Westergaard Advertising » Copywriting

Mixed Up in a Good Way

Nick Westergaard — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:16:30 +0000

Last week I had the privilege of attending MarketingProfs’ Digital Mixer in Chicago. For two solid days I enjoyed sessions and keynotes from some of the brightest stars in the digital marketing universe. Just Google the conference and you can quickly see that there’s been no shortage of excellent summary posts. For mine, I’d like to add a take from our unique perspective. First, we are an advertising agency as opposed to an in-house marketer. Plus, while we work with businesses of all sizes, we counsel several small businesses that are very interested in how new media can grow their business. Thus my post will look at some of the best conference takeaways by area (social media, search, blogging, email marketing) through the prism of agency and small business.

Social Media

Without a doubt, the underlying theme of the Digital Mixer was the integration of social media marketing with traditional efforts. Many sessions also built out systematic strategies for social media success. Mike Stelzner of Social Media Examiner drove home the need to identify “fire starters” in your space and making your content easy to share. Fire Starters are social media users in your category that have power, access, and audience. However, he cautioned simply tracking them down and pimping them right away. Rather, he encouraged building relationships with them first by doing a lot on their behalf (retweets, blog posts, etc.) before asking them for anything.

Social media measurement is emerging as something to keep an eye on. According to MarketingProfs research, few companies feel they have a good grasp on measuring social media impact and ROI. One of the biggest hurdles that businesses are struggling to understand is that while social media is theoretically free, there are costs associated with it. Time — employees or agency time to listen, manage, and converse. Fellow Hawkeye Amber Naslund of Radian6 made the comparison that while social media has costs it’s no different than taking a client out to eat or for a round of golf. It’s being social.

Search

Bill Leake of Apogee Search first had me sinking into my chair a bit when he said that agencies needed clients to find homes for their art. To his credit, many agencies do operate in this capacity. However, Westergaard has always worked to be a strategic partner first and foremost. To build on this position, I asked Bill what agencies can offer clients. “Agencies are valuable in search because they can challenge Google’s recommendations,” Bill replied. “Have you ever noticed how Google’s suggestions for getting better results are always spending more money with Google. An agency can filter these recommendations and help the client make the decision that is best for their campaign and their business.” An agency’s job is to know the clients’ marketing plan, know their concerns, and their budget.

Email Marketing

It’s interesting to go to sessions on a topic you think you know as you often end up totally blown away by how much you do not know or are not capitalizing on the full potential of. Of all media discussed at the conference, our greatest history is with email marketing. However, Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory offered much more than a simple 101 at his eNewsletter session. The big idea here? Always be testing. Optimize your email campaigns. Think you are getting good results? Great. Test some variables and make them even better. I was reminded of one of my favorite sentiments about testing by Stephanie Miller of Return Path who said: “Even when you’re wrong you know something. There are no failures in testing.” Clients: look for more email testing from Westergaard in the months ahead.

Oh, and for all those saying that social is replacing email? (Looking at you Wall Street Journal.) Greg hit the nail on the head when he offered “Email is the digital glue of the social web.” While social media has many hot triggers to engage and persuade customers, the inbox is still a very special place be.

Blogging

On Thursday, we started the day with breakfast roundtables by topic. I chose blogging (pictured above) and enjoyed a lively discussion with about half a dozen peers moderated by the great Mack Collier. Among the many great ideas Mack imparted was one that I specifically have struggled with here on this blog. As a small business, you end up wearing many hats. I more than understand the value of blogging and we have gotten tons of positive feedback and even business from it but sometimes, due to all of those hats, you just don’t have the time to blog at the quantity that others do. Mack’s advice? If you can’t write a ton, make up for it with quality and consistency. Do one good post a week (or even once a month) and deliver it consistently so your audience expects it. Make the 2nd Tuesday of the month your blog day. Look for me to be finding such a day sometime soon here.

Miscellaneous Overall Advice

In wrapping up the keynote discussion on Wednesday, the panelists were asked if businesses could do only one thing what should that be? Word-of-Mouth Marketing author Andy Sernovitz had an answer that spoke to me. “Whether it’s tweeting, texting, status updates, blogging or email, much of new media is based on writing. Be a good writer.” Perhaps this spoke to me because it is somewhat self-serving as a copywriter by trade but I think it is worth calling out. Often the focus of emerging media is the new technology while the craft put into its utilization is sometimes overlooked by the masses. Which brings me to another agency takeaway of Andy’s. “Marketers aren’t expected to be technology innovators. We talk to customers. Don’t look for the next big thing. Wait until your customers are there then listen and talk to them.”

