
Because your online copy is so important, it pays to have a copywriter who won’t have to struggle over the nature of copywriting as a whole and can focus, instead, on the task at hand.
For your content to function well on your website and blog, it’s necessary to implement correct SEO throughout. Unfortunately, SEO Is an ongoing and ever-changing field and, unless you’re dedicated to doing it for a living, it’s likely that you’ll have trouble keeping up with all the recent changes and developments in the SEO industry.
A copywriter, on the other hand, won’t have this same issue. Because copywriters are experienced in all facets of SEO, it’s easy to ensure that your professional online copy will abide by the most recent SEO guidelines.
21. Continuity
To build a brand presence and help yourself stand out from the competition, it’s critical to ensure that your online content is consistent across the board.
By hiring an online copywriter, you can ensure that everything from your product descriptions to your blog posts is written in the same point of view, voice, and perspective. This can help create brand continuity and encourage readers to engage with your brand.
22. Conversational writing
The tone of your online content is critical and consumers react better to conversational content than they do to dry and professional content.
To encourage readers to engage with your brand, it’s essential to write in a conversational style.
If this is something you don’t feel comfortable doing, it’s wise to hire an online copywriter to create conversational, relatable content your customers will love.
[bctt tweet=”To encourage readers to engage with your brand, it’s essential to write in a conversational style. If this is something you don’t feel comfortable doing, it’s wise to hire an online copywriter… – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
23. Competitive content
If you want to run with the best, you need to create reputable content that is professional, expert, and well-written. One of the best ways to do that, even if you’re a budding company, is to hire an expert copywriter to handle your content creation needs.
In addition to helping you establish yourself as an authority in your industry, professional copywriting can help promote growth in your brand and earn you new customers.
24. You need copy to match your website
If you’ve already got a website and need content to match it, a copywriter is your go-to. Professional copywriters can read your existing content and create new content that matches it in tone, voice, style, and substance. This approach can help you create a cohesive online presence that reflects well on your company.
25. Clarity
If there’s one thing online copywriters excel at, it’s clarity, brevity, and concise writing. This is exactly what you need in your online copywriting and can quickly help elevate your content to the next level.
Regardless of whether you’re trying to grow your brand, engage new customers, or provide value to your existing clients, hiring an online copywriter is the perfect way to ensure that you’re meeting your company goals.
[bctt tweet=”If there’s one thing online copywriters excel at, it’s clarity, brevity, and concise writing. – @JuliaEMcCoy on the reasons why it’s essential to hire a go-to #SEOcopywriter” username=”ExpWriters”]
Interested in Finding Your Best SEO Copywriter You Can Rely On?
While you can certainly write your own content, hiring an SEO copywriter is one of the best ways to ensure that you create quality, relatable, cohesive content across the board.
In addition to the fact that an SEO copywriter can help you elevate your content, having a go-to SEO copywriter can also help you compete with bigger brands and establish yourself as a leader in the industry.
Great web copywriting isn’t just something nice to have.
Exquisite online writing skills are necessary for anyone involved in creating business for an online presence.
In addition to attracting visitors, great web copywriting helps strengthen a brand voice, differentiate you from the online crowd, and create a unique and distinct presence on the web.
You can’t do any of the above without this fundamental base: words. To put it simply. Words that appeal to your audience, attract their eyeballs, engage with their emotions.
It’s the vehicle for standing out online. Rather–it’s how you stand out online.
30 Actionable Copywriting Tips for Online Writers
Use these thirty online copywriting tips to boost your copywriting and achieve more online success with better, stronger, far-reaching online copy.
1. Provide context
In web copywriting as in journalism, answering questions like who, what, when, where, and why can help strengthen your copy. When you add context for people, places, things, or developments that you’re referencing within your text, you provide more value for your readers and create more balanced, informative content. To make this actionable, offer context on products you mention, recent events you cover, and third-party companies you reference. In addition to helping increase your readers’ understanding of the topic, these simple steps can also make your writing more informative.
2. Write in the active voice
Writing in the active voice makes for stronger online content and a clearer message. Writing in active voice means that the subject of your sentence does something rather than having something done to him or her. For example, “Jane kicked the ball” is active voice, while “the ball was kicked by Jane” is passive voice. Using active voice more often in your writing makes for clearer content and a more valuable message.
3. Write clickable (engaging) headlines
While 80% of people read headlines, only 20% of people will click through to your body content. In light of this, it’s pivotal to spend the time and energy that it takes to write attention-grabbing headlines. In addition to creating a more well-rounded content strategy, this approach also allows you to capture the attention of your readers and grow your company’s online presence. While writing clickable headlines isn’t something you master in a day, it is something you can learn with some ongoing education. By learning to craft compelling headlines, you can immediately improve your online content and help your business get found online.
