So when Maja Pawinska Sims came and spoke at the Horsley Network on Monday night on Ten Steps to Sparkling Marketing Copy I knew I just had to share her steps with you. Speaking as someone who is writing copy for a new Flourish website right now I promise you they are incredibly useful! What I love most about Maja’s approach, is that she is doing for words what we do with imagery. She’s writing to build a brand voice, just as we build a brand image.

Maja’s Ten Steps to Writing Sparkling Marketing Copy

1. Values

Before you even try and put pen to paper, I would recommend you establish your core values. If you’re running your own business, your personal values and your business values are likely to overlap. Values are attributes that you hold dear in your life, from integrity and service to innovation or creativity. With many of my copywriting clients, I start off by doing this classic coaching exercise (just email me onmajapawinskasims@gmail.com for a free copy of this exercise). Once you’ve identified your top five or six values, they are a really useful benchmark when you’re producing written materials, to check that what you are communicating is in tune with what your business is really about at its heart. When you run your business – and talk about your business – in a way that is consistent with your values, you have what is called an authentic business. Authentic businesses tend to be successful because they are a genuine extension of who you are, your skills, and what you care about.

2. Brand Personality, Tone and Style

Add another layer of insight by defining your brand personality. You could work with some more coaching questions, such as:

• What do you want to be known for?
• What differentiates you, and your business, and makes you stand out from everyone else with a similar background, experiences and offer?
• Imagine you are 80 years old. What would you want people to say about you and your professional achievements? What would you like your legacy to be? What would you like clients and employees who have worked with you over the years to say about you?

Then think about the voice of your business. Are you formal or informal; professional, friendly? Do you want to be seen as small and personal, or more corporate? This will inform what’s called the tone and style of the language you use in your written materials.

3. Target Audience

We’re still not ready to write. The next step is to define who you are talking to.

• Who are your customers and clients now, and who do you want to be working with?
• What do they need to know from you?
• What problems do they have that you can solve for them?
• What are your key sales messages for them?
• What is the perceived quality and value of your brand in the minds of customers: are you the cheap solution, the good value for the money solution, the high-end, high-price tag solution?

 4. Your Mission Statement

One more step before we start drafting. I review a surprising number of websites where it’s not at all clear on the front page what the company does. I would suggest you make sure you are happy with, or write, a clear one or two sentence description of your business. Who are you and what do you do? Even if you have this sort of written boilerplate already, go back and review it after doing the values and brand personality exercises. You may also want to take another angle and think about how you would describe to a child, or your mum, what you do. Think in terms of using real language rather than the way you think your should describe what you do, or what everyone else in your sector says.

5. Start Writing

Now you’re ready to start drafting your copy. Bearing everything you’ve defined and discovered about you and your business by going through the first four steps, you’ll hopefully end up with a first draft that sounds like it could only be about you and your business, and really communicates the experience of what it is like to work with you. Check your drafts against your values, brand personality, your chosen tone and style, and your boilerplate description.

6. Edit Out The Bullshit

This is the bit I’m really passionate about. Go through your drafts or your existing marketing copy, and strip out all marketing bull and corporate jargon. Be honest about whether there is any way of expressing yourself more clearly or succinctly instead of the phrases you and your sector might always have used. Cut out meaningless words like ‘unique’, or ‘solutions’. Avoid generalisms that could be about any business: I received a press release this week that started ‘In the words of Bob Dylan, the times they are a changin’. I still have no idea what company it was for, or even what industry.

Use language carefully and precisely – well written copy is extremely powerful.

7. Clarity

Check your second drafts for clarity. Would your child or you mum or best mate or gran understand what you’ve written? This isn’t about being simplistic or dumbing down: it’s about explaining clearly in a way that will resonate with your target audience. There is an argument that journalists on the Sun are more skilled than those on the Telegraph because it’s harder to explain tricky concepts in universally-understood language.

8. Consistency

Once you’ve established your house style and settled on a way of expressing what you do that feels right, check for consistency across all your marketing materials. Don’t produce a really chatty, cheeky special offer flyer if your website is very formal-sounding, for instance. This applies to social media as well: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook count as written marketing collateral too, and your voice should be consistent across all of them.

9. It’s Not All About You

Focus on your customers and clients, not just on yourself. Check that every Tweet and every sentence in your website doesn’t start ‘I’ or ‘We’ – turn it around so you are showing your potential customers and clients what you can do for them. This links back to the point about defining your target audience and understanding what problems you are solving for them.

10. The Basics- Grammar and Spelling

Proof what you’ve written and double check grammar and spellings. It might sound basic, but a misplaced apostrophe can put people off. Avoid capital letters other than at the start of sentences and for proper names. Write out numbers one to ten and write 11 and above in numerals. Get rid of any exclamation marks. Spell out any acronyms, especially the first time you use them, and keep them to a minimum. Read what you’ve said aloud and check it flows well and sounds right.

