Hacker Speak

Searching for a copywriter? It looks easy enough. Just scroll through Craigslist or tap your talent agency and you’ll attract loads of well-scrubbed writers carrying handsome leather portfolio cases packed with clever, catchy copy.

But it’s awfully hard to look beyond the leather to identify the talent who will really work for you. Too often, the new writer “just doesn’t get it,” cannot cooperate with your other talent, or otherwise simply fails to articulate messages that really resonate with your audience.

Given human foibles, there are no fool-proof formulas for finding winners. But you can take measures — right at the start of your relationship — that give you a much greater probability of success. Here are some things you should look for in a writer at your very first meeting:

1) Connects creative work to underlying objectives
Face it: all the samples the writer proudly slides across the table to you are going to look pretty good. After all, your would-be writers cherry-pick their best work and unless they’re truly incompetent (most professionals are not), everything you read is going to be clean, smooth and attractive.

Your job is to dig deeper, to uncover the “why” behind each creative decision evidenced before you. Why was one benefit highlighted over others? Why use a particular catch-phrase? What was the reasoning behind the diction, tone, point of view of the piece? Good writing is never arbitrary, and every writer worth her salt should be able to connect her creative decisions to the underlying objectives of the project and/or the overall strategy behind the marketing campaign. Consider this your opportunity to expose the writer’s thinking.

2) Wears many masks
Writers are like actors — they must be prepared to assume the voices and mannerisms of people who may be completely unlike themselves. As you flip through the samples, look for variety. You should “hear” different voices — manifested through changes in tone, rhythm and vocabulary — appropriate for different audiences. You should be able to guess the target demographic from the copy voice alone. The annual report for investment bankers should sound completely different from the direct mail pitch to porcelain doll collectors.

That’s why industry experience may not be a significant criterion for selecting a writer. If a writer has the chameleon-like ability to match his voice to your audience’s, chances are he can write effectively for your market. If not, no amount of industry knowledge will compensate for the inability to connect.

3) Asks questions — lots of them
Good copy is built on a foundation of understanding: who your customers are; what your prospects value and fear; how they shop. Also, what your product or service is; what makes it different; what role it plays in the purchasers’ lives. Without this underlying knowledge, the resulting copy may be clever, but it won’t be effective.

The only way a writer can reach this level of understanding is to dig for it by asking questions. Beware the passive writer who nods at everything you say and assures you she has everything she needs to proceed. Instead, look for the writer who pursues your comments with questions — then follows your answers with further questions. You want a writer willing to do this kind of spade work before writing a single word.

4) Listens well
Your interview should not become a dog-and-pony show for the writer’s talent, limited to star-spangled presentations of beautiful brochures and self-adoring revelations of awards won, honors claimed. Sure, writers should be prepared to talk about themselves and their services. But more importantly, they should be actively listening to you, taking pains to uncover your needs.

Do they ask questions (see proceeding point) that logically follow your comments? Do they show genuine interest in what you do and how you work? And when you’re speaking, is their body language reassuring? Do you see the kind of eye-contact and body postures that indicate attentive listening? If they’re not really listening to you now, when they’re seeking your business, they probably won’t when they’re executing it.

5) Plays well with others
Ask anyone if he’s a “team player” and you’ll get prompt reassurances of the affirmative. No one will admit to being an arrogant prima donna, so you’ll have to use indirect methods to gauge the writer’s ability to work cooperatively with your team of designers, strategists, product managers and other marketing staff.

Take it as a good sign when a writer, without prompting, shares credit for a given project with other people who participated. Or openly admits that the driving concept came from someone other than himself. Or describes a project as a cooperative venture and articulates the value of the myriad roles that accomplished it. Conversely, regard the self-serving writer, the one who consistently hoards all credit to himself, with suspicion. Chances are, he’ll make you and everyone who works with him miserable.

6) Demonstrates self-respect
We all want a bargain and no one can fault us for desiring more, for less. After all, everything’s negotiable.

Be careful what you wish for, however. A good writer may be willing to cut you a discount, perhaps in exchange for a guaranteed volume of work, but only the bottom-feeders will bite on rock-bottom project fees. Good writers respect the value of their work and expect to be compensated accordingly. If you insist on making price the most important criterion for selecting a writer, you may end up with a lot of grief you didn’t bargain for.

In sum, it’s not enough to review the resume, client list, samples or portfolio. You need to mind your prospective writer’s behavior in the course of your first encounter. When you see curiosity, respect, intelligence and a healthy ability to listen carefully to others, you’ll find a writer who’s likely to work productively with you.

Jonathan Kranz is the author of Writing Copy for Dummies, http://kranzcom.com/book.html, and the principal of Kranz Communications, http://kranzcom.com, a marketing communications and public relations writing firm specializing in B2B and consumer services marketing.