4. Break up your content
While long-form web copywriting converts better than shorter content, big blocks of text can easily be intimidating to a reader. To ensure that you’re not scaring traffic away from your site with never-ending paragraphs and startlingly dense web pages, break your web content up into small and digestible chunks.
What content without formatting feels like to a reader…
Paragraphs, subheads, and bullet points are all an excellent way to make your text easily readable and skim-mable for all of your readers. There are many ways to do this, including adding bold or italic text and creating numbered and bulleted lists. You can also use headings and subheadings to break up your content in an intuitive and easy to understand way.
5. Be as concise as possible
Too many writers torpedo their online content by being too long-winded. In online content, brevity is king and businesses who can be concise and informative at the same time are the ones who are likely to win the race. To boost your online content and ensure that you’re not boring your readers or driving them away with wordy material, be as concise as possible. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and targeted messages are ideal for capturing a reader’s attention and keeping it. By being concise throughout your content, you build value for your readers and ensure that they keep coming back to your content.
6. Eliminate jargon
Jargon is one of the most damaging things your company can include in online content. By peppering your text with jargon and industry-specific terms, you immediately make it unapproachable for a wide variety of readers. Luckily, it’s easy to get past this by eliminating jargon altogether and making your text approachable to everyone – even people who aren’t experts in your field. Once you’ve eliminated the jargon, take your readability one step further by using short words, cutting out unneeded adverbs, and keeping your text as simple as possible throughout. This can help ensure that your online copywriting is approachable to all readers and that your message doesn’t get bogged down in techy language.
7. Incorporate a sense of urgency
Incorporating a sense of urgency into your online content is a great way to grab your readers’ attention and keep it. By doing this, you can encourage your prospects to act quickly and convert in the way that you want them to. Urgency is especially useful when you’re running a promotion, offering an incentive, or providing a “customers only” discount of some type. Incorporate urgency into your online copy by mentioning that there are a limited number of spots for a webinar or that there are only so many products remaining on the shelves. This is a simple yet effective way to improve your online copy and drive your readers to action.
8. Utilize keywords naturally
While keywords used to be one of Google’s primary ranking factors, search engines are getting smarter on a daily basis. Today, Google will de-rank content that relies too heavily on keywords, stuffs them into content, or utilizes them in an unnatural way. In light of this, be sure that you’re writing your web copy for people first and search engines second. If you’re planning on targeting keywords throughout your content, they should be incorporated in a natural way throughout. This can help ensure your company isn’t inadvertently damaging your SEO by writing keyword-stuffed keyword that’s chunky to read and worthless to customers.
9. Write in positive voice
Just like active voice, positive voice is a powerful writing tool. Positive voice helps your readers feel more trusting and optimistic toward your product, good, or service. The reason for this is that online copywriting that uses negative voice leaves readers with negative feelings. Because of this, it’s important to alter the text to use positive rather than negative voice. For example, “Don’t make these SEO mistakes” should become “Learn to avoid common SEO mistakes.” While this is a simple change, it’s one that can make a world of difference for your online copy.
10. Embrace multimedia
While text will always be relevant to readers, it’s critical to learn to balance your text with images, videos, and graphics. This helps vary your content and create a more exciting, well-rounded experience. While it’s important to maintain a blog, it’s also important to ensure that you have a substantial presence on sites like Periscope, YouTube, and Pinterest. This keeps your content exciting and provides value for your readers.
11. Write to one consumer
Developing your voice is a huge part of honing your online copywriting. One of the best ways to do this is to write to one consumer rather than your company’s entire “Target audience.” When you write to a single customer just like you would write to a friend, you personalize your copy and provide more value for everyone who reads it. Remember that today’s consumers don’t want a hard sell. They want a relationship and a conversation. By providing them with this, it’s easy to differentiate your brand and improve your copy.
12. Craft quality CTAs
The CTA is one of the most important aspects of your copy. For the copy to perform well, your CTA needs to tell people what to do in an efficient and inviting manner. While this may seem overly simplistic, the fact of the matter is that if you don’t tell people what to do next, they’re likely to avoid taking any action altogether. By crafting a compelling CTA, it’s easy to drive the type of engagement you want while also giving your readers something to think about at the end of your copy.
To be as efficient as possible, your CTA should feature the following things:
Actionable language
Copy that runs parallel to your landing pages
A value proposition
Time-sensitive language
Large, visible formatting
Contrasting design
Clickable buttons
Prominent placement
By incorporating these elements into your CTA design, you can ensure that it performs well with the reader and drives the action your company wants.
