Successful marketing requires good communication. Whether your focus is online (digital), offline or a combination of the two, marketing communications can help grow your business. The benefits include raising awareness of your product/service/brand, developing stronger relationships with existing customers and attracting new customers.
With help from my guest blogger, Claire Maclachlan from Claire Maclachlan Copywriting, we’re going to walk through the key steps to nailing your communications! We’ll also share some of our tried and tested tips for success 😊
Claire Maclachlan Jen Cadger
Claire Maclachlan Copywriting Belter Marketing
1. Know your customers
Make sure you know who you’re communicating with! A little bit of time spent researching your customers will benefit you in the long run. You could think about this in a number of ways, for example:
· Demographics like age, where they live and life stage
· Psychographics including views, beliefs and values
· Interests, hobbies, likes and dislikes
· Approach to digital/online
Armed with all this information you can start to draw up some personas (detailed stories) about your customers. This will help you work out the best formula for your communications, centred around where to communicate with your customers and when.
2. Be clear and consistent
Spend some time thinking about what you want to say to your customers. Decide on 4-5 key messages that you can use consistently across all your communications. These are the messages you’ll repeat on a regular basis to support your brand and stand out from your competitors. Rather than just describing your business, talk about how you can help your customers or solve a specific problem they may have. If your product or service is more technical and your customers are looking for detail, consider how you can spread this into bite size pieces to make communications more manageable.
3. Look at all communication options
There are lots of ways to communicate with your customers, online and offline. A few suggestions include social media, a website, newsletters, flyers, posters, adverts, mailshots and magazines. Decide which options will ‘fit’ with your ideal customers and your marketing approach (influenced by budget, time, resources etc.) If you can, try to automate some of your communications e.g., use Mailchimp for your emails or e-newsletters, use Hootsuite for your social media etc. This can save you time and money. It’s then easier to set up templates, gather insights and have a more planned/strategic approach to your marketing communications.
4. What is copywriting and how will it help your business?
Think of the ways you engage with your customers as a business. Do you send newsletters or emails? Perhaps you use social media regularly and no doubt you will have a website. What do all of these channels have in common? Words. They each need content and that is where a copywriter comes in.
Effective copywriting is all about the words that you use to not only engage with new and existing customers, but to persuade them to take a particular action such as buying a product or service.
Clear and action focused copy allows you to create a connection with your customers, making them feel a certain way about your business, evoking a particular emotion. It does this by tapping into their concerns and creating content which addresses these in a personal and engaging way, promoting the benefits to them rather than just the features.
5. Copywriting for each marketing channel
When it comes to copywriting, different tones and styles work best across each marketing channel. Remember it is not a one size fits all approach.
Email communication – Think of how many emails people get in a day, a lot! Here you need to be concise, to the point and include a direct call to action.
Website – This is where you sell your business, convey its personality and get across how it benefits your customers. The copywriting needs to be informative yet interesting, clear and speak directly to your customer.
Social Media – Each different social media channel requires a change in tone and style due to the range of audiences but all have to be engaging. LinkedIn is professional; Facebook is more conversational and action focused; Twitter is to the point and less reliant on images, and Instagram is all about using your copy to elevate the images and evoke an emotion.
Newsletter – These can help you engage with new customers and retain your existing ones. The content matters! Think about who you are writing for and speak directly to them. Don’t go on about how wonderful you are but rather focus on how you can help them and make their life better. A good rule of thumb is to make sure the number of ‘We’ doesn’t outnumber the ‘you.’
Blogs – These are your chance to get across your brand personality, your opinions and expertise. They need to be informative, engaging and conversational, as if you are telling a story to the reader.
6. SEO tips for your website
Being on Google is great, being past page one of Google is not. 75% of people will not even scroll past page one! In the competitive online marketplace how do you get your company there? The answer is with Search Engine Optimisation copywriting.
People nowadays tend to search using ‘long tail keywords’ so for example in the past you might have typed in ‘black dress’ now you would type in ‘little black dress for night out’ As a business you and your copywriter need to identify the long tail keywords your customers are typing into Google and weave them into your website content.
The other important SEO copywriting tip for your website is to have content which is interesting, user relevant and talks to the customer as if you were having a one to one conversation. By doing these things you keep the reader interested and they stay on your website for longer. Google ultimately rewards you for this by moving your site further up the Search Engine rankings.
Navigation within your website is also key to success on Google. A copywriter will help you with the right internal links and effective calls to action which all help contribute to a better user experience.
Claire can be contacted at claire@cmcopy.co.uk for any of your copywriting queries or for marketing help, contact me at jen@beltermarketing.com
There are no paid endorsements for this blog.
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