Copywriting 101 Archives - Page 9 of 11

Why it pays to market during a recession

When times get hard, marketing is one of the first things to get cut. Consumers have less money, so why market to them at the same pace? And with a smaller budget, are those people in the marketing department even necessary?

As a matter of self-preservation, marketers like to counter that a recession is actually a great time to sell more aggressively. When others are cutting back, you can gain market share at relatively low cost by doing the opposite. And we’ve always had a few juicy stats to prove the point, with an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal providing fresh fodder.

In Q1 ’09, New York Life grew its market share to 5.4% from 3.9% a year earlier. It did this by increasing its advertising budget by 24%, and telling its agents they had a “moral obligation” to present the company’s strength to clients. Ads changed from a sentimental teddy bear theme to a serious message about financial stability. By second quarter, the firm had leapfrogged from ninth to second place in revenues from premiums and annuity deposits as many clients put extra money into their life insurance policies.

Bed Bath & Beyond was equally aggressive, increasing advertising expenditures to 3.7% of revenue in 2008 from 3% in 2006. Much of that money was invested in targeting the 100 key stores of a major rival, Linens ‘n Things. Linens coupons and discounts were matched dollar-for dollar. The payoff: Linens ‘n Things went out of business. And with its increased marketing share, sales at Bed Bath & Beyond were up 2.8% for its quarter ended May 30, compared to an drop of 13% in the home furnishings sector overall.

If you’re a marketer, sink your teeth into those stats next time you present to the money people—and be sure to tell them you need some strong creative help to get the right message to your audience. WSJ reminds us that Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (comfort food) and Revlon nail polish (affordable luxury) are products of the depression that are still successful today, born of aggressive marketing and a well-told story at a time when others were cutting back.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

The lead story in the Specialty Foods newsletter today really caught my eye. “Some 52% of consumers are monitoring the amount of sodium in their diets and 26% read labels for sodium.” This seems simply incredible on the face of it, especially in the context of my new home in upstate New York where 77.8% of the populace pays no attention whatsoever to what goes into their gullet.

Seeking understanding, I follow the link to its source — Mintel, “a leading global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence.” Here I find out that:

22% [of consumers] restrict the amount of salt that they add to food, but don’t watch the much greater amount of sodium that is in foods and beverages
18% say that “food and beverages low in sodium are one of the three most important components of a healthy diet”
26% read labels for sodium, and may make some decisions based on this info, but they are not following a regimen to control sodium in their diet
34% do not pay attention to sodium

Except for the last stat (which seems low), none of these numbers seems at all credible to me on a seat-of-the-pants basis. Do they to you? Perhaps this is some research from a survey that is skewed to make a particular marketing point? So let’s look at the original source material, the verbatim comments from the survey. Oops, they aren’t available. Instead Mintel offers a link to a webinar where we can learn about “Sodium: The Next Trans Fat?”

High school debaters learn that with a little digging, they can find a “statistic” to support any point of view. Perhaps in the Mintel survey, and I’m stipulating that there was one, they asked people “do you ever think about the amount of sodium in your diet?” and 52% said yes. That would still be a high number, but I’d accept it. Then maybe some creative marcom copywriter changed it to “monitor” which recasts the same stat as alarming or fascinating news.

One of my earliest bosses promised he was going to teach me to “lie with statistics”. I didn’t last very long at that position and don’t know what happened to that boss. Hmm…

Words that hurt: the “we we” chronicles.

A well-intentioned nonprofit falls into the we-we trap. — A well-intentioned nonprofit falls into a puddle of we-we.

In an earlier post we talked about the problem of “we weing all over yourself”, letting a plural corporate voice take over your advertising to the exclusion of reader empathy and common sense. The billboard at left is a great example.

Here we have a public service campaign which has been running for awhile in California. The original headline for this was “My kitchen, my rules.” (Quite often rendered in other languages.) That is good and makes sense: a feisty mom stands her ground and insists on healthy choices in food for her family.

But now we have “our neighborhood, our rules.” Same picture but now she’s the spokesperson for an amorphous entity which might be vigilantes or a street gang. (The billboard was photographed near one of San Francisco’s more troubled housing projects.) A single mom is endearing, a mob is scary. Except that it’s not credible. I don’t buy for an instant the notion of these angry homemakers insisting that I will bow under their demands for healthy habits, or else.

The change in tense to the first person plural is, unaided, what causes the damage. It’s not the typical corporate chest pounding but more likely an aging campaign that got relegated to the creative farm team. But the effect is the same. Don’t we we on your own marketing like this.

Confessions from an advertising “Suit”

Early in my career, I was lured to advertising’s “dark side”. I stopped in to see a department store client and was told that, while there were presently no freelance copy assignments, the direct marketing manager had just quit and I was welcome to apply for the job. Thus began a five year journey that culminated in a position as account supervisor at a national agency before I ran screaming into the sunlight on Wilshire Blvd. and ceremonially buried my suit in my back yard.

Creative colleagues kid me about my poor judgment (in taking the job, not losing the suit) to this day. But this experience actually provided valuable lessons that have sustained me throughout my freelance career.