13. Become a storyteller
With all of the buzz about storytelling and marketing that’s been flying around lately, it seems obvious that telling a story is one of the best ways to engage readers and provide unique value. The fact of the matter is, however, that it’s not enough to simply weave tall tales. Instead, your company needs to be able to draw readers in and engage with them on a deep and profound level. Contrary to what many people believe, storytelling isn’t reserved for certain portions of copywriting. In fact, storytelling can be a helpful tool in everything from website content to blog posts. To use this tool effectively within your corporate copywriting, use storytelling elements to beef up a brand persona and engage readers with products, goods, and services – like Progressive has done with Flo or Geico has done with its signature Geico Gecko.
14. Match your copy to buying cycles
The best copy in the world isn’t much good if it doesn’t apply directly to the person reading it. In light of this, it’s critical to align your target audience, content, and buying cycle with one another. This ensures that your company’s content will be relevant to the person reading it and that your readers will always have access to personalized, specific material. For example, customers in the early stages of the buying cycle will appreciate broad, informative content while those further down the funnel will appreciate more specific content that helps them make purchasing decisions.
15. Appeal to emotions
Readers aren’t emotionless robots. They want writers to appeal to their emotions and give them content that’s worthy of connecting with, laughing about, or thinking deeply about. This is one of the main reasons that storytelling is so effective. Because storytelling connects with readers on a deep, emotional level, it remains one of the most effective forms of business copywriting.
16. Include research
Your customers are smart people, and they’ll catch onto inaccuracies quickly. In light of this, it’s important to back up the claims you make within your copywriting with well-sourced research wherever applicable. This lends authority to your writing and helps you establish your company as a leader in the industry.
17. Link to quality sources
Google (and your readers) want to know that you’re using reputable sources to write your content. This is why it’s so important to link to quality sources throughout your copy. In addition to helping you build authority, this also helps you connect with thought leaders and make your copy more reputable.
18. Stop selling
Today’s customers hate being sold on anything and using pushy language or obnoxious sales tactics is only going to push them away. Instead, use value and relevance to draw readers in. Focus on building the relationship first and making the sale second.
19. Pay attention to detail
In copywriting, it’s wise to sweat the small stuff. Simple things like a misplaced button, bad grammar, spelling mistakes, or even using the wrong words can have dramatic effects on the conversion rates of your copy. Luckily, you can avoid them by reading current research on what converts well and what doesn’t, proofreading all of your material, and conducting A/B testing on your company’s buttons, CTAs, and links.
20. Don’t make false promises
Today’s readers have superhuman BS detectors. If you promise something you can’t deliver on, they’re going to abandon your company for one that’s more transparent. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that you’re only making promises you can fulfill.
21. Demonstrate
While many writers rely primarily on adjectives in their online writing, a wiser choice is to show rather than tell. While it’s one thing to report that your company is intuitive, funny, and relatable, it’s entirely another to show your readers why this is so through research and demonstrable evidence. The latter approach is much more lasting and much more powerful.
22. Use power words
Power words can completely overhaul your writing. By addressing readers with “you” rather than the impersonal “one” or using right now words like “Instantly” or “today,” you can transform your online writing and craft a more compelling and engaging experience for your customers.
Let’s face it: the subject matter that some companies specialize in isn’t thrilling. Accounts payable, for example, or adult diapers. Your job as the corporate copywriter, however, is to add interest to these topics to draw your customers in. This helps produce better content and ensures that the subject is interesting and engaging, no matter how dry the subject may be at its core.
24. Showcase your personality
As a company, you have a unique personality, and one of the best things you can do for your copywriting is to inject that personality into the material you write. While some subjects require straight, educational content, some are just asking for a shot of humor and unique perspective.
25. Think of the audience first
If you’re not writing for your audience first and foremost, you’re missing out. By writing to give the audience what they want, you create valuable content they’ll want to engage with. This, in turn, can help improve your conversion rates and produce happier customers.
26. Make your copy beautiful
Who said a blog post can’t also be a work of art? When you intersperse your content with beautiful design elements such as custom visuals and graphics, you provide more interest for your readers and create compelling copy they’ll want to come back to.
27. Don’t try to be TOO clever
While injecting your unique personality into a piece is one thing, trying too hard to be witty or clever is entirely another. When you do this, you cheapen your company’s content and make it impossible for readers to derive real value from it. Instead, seek to be informative and helpful. If it doesn’t come 100% naturally: the wit can wait.
28. Survey the competition
To create great copy, it’s wise to keep a running tab of things you love or were moved by. This can include emails, blogs, articles, websites, or graphics from other companies in your industry. While it’s not advisable to copy anyone else’s content, it can be helpful to keep a careful eye on what else is out there to boost your content strategy.