Finally, know when to stop editing – there comes a point where your drafts have to be good enough, and you just need to get that essential bit of your marketing arsenal signed off and winning business for you.

About Maja

Maja Pawinska Sims is one of the most inspiring people I know. She is an excellent copywriter (and has worked with us on a number of projects at Flourish) and has a real knack of writing copy that really resonates. She’s not a “beat-em-round-the-head-with-a-wet-fish” type of copywriter, she’s more subtle than that. But her stuff is powerful, inspiring and it really works. You can find out more about Maja professionally at be-sparkle.co.uk

Not only that, but over the last eighteen months she has fought (and I mean, fought, she is one strong lady) breast cancer whilst running her business and bringing up two very small children. Inspirational stuff. You can read about her journey with her two small children and the dreaded C word at her pinchypants blog. Make sure you have some tissues at the ready…

A large part of what drives our creativity here at Flourish is creating something memorable. We’re always on the lookout for the innovative, the creative and the memorable ways to help our clients stand out and get noticed (for all the right reasons). And so when I received a box of popping cards from my Branding Masterclass student Emma McLaughlin, I knew I just had to share them with you. As you open the box, the cards literally pop out. They’re amazing!

Emma handmakes and personally designs these cards, which are used for wedding and event invitations and they certainly make an impact when they arrive!

I know there’s a lot of talk right now about the death of direct mail, but this gives you a really exciting opportunity. There’s less “noise” on peoples desks right now (it’s all in our inboxes) and that means that doing something creative, with wow factor, will really help you stand out and stay ahead of the game. Ian posted yesterday about a mailing from GF Smith that caught his attention, this one certainly caught mine. What could you do to capture the imagination of your clients?

Zoe Grant, me and Katie Levett

On Monday I did something I’ve been meaning to do for *years*. I headed up to Top Drawer for a spot of inspiration, research and to catch up with some old and new friends. To be honest I didn’t really know what to expect, but having enviously listened to various people talking about the sheer range of companies there I decided to bite the bullet and go.

I spent most of the day reminding myself that I was resolutely NOT opening a shop and that I must not get carried away but the lovely goods on offer. But it was hard! There were some really inspirational, creative companies there and I know that if I ever find that eighth day in my week I am so going to open a lovely online gift shop… But I digress.

It was lovely to see some of our clients doing so well, including the fabulous What Katie Did Next who looked just on fire after an incredibly successful first day! It was also lovely to meet Gabrielle Treanor of the Green Gables in the flesh and meet people I’d spoken to on twitter like the lovely Snapdragon Jane, Dots and Spots and Cutture. All of whom had fabulous stands and were so nice!

I was also really excited to finally meet the lovely Zoe Grant, who I’ve been chatting to on twitter for years, but never actually met. Zoe is a freelance writer as well as a mum to five (!!!) so it was great to finally put a name to a face.

I’m a firm believer that inspiration is everywhere, and it certainly wasn’t in short supply at Top Drawer. The colours were beautiful, everything was exquisitely designed and I came away with a head full of ideas.

And most excitingly… I met a publishing company who liked the sound of my new book and invited me to contact the editor directly! How exciting is that?!

ps. As requested, the image of the beauty lab selection was designed by and for Trend Bible. You can find out more about them here.

It’s an online class that starts on 6th Feb and runs for a month. You can pace yourself, so whatever your responsibilities, and where ever you live in the world, it can fit around you. All you need to do is commit to a couple of hours a week where you really focus on your business brand.I promise that it’ll be creative, inspirational and informative, and it will make a big difference to your brand (whether you have a lovely logo and website or not).

• Clarity and purpose around your brand strategy, niche, profitable clients and brand messaging
• A mood board to help you visualise and communicate how you’d like your brand to look and feel
• A marketing plan that helps you own and defend your niche and attract and retain the right sorts of clients
• A communication plan for your clients journey from enquiry to invoice that wows and inspires them
• A plan for a truly powerful website that attracts, engages and wins you business

In addition I’ll be sharing lots of inspirational case studies, behind the scenes insights from the design team at Flourish and plenty of useful tips, tools and techniques you can start using in your business immediately to make 2012 your best year yet.Here are some of the nice things people have said about previous workshops:

“It was very helpful to take time out and refocus on marketing priorities and how to be more consistent with the marketing messages I put out. Lots of clear, practical ideas – thanks!”

Anne Williams, Worklife Balance Solutions

“Thank you so much for a very inspirational and practical workshop. I feel much more confident about promoting my business now.”
Sue Goodson, Floreal Therapies

Investment for the whole four weeks is just £165+VAT when you book your place before 23rd January and this includes all the course notes, follow up support, bags of expert info, a 20 minute one to one with me and a £75 Flourish gift voucher.So why not start your year as you mean to go on – with purpose and inspiration, and join me for a fun, creative and purposeful Branding Masterclass. Book your place today and prepare to take your brand up a gear!