The first lesson was the relationship between what I wrote and the financial success of the company. Previously, I’d written more or less for my own amusement and maybe to impress the girls in the office. My perspective changed when my boss at Broadway Department Stores, Marketing VP Jan Wetzel, took me for a store tour on the first day of a big sale so I could see people lined up to products which up to now had been copyblocks and production art. Now, I realized they were buying at least in part because of the creative presentation.

My learning was reinforced when I later had a job as ad director at a company that sold tools on the phone; prospects called an 800 number in response to a mailer I would send out. When there was an excess of incoming calls, they would overflow to the receptionist at the front desk. I soon learned that when she was too busy to say good morning, we had a successful mailer on our hands. Aha, creative presentation makes a marketing difference (along with some list testing I got to play with)!

Another lesson was a corollary of this one. I discovered, because the creatives now working for me did not always do it, how important it was to honor schedule and budget commitments and to treat the “suits” with mutual courtesy. I can still see a TV art director at a large Detroit-based agency looking me in the eye and explaining away a mediocre script for a :30 retail supermarket spot because “Otis, there are only so many good ideas.” And when I returned to the creative side I initially found it hard to find work because creative directors figured if I had done account work, my writing couldn’t possibly be any good.

Pay attention to P&L. Honor schedules and budgets. Treat your client with respect. This is stuff they don’t teach in cub copywriter school. I’m glad I have the opportunity to learn it.

5 words that hurt (your marketing results)

Free! You! Now! We’ve all head about magic words that help your copy sell more effectively. But what about words that push readership and response in the opposite direction? Here is a starter list of five words (and word categories) to watch out for…. additional submissions appreciated.

1. “I”. Nobody cares about you, except your mother. Readers want to read about themselves. That’s why the presence of “I” in a classic marketing message is a clear indicator you are wandering into dangerous territory. (Social media is an exception, along with scenarios in which you expect to create a first-person story the reader will identify with.)

2. Even worse, “we”. Still in the first person, but now we’re talking about a corporate presence. “We” is a favorite word of posturing messages that are meant mainly to be read in the boardroom. Writing such messages is called “we weing all over yourself”. Try the We We Calculator to see if you are guilty of too much wee-ism in your copy.

3. “It”. Unless they’re already engrossed in your copy, when you use “it” the reader is going to have to refer back in the message to find out what the meaning of “it” is. They’re not likely to take the trouble.

4. Words that can be read more than one way. “Read” (present tense) and “read” (past tense) is one example. As is “lead” (make people follow) or “lead” (the metal). Anytime readers get confused because they have misunderstood your meaning, they’re likely to just stop reading.

5. Words that look similar enough to be misinterpreted by a hurrying reader. Example: “through/thorough/though”. If you depend on them to get your message across, you’re toast.

And, a bonus phrase:

6. “As I just mentioned”. Using this expression is what I call “as-backwards” copywriting because the reader probably doesn’t remember what you’ve just mentioned. You’re expecting them to reverse direction to find out when, more likely, they’ll just hit the delete button.

This is one of a series of excerpts from my DMA class, “Copywriting that Gets Results”. Visit the Copywriting 101 category to see them all.

The role of predictability in advertising

Doorknob or handle: which would you choose?

The picture at left shows the inside of the men’s room door in the building where I used to rent a studio, in San Francisco. The knob is the way you get out of the room; the much more prominent grab bar is a useless appendage. During the 18 months I rented this space I used the bathroom certainly 100+ times… and at least 50 of those times I grabbed the bar because my sense memories “knew” that was the right thing to do.

People expect things to work a certain way. And this can have important implications when you’re marketing to them. Ads that play against expectations, especially in web video and TV, can surprise and delight and get through to a dulled viewer. But direct marketing pitches that veer in an unexpected direction—introducing a surprise element in the middle of a sales letter, for example—can turn off a reader and cause them to pitch your message in the recycling bin.

The difference with these scenarios: in the first, the prospect is on the outside, tacitly agreeing to let you try to entice them into your world. In the second, you’ve already created agreement and now you’re violating the contract. That’s why so many paragraphs in classic direct mail letters begin “that’s why”—to let the reader know you’ve established your point and are transitioning to another. And why many direct marketing pitches (including web pages and email, as well as print) will include what my clients at Rodale used to call “head nodders”—statements you know your audience will agree with, used to establish that you are on the same page and your message is reasonable and relevant.

It’s OK to be unpredictable… just as long as you know when to use and not use this strategy. If you’re doing intrusive advertising—which would include most examples of direct marketing—then it’s best to stay within expectations and avoid surprising your prospect except with the wonderful news of your offer and its benefits.

This is one of a series of excerpts from my DMA class, “Copywriting that Gets Results”. Visit the Copywriting 101 category to see them all.

More thoughts on “cheap” creative

If you’re a manager who hires creatives, here’s some friendly advice: pay them on time, Or, even better, surprise them with a check well in advance of the due date. Most writers and designers are not the best money managers and this simple gesture will earn you Pavlovian gratitude as well as better, prompter work in return.