29. Employ productivity hacks
One of the biggest challenges facing copywriters is distraction. When you’re having a tough time getting the job done, don’t stress. Simply focus on creating a space for productivity, instead. An excellent way to do this is to use a website blocker that keeps you off of email and social media for a set period. Alternately, you can set a timer that helps you focus on a set task for a period of time of time.
30. Offer examples
Today’s readers are example-oriented. They want to know why something works and where it’s worked in the past. To provide them with unforgettable content, ensure that you’re offering specific examples throughout.
While copywriting is a learned skill rather than an inborn talent, these 30 copywriting tips can help you improve your business copywriting on a daily basis.
Have a favorite copywriting go-to tip you always use? Share in the comments below!
Today, one of the greatest challenges facing the content marketer is the balance between automation and creation.
With all of the fantastic automated platforms available for use today, it can be tough to determine where, exactly, the line needs to be drawn.
Toomuch automation kills conversation.
But too little automation means a lot of monkey work, lost time and excess stress for the busy marketer.
So, where’s the happy medium?
Your Guide to Effectively Balancing Automation With Creation In A Social Media Strategy
Let’s delve in.
Why a Mix of Creation with Automation?
Create: While automation may make life easier, creation makes life much more fun.
Creating content for your social media platforms is a deeply creative, interactive experience; it’s here that brands and individuals alike get to exercise their voices and styles. It’s also here that relationships are built and authority is made.
People who take an active role in the creation of their social media content often enjoy closer relationships with followers and fans as well as a more intimate grasp about the state of their social media presence overall.
Unfortunately, full creation zaps your time and creates distractions. Push notifications, pings, comments, messages, and re-tweets all demand our attention… if we’re not careful, it’s easy to get pulled away from the important tasks at hand to go engage on Facebook or Twitter. While this may help strengthen relationships in the long run, it’s not ultimately awesome for productivity.
Automate: There are dozens of great reasons to automate your social media posting, like this Buffer resource.
In addition to increased traffic and more consistent interaction, automating social media can also help you get more done with less stress. Because social media requires a large time and energy commitment, automating things like posts and promotions can give you a break from the Internet and free up some space for you to worry about other things, which is a huge draw for busy people that need social media-free space to focus.
Additionally, automation is often a more efficient way to interact with social media. While it’s possible to lose some of the “human factor” behind social media when you begin to automate, it also makes all of your social media interactions much more deliberate and saves you from getting tied up with trolls or comment chains, which is yet another way to save your precious time.
Striking a Balance: 5 Tips for Using Creation and Automation Together
As is true with most things, the sweet spot between creation and automation is somewhere in the middle. To lean too much to either side is to sacrifice the benefits of one or both things, so it’s important to walk that middle line. Here are some tips to help you do that:
1. Keep a human eye involved
Some marketers would love to turn all of their social media dealings over to automated platforms and never look at them again. Unfortunately, this will only spell trouble for your brand eventually. The reason for this is that, while a large portion of your social media interaction can be automated, it’s pivotal to keep the human touch intact. This keeps social media personal and helps you avoid automated disasters like the one the New England Patriots endured when their automated platform retweeted a racial slur. The takeaway? Feel free to automate, but keep the human oversight intact.
2. If you’re going to reach out, do it personally
Some brands do things like send auto-generated messages to people who follow them. While this may seem like an efficient and personalized way to reach out to fans, it’s not. More often than not, this comes off as vacuous and more than a bit creepy, and it may actually turn fans off more than it helps to engage them. Instead of sending out auto-messages for the purpose of building relationships, dedicate some time each week to batch-checking and responding to social media messages. This can help keep your social relationships intact without derailing you on a daily basis.
3. Use automation to distribute content evenly
If you don’t use an automation service, you’re limited to posting content only when you’re awake, working, and free. This often leads to “blasts” that overwhelm your followers’ feeds and lead to much of your content being skipped over. Avoid this by using automation to distribute your hard-won content evenly throughout the day and night. In addition to avoiding content traffic jams, this also increases the likelihood that your readers will fully engage with your content and keeps you from becoming a spammy social media presence.
4. Keep an eye on current events
Social media moves quickly, and is one of the main news sources for people around the world. In light of this, I can promise you that you’re going to do your brand some serious damage if your automation platform is buzzing away while a national or global disaster unfolds. While it can be tough to stay on top of daily news and disasters all of the time, the best practice here is to cut off automation when there’s a known disaster at work. The exception is if you can use your automation to dispense content that is sensitive and directly related to the disaster in an intelligent and sophisticated way.
5. Keep testing your automation
Automation is the way of the future, but you need to be sure it’s working well in order to keep using it. Test your automation times, days, headlines, and activity levels often in order to ensure that you’re still in that sweet spot between automation and creation. Adjust anything that’s not working and move forward.
Conclusion
Automation and creation.
