Reprinted with the author’s permission from the SuccessWorks blog.

Last week, a prospect asked what I thought of his site copy.

I took one look and resisted the urge to say, “Um, how much did you pay for this?” The writing was…bad.  Picture a 500-word, below-the-fold paragraph with no hyperlinks, no call-to-action…and what’s worse…

All of the copy was italicized. All of it.

Imagine reading that on a mobile device.

The prospect knew that something seemed “off.”  But he thought, “I hired someone who specializes in SEO copy. Well, maybe the copy should be that way.”

Not by a long shot.

Life is too short to pay for bad copy. If your SEO copy sucks, that means that it’s time to send it back to the writer and get her to fix it.

Here’s how to separate the stupendous from the sucky:

• Read the copy out loud and hear how it “sounds.” If your content sounds clunky – or if the keyphrases stand out like a sore thumb – send it back to the writer. Over-optimized copy will not do you any favors – and you don’t want your readers bouncing out of your site the second that they arrive.

• Do you have the urge to bring out your red pen and slice unnecessary words? Smart SEO copywriting is tight – which means that the writer is using as few words as possible to bring the point home. If you feel like the content is “fluffy,” send it back for editing.

• Does the copy make your company’s benefits “pop?” Or is it all focused around features? One tip: Review how many times the writer used the words “we” and “our company.” If you find that it’s focusing too much on features and not enough on benefits, send it back.  If the page is live, try out this fun “We-We Calculator” for feedback.

• Is the copy focused around one single keyword? Good SEO copywriting focused on two-to-three keyphrase variations. If you’re seeing the same word repeated over and over, have the writer rewrite it.

• Are there spelling or grammatical errors? Granted, your writer is human – and things happen. But if you are seeing multiple errors and you’re finding yourself correcting the document, stop. That’s what your writer is supposed to do for you.

• Is there a call to action? This could mean linking to a sales page, another blog post, or encouraging folks to sign up for a newsletter. Your writer needs to weave your site’s (and your page’s) conversion goal into the copy. If they haven’t, it’s time for a rewrite.

• How is your page title? (That’s what appears as the clickable link on the search engine results page.) Does it include the page keywords? Is it enticing? Or is it a bunch of keyphrases separated by pipes? If you’re thinking, “Hmm, I don’t think I’d click on this result,” send it back to the writer.

• Is the page easy to read? Long, scrolling paragraphs are visually overwhelming—especially on a mobile device.  If the paragraphs are long—and you’re not seeing any subheadlines that break up the text—have your writer check out these Web writing tips before they rewrite the copy.

What happens if your writer revises the content – yet your SEO copy is still crap? It may be time to let the writer go and find someone else who better suits your needs. Better to take the loss now and move on, then upload crappy copy and suffer the consequences.

Heather Lloyd-Martin is the president of SuccessWorks, which specializes in content marketing strategies, premium copywriting services and training in-house and freelance SEO copywriters. She also certifies copywriters through the SEO Copywriting Certificate program, the first Certification program for SEO content marketing professionals.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Big Star Copywriting.

“With half a loaf and a tilted cup, I got myself a friend.”

The Havamal, Old Norse Poem

Sharing is an age-old form of persuasion. Even the smallest amount of sharing goes a long way to winning a stranger over to you. The Vikings knew it. Dale Carnegie knew it. Copywriters know it too.

As a web copywriter I see many pages of boring website content; copywriting that describes a business or product but never engages by telling me why the business exists and why I should use them.

I didn’t invent these copywriter techniques, I picked them up from some of the best in the business. I learned from these talented people that copywriting is more than just listing what something does, or telling people facts. It’s about connecting on an emotional level to the people that support a business.

Tell a story

“Make your copywriting about the audience.”

One of the easiest ways to do this, is to tell them a story.

That’s because we have been telling each other stories since we first spoke to each other around the fire. It’s a natural way to get across a point of view and to relate something to others.

Copywriters have used storytelling techniques for ages to help their target audience relate to the message they are trying to deliver—to win them over.

Web copywriters are no different, though them medium is non-linear, a story can be told on every page. This is why blogging is such an effective marketing tool.

In their Introduction to Business Blogging, Hubspot shows us the evidence for compelling storytelling through blogging:

• B2B companies with a blog get 67% more leads (than those who don’t)
• B2C companies with a blog get 88% more leads

Looking across all segments, they point out that companies that blog get 55% more web visitors than those that don’t blog.

