A good copywriter can make a difference in your sales revenue and your bottom line. You need to be able to effectively educate prospective clients on your products and services, but also convince them that they need look no further than what you have to offer. Mediocre copy will cause doubts in clients and cause them to compare you with others. Great copy will help you close the deal and establish you as one of the best. Here are 4 qualities you need to keep in mind, whether you want to become a good copywriter or need to hire one:
Quality #1 – Excels at Sales
A great creative writer or article writer may not be a good copywriter. The skill set required is different. Copywriting is very much about selling to a targeted audience. Who is better to do that than someone with prior sales experience or sales training? Look for it when you’re choosing candidates, or get some sales training if you want to excel at copywriting.
Quality #2 – Relationship Builder
Building relationships is part of the sales process, and a good copywriter can accomplish that through the copy he writes. It’s especially important to work with a relationship builder if you plan to use the copywriter on an ongoing basis. You want someone who can connect with readers in a way that draws them in and leaves them wanting more. It’s easy to tell when a copywriter lacks interpersonal skills, because it comes through clearly in the copy.
Quality #3 – Always on Time
Timeliness is a quality that you should look for in any copywriter you want to hire. It doesn’t matter how good the writer is if that writer cannot meet deadlines. The worth of good copy may get lost if you’re not able to get your message out in time. For example, if you need to print brochures for an event and you miss the opportunity because the copywriter was late, then it doesn’t matter how good the copy turned out to be. You would be better off going with an average copywriter who meets deadlines.
Quality #4 – Critical Thinker
Many people rank creativity high on their list when looking for copywriters. Critical thinking is rarely mentioned, but it’s what actually makes a good copywriter. Imagine hiring someone who lacks critical thinking skills. You try to explain your business model, products, customer demographics and they simply cannot understand you. By the time you explain and re-explain ideas and concepts, you could have written your own copy or hired someone else. You need to spend time giving insight about your company and what you want promote to a copywriter, but a good copywriter can process and analyze the information and turn out quality copy.
Once you establish that the copywriter you want to work with has good writing skills, you should assess whether they have these qualities. Finding a good copywriter will pay dividends and help you achieve more success.
Proofing your work is important and you should never publish or deliver something to a client without doing this crucial task first. Even the most excellent web designer or writer makes mistakes from time to time. Whether it’s fair or not, mistakes can diminish your credibility and perceived professionalism. You cannot afford to hurt your reputation or your brand name, when there are so many competitors who are on standby ready to take your clients away from you. Here are some other reasons why proofing your work is important:
Reason #1 – You’ll Look Competent
When you turn in work to a client or publish it online and it’s full of grammatical or spelling errors, you won’t be taken seriously. You’ll most likely be seen as incompetent and it will be difficult to close sales with prospective clients. For example, imagine sending a sample to a lead you generated online that’s full of errors. It doesn’t matter what your actual skills and abilities are. The prospective customer will have serious doubt, and either turn down your services outright or do some more shopping around to find out his alternatives.
Reason #2 – Your Clients will Trust You
Your clients expect you to be perfect and they trust you to make them look good. If you have trouble proofing your work, then they won’t trust you. Any long-term client relationship has to be based on trust. It’s not worth losing any trust built on something as simple as proofing your work. You should make the investment to hire a proof reader or another professional to proof your work, to ensure that you build a relationship with your clients that can last.
Reason #3 – You’ll Strengthen Your Brand
When you don’t proof your work, you’ll weaken your brand. You can throw a lot of money into marketing and advertising and ruin it all with work that contains errors. Instead of focusing on the message, your audience will focus on your flaws. The opposite is true when you proof your work. As part of the proofing process, you’ll work on revising your language to say what you mean in the best way possible. Conveying the message the right way and free of mistakes will make your brand stronger and more memorable.
Reason #4 – You’ll Avoid Gaffs
There are blogs dedicated to funny errors found in newspapers, on business signs, in marketing materials and websites. It’s not a laughing matter if you make an error that can cost you business. Some mistakes may be funny to some, but they can be offensive to your audience. It’s one reason why proofing your work is important. You won’t have a problem with that if you take the time to review your work for mistakes. Don’t expect your spellchecker to spot those kinds of errors for you. It’s not designed to pick up subtle errors.
Do everything you can to avoid delivering a product without proofing your work. It is important to your brand and your reputation. Your efforts will result in more credibility, which will result in even more clients.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is going broke and could shut down. The economic impact on graphic designers doing direct mail and on print shops will be substantial. Email marketing is cheaper and offers many advantages. It does have its limits though, and sometimes does a poor job of breaking through cluttered inboxes. You can’t email everything you need for your design business either, whether it’s finished brochures, copy materials or other works. Like it or not, the USPS can play a critical role in your business and without it, you could experience the following effects:
Loss of Clients
If the USPS going out of business affects your clients’ businesses, then it will affect yours. For example, if you build websites for online stores or print stationery for direct mail campaigns, you’ll suffer a decline in business if your clients can no longer use the USPS. Your success is dependent on your client’s success, and the USPS can play a major role in that. No matter how much your clients like you, they won’t retain your services if they cannot run a business that’s sustainable.
Decline in Leads
Direct mail campaigns are a powerful way to generate leads for your business. For example, you can send a sales letter to prospects inviting them to contact you for a free report, and end up converting a small percentage of those leads into long term clients. If the USPS goes out of business, then you may never reach those prospects. Believe it or not, some prospective clients don’t do much on the Internet and you won’t win their business through online marketing. The best way to reach them is by mail, but it may not be cost effective if you no longer have access to your local post office.
