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Writing to market online

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Having a website is only part of your online presence; and the copy on your website must engage the reader and keep them there – but what other copy should you be thinking about online?

Blogs like this one are another way to engage potential customers, providing the information is not just a sales pitch, but offers real information of value to the reader.

Articles are another way to spread your knowledge and profile across the web and there are many sites where you can post these.

Social media profiles – and the use of them regularly are another way to engage with people and help them to ‘get to know’ you.

Twitter is microblogging – and the most well known of the many sites where you can post. Using this well has been a really successful business tool for many people.

These are all means of getting people to visit your site – and, if you have a tempting offer when they get there, they’ll sign up to your list. Your list is usually willing to receive your newsletter – and will continue to read it if it’s interesting and offers added value they’ll stay signed up. That also means that you can continue to build a relationship on a regular basis with autoresponder messages.

The secret is to get all these working together to really get your online marketing flying in formation.
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Filed Under: Articles, Marketing, Readability, Website copy Tagged With: ,

Creating effective flyers

June 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This isn’t about web copy – but it is about readability and it uses some of the same ‘rules’.

There are many different varieties of flyer; there’s the letter/A4 sized sheet, the A5 (half letter size), the trifold, the DL (compliments slip size); the postcard – and many others. Today I’m going to talk about content – and tomorrow about where the content needs to go.

  • No matter what size of flyer you’re creating you need a headline that tells your reader ‘this needs to be read’ – so it must have energy and urgency.
  • You need to state your key message in terms of ‘what’s in it for me’.
  • You must include some means of contacting you – but, if space is at a premium decide how you’d prefer people to contact you – phone, email, post and include the essential details – you don’t need to include your address unless you actually want visitors.
  • Putting a website address in is a really good idea – it enables people to check you out and, if you’ve got compelling copy on your website, it gives you a second chance to persuade people.
  • Think about what a typical customer would WANT to know and tell them that – not all the things you want to say; we’re all over-enthusiastic about our businesses and often try to tell people a lot of information that doesn’t really interest them.
  • If at all possible, offer them something. This could be a discount, a free report or consultation, a 2 for 1 or buy 2 get a lower price deal. People keep flyers that contain something valuable.

    • Finally, when you’ve assembled those pieces of information – don’t be tempted to fill space with additional information! Stop right there!

    Read the next blog to find out how to assemble the various types of flyer so the key information is in the right places.
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    Filed Under: Articles, Readability Tagged With: , , , , ,

    3 things your website MUST do

    May 8, 2009 By 1 Comment

    You’re probably already guessing at lots of things your website should do – and you’re probably right for most of them, but these are my absolute essentials:

    # One – have a clear purpose
    Most people will say that their website is to make sales – or sometimes as an online brochure, but then a brochure is intended to persuade people to buy, so that’s the same thing. However, you need to be realistic, if you don’t have an ecommerce site, people are probably not able to buy from you online. This means that the purpose actually is for them to ring or email.

    # Two – get their attention right away
    If people arrive on your website and have to search to see if you’ve got what they want, your website isn’t working. Most people won’t bother making the effort; if it’s not obvious they’ll just go somewhere else!

    If you’re paying for your site to be search engine friendly and get traffic, it’s not good news if people take one quick look and leave.

    # Three – don’t put obstacles in their way
    Make life easy so eliminate anything that will make people work harder than necessary to get your message. How quickly can they see that you’ve got what they want? Are your pages clear or confusing?

    Think about your website from the viewer’s perspective – if you know what you want them to do, get their attention and make it easy for them to take action you’ll be way ahead of most of your competitor’s websites!

    Filed Under: Articles, Headlines, Readability, Website copy Tagged With: , , , ,
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