Are you thinking of updating your logo, website or blog next year?

We get it – life is hectic right now! And setting time aside to plan and implement your marketing for 2012 is slipping further down the list as we hurtle towards the big day.

But here’s the thing: taking action this side of Christmas will propel you ahead of your less organised competitors as well as ensuring you have less on your mind over the festive break.

So we’ve made it easy for you. Spend just a couple of minutes sharing your To Do list, spend an hour briefing us over a coffee and a mince pie (we can get festive too!) and you can get back to your ever mounting to do list, Christmas parties and those unwritten Christmas cards smug in the knowledge that we are working very hard behind the scenes for you.

The smug business owner’s guide to getting ahead

1. Take just two minutes out of your day to share with us what you have on your marketing To Do list for 2012 at http://www.flourishstudios.co.uk/carrots

2. We’ll come back to you and see if we can incentivise you to commit to them this side of Christmas.

3. You put a tiny (think pea-sized) amount of time into briefing us on your project and then you can get back to the mince pies, parties and Christmas productions

4. We work our socks off behind the scenes preparing your marketing bits: think websites, logos, newsletters, ecommerce sites or blogs; so that come the new year, you’re ready to hit the ground running a good month or two ahead of your competitors. (And if you read my post from yesterday you’ll know that planning ahead is a good thing – so that you can savour every moment of the journey!)

You’ll save money and get ahead for the New Year. Either way the benefit is yours.

So go on, share your marketing To Do list today and prepare to bask in the smugness of getting ahead, very ahead, for 2012!

I class myself as one of life’s impatient. Once I’ve made a decision to do something, I want to get on with it right away. I struggled heavily with the concept of waiting six months for the right builder to be available to work on our house (especially as I’d been super organised and waited until we had Building Regs before going out to tender). And so I totally get the look of terror in your eyes when you learn that a decent website may take around 3 months (or more…) from concept to completion. If it was me, I’d want it right away too!

But consider this. Nothing good ever happens without thought, care and attention. And just as you could go into any fast food outlet and grab yourself an instant hit of something very unsatisfactory, far better to wait at a pub or restaurant for something homecooked. Sure, it costs more, but it’s better value for money, you have a more enjoyable experience and you’re fuller and happier when you leave.

The best things come to those who wait

It’s a bit like this with websites. You can get yourself a cheap and not so cheerful website and you can probably get it turned around in a matter of weeks. But you’ll find that there physically isn’t the time to plan the customer journey, develop a creative concept, pay time, care and attention to the details and execute with style. It’ll be a short lived web-calorie hit.

The alternative is much more satisfying (are you with me on this slightly odd analogy?). Having a new website created is a journey to be savoured. It’s an opportunity to bring some clarity to your thinking about your business, to take what you’re doing up a level and be blown away by someone else’s interpretation of your business. You can’t rush stuff like this. And whilst I don’t want you to think we sit around in meditations all day waiting for ideas to come (I can just hear the design team scoffing at that thought!) it is important that we create a design that is creatively strong and wins you business. And that means we need time to do it. Timelines will vary from project to project, and sometimes things will unexpectedly take longer than you think because (often) you may need more time to think about the creative or getting your copy right. But it’s always, always worth it in the end.

So more than anything, if you are desperate for a new website, get organised and start talking to us sooner rather than later! Don’t think about it for four months and then leave it so late that you need a microwave meal of a website! Allow yourself time to do it properly. 

The challenge with most business planning methods is that they don’t seem to take much of you into account. Plan for Super Success! (whatever that means); Turbo Charge your Business for the New Year and so on… What about what you want? And perhaps that is what you want, but it always helps to be asked.

As a part of our very popular Focus and Flourish workshops, one of the core things we get our guests to focus on, is what success looks like to them. It’s all very well wafting around concepts of success, but success is a very personal thing, and the sooner you define a tangible (and ideally, realistic) goal, the better. Based on the feedback I’ve had about this workshop, I thought it might be very timely to share the key concepts with you so that you can use it in your own planning. So here goes:

What does success look like to you?

What’s important to you about next year? How does your business fit in with your values. Why are you running your business and how does that fit in with your life? How will you know whether next year has been a rip-roaring success?

Start with your brand

Take a stock check on your business brand. What do you want to be known for? Where is your niche in the market? What makes you different from everyone else? What do your profitable clients value about what you do? What core message do you want to communicate next year?

