Category: Copywriting

A quick reminder to all of us.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a copywriter like me, or a speaker, or an accountant, or a carpet cleaner – we’re all in the same boat.

We are all in the business of marketing ourselves.

Which means that, as we head into 2020, we need to shift our focus a bit more.

You can’t easily, on a long-term basis, just outsource your marketing, say you’re ticking the ‘marketing box’ and carry on as you’ve always done.

Things are becoming more and more competitive, and there are a million reasons for someone NOT to buy from you.

And marketing agencies, social media gurus, and heck – even copywriters, who claim to be in the marketing biz, often fail to deliver anything that will help to reduce this competition gap.

Content is great.

Social updates are nice.

But, if they don’t deliver you results, sales, leads – SOMETHING, they don’t mean shit.

And why is it? It’s because they/we often don’t have real skin in the game.

At the end of the day, most of us get paid before the results get delivered.

I’ve got one close client who, while he focuses on what he does, he still keeps a firm hand on his marketing rudder. Despite occasional lulls in productivity, due to our long relationship, we both desperately want the other to succeed – this is skin in the game, a reason, an incentive for continued improvement.

Which sums up why every business owner, large and small, must put more effort into the marketing game for themselves.

You’re not in the business of being a carpet cleaner, you’re in the business of marketing yourself as a carpet cleaner – because, without good marketing, you won’t have customers, and without the customers and their grubby carpets – you aren’t a carpet cleaner.

So, in 2020, let’s devote more time to marketing ourselves, to create an ongoing stream of clients, so that, feast or famine, we’ll always be swamped with work.

I’ve written about my little by Archie here before. He’s massively into dinosaurs. 

He’ll watch at least one Jurassic Park film a day, has dino bed covers and wallpaper in his bedroom and plays with hundreds of dinosaur toys in every shape and size. 

As you can guess, his favourite thing to talk about is – dinosaurs. 

He turned four in June, and he can name even the ugliest, most obscure beast (subtle humble boast!). 

You can keep your basic t-rex and triceratops; bring on the enormous flying quetzalcoatlus or noisy parasaurolophus. 

Dinosaurs I didn’t even know existed until he began exploring them. 

And, because he’s so passionate, I need to keep learning about new dino facts to keep up with him. To give us something to talk about, to argue about which is better, and to keep him engaged and learning. 

To speak his language, I need to look stuff up and stay one step ahead. 

Just like we should be doing with our customers.

Keeping our finger on our industry buttons to ensure we’re using the right words, terminology and tone to maintain a meaningful connection with our customers, proving we’re on the money, on their level and ‘get’ their problems and worries. 

So, go back to your website or most recent marketing push, check the language you’re using, yours or your customers – is it still relevant to today’s problems and current events?

Need a hand with your marketing copy? 

I write things to help you sell more stuff – whether it’s websites, landing pages, email copy, leaflets or direct mail.

If you need a hand, drop me a message, let me know your favourite dinosaur and what you need help with.

Liam 🙂

Happy New Year, everyone!

Back to work with a thud and a grin.

We’re all excited about the year ahead.

With big plans for new marketing campaigns, full with tonnes of creative ideas and content ready to ooze from your fingertips I bet?

Me too, for my clients at least.

Here’s to a genuinely massive, successful 2020 year to you.

And, if you need any help producing those stellar sales messages – just drop me an email: [email protected]

I’d love to help.

Liam

Ever find yourself so inundated in work, business development and family life that you completely forget you even have a blog?

…🙄 or is that just me?

Practice what I preach and all that.

But, I have been pretty busy with client work lately.

Over the last few months, alongside all the personal projects I’m working on – Grammarly tells me I’ve written almost 47,000 words in the past couple of months.

So, what does that mean in real terms?

SEO Copywriting: One client, through content alone, with zero link building, soared up the Google ranks for 5 of his money keywords – from around page 2-3, to page 1 for them all.

Cold Email Copywriting: It’s meant a brand new startup sending out nearly 500 cold emails to prospects, and closing their very first client just 24 hours later.

Email Sequence Copywriting: Helping an online coach revamp his email sequences. Writing copy for a member follow-up sequence, which resulted in a 2.5% increased conversion rate vs the previous series.

Which again, shows just how powerful the right message, delivered to the right audience, at the right time, can make a real difference for businesses.

It’s why they hire sales copywriters – to pull in needle-moving results.

…even if they don’t regularly update their blog!

If you want help with some of your own copy, hit me up. I’d be glad to chat: [email protected]

Toddlers.

Whether it’s ice cream, cake or your work laptop, when they want something, they’re determined to get it.

They don’t pussyfoot around the issue.

They go in full pelt straight for the sale.

They’re not scared of asking for what they want.

And crucially, they know their target audience.

They know which parent to ask to get the best results.

And they don’t care who they upset in the process.

In business, be more toddler.

When you’re writing sales copy for your business, go into it like a toddler.

1. Know what you want. If you want appointments, ask for them. If you want online sales, drive customers to your shopping cart. Clearly define what the goal of your copy is to be – that ‘one big idea’, and drive it home.
2. Know your target audience. Stop being afraid of scaring off potential clients who will never convert into customers. Instead, focus your copy on the handful of people who will buy from you. This laser focussed knowledge of your target audience will allow you to speak directly to the customers you want, and crucially alienate the crap ones – saving you time and money trying to convert duds.
3. Cut the crap. If a customer is interested, they’re interested. Give them the information they need as early on as possible. No one cares about you, your rich history in business – they only really care about how your solution fixes their problems. So, cut the crap, get to the point and prove yourself.

Be more toddler. Make more sales.

Rather get someone else to write your sales copy for you?

Drop me an email: [email protected] to have a quick chat.