Pound-for-pound, Ann and the good folks at MarketingProfs put on an information-packed event. I got so many great ideas. I also got a Flip Camera HD in a drawing (for the conference planners out there – you can’t beat a good, old exhibitor scavenger hunt — great way to get attendees asking vendors questions). Plus the event lived up to its name. It was truly a mixer. Idea were mixed, people mixed through networking — they even had experts in white lab coats as “mixologists” who attended all sessions in a given track and mixed up the key ideas and summarized them for the group at the end.

If you’re already a client of ours, I can’t wait to share all of this with you. If you aren’t yet a client, contact us and we’ll grab coffee and get social.

Photo credit: MarketingProfs Live

Short Blog Posts …

Nick Westergaard — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:42:53 +0000

… are hard to write. Just sit down and try sometime. In many forms of writing, including blogging, whittling your big idea into that perfect small package is often the hardest task of all. Take this short post on short posts. It’s already ended up much longer than intended. Funny, I have no trouble tweeting …

Now Hear This

Nick Westergaard — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:09:26 +0000

Now is the winter of our discontent … Those opening lines from Richard III crossed my mind earlier today while driving past our local Shakespeare Festival stage in Iowa City, where the Bard’s tale of a physically and mentally disfigured king is set to open. I love the play for many reasons but the wordsmith in me loves that opening most of all. Now. There aren’t a whole lot of other words in the English language that command that much power on their own. This is why we so often see now as a lead in advertising copy. (Were you starting to wonder how I was gonna tie this back?) I personally am guilty of doing it almost constantly but in my defense it’s hard not to paint with that powerful, imperative brush. Now at Westergaard Advertisng we’re giving you … Now you can take advantage of these special savings … Always a more striking lead than a lost bit of punctuation at the end of a sentence, it’s hard to write weak copy that contains this bold salvo. Perhaps it is because it demands or commands action in an immediate sense thus making it useful to results-oriented marketers everywhere. Yes, this is a lighter post than most. Think of it as a Valentine to one of our favorites in the copywriter’s toolbox.

Words Matter

Nick Westergaard — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:00:38 +0000

This morning on my way to may favorite local coffee shop, I found myself practicing my order. Let me back up … I was practicing because more often than not I get coffee from my favorite non-local shop, the Starbucks drive-thru a few blocks from my home. Because of the linguistic feats of Howard Schultz and co. Starbucks now controls how I talk about coffee. You see I am, like most human animals, a creature of habit and I almost always order the same thing at Starbucks — grande brewed coffee black. In generic, non-branded terms this translates to a dark roasted coffee in a medium-sized to-go cup with sleeve. So this brings me back to my initial observation — I have to rehearse my order when going elsewhere because Starbucks controls how I talk about coffee.

This is an awesome semantic power Starbucks has over me and — I am just guessing , here— a few others. This power is second only to those select few marketers who have managed to elevate their brand names to encompass their entire category — think Xerox, Kleenex, and now Google and the iPod. Words matter. One of my favorite lines ever from The West Wing (a word-lover’s delight!) is the proclamation from communications director Toby Ziegler that “the world can move, or not, by changing some words.”

Great brands are made of great words.

Aaron Sorkin gets it. Howard Schultz and the marketers at Starbucks get it. Do you get it? Do you exert as much control as you can over how your brand is talked about and the very words that are used? Better still — have you created a special set of words that will help them do so?

Photo credit doobybrain via Flickr

Muppets on Marketing

Nick Westergaard — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:42:08 +0000

The above scene from The Muppets Take Manhattan is one that Dean and I both hold near and dear for obvious reasons. But there is a very simple truth exposed by Kermit as he helps an all-frog ad agency struggle with the perfect campaign slogan for a soap. “Ocean Breeze Soap Will Get You Clean,” he offers. “Why not just say what the product does?!” the agency frogs marvel. What’s really funny is how often this happens — especially in writing copy or describing your business. Just say what it does. Tom Peters once said if you can’t say what you do in 10 seconds or less you shouldn’t be in business. And most of all, remember to keep it simple like Kermit.