Increase in Expenses
The USPS may have to increase prices dramatically to save itself. Any increase, whether it’s 20 percent or 75 percent, can impact your budget for mailings. A jump in your expenses can blow your marketing budget or cause you to make cuts in other areas of your business. Not only will your expenses increase, but also the expenses of the vendors and suppliers you do business with. If you’re a printing company who subcontracts with promotional companies to offer bulk mailing marketing packages to clients, then you may have to raise your prices alongside your promotional company. You could pass the increased costs to your customers, but that strategy might cost you clients.
Longer Sales and Work Cycles
You can also expect it to take longer to process mail if the USPS continues its downward spiral. That will lead to a lengthier sales and work cycle. For example, let’s say it typically takes you 30 days to close a sale for each lead after you drop a sales letter off at the post office. If the mail takes longer to process, then it may take you 60 days instead of 30 days to close a sale. You may need to double your sales efforts or live with a decrease in sales as a result.
It’s important to keep abreast of the news regarding the USPS and research alternative forms of postage and delivery. You may not have a choice but to reach some or all of your leads and customers using alternative means.
Some days, you’ll wonder why you don’t give it all up and get a cubicle job. Starting a business is trying. It can be an emotional rollercoaster, and a poor personal and national economy only exacerbates it. Chasing down clients to pay you for your work, staying up all hours to meet project deadlines and making little or no money per hour in the beginning can get tiresome. Here are some tips for dealing with burnout:
Tip #1 – Hire Help
One of the top reasons for burnout is doing too many tasks that can zap your energy. The best thing that you can do for yourself and your family is get help. There are several ways to accomplish this:
Get an intern
Hire a virtual assistant
Train an apprentice
Solicit family and friends as volunteers
You could end up getting free help, bartering services or paying someone to take some to-do items off your plate. Once you do that, it’s important to focus on what you do best and what you enjoy doing the most.
Tip #2 – Exercise
Maintaining your physical health is crucial if you want to avoid burnout. When you don’t get enough exercise, you lose focus as well as the energy you need to keep going from day to day. You’re more likely to get heart disease and other health problems that will make it hard to run your business. Finding the time to work out is a difficult feat for busy entrepreneurs, but think of it as insurance. If you stay active, it can help you deliver services to clients for a long time.
Tip #3 – Offer Something New
Launch a completely new venture on the side or offer a new product or service in your existing business. Creative people tend to burn out when work seems stale or if they get stuck doing the same mundane tasks, over and over again. Keep it fresh with new things to work on. For example, you might launch an online business that’s not related to web design or similar creative work. Maybe you want to express your creativity offline, like selling woodworking projects to your local farmer’s market. It’s important to evaluate your budget and overall goals for your primary business before throwing money at something new just to escape burnout. And don’t invest your hard earned money on impulse.
Tip #4 – Get Organized
Clutter, lost papers, missed deadlines and appointments can eat away at your emotions and lead to mental burnout. If too much of your time consists of battling your own disorganization, rather than doing great work for clients, then it’s time for a change. Invest in technology, tools, containers or whatever you need to get your time and physical space under control. Some free ones include:
Expandable file folders (for your contracts and invoices)
Disorganization can also destroy any joy you have running your business. Bring that joy back and increase your profits at the same time by getting organized.
Incorporate these tips now so that your chances for facing burnout are slim. You’ll improve your overall performance and it will translate into a healthier business and a healthier you. Also check out 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Your Health and learn what technology can do.
Adjusting your marketing techniques in a bad economy to sustain your creative business is not just smart, it’s a necessity. Big companies cut expenses in a recession, and you should too. That doesn’t mean that you stop marketing. You need to consistently market your business to prospective and existing customers. Instead of stopping your marketing tasks, do them on a shoestring with these “cheap” marketing techniques.
Telemarketing
Don’t neglect or fear your telephone. It’s great for taking incoming calls, working on projects or for personal use. What about for telemarketing? When was the last time you picked up the phone to initiate a relationship with a prospect? Here are some ways to do that:
Call prospects and ask them to set up an appointment with you to discuss how you can help them boost sales or be more successful.
Conduct interviews on the phone where you ask prospects about their needs to determine whether they make a good fit for you.
Hire someone else to make your calls if you lack the time, energy or confidence.
Each state has its own laws governing telemarketing, so you’ll want to check those out before you start calling. The laws may vary for calling business owners versus consumers. If anyone asks you not to call again, simply take them off your list.
Press Releases
These may seem old-fashioned in an age of tweets, YouTube videos and blogs, but press releases still work. There are online and offline media outlets that could pick up your news, including Google News. For example, you can write a press release about a new tool and how you’ve used it successfully as a designer. You can submit it to news syndicators so that it gets distributed around the web. Individuals searching for that tool online may come across your press release since the name is used as a keyword. Radio show hosts, television reporters, bloggers and others might contact you for an interview or link back to your website as part of a story. One press release can raise awareness about your products and services much faster than organic searches in Bing or Yahoo!
Direct Mail
Very few creative professionals are willing to send letters to past customers or leads. It’s much easier to send out a newsletter or email updates. You can stand out from the competition if you send a well written sales letter and personalize it with a handwritten envelope. Everyone you send a letter to will more than likely take the bait, because fewer marketers are using personalized mail these days. Hire a copywriter to help you write your sales copy and maximize results. Offer something of value in your letter, such as a free report, to entice them to contact you.
The key to low cost marketing is to be consistent. Schedule your marketing tasks on a daily basis and hold yourself and your team accountable to completing them. You will have to invest a little money, whether on postage, business cards or long distance calls, but these cost much less than expensive advertising and marketing campaigns.
