Stratton Craig Copywriter Blog

Word of the week

ONOMATOPOEIA

…Quite simply, we like this word because it doesn’t sound anything like what it means!

Why not tell us your word of the week? Just click on ‘Comments’ below.

Category: Copywriting — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ March 10, 2010, 11:23 am




Word of the week

COSY

…This has got to be one of the warmest words we know. It’s not particularly fancy and it’s anything but unusual – but we love it all the same for the smile it never fails to bring to our faces!

Why not tell us your word of the week? Just click on ‘Comments’ below.


Category: Copywriting — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ March 3, 2010, 11:57 am




Your audience is migrating online – are you there yet?

In the face of increasing migration online by readerships, audiences and advertisers, it appears that only the foolhardiest of regional businesses would ignore this ongoing and irreversible trend.

It stands to reason that as more and more switch to online sources for news, information, products and services, the advertisers (and commercial realities) of mass customer migration will follow.

And in the face of massive revenue declines, we’ve seen the offline publishers – mainly the newspaper and magazine proprietors – attempt to woo audiences in cyberspace.

According to Advertising Age:

“Aware of the need to lock in faithful readers, most newspapers are turning online to deepen these relationships. No print publications can attract the high numbers that Google, Yahoo or even TV companies boast, so the quality of the relationship becomes critical if they want to bring advertisers on board.”

This certainly makes for a sensible approach – and the old adage of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ applies. Magazines have followed suit, too, with a plethora of titles ditching their offline print runs and vamping up online-only versions in an attempt to cut costs and revitalise readerships.

UK newspapers have tried a number of tactics, such as launching specific microsites – the Mirror’s celebrity website 3am, for example, was launched to pull in a small number of loyal fans who could then be effectively marketed to relevant advertisers for a high perceived value.

Business realities

Businesses, too, are looking online to increase their marketing spend in the light of falling offline interest: after all, as the marketing manager of a medium-sized firm in the UK, would you continue to invest in expensive magazine advertising amid falling circulation and readership, or pump revenues into online portals such as Facebook, which has more than 350 million regular users?

Twitter, according to PC magazines, has experienced a 1,382 percent growth in the last 12 months. Whilst the revenue models are still being discussed by Management at Twitter Central, there is no doubt that when they decide on how the social media platform will sustain itself beyond further venture capital funds and grow commercially (and organically), the newly-recruited sales teams across the world will be in a strong leverage position to entice businesses on board.

Not that online migration is all linked into social media platforms – the picture is, of course, bigger and broader than this.

Whilst social media remains the big story over the last decade for online marketers, the inexorable drift towards all things web shows a bigger picture of audience migration. A bigger picture which digital marketing cannot fail to ignore, or to adapt to. Traditional marketing of your business is already redundant, in case you hadn’t noticed. 2010 will see further digital dominance.

Global decline

It has been estimated that nearly 50 percent of American newspaper advertising revenue has now disappeared, whilst there has been a 27 percent increase in the number of American readers accessing online news portals for daily updates.

Where, we wonder, are the advertisers now heading? The answer is becoming clear. They must go where the audiences are, or follow the print publications in their decline.

Not that the picture is all doom and gloom. Current advertising rate cards for printed products are amongst the lowest figures for years, but in the face of declining readerships, few marketers see the inherent value in saving budget to reach fewer potential customers.

The mantra has always unfortunately been ‘minimum spend, maximum reach’ and the internet is, in part, answering this call. But there is far more to explore.

Quality content still drives much of the traffic movement online, and savvy marketers should be looking to advertise and participate on social media platforms such as Facebook, Friendfeed, and Twitter as well as some of the popular and well-read blogging sites relevant to their commercial sectors.

Often, the spend required to advertise here is far less than traditional sources offline, although the actual reach and buy-in from online audiences is higher: no phone call to make, simply a click of a mouse, a purchase call to action, a credit or debit card transaction… both online advertiser and customer are happy.

Future review

So, when it comes time to review your quarterly ad spend, and the usual monthly call arrives from the sales executive on your key industry title, are you going to once again sign off the spend – or are you going to investigate the increased reach and buy-in you could well gain online instead?

Audience migration has been instigated by the internet – your marketing focus needs to follow suit. Not convinced? Remember that nearly 75 percent of all the top Brands are now advertising, for example, on Facebook.  Fact: three out of four multinational companies have already observed their audience migration.

Looks like 2010 could make or break the attention span of your audience.