They’re like two peas in a pod when they’re used correctly: essential to each other, but not as effective or even as good-looking without each other.
These five tips can help you ensure that your social media displays the best of both worlds, and that you’re using automation and creation to the full extent and advantage of each, without sacrificing quality or personality in the process.
Struggling with managing your social media accounts? Let our non-robotic, human social media managers create – and schedule out (automate)! Check out our Social Media Services today.
If you’re in the online marketing world, there are literally hundreds of acronyms to remember. SEO, PPC, B2B, B2C, YMYL, and EAT, just to name a few.
One newer acronym, however, is standing out these days: H2H, or human-to-human, used to represent a type of marketing much like B2B, B2C. It’s sometimes also called P2P (person-to-person) marketing.I just heard of H2H a few weeks ago from members of our #ContentWritingChat Twitter chat. (Thanks, @alberMoire and @Renoe!) And I love what H2H represents so much, I had to take it to the blog, research it and write about it.
H2H marketing is a herald term for amazing things. Quite possibly, the future of how marketing is done.
As web marketing changes to focus less on pushy sales strategies and more on providing customers with real, genuine value and relevance, the importance of human-to-human marketing is quickly becoming even more pronounced.
Could H2H soon usurp the more traditional, colder B2B and B2C marketing, and take over the world of marketing forever?
Here’s what you need to know about why and how H2H marketing tactics will affect the future of marketing as we know it.
Why H2H Marketing Is Golden
If you’re the owner of a business, chances are you don’t walk around introducing yourself as your business. There’s likely no, “Hi, I’m Mountain SEO & Marketing, Inc. Nice to meet you!”
While you may claim your business as an entity for which you’re responsible, nobody is their business. At least not literally. While this may sound obvious, it’s actually really important.
While businesses are big, powerful entities, we need to remember that a business is only the public-facing facade of a group of actual people who are doing a specific type of work together. While it’s tempting to regard businesses as entities in and of themselves, we need to remember that behind every business is people, and it’s the people who are actually making the decisions that drive the company.
This, my friends is where H2H marketing enters the picture.
Just like nobody introduces themselves as their companies, companies aren’t ultimately the ones making purchasing or marketing decisions.
While businesses may utilize products, people within the business are the ones who are actually purchasing them. In light of this, H2H seeks to focus on catering to individual people rather than big corporations, and it’s the foundation for much of what’s going on in today’s inbound marketing world.
The Connection Between Inbound Marketing and H2H: 6 Key Similarities
There’s an argument to be made that the rise of H2H came about at the same exact time as the death of outbound marketing.
Because inbound marketing has been designed so deliberately to focus on creating human interactions and relationships, it feeds perfectly into the foundation.
In fact, inbound marketing is one of the main reasons that H2H is currently enjoying the prominence that it is. There are six important places where inbound marketing and H2H intersect. Check them out:
1. Inbound marketing focuses on finding pain points
One of the most effective marketing tactics of all time is to find a person’s pain points. Pain points are real or perceived areas of difficulty that drive customers to purchase a product, good, or service. For example, if a person is sick of constantly looking for important receipts or losing critical paperwork, the pain point is likely a disastrous lack of organization. Once that pain point becomes unbearable for the person in question, they’ll likely head out into the market and search for a problem to help them relieve the pain point. In this case, the makers of a virtual organizational platform like Evernote would have a good chance of making a sale. By identifying pain points, companies succeed not only in making more sales, they also succeed in getting to know their customers on a deeper level.
2. Inbound marketing seeks to build knowledge about customers
Gone are the days when companies just marketed to whoever would listen. Today’s successfully businesses are focused on identifying target personas and creating an increasingly more personalized marketing experience for clients. In order to do this, however, companies must get to know their clients, which forges exactly the type of relationship upon which the H2H philosophy is based.
3. Inbound marketing focuses heavily on optimizing website for people
While search remains an important marketing tactic, the trajectory of inbound marketing has demanded that companies focus first on optimizing their content for people and second on optimizing it for search engine crawlers. This creates more valuable sites and a better user experience. It also places the customer at the front of of the marketing experience, which is critical if a company is to market successfully to its consumers.
4. Inbound marketing wants users to have a good time
In the world of inbound marketing, user experience is a hugely important metric. This means that companies who arrange their web pages in order to provide a positive human experience are likely to draw more users and succeed more at H2H marketing than those who don’t. When users have a great experience with a company either through emotionally evocative advertising or outstanding service, they’re more likely to come back thanks to the human connection that’s just been formed.
5. Inbound marketing drives social media connections
In today’s world, people head to social media to connect with other people and inbound and H2H marketing are right there to meet them. When brands build relationships with customers via various social media outlets, they provide more positive experiences and start more conversations. This, in turn, leads to a deeper relationship between company and consumer and encourages brand loyalty in customers.
