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Strong source material can be hard to find

Content strategy is the backbone of all effective web projects. You’ve got a solid strategy in place and you’re revved up and ready to get started on the writing. But you’re short on source material to help you write knowledgeably about the business’s products and services. So where do you go from here? If supporting content is not forthcoming, you’ll have to find it yourself.

Select your SMEs

This is where your subject matter experts (SMEs) come into their own. As a source of grassroots knowledge, SMEs are worth their weight in gold. By cultivating good working relationship with these key players, you can find everything you need to produce quality content.

Bear in mind that SMEs aren’t necessarily the same people who review and approve content. You want the people who work at the coal face, and that means client services, marketing and product people.

So how do you find your SMEs? Sit down with your project sponsor to identify the main players for each subject area. Next, put a date in your diary to talk to each one.

Go prepared

Don’t go into the meeting unarmed. You need a ‘game plan’ to structure your discussion. This is your best chance of getting the valuable information you need to support your copy. Don’t get hung up on a rigid framework; an outline of main talking points will do.

Useful points could include:

• What’s the product or service? Talk me through it.
• How do the product or service help your customers?
• How does your product or service compare to those offered by competitors?
• If you could get three main messages across, what would they be?
• Do you have any back-up material to help me? This could include brochures, fact sheets and other marketing collateral.
• Do you have any issues with the existing content? Are there gaps that need to be filled?

To get the best from your SME, let them do the talking, with a little gentle persuasion if they’re not immediately forthcoming. Ask leading questions to tease out the level of detail and insight you need. Keep them on track with pertinent questions, but don’t cut them off in full flow.

Once you’ve harvested the content you need, you can get cracking on the writing. As you write, you may find that the original site map doesn’t support the content you’ve sourced. If this happens, don’t hold back on proposing structural changes that make sense. After all, the copy you produce is at the heart of a good experience for the business and for users.

Competing for new business can be time-consuming and stressful. Preparation is everything, but new business opportunities have a habit of appearing out of the blue, leaving you and your team racing to pull everything together. Continue reading “Outclass the competition with a hard-hitting new business proposal” »

If your website has strong imagery, smooth navigation and well-written copy, you’re halfway to getting your next customer. But if you’ve forgotten your call to action, you’re missing a trick.

Continue reading “The foreplay factor: get sales in the bag with a strong call to action” »

My sister is two-and-a-half years younger than me. She is also a good inch taller (she’ll say two). This is frequently pointed out to me by people on meeting us for the first time. “She’s taller than you – and she’s younger!!”, they shriek triumphantly, as if they have uncovered a shocking secret.

There’s no real comeback to this level of shrewd observation. I used to try and justify it (“she’s wearing heels”, “she’s walking on the kerb”, “she’s on a pogo stick”). It’s an incredulous reaction based on – well, not a lot – that always makes me snigger. Continue reading “The dreaded ‘r’ word…and why it makes no difference” »

The other day, somebody said to me: “I don’t understand why someone would hire a copywriter when they could just do it themselves and save the money.” Hmm, I thought…Usually for one of two equally valid reasons: because they can’t or because they don’t want to.

Can’t write

For some business people, writing is not a skill that comes naturally. There’s nothing wrong with that. Others find it incredibly tough to write about their own company because they’re so close to it every day. Many of my clients are super-intelligent people who run very successful businesses and can talk fluently about their companies, but when they try to put their passion down on paper, they’re lost for words.

Won’t write

Other clients are more than capable of writing – they just don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and do it themselves. For these people, employing a professional copywriter is simply a more efficient use of their time and money and means they can concentrate on getting more business through the door. This is especially true of big corporates, where in-house marketing departments are so stretched that outsourcing some of the more ‘creative’ copywriting is a logical solution.

Will write

Of course, you know your business better than anyone. But copywriters have the edge in one key sense: we’re not emotionally involved in your business, so we’re well placed to convert your passion, expertise and knowledge into tight copy that does your company justice.

And what about the ‘saving money’ point? I recently heard a great saying: “If you think hiring a professional copywriter is expensive, try hiring an amateur.” Anyone who has ever had their copy written on the cheap will know that the cost of unpicking the mistakes can more than outweigh the original investment.

So, if writing is not your strong point, or you’d secretly rather be doing something else instead, paying an experienced copywriter really can save you money, time and hassle in the long term.

Many press releases are pedestrian, if not downright boring. Companies that fire out releases left, right and centre become a bit like the Boy Who Cried Wolf: when they really do have something to say, no one wants to listen.

The more targeted your approach, the better. Establish your target audience and work out the best way to reach them. Is it through a trade publication, an industry website or a more general newswire?

Also, don’t forget that reporters have no interest in helping you make money or driving traffic to your site. Their only motivation is to publish news that their readers want to read. However, if you can deliver them print-ready press releases that are well-written and relevant, they’ll bite your hand off.

First thing’s first

Don’t try to shoehorn everything you’re going to talk about into the headline itself. Think carefully about your key points and leave out the incidentals at this stage. You can always use a sub heading below your headline to give a little more detail before you get into the story itself.

Headlines should be as punchy as possible, but don’t feel you need to make them controversial. For example, if you’re issuing a release about a new appointment that is likely to interest a limited (albeit important) selection of people, trying to create a ‘hard-hitting’ headline may not be your best bet.