Category: Copywriting — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 26, 2010, 3:01 pm




Word of the week

LUSH

…We love words that have multiple meanings, and it’s even better when those meanings merge into one another. Both adjective and noun – luxurious, rich, sexy and a drunk – we like ‘lush’ because it’s decadent in every way.

Why not tell us your word of the week? Just click on ‘Comments’ below.

Category: Copywriting — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 24, 2010, 11:14 am




Back to basics with blogging

Blogging has become synonymous with online communication in the modern marketing mix, but for many marketing managers, setting up a blog can still seem to be a risky, unprofitable decision. The main reasons to set up and run a blog include:

  • Thought leadership: an effective blog can, over time, give a company or individual market share and set them up as the thought leader in their industry through their direct interactions with customers.
  • Blogging enables the marketing department or individual to identify opportunities: a well-monitored blog can offer insights into forging new customer relationships online, and via great content, to also convert interested readers into raving fans.
  • Search engines love bloggers: because content is updated regularly on blogs, the search engines value blogs and will reward page rankings accordingly – as well as generating inbound links to a blog.
  • Search keywords can be placed: regular content into a blog is the ideal opportunity to place industry keywords into the content, adding further value to the microsite and assisting your positioning online. And for free.
  • Great blogs all point somewhere: and this is usually to the company’s or individual’s main website, where readers can find out more about services and products. This saves a huge amount of time, effort and budget on less effective methods of attracting visitors to an online presence.
  • Your competitors are doing it: it is likely that your competitors are either blogging, considering blogging, or are watching your blog and wishing they had been the first to dominate the niche online.

Measurable, dynamic, powerful

Blogs, like any other web-based marketing medium, are painless to monitor and measure. The main platforms, Blogger and WordPress, offer analytical tools which provide a huge amount of information to marketers regarding visitor stats, page links, trackbacks and associated detail.

Blogs have taken off since 2008 and the proliferation of company blogs currently in existence is mind-boggling. According to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report:

‘The blogosphere has continued to expand, and we are now beginning to learn more about what powers the blogging community. Though growth has slowed, bloggers are apparently becoming pretty savvy at making money while pursuing their blogging interests.’

In terms of statistics, 133 million blogs have been tracked by Technorati between 2002 and the end of last year. This number is almost double the 72 million tracked as of March 2007 and it appears that the growth of new corporate blogs has slowed alongside the rate of new blog posts on blogs. As is so often the case, audiences are favouring quality not quantity.

Quality not quantity

Quality is always linked to content, and the most popular corporate UK blogs such as Innocent Drinks and Virgin remain focused on providing their readerships with innovative, up-to-date, engaging content – regularly.

The result is that a well-written, engaging, transparent, reader-centric blog is one of the most dynamic and powerful tools available in the online arsenal of communications mediums.

Conclusion

Blogs provide an important element to any online marketing campaign, and due to the nature of their conversational, open, transparent format, many customers find they add significant value to their perceptions of the parent blogging company. So, are you ready to blog?

Category: Copywriting, Social media — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 19, 2010, 4:20 pm




Word of the week

GLUM

…There’s an as yet unnamed genre of words – it’s moving towards onomatopoeia, but when it gets halfway, it turns left and heads off. It contains words that make you look like what they are. It’s always great to find words that do unusual things, and with its human interaction we think ‘glum’ definitely fits the bill!

Why not tell us your word of the week? Just click on ‘Comments’ below.

Category: Copywriting, Word of the week — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 17, 2010, 11:29 am




The ten commandments of social media

Whether you’re a creative type, a business owner or an experienced regional marketer, the proliferation of social media recently can confuse, bemuse and excite in equal measure.

It’s no longer enough to send out monthly newsletters or email campaigns to talk to potential customers – now we’re supposed to actually engage with them, talk to them, and respond to them in real-time across social media platforms.

The worst thing? You can’t escape it.

Facebook has more than 350 million users, Twitter accounts have increased by nearly 1,382% in the last 12-month period alone, whilst Technorati currently monitors 133 million blogs across the internet. To survive online, social media involvement appears to be a must-have activity. Go where customers hang out.

There are, however, some basic considerations for effective social media engagement. Here’s Stratton Craig’s top ten commandments for social media:

1. Thou shall not spam

Whatever you do, don’t spam your customers or target markets. They won’t appreciate a barrage of poorly-researched, irrelevant and inbox-clogging spam emails. Spamming inboxes – whether it’s company email addresses, Twitter accounts or Facebook will win zero brownie points and alienate you from any further contact. Once credibility is lost, it’s not coming back anytime soon, if ever.