6. Inbound marketing focuses on guiding sales decisions
While outbound marketing of days past focused on cold sales and all but forcing people to purchase a product, inbound marketing focuses more on guiding people toward sales decisions in a valuable and informative way. Today, people want to start with information (in the form of valuable content marketing material) and work their way eventually into making purchasing decisions, which is a tenant straight out of the H2H marketing handbook.
5 Companies Nailing H2H Marketing
Right now, I’m seriously impressed by five companies who are nailing H2H marketing across the board:
1. Slack
When you do a Google search for Slack, you’re greeted by their approachable motto, “Be less busy.” “Yeah!” the Google searcher thinks, “I want that.” And that’s exactly what Slack was going for. The company, which offers an innovative messaging app designed to support team collaboration, nails it when it comes to speaking directly to their customers. From their open job postings (“Are you lovely to work with? Great! We’re nice, too!”) to their home screen, which advertises a “Messaging app for teams who are changing the world!!!” Slack is a leader in H2H marketing if I’ve ever seen one. Just check out one of their recent Facebook ads:
2. Poo-Pourri
I know I talk about them too much, but really. If it never occurred to you that a “spray before you go” bathroom fragrance could be riotous fun, it’s time to reconsider. Poo-Pourri has mastered H2H marketing – from the site’s design (all classy calligraphy and lady-like colors) to its hilarious and blush-worthy marketing videos. Don’t believe me? Check this out:
3. Airbnb
Airbnb’s popularity exploded when it introduced its “Belong Anywhere” campaign. The company, which specializes in the rental of personal homes around the world, has managed to take accommodations and make them into a symbol of kinship and belonging. One of their most heart-wrenchingly feel-good pieces of marketing content is the “Belong Anywhere” video below, in which one real-life host says, “After hosting hundreds of guests, I realize how I’m connected to these people who belong to a different country, different culture, and different background. There’s a common human bond that connects us.” How’s that for marketing that gives you all of the feels?
4. Red Bull
When you navigate to Red Bull’s website, you might expect to find material touting the power of the energy drink. Think again. What you actually find is human stories about quadriplegics fighting to overcome their injuries for global races or a team of young climbers on a traverse of Patagonia’s Fitz Roy mountain. Meant to inspire, motivate, and move Red Bull’s followers, these stories focus on the human motivation behind a drink meant to enhance performance.
5. Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club’s motto is, “No commitment. No fees. No B.S.” The idea for the company was hatched when founder, Michael Dublin, became frustrated with the expensive and poor-quality razors found in supermarkets. He decided to start an affordable, relatable razor subscription service and the hilarious and relatable marketing that has become Dollar Shave Club was born. One of the company’s most memorable pieces of H2H content so far is its launch video, which proclaims that the brand’s razor blades are “F**king great.”
While H2H marketing will evolve as it becomes more popular, these five companies are dominating the H2H scene today.
Why H2H Is the Marketing of the Future
While there are many good things about H2H marketing, it’s not enough to simply appreciate H2H as a helpful tactic. Oh no, it’s much larger than one standalone tactic or even “fade:” it’s headed towards becoming the marketing of the future.
Here’s why:
H2H marketing helps companies synthesize and resolve the concerns of their customers.
H2H marketing builds customer trust in your brand.
H2H marketing helps companies develop ongoing relationships with customers.
H2H marketing provides the foundation for powerful WOM advertising that can help your business thrive.
The wonderful thing about H2H marketing is that, unlike certain B2B or B2C marketing tactics, H2H marketing tactics are applicable across the board.
In these ways, H2H marketing can easily replace the cold sales marketing of the past and become the primary mode of marketing as we move into the future.
The Future of Marketing and the Importance of H2H
As it stands now, several companies have already decried the end of B2B and B2C marketing and stated that it all comes down, at this point, to H2H marketing. While B2B and B2B marketing used to be helpful differentiations that allowed companies to target consumers more effectively, the truth is that today’s marketing comes down to one thing and one thing only: the customer. It doesn’t matter one iota if this customer is encased within a company or out there on their own, it matters only that companies succeed in creating authentic relationships with people rather than businesses.
This is the reason that H2H marketing is rising to such prominence.
When companies focus more on marketing for humans, by humans, they succeed in touching on many of the things that the outbound tactics of yesteryear missed: empathy, excitement, compassion, and connection.
This, in turn, creates a larger willingness to purchase a product and makes customers more excited to interact with a brand.
These things were previously unheard-of in the outbound tactics of yesteryear. Instead of fostering genuine connections with customers, companies used sneaky, under-the-table tactics to essentially confuse or bully customers into purchasing products.
While this worked for a bit, today’s customers don’t want to be confused.