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Let me tell you a quick story. Perhaps you will find it relevant.

In the early 1990s Fortune magazine decided to do an article on
selling. The question they set out to answer was:

Why were some people so good at selling while others so
blatantly bad?

To find out the answer the writers interviewed 24 top sales
performers across a broad spectrum of fields. Among those who
were interviewed were financial advisors, insurance producers,
executive recruiters and a wide variety of consultants and
high-value services providers. Here is what they learned.

The most successful sales people sell without it ever being
apparent that they are in fact, selling. There was nothing
obvious or obnoxious about their presentation. No Trial Close,
Ben Franklin close or Take Away closes. They sold, but they sold
invisibly.

Moreover the Fortune article concluded that the more you are
marketing and selling high-value services the more important it
is to be able to sell invisibly.

So what exactly does this mean? How did the top performers go
about building trust and credibility? How did they overcome
often deep-seated skepticism? How did they persuade others to
their point of view?

The one thing in common was, they all told stories.

Lots of stories. Stories that demonstrated how others had
successfully achieved results by using their services. Stories
that preemptively addressed objections or concerns. Stories that
made it easy for others to refer them to their friends and
colleagues. Stories that built credibility and reduced
skepticism.

So why do you need a marketing story?

You need them for your brochures, sales letters and your
website. You need them for your face-to-face sales
presentations. However, we believe that the most important
reason to have a marketing story is

It differentiates you from your competition and establishes your
brand.

Ultimately, the stories you tell about who you are, your
uniqueness, the results your clients achieve, are what will
establish you as a unique player in your field.

Excellent marketing stories don’t scream, “I WANT TO IMPRESS
YOU.” They don’t scream, “BUY MY SERVICES NOW.” Rather, the
gifted marketing storyteller takes the reader or listener on a
journey. And if the story is well constructed, at the end of the
journey, we are going to be impressed. We are going to be
interested. We are going to want to take the next step in the
sales process.

And that is why the most successful marketers tell stories.

So, what is your marketing story?

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What is a theme-based website? The wave of the future. The
best way to please increasingly savvy visitors AND search
engines. A theme-based website is a site that is based on
one specific theme or concept. Every page of the site
focuses on a single topic that is related to that theme. For
example, if my theme is Italian cooking, topical pages could
include Italian chefs, Italian ingredients, Italian cooking
methods, Italian cookware, etc. Such a site could easily
grow to a hundred pages, each of which focuses on a
different topic, all of which are related to my theme.

Why would I want a theme-based site?
A theme-based content site is a great vehicle for earning
income as an affiliate. How?

Traffic:
Each topical page is a “keyword focused” content page. In
other words, I build the content of each page based on one
of hundreds of keywords that someone might use to search
for information related to my theme. Taken all together,
my tightly focused, themed site scores well at the engines
for hundreds of related terms. And we all know what that
means - lots and lots of highly targeted traffic!

Presell:
Each topical page is full of valuable content. This content
is used to PRESELL(we all know the importance of preselling,
right?!). My visitors are not searching for sales copy.
They are searching for information. I need to deliver.
Using my Italian cooking example, my page based on the
keyword “Italian chefs” could offer brief biographies of the
top Italian chefs. I could then recommend books by or about
these chefs, providing an in-text link to a book seller.
What else? I could write(or find) articles about olive oil,
Italian ceramic cooking pots, the Chianti region, etc. And
as a good affiliate, I provide in-text links to merchants
selling Italian cookware, imported foods and wines, cooking
lessons in Tuscany(!), etc, etc. Think of the potential.

Consider the advantages the theme-based website has over
mini-sites, which some affiliates use to try to promote
an affiliate program. They may seem easy and cheap, but
mini-sites are not built to do well at the search
engines and rarely get a directory listing - the two
places my visitors are most likely to look for me! Where
they WILL find my theme-based site. Also, mini-sites are
typically made up of just sales copy. I know my visitors
do not want to be sold. My theme-based site GIVES my
visitors valuable content while preselling. Lastly,
a mini-site is pitching one product. If a visitor doesn’t
want that particular product they’re gone. My site,
however, offers multiple products or services, any one of
which my visitor may be interested in.

Affiliates will also often use gateway or doorway pages.
These are essentially “trick sites” which may score with the
engines but don’t deliver good content and so rarely
result in getting the click through, the sale, or the
repeat visit. Also, tricking the engines is becoming less
effective as the engines become more and more sophisticated.
My theme-based site plays fair with the engines and the
engines love it.

Using a theme-based website I create a WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN
situation. My visitors win because they’ve found the high-
value information they were looking for. Search engines
win because I’ve given them a site that will add quality
to their search results. The merchants that I represent
as an affiliate win because I’ve presold my visitors and
they arrive at the merchants’ sites ready to buy. And,
last but not least, I win with growing commissions. Can
you say “super-affiliate”?