On the other hand, if you have an accounting staff that uses the “slow pay” scheme to manage cash flow, fight like hell to get your creatives excluded from the extended payment schedule. When they are distracted by worrying about paying their utility bill or putting food on the table, how can they give you their best work? When you don’t honor your commitment to them, how can you expect them to be conscientious about your own deadlines?

I forgot to mention the above in my earlier post on pricing and getting paid during a recession. Meanwhile, my own experiences with clients coping with tough times continue. I engaged in extensive dialog and estimating with a prospect and she finally told me her budget was $300-500 for a new website and collateral. It’s hard to imagine what you can get for that except maybe installing a pet door.

Meanwhile, just started working with a new agency client which said my rate is fine, I can track my own hours, and they’re sending the paperwork in the morning. I was so pleased to be back in a grown-up relationship that I immediately spent a couple hours researching the project, on my own nickel.

How to use a creative brief

A creative brief is a contract between the account team or project “owner” and the creative team. It quickly defines a marketing project so the creatives know what it is all about, what it’s trying to accomplish, and what are the budget and other parameters—no coming up with a web video when the brief calls for a small space ad.

I’ve worked with creative briefs from several dozen marketers and agencies over the years. Although there are variations, most follow the same outline—a series of questions which are answered by the account folks, approved by the client, then handed off to creatives:

What is this project about in a sentence?
What are we trying to accomplish?
Who is the audience?
What do they think about our product or service now?
What do we want to think? Is there a specific action we want them to take?
How are we going to accomplish this?
Is there a specific offer?
What are likely objections and how can we handle them?
Are there any delimiting budget or production considerations?
What sacred cows, legal mandatories etc. should we be aware of?
What is the schedule?

As a copywriter and creative director, I like working with a creative brief very much. It reduces the element of surprise, tells me my clients will act professionally (and not pile on deliverables or insist “that’s not what I asked for”), and helps me organize my own thinking. In fact, if a creative brief isn’t provide I’ll write one for myself as a way to jumpstart my diminishing brain cells. (But I don’t tell anyone… this is a private and personal exercise. And I never write a creative brief on behalf of a client—something I’ve been asked to do—because that defeats the whole purpose of the document.)

In my copywriting class, I ask the class how many of them have worked with a creative brief and the “yes” group is always under 50%. Then we do an exercise in which we divide into teams and each group follows a prewritten brief to come up with a concept for a space ad. (The class is primarily about writing email and direct mail, but the space ad gives us something to show.) This is a very popular activity. Afterward most of the students say they will demand, or write (if they’re managers), a creative brief for their next project.

Not everybody I work with personally gives me a brief. Almost without exception the clients who provide a brief are more organized, better funded, and less likely to self-destruct in the middle of a project. Yet it doesn’t cost anything to write a brief, just time and thinking you should invest anyway toward a successful result.

If you’re not now using a creative brief, give it a try on your next project. You will be pleased.

What’s the value of “cheap” creative?

A long time consultant client, concerned about the recession, asked me to cut creative pricing to the bone on a couple of recent jobs then came back and asked me to cut again. I agreed because I was well, concerned about the recession.

An interesting thing happened on both these jobs. Instead of being happy they were getting fantastic value, both clients tinkered with revisions long past the point of reasonableness. In one case, I think the client tinkered to the point that he did his message serious harm.

I caution my students against doing spec work because free is worth what you pay for it; the spec work will be lightly regarded and clients will either not read it or will be butchers with the edit pencil. This is a similar situation, I think. The price is so low that subconsciously, the client thinks the creative can’t be very good. So no worry messing with it.

In general I’ve avoided cutting prices the past year because of experiences like this. If a client balks at an estimate, I ask what they are concerned about. If they have a number in mind, I try to deliver quality for that without compromising.

Hourly rates have been a particular concern. My rate isn’t the lowest. So if a client asks what my rate is and says “I can’t pay that” I say let’s throw out the hourly rate and look at an overall budget. They are happy, but I still end up charging my rate or close to it.

It will be good when times are better again and we can concentrate on doing great work that builds our clients’ businesses and pays for itself in measurable response.

The “CEO Letter”

A client and I got into a wrangle recently when he asked me to write a “CEO letter” to other top execs who would be joining him at an event, and the result was not what he expected. Here’s what I responded by way of explanation:

There’s been a fair amount of discussion and research on this topic in the DM community, as you might expect, and I’ve myself written a number of “C level” or “CEO” letters over the years. I think there is universal agreement the most important characteristic is BREVITY. An efficient CEO is not going to get down in the weeds of an issue because of an unsolicited letter. What you need to do is instantly establish relevance, describe an action which is quick and easy to take—eg NOT “I am going to take time to research this company because they have provided me with some interesting stats and education” but rather “I am going to ask my marketing director to include this company on his short list to check out”—and then get out.

As for tonality, the most important element is showing the reader you respect his or her time as a fellow CEO and makes clear the offer of a personal demo. The tonality consists in being brief, terse and to the point much as if you would be talking to him or her in person.

Do you write letters to high level executives in your own marketing? What works best—brief and to the point, or laced with personal elements? (That’s what my client was expecting, I think.) Inquiring minds (mine, anyway) want to know!