They want to understand what they’re purchasing and why.
Because of this, H2H marketing has risen to prominence with both customers and companies.
While companies benefit from the increased connection to their customers, customers benefit from actually seeing the companies they’re purchasing from as humans, too which creates a mutual relationship that’s good for everyone involved.
If you’re not focusing on the human elements that make up what marketing is, at it’s soul and core, then you’re missing out.
I encourage every marketer out there to switch from “cold” and “traditional” to “human.” You’ll see better results–I promise you.
Don’t think of ANYONE as a robot. Think of them as humans. (Enter H2H marketing.)
What are your thoughts on the rise of H2H / P2P marketing? Let me know in the comments!
To get your voice out online, invest in great content served up by our prolific copywriters. Visit our Content Shop today!
It’s time. You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect email.
You’ve agonized over the words you’ve included, written and re-written every sentence, and considered your reader at every fork of the road.
You give the work of art you’ve just crafted one last read-through, then you take a deep breath and click “send.”
You close your laptop. Your work there is done.
A few days later, though, you check out the stats for that work of art you were so proud of and they’re, well, disappointing.
How could this possibly be?
If you’ve ever found yourself in these shoes, don’t fret. This is a very common problem, and many marketers struggle to figure out why the content they work so hard on isn’t as effective as they thought it would be.
Luckily, you’re not doomed to live in this place of email marketing limbo forever. By learning the keys to stellar direct email copywriting, you can craft outstanding marketing emails that rake in the clicks, opens, and conversions.
Read on to learn more.
Great Direct Email Copywriting: The Basics
While many people brush off direct email copywriting as a skill that died along with the early 2000s, the fact is that it’s still very, very relevant in today’s marketing environment.
While email marketing might not have the universal appeal of social media or podcasting, it’s still far too important to overlook, and marketers that do find themselves missing out on a large segment of traffic and engagement.
If you’re one of the many people who wonder what’s so great about email marketing, here are a few of its most winning qualities:
#1. Direct email marketing is effective and cost-efficient
While every company wants a cheap, efficient marketing strategy they can count on, this is especially important for, small business owners, who are always looking for efficient marketing solutions that will provide results on time and under budget. Luckily, email marketing fits the bill.
According to one 2013 report conducted by Direct Marketing Association, marketers who use direct email marketing earn a 4,3000% ROI.
How’s that for incentive?
#2. Email marketing provides real value
Every day, customers around the world take time out of their busy schedules to read through the emails that land in their inbox. Unfortunately, many of these emails are junk. Luckily, marketers who master direct email copywriting can set themselves apart from the crowd by providing real value to readers.
According to CopyBlogger, brands that are truly successful at direct email marketing are those who position themselves as companies truly concerned about the happiness and well-being of their readers.
This, in turn, helps readers feel as if they can trust your brand, which makes them more willing to share personal information and convert on your offers.
#3. Email marketing opens up a reliable line of communication with customers
Where else do you get unparalleled access to your customer’s pocket or inbox? Nowhere but email marketing, that’s the answer. When you provide valuable, unique, and interesting direct email copywriting, you succeed in opening up a valuable dialogue with clients, the likes of which isn’t seen anywhere else in marketing.
#4. Email marketing is a powerful tool for word-of-mouth and shares
According to DuctTape Marketing, quality content is one of the only things that will produce reliable sales results every time. With this in mind, it’s clear that people who master the art of direct email copywriting are uniquely qualified to make more sales and produce more positive word-of-mouth advertising within their customer base.
Despite all of these benefits, many people are afraid of writing marketing emails, assuming it will be challenging or unproductive. Luckily, crafting good email copy doesn’t have to be a challenge. With that in mind, check out our top tips for writing effective marketing emails your customers will love.
10 Steps to Craft Stellar Email Copy That Can’t Be Ignored
If you’re ready to incorporate great email marketing into your content strategy, follow these ten steps:
1. Remain relatable in all of your marketing copy
Let’s get one thing straight: nobody wants to read a stuffy marketing email. Would you?
Of course the answer is no.
That’s why it’s so important to keep your voice relatable and approachable in your direct email copywriting. Here are three good examples of brands I love that do just that:
Tim Ferriss’s Five Bullet Friday email always feels like grabbing a quick coffee with a friend. It’s approachable, casual, and informative. Which may be why it has a few million subscribers:
Another blogger who has always done a great job of maintaining a relatable approach is Mark Manson. Here’s one of his most recent marketing emails that decidedly does not feel like a marketing email:
Finally, for reference, here’s a marketing email from GroupHigh, an influencer marketing startup that always kills it with the copywriting:
With those examples in mind, strive to keep your email copywriting in the same tone that you’d use to talk with a friend. It will benefit you in terms of conversions, clicks, and engagement down the road.
