reynoldswriting.com Blog

I recall a client who’d requested and received a 300-word article asking me, “On second thought, a 1,000-word article would fit my format better. Can we just pad this piece out to 1,000 words?”

I also recall my response: “Can we? Yes. Should we? Probably not.”

If brevity is indeed the soul of wit, then you want your marketing content to be the life of the party — not the guy reeling off some rambling epic tale with no apparent beginning or ending as he blocks your way to the bathroom. Effective, powerful, entertaining writing makes its point and then gets out of the way instead of monopolizing the reader’s time and patience.

Brevity doesn’t necessarily mean squishing everything you write down into soundbites, though the runaway success of Twitter has proven that 140 characters can go a long way. But it does mean adopting a “less is more” approach and viewing your writing with a surgeon’s eye. Here are some advantages to concise writing:

It’s easier to process. The eye gets fatigued as it pores over massive blocks of text, and the more of it the page contains, the less of it actually seems to matter. Clear, concise writing is easier for the eye and brain to handle, giving you better odds that your reader will actually want to keep reading.

It packs more of a punch. I find that my writing always turns out better when I’ve overwritten and have to reduce the word count. This kind of forced edit requires me to condense and purify my work, cutting out digressions and extra phrases until the writing becomes airtight. What’s left is all muscle — a lean, mean content machine.

It’s more versatile. A relatively short piece of writing will integrate more easily into a variety of situations, formats and templates. A few short paragraphs of website content, for instance, will leave more room for other page elements than an elephantine chunk of text that has to hog center stage.

If your written content feels flabby, fails to engage the imagination or just makes your eyes hurt, take out your red editing pen (or hire mine) and start trimming away the fat. You may love what you find underneath!

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

Not too long ago I got a call from one of my regular vendor partners, a firm that specializes in marketing strategies and campaigns for small businesses. The owner of the company was trying to come up with some fresh branding for one of her clients, but the combination of triple-digit Texas heat and her busy schedule had left her feeling the need for a creativity boost. Could I come in and brainstorm slogans and angles with her with an hour or two? Well, sure I could.

If you don’t have your own marketing firm or department to knock ideas around with, you too might find creative consultations a huge help. No, I’m not a full-blown marketing strategist — but as you see from the example above, even marketing strategists can use a second set of frontal lobes on occasion. Brainstorming with someone who uses a high degree of creativity for a living can help you dislodge old ideas, free yourself from inertia and help you confirm that you’re on the right path.

I’ve posted before about how business owners can sometimes lose perspective on their own products and services. If you find yourself in that situation, it’s time to call in a third party — preferably one who can look at your marketing with both objectivity and a certain level of professional insight. You’d be amazed at how well a simple comment such as, “Oh, what you’re really trying to say is this” can bring your branding and messaging into sharp focus. And clear concepts make for clear writing.

Maybe what you need from your copywriter doesn’t fall neatly into a category. Maybe you could really use a set of slogans, or ten different metaphors for the same idea, or a fabulous punch line. Maybe you don’t even know what you need — you just know that you need something. Contact your copywriter and borrow his brain. He’ll happily rent it to you, probably at reasonable rates. Just give it back to him when you’re done.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

I don’t know whether it’s the unusually early onslaught of triple-digit heat here in Austin, my ongoing experiments in finding the ideal sleep schedule, my sedentary lifestyle or all of the above, but lately I’ve found that my brain needs an extra jump-start or two on most days. Afternoons pose the greatest threat, with my creative juices bearing more of a resemblance to molasses.

I’m forced to create anyway, of course, because I have to pay the rent. Like most other working people on the planet, I have to perform regardless of whether I feel inspired to do so. I usually have to be flat-out sick before I’ll give myself permission to slack off. Those deadlines won’t meet themselves.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a few tricks along the way to unblock the old grey matter and get rolling again. If you find yourself up against a creative deadline without two brain cells to rub together, you might want to try them yourself:

Play the “What If” Game. The original writers of Saturday Night Live used this technique when they felt stumped for ideas. It involves constructing completely surreal premises out of two or more unrelated parts. They phrased these premises in a “What if” format, asking questions out loud such as, “What if Eleanor Roosevelt had magical powers?” or, “What if Spartacus had fought the Romans while flying a Piper Cub airplane?” Some of these bizarre notions actually found their way into SNL sketches — but more importantly, they freed the writers’ imaginations from all constraints so creativity could run wild.