2. Thou shall not steal

Stealing links to stories, news items, funky new websites and wonderful products from another source and passing them off as your own is a huge social media no-no. For example, on Twitter the re-tweet or RT function is an essential part of Twitter etiquette, whilst hyperlinking and acknowledging external sources on your blog makes common sense. It engages and links you with the world.

3. Thou shall not covet your competitor’s blog

One of the most unattractive and unprofessional social media rules to break is that of taking your competitor’s content, services, products and online offerings – and copying it. And there’s a lot of it about. After all, ideas and innovation do have a commercial value.

4. Thou shall not sell – anything, ever

The whole point of social media is to attract and engage an audience – hopefully a significant one – who will then promote your business on your behalf. Your audience are NOT there to sell to. They are there because they value your content, insights and advice. If you sell directly to them via your social media channels, you’ll lose them. Instantly. Play it smart – give, give, give. Never sell.

5. Thou shall not kill

Nothing is quite as bad in social media-land as an account that is established and then sits there. Dead. No content. Nothing contributed. Setting up a social media space, such as a Facebook fan page, Twitter feed, or company blog, and then not adding content to it regularly is a sure-fire way of killing your social media credibility in front of a global audience. Add content. Add value.

6. Thou shall not take the name of social media in vain

Remember that despite the fact social media can seem quite light-hearted, harmless and fun, your inputs on social media networks are on the web for Time Immorium. So be careful what you post. Add value, contribute to the flow of conversation. Think carefully before you post anything, anywhere, anytime, that can be viewed as an attack or negative comment in your industry.

7. Thou shall not commit adultery

Social media adultery can be committed without thinking, but the effect and long-term damage is hard to recover from. Because many social media networks operate on an informality level that standard marketing does not recognise, the rules of engagement are still the same. Remain professional, polite and polished at all times. Remember your social media content is your legacy.

8. Thou shall honour thy audience

Simple really – without an audience, your social media inputs are little more than an exercise in commercial vanity. Without followers, readers, commentators and fans of your social media content, being there is effectively a waste of your marketing budget and time. Make sure you cater for your audience’s requirements, needs and wants. It is, unfortunately, all about them. Always.

9. Thou shall not forget the Sabbath Day

So, you think social media is a Monday to Friday exercise? Afraid not. In our 24/7, always-on, on-demand culture, social media plays an essential part of the online marketing mix, and your inputs need to cover the full seven days of the week. The good news is that you can pre-schedule posts, tweets and social media content using established tools to maintain an ever-present presence.

10. Thou shall not worship any false Gods

What this means, essentially, is that just because an individual or company has oodles of followers or friends on a social media network, it doesn’t make them God. Challenge them, make them think, debate their content, get involved!

Category: Copywriting, Social media — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 12, 2010, 3:59 pm




Word of the week

JUGGLE

…We just love the comic sound of this word, and if you think about what our language sounds like to non-English speakers this word must sound pretty strange!

Why not tell us your word of the week? Just click on ‘Comments’ below.

Category: Copywriting, Word of the week — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 10, 2010, 11:33 am




The Copywriter – February 2010

The power of empathy in developing profitable customer relationships

What does it take to build a relationship with your customers these days? In a word – empathy. And increased empathy with customers via social networking sites seems to be a powerful content-driven marketing tool.

Empathy only comes from a deep understanding and alignment with your customers’ concerns, needs and wants. As an example, if you really want to know how to position your service or develop your products, always find out what upsets your target audience first. It’s the best guide to what they really want from you. Social media is helping businesses to gauge and raise empathy levels with their customers.

With the meteoric rise of social media since blogging first exploded on the internet as a marketing tool in 2003, conversations are carrying on freely about your brand or your products – and you have no control.

Getting alongside your customers and engaging with them, instead of preaching to them, is the new idiom. The conversation era is upon us. You need to be having conversations with your customers – in blogs, on social networking sites, and in forums.

So what’s in this new brand conversation? Basically, useful content; give people what they want – information that will help them enjoy your products or services more. Give them some true stories about people using your products to do exciting stuff – that’s where the passion for your brand will showcase powerfully.

Whatever you do, don’t try and sell to them with some subtle corporate messaging on social sites – today’s savvy punters know better and they’ll reject you.

Even worse if something you say isn’t true watch out because on some blog, forum or Twitter page the fact that it’s not true could well be coming up higher on Google rankings than your own corporate website. You have been warned.