2. Personalize your emails as much as possible
A personalized email is a successful email, so take steps to make them as individualized as possible. This often means using your reader’s name in the subject line, using your name as the “From” address, and inputting a personal email as the “Reply to” address rather than allowing it to fill in with an auto-generated email from MailChimp or whatever service you use.
While personalization may not seem like a big deal, Aberdeen reports that personalizing an email can improve click-through rates by 10%.
3. Make clarity your main priority
Too many marketers try to be too gimmicky in their email copy, which only drives users away. Instead of focusing only on hooking your readers, think first about how you can provide clarity and value.
Once you’ve got those two things down, you can move onto being catchy.
4. Write a compelling email subject line
When it comes to email marketing, subject lines are critical. By using action words, posing a question, or personalizing the subject line (which results in a 26% spike in open rates), you can ensure that your email copy won’t be left sitting at the bottom of a trash bin.
5. Make sure you’re delivering on your promises
If you promise free tips, useful information, or shocking data in your email subject line, you need to deliver in your body content. While most people assume that being catchy in the subject line is all that matters, even users who open your emails will head for the hills if the body content doesn’t support the claims the subject line makes.
6. Write in the second person voice
Whenever you write email copy, everything you pen should be in the second person. Notice how all three of the examples listed above use “you” liberally. In addition to helping you connect with your readers, this is also a great way to drive the reader to action.
7. Stress the benefits, not the features
In email, as in all great marketing, you need to focus on stressing the benefits rather than the features of your product. In addition to the fact that features are more compelling than benefits, telling a story about how a service, good, or product will change a consumer’s life is much more emotive than simply including a bulleted list of features.
8. Keep your email brief
Few people have the attention span for a long marketing email, so it’s in your best interests to keep it short, succinct, and to the point. Offer relevant information toward the beginning of the email and resist the temptation to stuff the body full of filler language.
9. Make your call-to-action prominent
To enhance the effectiveness of your call to action, highlight it at the end of the email. Be sure to set it apart from the text, consider tinting it a different color, and install a button for added effect. While these are simple fixes, they can go a long way toward improving the effectiveness of your email across the board.
10. Automate your marketing emails with better management tools
While not technically a writing tip, automating your emails with the right management tool will save you a huge amount of time and money.
Services like MailChimp have long been the standard, but today more powerful tools like ConvertKit are beginning to rule the roost.
ConvertKit is a tool we use in our email campaigns here at Express Writers, and it has rapidly become one of the most indispensable in our belt. In fact, as soon as we switched to ConvertKit we saw a whopping 200% increase in the clicks on our emails!
While ConvertKit is a super-efficient tool for sending better emails, it’s much more than that.
What sets ConvertKit apart is its highly responsive opt-in forms, multiple incentive options, subscriber gifts, custom opt-in features, and custom landing page options.
Plus, they’re known for the awesome reporting tools you get. Check out the homescreen dashboard, with a report detailing everywhere our subscribers came from, what days they came in, etc:
ConvertKit is based on simplicity. They believe that less HTML, links, imagery and “stuff” makes sure your email gets read and out of the spam folder – and they’re onto something, based on our email results! However, that does mean you don’t have a lot of options in designing an email. But, the simple template we’ve been using works well.
Here’s a quick peek at some of our broadcasts.
We upgraded our style to omit nearly every footer link in early 2018, and have been using a super-simple, plain-text style very light on images and design. One campaign I write every week is the Content Shop Spotlight. We’ve had a great return on this, with prospects emailing us weekly after reading these newsletters. Read a full Content Shop Spotlight example.
You can customize text colors with a handy visual editor, add custom CSS codes for social media icons and more, or create and host a landing page and forms. You can even grab their Wordpress plugin for more accessibility with subscribers to and from your website.
This is a huge number, and it’s just one of the many things that demonstrates the importance and timeliness of email marketing.
On average, 57% of email subscribers interact with marketing emails for 10-60 minutes each week, and if you can master direct email copywriting well enough, you’ll soon find that your brand is one of the few they choose to spend their time with.
While direct email copywriting is a difficult thing to learn, the tips in our post can help you develop, target, produce, and dispense marketing emails that truly drive results–rather than just sitting in someone’s inbox.
And while connecting with customers in a meaningful and lasting way has always been a difficult pursuit, email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to make it happen in today’s world. Today, 83% of B2B marketers use emails for marketing, and that number will only grow in the coming years.
By developing a copywriting style that brands you as personable, polite, and engaging, you can easily connect on a deeper level with your customers and improve your brand across the board.
Stumped on how to create powerful email headlines and copy? Our email copywriting services might be just what you need! We’ve written successful email content for brands of all types.