Whether you are a copywriting agency, a roofer or FTSE 100 company, your story is interesting, unique and can be very good at selling your expertise in your market niche.

Tell stories about your business: why you started it; why you believe in it; what it does for people. Tell stories about your products or services: why you created them; what happens when people use them; what people need to do to use them too.

Anticipate objections

The two most powerful words in marketing belong to your customers:

“Yes, but…”

When your customer is able to get away from your page, website, brochure or newsletter saying “yes, but…” you have lost.

Whenever I begin any copywriting project, I ask for all the “yes, buts.”

What are the main objections the target audience has to using your product or service or business? Make a list and then construct your story in a way that deals with each objection in turn.

• Are you more expensive than a competitor? Explain why.
• Could your customer do the service themselves? Tell them why you can do it better/faster/cheaper than DIY.

2.5 – Share

I revealed this technique right at the beginning of this post, so I’m just giving it a ‘half’ here.

This is sometimes called “reciprocity” in marketing circles.

Whatever you call it, sharing your story, sharing valuable information, sharing insights, and sharing failures too, are all ways of bringing your audience closer to you emotionally.

It will surprise people.

Like a good plot twist, surprising your audience is a great way to keep them engaged right to the “end.”

Steve Kellas is with Big Star Copywriting.

Slightly abridged with the author’s permission from Marketing Interactions.

ROI and accountability are the watch words for today’s marketers. We need to prove the impact our marketing programs are having on business objectives. But during a complex B2B buying process, as marketers we need to redefine what that means.

Before you start scrolling down to the comments to tell me that ROI is important, I got that. What I want you to think about is how we’re defining ROI, AKA “gratification.” Otherwise it’s likely that you’ll be highly frustrated during 2012—and that’s not much fun.

Gratification is not:

• Instant—at least in regards to sales.

• Always measurable in a meaningful way—but the feedback from customers and prospects can be awesome! Are you using it?

• Always related to your expectations—ever had something you thought “so-so” go viral? Or the reverse?

• Based on perfection—or you’ll never publish or launch anything. Test and refine, always.

Redefine Gratification based on the following (in no particular order):

• Relevance—how does the response vary from one segment to another? What can you modify?
• Engagement—does the audience find it compelling enough to pay for with their attention?
• Multipliers—how many different ways can you spin an idea to produce a variety of contagious content based on what you’d invest in time and money for just one asset?
• Conversations—can you sustain them beyond a single Tweet?
• Conversions—focus on one objective; perfect getting the desired outcome from each call to action, not offering a laundry list and praying for something to happen.
• Testing—prove your theories and distance yourself from arbitrary decisions based on gut instinct.
• Transitions—if you have #X contacts this month, how many become prospects next month? Measure the changes to each bucket/stage across the buying process.
• Share of committee—Instead of marketing to a “decision maker,” how many people on the buying committee do you influence? If your prospects’ average buying committee is 7 and you have the mindshare of one of them, you need to expand your reach.
• Experience—Are all the marketing channels within your marketing mix working well together? Are prospects and customers gaining a higher quality experience when they interact across channels, or is there a disconnect that diminishes interest?
• Revenue—Are your marketing initiatives tracking to closed deals? Is the deal size higher?
• Timing—Is the buying cycle shorter for prospects who have engaged with your marketing programs?
• Sales Enablement—are salespeople using resources provided by marketing to create more value during interactions with buying committees?

Sure, the holy grail for marketers is quantifying contribution to revenues. But with a complex sale, you can’t wait for 9 or 12 months to pass to report on your progress.

There are many ways that marketing programs can provide gratification to your company based on business objectives. Concentrate on incremental gratification that will roll up to the ultimate end result. All of these factors will work together to help you get there.

Ardath Albee is CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist for Marketing Interactions, Inc. Her book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale is available from McGraw Hill.

Abridged with the author’s permission from The Search Agents.

The last three years have seen a dramatic increase in mobile search traffic:

• The Nielsen Company reports that 43 percent of U.S. mobile users own a smartphone, a 15 percent increase from October 2010 to October 2011.
• Mobile searches have quadrupled since 2010.
• Google search clicks from mobile devices now represent 14.2 percent of all search clicks, according to Performics.

And smartphone users are an audience marketers can’t afford to ignore.

• Research from Google has found that 74 percent of smartphone shoppers make a purchase online, in-store, or on their phones as a result of smartphone shopping research.
• What’s more, 88 percent of smartphone users looking for location information take action within a day.