Think a theme-based website is for you? Brainstorm ideas to
find your site concept. Everyone has experience, knowledge,
interests or hobbies that could be turned into a theme-based
website. You can start building YOUR web BUSINESS.
Don’t have a theme? Check out Part 2 of this series.
Or send me an email. mailto:yourhelpline@mail.com

About the Author

Julie Georg is a consultant to individuals and small
businesses interested in establishing a web presence.
Step-by-step directions for building a theme-based site can
be found in the excellent, free Affiliate Masters course.
Blank email mailto:tamsassist3@sitesell.net

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If you want to get hoards of targeted traffic to your website
without spending a dime, then this might be the most important
letter you’ll ever read.

If you want to increase your website traffic without putting in
any additional efforts after you have given some initial push,
then I urge you to read this article — immediately.

If you’re sick and tired of getting low traffic and sales
pouring into your site and you are hunting for some
life-changing solution, then here’s good news–

Now you can own some of the proven viral marketing secrets and
cash-in on one of the greatest website promotion strategy online.

Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free
product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly
over the internet.

The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with
the freebie people giveaway or use.

Below are five high impact viral marketing strategies…

STEP 1 - Article Marketing.

Allow people to reprint your articles on their web site, in
their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or ebooks. Include your
resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom
of each article.

STEP 2 - Spread Freebies like Ebooks.

Allow people to use any of your freebies as free bonuses for
products or services they sell. Include your ad on all your
freebies.

STEP 3 - Let them Use Your Discussion Board.

Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own
web site. Some people don’t have one. Just include your banner
ad at the top of the board.

STEP 4 - Provide FREE Hosting Space.

Allow people to sign up for a free web site on your server.
Since you are giving away the space, require them to include
your banner ad at the top of the site.

STEP 5 - Exchange Links.

Allow people to add their link to your free web site directory.
Just require that they return a link back to your web site,
advertising your directory.

Everything you may have heard about website traffic and
promotion might be true.

But this article has shown you some amazing ways to EXPLODE your
website traffic by getting others to work for you.

If you’ve been looking for a quick and easy way to get thunder
storm of visitors rushing to your site all day long, this
article has shown you exactly how to do the same.

One of the most difficult and time consuming tasks in this ebiz
game is to get traffic to your site on a continuous basis. And
that’s not cheap.

Therefore it makes perfect sense to put in some efforts and put
a viral marketing strategy in place that will motivate your
existing traffic to work for you, to get MORE traffic to your
website.

There’s never been a better time for you to skyrocket your
traffic counter, than it is today!

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Email is a wonderful thing. It costs next to nothing and can be sent almost anywhere in the world in a few minutes. When email is used properly, it can help move your business forward. When it is not used properly, it can hurt your business.

Here are a couple of ways that email can hurt your business

The first way that email can hurt your business is by sending unsolicited emails to every email address you can find. This is now commonly referred to as spam and it is an epidemic of major proportions. In fact, there has been talk that spam has made email almost useless as a form of communication. The average person gets so much junk email in their boxes every day that many people simply select all and delete without bothering to go through each message.

There is a second way that an email may be hurting you online. If you are conducting business online and your principal email account is from a free email service like hotmail.com or yahoo.com, you are practically shouting to people that you don’t take your business seriously. Asking someone to fork over money on the internet is already difficult without giving off signals that people shouldn’t trust you or your business. Getting an email account with your own domain at the end of it does not have to be expensive.

Web hosting can provide you with an email account

With most hosting companies out there you can register a domain name of your choice, sign up for a hosting account, and then create your own email account with your domain name at the end of it. It doesn’t have to be a complicated process. A good web hosting provider will even help you by walking you through it. The result is an email that let’s people know you are serious about your business and are ready to be taken seriously.

Start a weekly or monthly newsletter

Start a newsletter to build trust in you and your company. Use email to keep in touch with your customers and prospects. Provide valuable content. Don’t bombard your customers will ads or sales letters. People like to buy from people they know, like, and trust. A newsletter could help you move in that direction. Newsletters are also excellent for cross selling other related products and services to the ones your customer has already purchased. Remember to keep the content quality high and the information as useful as possible. Make it easy for people to get themselves removed from your newsletters if they so choose. Using a newsletter can be a great tool for increasing sales.

Use email as a troubleshooting tool

Because email is so fast and easy to use, it can be a great way to provide sales support to your customers helping you to keep your phone costs down. When we use the phone, we usually feel that we need to engage in chit chat, and other banter besides the purpose of the call. Using email, you can quickly answer your customers’ or prospects’ questions and be right back working on whatever you were doing before the interruption.

Overall, email can be a very useful tool if not abused. Cheap, easy to use and quick, it can really help to boost your productivity when used properly.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that will answer the phone when you call. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.

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