Frontload your key points

Aristotle had some pretty strong ideas about how to make a good speech. They’re actually very relevant to writing effective press releases, too:

• Tell your audience what you’re going to tell them
• Tell them
• Tell them what you’ve told them

This is not an exercise in repetition; it’s simply about reinforcing your key points in a slightly different way. So tell your readers what the release is about, get into the real meat of the release, and then revisit those messages again when you sum up.

Tone down the sales pitch

No one likes to feel they are being sold to, and a press release is one of the worst places to include a thinly veiled sales pitch. If you’re launching a new product, of course you’ll want to talk about it, but focus on what it can do for your customers, rather than giving an exhaustive breakdown of product specifications.

Blow your own trumpet, but do it quietly

A press release is not a forum for unconcealed boasting. If your company is as fantastic as you think it is, you can afford to convey that subtly. Of course, it’s important to underline your successes wherever you can, but rubbing your readers’ noses in it can be a real turn-off. Nobody wants to trawl through a self-congratulatory press release telling them how great you are, so if you’re going to big up your achievements, don’t go overboard: do it sensitively, using concrete examples to illustrate them wherever possible.

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Liven up your release with a couple of first-person quotes from your spokespeople. Not only does this break up the copy, it’s also a great way to drop key contact names into the media for journalists to pick up on. What’s more, it helps put a human face to your company for a potential first-time customer.

Even better, include a (genuine) quote from a customer who is happy to talk about what your product or service has done for them. Again, keep it subtle and measured.

Finally, remember that press releases are not about communication for communication’s sake. For maximum impact, only write a press release when you have something important to talk about.

Case studies can be an effective way for companies to showcase their expertise to existing and prospective customers. They can also be pretty painful for the copywriter to produce. Case studies are frequently complicated by internal politics. It can be hard to get hold of the right people, and even harder to get them all in the same room at the same time. And extracting the right information can be like getting blood from a stone when interviewees are less than forthcoming or too close to the project in question to be objective. But it can be done.

Critical steps in setting up the case study

If you don’t want your case study to reduce you to a gibbering wreck, there are some key points that need to be tackled head on. Firstly, as with all client projects, a thorough briefing is essential. Make sure you understand the purpose of the case study and the target audience. Will it be:

• Available for a purely internal audience on your client’s intranet?
• Used on their website to attract new business?
• Published in an industry publication? (Many trade titles are happy to feature ready-written case studies. It’s a quick and easy win for them as they don’t have to write it themselves!)

Two sides to every story

Secondly, it’s easy to forget that there are two sides to every good case study. It’s not just about your client; there’s someone else involved too! For the sake of balance, it’s important to ensure you get both sides of the story.

You can’t conjure up this information out of thin air, so if your client only offers you their own perspective, remind them gently that you’ll need to interview the other party too – ideally during the same meeting. This kind of set-up also avoids potential disagreements further down the line, which you’ll need to iron out in the copy.

Hitting the right note, first time

Thirdly, think carefully about how the purpose of the case study will affect its tone. There are some key rules here:

• Don’t lay it on with a trowel – no one wants to read a self-congratulatory case study.
• Avoid focusing too closely on product minutiae; too much detail can baffle your readers and turn them off.
• Don’t bang the corporate drum too loudly. This should not be an obvious sales pitch; it’s more subtle than that, so strive for objectivity.

The six questions you need to ask

So now you know the target audience for your case study, you’ve lined up interviewees on both sides of the fence and you’ve got a good handle on tone. The next step is to hammer out some questions that they will allow you to tell their story in the most compelling way possible.  They look a bit Janet and John, but they get straight to the point. The order of the questions isn’t so important, but make sure you can answer them all.

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

Responses to each of these straightforward questions will give you the bare bones of your story. Now think ahead to writing up the interviews. You need to drill down to get to the real nitty gritty of the case study. What questions can you ask to ensure it’s really meaty and interesting? This is not always easy when dealing with dry, technical subject matter.

From bare bones to nitty gritty

I recently wrote a case study for a financial institution that focused on how the introduction of a particular piece of software helped their business. Rather than focusing too heavily on the product itself, I wanted to build up a picture of the relationship between my client and the software vendor. Aside from the six questions we’ve just discussed, some of the things I asked my client were:

• How and when did the relationship with XYZ come about? Had you worked with them before?
• What led you to select them above one of their competitors?
• Was a formal selection process involved? If so, what were your criteria and how did XYZ fulfil them?
• Why did XYZ need your help in the first place?
• What was the timeframe you set for the implementation, and was it met? Who were the different stakeholders involved?
• How was the working relationship with XYZ through the process?
• How did your software change/improve the way XYZ does business?
• Which specific features of your product were useful to XYZ?
• Where do you see the relationship going from here?

Once you’ve interviewed your client, it’s important to cross-reference their responses against those of the other party. Many of the questions above were simple to turn on their heads for the software vendor. Others were more specific to the vendor itself.

Don’t be afraid to deviate from the script

Of course, it’s all very well having your structured questions in front of you, but most interviewees will go off at a tangent more than once. You’ve got your script, but you don’t need to stick to it religiously. Just be prepared to diplomatically bring the conversation back to the point if it really strays, and try to think ahead to a fresh line of questioning if the opportunity presents itself. There’s a real art to writing a client case study, but with the right balance of structure and flexibility, you can get blood from a stone.