Over the last few months we have been helping Welsh law firm, Capital Law, embrace the world of social media with a fortnightly blog. By leading discussion and offering advice on key issues within the industry, the company are communicating with their clients on a very relevant level, encouraging conversations about topics within the industry, rather than simply selling their services. You can read their blog here www.capitallaw.co.uk/site/publicationsandnews/blog.

We believe that social media strategies can be applied to any business in any industry to increase empathy – it’s about finding the strategy that fits for you.

Category: Social media, The Copywriter — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ February 5, 2010, 4:17 pm




The Copywriter January 2010

Word Clouds

Wishing you a very happy new year!

Just before the end of 2009, we were asked by Communicate magazine to look at the language used in the annual reports of the four nominated companies for Best Overall Annual Report in the FTSE 100 category at the IRS Best Practice Awards. Below is the article.

In January we’re offering our word cloud service to anyone who would like us to review a piece of communication. To find out more please email Harriette Hobbs harriette@strattoncraig.co.uk.

Here’s to a busy and exciting 2010!
_________________________________________________

At the time these word clouds appeared, these four companies were operating in the eye of the storm, which hit the financial markets in 2008. Some felt the effects more keenly than others.


The 3i cloud is about as gloomy as they come. During the financial year to March 2009, the UK’s oldest private equity group was in the thick of the most rapid economic downturn in its long and illustrious history. It took a beating, reporting a record loss of £2.15bn in the year to March 2009. The cloud is darkened by words like ‘debt’ (54 mentions), ‘fall’ (32) and ‘loss’ (25). The word ‘gearing’ is mentioned 15 times. Given that 3i’s own gearing reached an excruciating 103 per cent, while net debt stood at more than £2bn this is perhaps not surprising. The word ‘upturn’ is dangled in front of investors’ noses in the chairman’s statement but doesn’t make it onto the cloud.

Marks and Spencer, the grande dame of the British high street, was meanwhile suffering more than its fair share of difficulties as a result of the downturn. The words ‘customer’ and ‘food’ are writ large as it seeks to reassure investors it is focusing on shoppers and its celebrated (but pricey) food offering in the face of stiff competition from rivals. What is striking though is the word ‘governance’ with 75 mentions in all. At the time, Sir Stuart Rose was taking flak from institutional investors following a board decision allowing him to take on both the chairman and chief executive roles, against corporate governance best practice. The repetition of ‘governance’ may play into the popular idea that if you say a word often enough, people will start to believe you are doing something about it. M&S has just announced the appointment of a new chief executive and things have improved. From a position of relative safety, Sir Stuart was recently reported to have described the Christmas 2008 trading period as “Armageddon” although there is no reference to that word in the cloud.


In Centrica’s annual report, the word ‘customer’ is mentioned more frequently than the word ‘shareholder’, which is perhaps surprising given its investor audience. This may be part of a broader attempt to present a customer-friendly face after the owner of British Gas caused howls of protest in 2008 following soaring profits at its residential unit. The words ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ feature prominently too, and are perhaps indicative of the extreme levels of volatility in wholesale gas and power prices Centrica experienced at the time.


But the picture was brighter at Tullow Oil and this cloud’s lining looks distinctly silver compared to the others. The words ‘upside’ and ‘potential’ appear frequently with ‘success’ garnering 96 mentions. Tullow’s renewed focus on exploration in African countries is shown in this cloud, with ‘Africa’ appearing 49 times, ‘Ghana’ 74 times and ‘Uganda’ 68 times. The company is not shy about its good fortune. The words ‘deliver’, ‘growth’, ‘success’ and ‘strong’ (which is mentioned 66 times), feature heavily. But the tone is measured, a reflection perhaps of the hazardous nature of its business: the word ‘risks’ crops up 110 times.

The word ‘responsibility’ comes up in all three except the M&S cloud, although words such as governance, independent and audit are sprinkled liberally here. While the word may well feature in previous reports as organisations highlight corporate and social responsibility, you can’t help wondering if it might have become even more attractive – sexy even – as companies sought to soothe and reassure in the wake of the seismic events of 2008.


Cherkizovo

For the second year running we have been commissioned to provide the copy for the annual report of one of Russia’s leading meat production companies. We started with extensive groundwork, including a trip to Russia to undertake interviews with key personnel and gather information. With the support of our account management team we ensured that deadlines were met and feedback was incorporated. We are now preparing to replicate the success of last year’s report.

Category: The Copywriter, Word clouds — — Permalink
Posted By: Harriette Hobbs @ January 15, 2010, 12:14 pm