Despite all this, the majority of marketers have been slow to develop mobile optimized sites and landing pages, an oversight that could seriously harm them. According to Google, 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a website where they had a bad mobile experience. 

So let’s take a closer look at six best practices for providing your customers a positive mobile site experience:

1. Clarity and Concision. We know that users don’t read content word-for-word, they scan it. That is even more the case with mobile users. It’s imperative to develop your mobile site with scanning and usability in mind. Keep the design simple, use graphics sparingly and make the conversion points easy and obvious.

2. Call to Action. Regardless what your desired action is, your clients need to be able to do it quickly and conveniently.

• The copy should be placed above the fold and should be brief and concise (no more than 25 characters if possible).
• Keep in mind that the user is mobile, so use relevant, location-based offers to your advantage (mobile calls to action, click-to-call, maps).
• Include a product image or “hero shot” to grab users attention. Tests have shown that pages with images receive higher click-through rates.

3. Usability. Make clickable elements big enough for a user to ‘click’ using just a fingertip. (Apple’s iPhone interface uses buttons with a height of 44 pixels or .3 inches). If you use icons, be sure to use universal and intuitive symbols. Don’t use flash. It’s not supported by all platforms and animations are usually slow to download. Provide a link to the desktop web page.

4. Fluid Layouts. Design with flexibility in mind, as screen sizes and resolutions vary.

• Use a fluid, single-column design, with a 320-pixel minimum width. Put the most prominent information at the top of the page. Do not use horizontal scrolling.
• Use vector shapes that scale and graphics that can adapt to large and small screens alike.
• Minimize page load time by using coding techniques to render graphics where possible.

5. Search Engine Optimization. As search engine use is commonplace on mobile devices, SEO practices for mobile should align with a brand’s traditional SEO practices. Use mobile Web–safe fonts that load perfectly across all mobile devices. Until there is a clear solution to compatibility of system fonts across devices, your best bet is to stick to the following fonts:

• Arial/Helvetica
• Courier/Courier New
• Georgia
• Times/Times New Roman
• Trebuchet MS
• Verdana

6. Testing. Test your page across mobile devices. Ensure your text displays at a legible size, images load quickly and functionality works properly.

Dewey Northington is Dewey is Manager of Creative Design at The Search Agency.

Abridged with the author’s permission from ClickZ.

Groupon has experienced incredible growth in its short lifetime, going public on November 4, just three years after its founding. It raised $700 million and is valued at almost $17 billion at the time of this writing. Groupon wasn’t the first deals business, so what is fueling its success?

Designing the All-Important Email

The key to Groupon’s success is the daily email. Groupon’s deals are occasionally valuable, typically offering half off of the things we buy every month. But consider that a person may receive dozens of deal emails that they aren’t interested in for each deal they purchase. What keeps them on the list for those irrelevant emails? We get some clues from a recent Groupon copywriter job description:

Each day’s Groupon features a write-up describing the deal with thoroughly researched, informative selling points that range from the straightforward to the whimsical and bizarre. We strive to avoid marketing clichés, shooting instead for vivid description rooted in complete transparency and embellished with well-crafted absurdities.

Waking Up the Brain

Why are “well-crafted absurdities” powerful? Because they wake up the brain. In his intriguing book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, David Eagleman makes the point that our minds only notice things that don’t fit; that our brain’s CEO, consciousness, only wakes up when we sense that something doesn’t fit. Case in point: the Groupon email for “Texas Lawn Services” that I received earlier this year.

Neglected lawns and gardens quickly overgrow into jungly briars that attract deadly predators such as pumas, tigers, and the Predator riding a tiger. Chop, snip, and mow your way to an orderly and alien-free yard with today’s Groupon…

“Jungly briars?” The “Predator riding a tiger?” For a lawn service? Good morning brain!

Designing for Different Kinds of Readers

There is more going on here than interesting copy. Fellow ClickZ author Bryan Eisenberg and his brother Jeffrey defined four “Modes of Persuasion” in their book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? These four modes define the primary ways readers want to get information and the way they research a problem.

Groupon designs its emails and deal pages with these four modes in mind.

The Competitive type must see a payoff statement immediately before they will spend any time on the page. The nature of the Groupon deal generally satisfies this need. Similarly, the Spontaneous type is driven by action. They generally scan for “bright shiny objects,” looking for something to grab them. The use of images high on the page and “Today’s Side Deal” are the things that appeal to them.

