Be Known – your website’s About page is a great opportunity to tell who you are and the passion behind what you do. Customers and prospects want to know about the people in your company. Adding bios and photos makes a personal connection and builds trust.

Be Found – website optimization is the gift that keeps on giving. When you have SEO working on your behalf, you attract traffic to your site and become a contender for purchases you would otherwise miss.

Be Recognized – providing helpful information on a company blog positions you as an expert in your field and gives visitors a reason to come back to your website. A recent study shows companies that blog attract 55% more website visitors than non-blogging companies.

Be Clear – for the new year, out with the insider-speak and in with customer-friendly language. Keep your message concise, easy to read and focused on benefits for the buyer.

Be Remembered – people remember stories. You can tell your persuasive stories using case studies. In them, your company is the hero, solving customers’ problems and saving the day.

Free Report

Shoot me an email (lanny at copywhiz dot com) and I’ll be happy to send you my how-to guide for generating leads with success stories. Or request it at

Uhhhh….what I really mean is: Have a happy holiday and a jargon-free new year!

Resolve to bid farewell to overblown language.
The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out,  “as corporate complexity collides with fanciful phrasing…it’s getting harder to tell what some companies actually do.”

Unfortunately, we’re surrounded by examples of this kind of writing. Here are a few I love:

• Your Full Service Food Service Service Company (this wordy slogan gets the repetition award!)

• A company called Universal Business Solutions says they “Deliver new business process management solutions to automate core processes.”  (Can somebody please translate that for me?)

• Another boasts: “We take a structured approach to our implementation engagements.” (And they do it in their brochure, no less).

You wouldn’t use this kind of language in a conversation, so why expect your copywriter to use it in your marketing materials?

Customers and prospects want to know that a living, breathing human is behind what they’re reading.  So say what you really mean in an engaging, fun style and you’ll connect, establish trust and build relationships.

What are some examples of bla-bla copy that you’ve found?

Please share them with me so I can add them to my collection.

Be bold, be heard

You don’t have to go to that far, but think about your marketing materials. Are they written in corporate-speak?  Do they make you seem distant and stuffy, when your firm is built on warmth and informality? Don’t be afraid to create an authentic, even bold, brand personality and let it come shining through.

Start by writing your website copy in a friendly, conversational style, free of jargon. Use humor to connect with people if it’s right for your brand.

As Rohit Bhargava, author of the Influential Marketing blog, says:  “Nothing gives the impression that you’re faceless more than using completely neutral third person language across your site. Instead of using the same old marketing mumbo jumbo to describe your business, how about giving people a bit of the story behind your company? … When you can tell a story in your own voice, it creates a foundation for believability in everything else you do online.”

Here are some tips for making your website copy more effective.

• Address your customers’ needs and concerns
• Skip the jargon, write in real-people language
• Use humor where appropriate
• Be clear
• Express your personality – find your own “doll house hat”

Contact me for a complimentary review and some tips for making your website lively, compelling and search engine friendly.

The Magellan’s Catalog does a good job of providing information along with their product story. A purveyor of travel gear and clothing, their emails often take an editorial approach, offering helpful tips for making travel easier. And lord knows, the idea of going to the airport and facing the prospect of a full body scan isn’t exactly appealing. So anything that promises to make the experience less taxing, I want to know about.

In a recent email headlined with an engaging play on words: “Getting a Good Flight’s Sleep,” Magellan’s addressed the challenges of sleeping on the plane, i.e., small seats, lack of basic services like clean blankets, droning engine noise. Then they offered 5 bulleted tips to help you drift off aloft.

Where does the sell come in? In the side bar, with links to featured products like neck pillows, fleece blankets and noise cancelling headphones. And, they cleverly provide customer reviews of several products. Now that they’ve got you in the mood to shop, all you have to do is click on links at the bottom of the email and you’ll land on the product pages of their website.

So take a cue from Magellan’s. Before you send your next email campaign think about what useful information you can share that will make customers view you as an expert, not just someone trying to sell them something. Make it relevant to your product and their needs, and you should see an increase in your open rate, readership and click-throughs.

This full page presentation for The Writer’s Jacket stopped me in my tracks. Under the headline: Real Men Don’t Tweet, the subhead explains: They WRITE, While wearing the Writer’s Jacket.

I couldn’t wait to read on:

“America’s greatest writers and outdoorsmen were among the pithiest of wordsmiths, practitioners of great economy with words. But even they would agree that – today’s technology be damned – men don’t tweet. They expound, they document, they actually tell stories…They magna their cartas.”

Magna their cartas!

When was the last time you used language like this to connect with your customers? This colorful passage demonstrates the power of storytelling. It starts with a headline that’s impossible to ignore and pulls you in with intriguing copy. How do they get to the product? With a skillful segue: “ In that rebellious spirit we offer the Tweed Writer’s Jacket…” Then they build the case for the jacket, keeping the same voice as they extol its features and benefits.

This is an example of catalog copywriting at its best. Of course, not every cataloger has the luxury of devoting so much space to one item.  But even if you have just a short paragraph,  don’t be afraid to create an authentic, even bold, brand personality and let it come shining through in your copy.

banamkung.com/wordpress

Here’s a great solution –  Dropbox is a free download that allows you to store, share and sync your  files on all of your computers. And,  you can share them with co-workers and clients so they can add their comments without having to use the distracting markup in Word.

There’s even an app for the iPhone which lets you download files, sync photos and videos to your Dropbox as well as share links to your files.

Download your copy here and let me know how you like it!

“Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.”

Like it so far? Here’s more:

“We all had a wonderful celebration afterward and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you in our private CD Baby jet on this day, September 23, 2009. ”

Here’s the clincher:

“We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBaby.com.

Thank, you, thank you, thank you!

Signed…

We miss you already. We’ll be right here patiently awaiting your return.”

Have they made a customer for life? You betcha.

Do your emails connect with your customers? Take a hint from CD Baby. Write them in a friendly, conversational style.  Include humor if appropriate.  And your open rate is sure to soar.

I recently listened to a teleclass on this subject given by experts Michel Neray, an online pioneer and brand strategist, and Steve Slaunwhite, a copywriter and coach.

They shared some valuable tips for writing landing pages (aka sales pages) that  convert lookers into buyers.

• Keep it focused. Don’t load up the page with a lot of distractions.
• Give visitors all the information they need to make a buying decision — on the spot. Otherwise you may lose them.
• Write for both scanners and readers using subheads, short paragraphs and bullet points.
• Keep your headlines descriptive and loaded with benefits.
• Write in a conversational tone, don’t make the copy sound too salesy.

Once you’ve accomplished all of the above, be sure to tell them what to do next,
i.e., “Buy Now” or “Sign Up Now” if it’s a class or a course.

Do it right and those prospects are now your customers.

Need help writing a landing page that nets you more sales? Then land here: www.copywhiz.com.