Keep a list. A young Ray Bradbury once decided, almost on a whim, to write down a list of nouns as fast as they would come to him. He ended up a huge stockpile of compelling images (and prospective stories) such as THE LAKE, THE NIGHT, THE CRICKETS, THE RAVINE, THE BABY, THE OLD WOMAN, THE DWARF, THE MIRROR MAZE and so on. He would then return to this treasure trove to get inspiration for future stories.

Get comfortable. Maybe you’re just tired, in a bad mood, eating or sleeping poorly. The brain is a part of the body, after all. You may find that with a little more sleep or some daily exercise your thoughts will start flowing again as if by magic. You may also want to experiment with different writing rituals, as I discussed in a previous post, until you hit on an environment or schedule that unlocks your muse.

And stay out of the heat!

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

Next time you’re at your local mega-super-multiplex cinema, watch the movie patrons as they walk out of whatever film they just finished seeing. What do you expect to witness? Stunned silence from the audience of a grim war drama? A throng of kids bursting out the door, zapping each other with imaginary ray guns after an afternoon with a sci-fi action flick? Smiles, laughter and hand-holding between couples as they exit a top-flight romantic comedy? That’s what I would expect from a movie that has done its job well and entertained in the way it meant to entertain. (If you ever see stunned silence from an audience as they file out of a romantic comedy, you may safely take that movie off your list of things to do.)

A successful movie or play takes pains to make sure its audience leaves the theater in a specific emotional state. Even after weaving a powerful spell for two solid hours, however, the movie can still falter if the ending doesn’t follow through. Either the viewers immediately forget what they just experienced, or they walk away frustrated and confused. Either way, they don’t return, nor do they tell their friends to go see the movie, and so the movie tanks.

You and I face the exact same challenge with our website or print-marketing content — only for “ending” substitute the term “call to action.” You can lead your reader by the nose all the way from the opening header to the closing paragraph, but you’ll still lose the sale without an inspiring finish.

An effective call to action is consistent in tone with what came before (no jarring shifts that wreck the mood), clear (because an ending should feel like an ending) and commanding (“Laugh! Cry! Think! Buy something!”) Do it right, and your audience will go forth doing what you want them to do. Do it wrong, and they’ll just go forth.

May your next marketing venture earn four stars from your most demanding critics — your target market!

For information about my writing services and current deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

The curtain rises on a murky, foggy night in Elsinore. A man atop a platform stands watch nervously, his lantern the only point of light in the gloom. He hears a sound, leaps to his feet and demands that the semi-obscured figure identify himself. The figure replies with the same demand. Fortunately, it’s only his friend come to take over the watch, but something’s clearly got everyone spooked. Why all the unease? Because of the ghost, of course — a dreaded apparition that haunts the castle.

Yes, I’m describing a play — Hamlet, to be precise — and not a brochure, website or print ad. On the surface, in fact, this scene would appear to have nothing at all to do with marketing or sales copy of any kind. After all, Shakespeare’s not selling anything here, is he?

Sure he is. He’s selling Hamlet.

An arresting opening to a play, film or literary work sells interest in the rest of it. It must hook its audience quickly and strongly if the author wants to see warm bodies in the seats for Act Two. Similarly, a great opening to a gigantic epic novel can persuade a reader to wade several hundred pages deeper than anyone expected. (“Call me Ishmael” has a lot to answer for.) Raising a brilliant opening curtain is like casting a magic spell — it may not hold for very long, but it’ll do its job long enough for you to strengthen and reinforce your command over those people for the period of time you need it.

The beginning of your marketing piece must command the “stage” — in this case the inner stage of the mind — just as firmly. This is especially, brutally true on the Internet, where we all have the attention span of a gnat with attention-deficit disorder. When someone lands on your homepage, you have a precious few seconds to cast your spell. So hit hard and aim true. Whether you open with an entrancing mood, a vivid depiction of a painful moment, a hearty laugh, an astonishing concept, or any of the other weapons in your mage’s staff, make sure you point that initial moment straight at the heart, mind or funny bone of the specific people you want to enthrall. Ask yourself, “What will get my ideal customer’s attention right now and hold it long enough for me to keep them from mousing away?” Then fire away.

The same principle holds true for print marketing as well, though generally readers will give you more time as they take in the pretty pictures or the nice slick paper. Even so, they want to encounter the good stuff ASAP, because they’ve got other things to do. So tell them in a big way, right from the opening header. Then follow up on that initial promise with more goodies as you guide them through the piece.

You don’t have to be a Shakespeare to grab your audience’s attention. You just have to know what will make their collective heart skip a beat, and then put it in front of them as the first thing they encounter.

Curtain up!