The whimsical nature of Groupon’s copy says, “We wrote this for you. Enjoy.” This appeals to Humanist sentiments, which value relationships.

Methodical readers are the fourth mode. They too will scroll, looking for details and information to support the offer. They don’t like the “human touch,” however, and may chafe at the copy. I believe that Groupon offers enough detail in its copy to satisfy many of these readers.

Making the Recipe Work for Your Business

We can use these methods as well. We can design our emails, pages, and social network content with these concepts squarely in mind:

1. Design headlines that answer the question “What’s in it for me?”
2. Use images and high-contrast calls to action that draw the eyes of scanners.
3. Wake up the brain with something unexpected in your copy.
4. Provide enough meaty detail for methodical decision makers.

Brian Massey calls himself a Conversion Scientist and he has the lab coat to prove it. Follow him on Twitter @bmassey.

Abridged with the author’s permission from the MarketingExperiments Blog.

According to Jeff Rice’s just released 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, only 15 percent of marketers routinely define their question, objective, and key metric when running a marketing test. Why bother taking the time to set up a test if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the first place?

My guess is that they simply do not know how. -

1. Start by asking “what” you want to know

Clearly you’re running a test for a reason. Write that question down on a piece of paper. Go ahead, do it, I’ll wait.

Now pass that piece of paper (or email) around. Are all of the key players aligned that this is, in fact, what are you trying to learn from your tests?

For example, you may want to know “What is the best price for product X?” This is the variable you will test.-

2. Turn this into a question of “which”

To truly answer the above question, you would have to test an infinite number of prices. And I’m guessing your time, resources, traffic, and patience are not infinite.

So to narrow your focus, you want to ask a question of “which.” Not only will this force you to think about exactly how you’re designing your test, it helps you create a testing-optimization cycle to learn about your customers from your tests continually and improve your marketing performance.

A year from now, when you’re been promoted three times for driving such impressive results, and the new hotshot your direct report’s direct report hired sees a test that asks, “Which of these three price points—$1, $2, or $3—is best for product X?” he will know exactly what you tested. And exactly what you learned about the customer.

3. Add in your KPI

So now you know exactly which prices (technically speaking, which values of your variable) you need to design a test around. The next question you need to ask is—how do I pick a winner?

To reformulate our example question, you would say “Which of these three price points—$1, $2, or $3—will generate the most revenue for product X?”

Now everyone on your team (and everyone on your team a year from now) knows exactly how you define “best.” If you don’t think through and define the question beforehand, you might just try to come up with an answer based on whatever metrics you had on hand after the test is run. For example, you might choose sales instead of revenue, and pick a winner that sells more product but generates less money in your pocket.

You might also not even have the chance to redefine the rules after the test is run since, since depending on the metric, the testing platform, and your transactional data system, you might not have captured the KPI that you later determine would have been most effective to know.

Daniel Burstein is the Director of Editorial Content for MECLABS. Read the unabridged version of this post at the MarketingExperiments Blog.

When Google launched its social network Google+, back in June, within weeks the marketing blogs I follow were full of posts about it. Should you have a Google+ presence? What does Google+ offer to your business? And so on.

But where marketers might see an exciting new opportunity to demonstrate their worth, the rest of the world seems to have yawned. Google+ registered a couple of big spikes in interest: right after its launch; then again in early September, when it transitioned from its invitation-only beta to being open to anyone; and a third time in mid-October, when it began to offer business pages. In each case, after the spike came a big lull, as traffic either declined sharply or at best stagnated.

There’s lots of discussion out there about what’s going on. Some argue that Google+ is fatally flawed and has already squandered its chance to compete with Facebook. Certainly the history of Google’s ventures into social media bodes ill for Google+. (Raise your hand if you remember the annoyance of Buzz, merely a year ago.) Others claim that the great features of Google+ combined with its tight integration with the planet’s leading search engine make it an inevitable success.

We say: wait and see. So far there doesn’t seem to be any first-mover advantage to being on Google+, nor is it yet so pervasive that you must represent yourself there, as has become the case with Facebook. Google would certainly like you to believe that your search rankings will soon be dependent on your Google+ activity, and your marketer friends would like you to hire them to build you a Google+ page. But we don’t think you need to worry about it just yet. After all, there was a time not so long ago when “everyone” had to have a presence on Second Life.

You have an audience. You have customers. Speak to them where they are now, not where the hype says they might be next year. If six months from now Google+ really has taken Facebook to the woodshed, that’ll be the time to take action.

Abridged with the author’s permission from HeidiCohen.com.

There’s a big disconnect between what consumers want and what marketers think they want. It’s as if marketers aren’t living in the real world and never buy anything for their own consumption.

Recent IBM research underscores the differences in terms of consumers’ reasons for engaging with businesses and brands on social media and marketers’ assumptions about what consumers want. In these recessionary times, top on consumers’ list are discounts and purchase. Yet these two items are at the bottom of marketers’ lists.

As a marketer, you must understand why your prospects like you because all may not be fair in social media and shopping. Based on Nielsen data, more than one out three consumers “likes” a brand or celebrity to get a discount or special offer.  When you look specifically at North America, this ratio increases to almost one out of two customers.

Marketers must recognize that a good proportion of consumers only like you on social media for the money. This is consistent with reasons consumers give for unliking brands on Facebook according to Exact Target. Roughly one out of four respondents either liked the brand for a one-time discount or didn’t get enough discounts.

What’s a marketer to do?

Here are five suggestions to help marketers maximize their social media opportunities with consumers.

1. Accept that you need to use discounts, specials and coupons to attract prospects on social media platforms.
2. Leverage social media platforms to better understand your customers and what motivates them.
3. Be aware of what your competition’s doing on online, on social media and in their retail locations, because your customers will check while they’re in your store.
4. Price your social media promotions and discounts to ensure that they at least break even, since that may be the only sale you’ll ever get from that customer.
5. Provide additional reasons for customers to engage with you via post-purchase content to extend their product experience and/or related offers.

For consumers, it’s all about the money when it comes to shopping and social media. This means marketers need to understand that consumers may only like you for your discounts and coupons. Therefore, you must find other ways to keep your prospects engaged and do the math to ensure that you at least break even on any promotions you offer via social media platforms.

Heidi Cohen is president of Riverside Marketing Strategies.

Abridged with the author’s permission from TopRank Online Marketing Blog.

Michael DeHaven’s presentation at SES Chicago on “User Generated SEO” started with some actual user generated content from the audience. Before the session DeHaven gave five volunteers a bite sized Ghirardelli chocolate bar and asked that each of the volunteers write a review of the chocolate and then share it with the rest of the audience.

The chocolate was called everything from waxy, to too sweet, messy, and melt in your mouth goodness. The packaging created by the Ghirardelli marketers was quite different: “take time to slow down and feel yourself melt with each bite.”

According to DeHaven 80–90% of total content on many major ecommerce sites is written by end users who give their opinions or post reviews. And what companies believe to be the best keywords for their product or services are often not aligned with the actual keywords consumers use to describe the business.

For example:

Restaurants
Marketing Keywords: romance, fine dining, gourmet food
User Generated Keywords: great drinks, partying, view

Cosmetics
Marketing Keywords: cleanser, gentle, healthy looking
User Generated Keywords: soap, younger, looking great

To make user-generated content serve your marketing plan therefore takes some work. DeHaven laid out the following seven principles to follow:

#1: Don’t Forget SEO Fundamentals
While user generated content can be extremely powerful, it is important not to forget the basics such as link building, optimization, and proper tagging.

#2: Search Engines Get Bored
Google looks for fresh and relevant content. If week after week the content has not changed Google’s search bots become “bored” and will be less likely to return. Frequent updates are a must.

#3: Don’t Overdo It
While user-generated content can keep you fresh, make sure you are still maintaining a reasonable balance of foundational information and user-generated content.

#4: Beware of Dilution
Typical product descriptions are optimized and written by professional marketers, user reviews are not. Beware of what too much user generated content can do for your SEO.

#5: Unlock the Long-Tail Vault
Constantly review what keywords users are typing and which ones will drive the highest ROI. An additional challenge is determining which content should be housed on the top-level domain and which ones are better suited for microsites.

#6: Ask For Content at Relevant Times
Spend time to determine when your audience will be most willing to write a review, and determine their level of qualification for submitting a review. If you’re promoting a concert, for example, email attendees the morning before the event and ask them to share their photos.

#7: Convert Reviewers into Advocates
Set next steps for reviewers. DeHaven provided the example of a user who wrote a laptop review and then spent the next hour answering over 130 laptop questions from other users.

Ashley Zeckman is a Marketing Manager at TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing and public relations firm.