For information about my writing services and current deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

I just read an interesting article on Copyblogger that reminded me of the reasons business owners and marketing firms need copywriters. I’ve mentioned a few of them before. Maybe you don’t happen to have a talent for writing. Maybe creating your own marketing content takes up a huge amount of time that ought to go toward doing your day-to-day tasks that keep your business running. Maybe you do have the talent, but you hate, hate, hate using it. (Hey, some people just don’t enjoy writing.) Maybe the copywriter you’ve been using suddenly retires or goes on a sabbatical or gets too busy to take on additional jobs. These are all valid reasons to hire a copywriter, and in each case I’m happy to step in.

The article mentioned another good reason, though — the possibility that you may be “too close to the topic.”

Let’s face it, you know your business inside-out. You’re immersed in it on a daily basis. You work with other people who also know the industry, and you communicate with colleagues that speak the lingo as well as you do. You live in the world of your business. The problem is, your customer probably doesn’t.

You may find it impossible to see yourself objectively enough to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Sometimes it’s hard to pretend you’re John Doe instead of Jane Manufacturing Incorporated long enough to really grasp what the reader wants to know, as opposed to what you want to tell him. Time to bring in an objective party — one who happens to write marketing content for a living. Your copywriter can see John’s perspective as well as Jane’s, creating a message informed by one and aimed at the other.

You may also find that your industry speaks a language the general public doesn’t understand. I recall the time I walked into an engineering company and the owner said, “Ah, so you’re the guy who’s going to rescue us!” The company’s leadership team had spent so many years talking engineer-speak to engineers that they’d lost a handle on how to translate their features and benefits into common English. Again, copywriter to the rescue!

Whatever your writing roadblock may be, don’t keep suffering from it. Offload that specialized work to a specialist, and welcome a new brain to your company’s think-tank.

You can check out the rest of the Copyblogger article here.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

“Freelancers are flakes.” How many times have you heard that warning from colleagues burned by a project that cost twice the anticipated amount, took a year instead of a week to complete or just ground to a halt mid-job?

People sometimes cut freelancers a weird amount of slack that they wouldn’t give their own employees, especially the ones who perform creative work: “Oh, those right-brain eccentric artists, they march to a different drum and we’re just lucky they come down to Earth once in a while to help us regular folks.” But freelancers aren’t flakes, or at least they don’t have to be. The successful ones take their freelancing seriously and run it as a business instead of a lark. Unfortunately, though, they still suffer from the behavior of the less-serious ones who give the profession an apparent case of terminal dandruff.

Watch out for these potential problems:

The unknown price tag. Beware the freelancer who refuses to give you a firm quote for a job before starting work. For many of us who tend to charge flat per-project rates, this issue never comes up. But even if your freelancer bills by the hour, you should still insist on a realistic estimate of what you’ll pay, even if that estimate falls into a range.

Excuses, excuses. There’s always a good reason not to get a project done on time, and some freelancers want to make sure you hear all of them. “Sorry this is a month late, but my dog came down with mange and my kid’s having attitude problems and I had to get my tires rotated and the recent spell of bad weather has deprived me of Vitamin D and….” Some of these excuses may even be legitimate. But even if there’s always a reason for the late or sub-par work, the end result is still late or sub-par work.

The disappearing act. “I had a freelancer working on this eight months ago, and then he went off somewhere and I haven’t been able to get ahold of him since.” Some freelancers go bust and return to the world of standard employment, while others only do it as “gap work” between day jobs. Even in these cases, though, a courteous professional would contact you to let you know, or at least answer your inquiries.

So what should you look for in a freelancer? A portfolio of strong samples, a solid track record, recommendations from satisfied clients and clear ground rules. Always ask about the freelancer’s billing and work processes, turnaround times and availability. Get hard numbers and set deadlines, and hold your freelancer to them. The good ones will make every possible effort to deliver as promised. As for the flakes — well, you don’t put up with dandruff, do you?

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

So you’ve decided to take on the burden of writing your own marketing content. It might not be so bad — if you enjoy writing, marketing and communicating, you may even be looking forward to it. So why do you feel so uncomfortable when you actually sit down to do it, and what can you do to make it easier?

I’ve been at it for 14 years now, and even at this stage of my career some days are easier than others. What’s more, about half the time I have no clue as to why a given workday felt better or worse than usual. We all have our ups and downs, of course — health, stress, distractions, depressing weather and whatnot can all have an impact on our productivity from day to day. But there’s something special, or notorious, about writing. Nobody ever talks about “accountant’s block” or “construction worker’s block,” but the term “writer’s block” has entered the general vocabulary as a dreaded occupational hazard. Writing can be a lot of fun, or it can feel intensely uncomfortable.

How do you get back into your comfort zone? That’s up to you. Writers throughout history have found their own preferred methods of relaxing into the writing groove, which may explain the high rate of alcoholism among literary giants. But for many writers, getting “ready to write” may include such simple little details as wearing the right clothes or keeping a clean office. Some only feel relaxed writing in their PJs, while other insist on dressing up in business clothes so they can feel like professionals. Friedrich Schiller kept rotten apples in his office to spur him on (some of us suffer for our art). Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway used to sharpen every pencil in the house before settling down to write. Whatever works.

I suggest you experiment with the surroundings and practices that work best for you, then make a conscious effort to incorporate them into your daily routine. What sounds, sights, smells, or activities keep your inner editor quiet without distracting the parts of your brain needed for that first draft? What time of day offers the fewest interruptions or coincides with your peak productivity?

Once you find that comfortable “writer’s place” — within and without — you’ll boost your chances of producing good work without stressing over every word. Bad days can still happen, of course, but you’ll have more control over whether they lead to bad writing.

Or you can just stop stressing completely and hire a copywriter. Let me just get some pencils ready.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

Ah, Google — keeper of the sacred, secret formulae that determine whether your website link appears on Page One of the search results, above the “fold” so viewers don’t have to scroll down to see your listing, or at least higher up on the list than your competitors’ links.

Year in and year out, companies try to crack the Google-relevance “secret code,” throwing all sorts of strategies at the search giant’s algorithm to see which ones get results. If you’ve ever sat down with a web strategist, you’ve heard about how important it is to optimize your website so that Google rewards you with a higher ranking in search results. And it’s true. People don’t just search for products, services and information, after all — they “google” them. I should be so lucky: “I need to Reynolds my company’s marketing content.” Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

Why, then, do even the most skilled and experienced web professionals find Google such a tough nut to crack? Because Google remains a moving target, that’s why. The company constantly tweaks its systems, with the result that yesterday’s great “Google buster” strategy becomes today’s disappointing search result. I recently wrote up the results of an exciting, cutting-edge study performed by a web optimization company, only to watch the owners go pale as Google suddenly changed the way it did things once again, rendering all their hard work yesterday’s news before the study could even hit the news feeds.

What can you do to remain in the sights of this attention-impaired giant? Well, you certainly want to make sure your web provider stays on top of all the latest industry news and builds enough flexibility into your site to enable fast, easy updates. This flexibility enables another great, all weather-strategy for online success — a steady stream of fresh, useful, well-written content.

In fair weather or foul, regardless of what Google’s algorithm of the moment seems to favor, engaging and useful written content will always make your web presence more, well, present. You’ll find that visitors don’t just land on your page — they actually read it. They stick around. They might even contact you and buy stuff.

Now, that’s relevance!

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

I have fielded phone calls from a few prospective clients that felt like job interviews: “Tell me why I should go with a professional copywriter instead of writing this stuff myself.”

I could, I guess. I could tell those people that a professional copywriter can produce more powerful and effective marketing content in a fraction of the time it would take them to stumble to the finish line. I could point out the cost-effectiveness of outsourcing such a job while the client stays productive doing what he does best. I might even suggest that he wouldn’t be calling me at all if he relished the thought of writing his own copy.

But I don’t do any of these things. Why? Because by and large, people either get it or they don’t. The ones that don’t will not become my clients no matter how I respond. The ones that do are only asking that question to hear a validation of what they already know.

A recent blog by copywriting guru Peter Bowerman makes this very point. Bowerman calls this phenomenon “The Salad Dressing Rule.” If you sell salad dressing, he says, you can make better use of your time selling to people who already eat salads than struggling to convert people into salad eaters so they can buy your product. With the time and effort you put into creating a new veggie lover, you could’ve sold umpteen bottles of dressing to the folks who load up their grocery carts with Romaine lettuce every time they shop.

I would even argue that some copywriting clients who think they get it actually don’t. If someone asks me to serve as little more than a transcriptionist, for instance, that client may not understand the full value of drawing on a creative professional’s experience and expertise. Or the client that enthusiastically hires a copywriter and then keeps trying to wheel and deal for a lower price or “special rate” — this person does not truly value the work as something worth paying good money for.

So I no longer plead my case on those initial inquiries. I’ll direct people to my online portfolio, submit additional samples if requested and send over my current rate sheet. The rest is up to them.

Hope they like salad.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.