Brainstorm the things you could do to market your business

Don’t hold back – think of at least 30 activities that you might do to market your business. However crazy they sound, get creative. You don’t need to do them all! But you do need to open your mind. At the last workshop we had suggestions ranging from walking along the A303 with a sandwich board (not advised…) to roundabout sponsorship (again, rarely advised) to creating welcome packs for your clients. Create as large a list as possible of potential marketing activities.

Shortlist based on personal values, your budget and your brand

You can’t do everything, but you should have around 10-15 core marketing activities that you do on a monthly basis as well as more specific activities for focused seasonal campaigns. When you’re thinking about what to do, remember that every business needs to spend some money on marketing, you can’t build a business on thin air alone, but planning where to spend your budget to get maximum return on investment (ROI) is crucial. What people often overlook is tying their marketing activity back to their personal values and their brand: essential for ROI and consistency.

Make a plan: And stick to it!

Obvious but true. Too many of us hurtle from one month to the next, only implementing marketing activity as a panicked response to a quiet month. Plan a consistent level of marketing plus seasonal campaigns to drive your business forward for 2012.

I hope that gives you a bit of inspiration and a template for moving forwards. We do still have a couple of places left on January’s Focus and Flourish workshop, so do join us if you can, it promises to be an incredibly inspiring day. Full details on our website.

How to make a January Sales Promotion work for your business

1. Avoid the blanket “10% off our services” at all costs. You’re better than that
2. Think about what you can offer that will compel people to take action now. Get creative, brainstorm with your team (or your marketing partners – Flourish are happy to help!) and think about what you can afford to give away that your customers will value.
3. Consider what it will take to get people to focus. Remember, this isn’t about what you can do cheaply, it’s about what your clients will value. Think about it from their shoes.
4. Think carefully about how you communicate your reasons for running your sales promotion. When worded carefully you’ll gain loyalty and new business so take your time to write your copy well.
5. Really make it worth your clients while – for example, if you’re a photographer, give a credit towards a set of images. If you’re a hairdresser, give them a voucher for a free cut and blowdry or an upgrade to a full head of highlights or whatever it takes to make it worth their while not putting it off until next month

The Great Little Trading Company have had a fab campaign to persuade their clients to shop now for Christmas rather than leaving it any longer. I can’t say I’ve seen the comprehensive marketing that Stu describes with his eBuyer experience, but it’s a compelling sales promotion nonetheless.

You see the problem with sales is that the retail industry has taught us that the longer we wait, the better the deal. And whilst we love the instant gratification of walking home with armfuls of bags, and we persuade ourselves that we need to buy it now or it might be gone, this strategy isn’t helpful for business owners. You need people to buy now don’t you?

And letting people even remotely assume that if they wait, you’ll slash your prices further is bad news for margin, bad news for your conversion rates and bad news for business.

That’s why when I found this promo during a spot of Christmas shopping on Sunday I just had to share it with you. Isn’t it fab? Great Little Trading Company (GLTC) have been completely upfront about the fact that their best deals are available for people that take action now. Wait, and you won’t save as much money. I love the fact that they’re showing all the discounts – past, present and future. It really compels you to take action doesn’t it?

I know I’ll be looking forward to spotting opportunities to use this with our ecommerce clients – how about you? Could you use this in your business?

Postscript: The fallout from not following through

I’m really disappointed. I nipped over to the website to check the URL and look what I saw on the homepage!

I’m so gutted. Why did they do it? I did think twice about whether to reword the whole blog post in the light of this, but I do think it’s important that I share a) what worked so fabulously well and b) how you can undermine it so easily.

What I think is a real shame is that in the grand scheme of things, what difference does 2% really make? Are they going to lose clients tonight just because they are “only” offering 16% off? I really don’t think so. I honestly think the original banner would have trained the consumer to get in early next year (as well as sign up to the newsletter so that they could be the first to hear).

What do you think? Did they make a mistake in backtracking on the offer? I’d really love your thoughts on this one.

The great thing about retail is that your customers expect you to run a January sale. So if you’re worried about a sale damaging your credibility, don’t be. If you are serious about running your business as a business, then come January, you need to think seriously about running a sale. Why? Because we all have limited funds in January, and unless there is a compelling reason to spend money, we just don’t.

We all know one of those people that buys all their Christmas presents in the January sale don’t we? Or the person that just can’t resist a bargain. Or the one who stocks up the present drawer with January sale bargains. People are spending money, but if your product isn’t on sale, why will people buy from you rather than your competitors?

Here’s how to make a January sale work for your retail business

1. Analyse your products. Which are selling really well, which haven’t sold? Rank them and use this understanding to decide what you put on sale
2. You don’t need to put your bestsellers on sale so unless you desperately want to, leave those half price. You rarely see wardrobe staples on sale in the big retailers do you? That’s because they know they can sell them full price all year round and they don’t need to
3. Mark your slowest sellers down as far as you can whilst still making a profit. Many retailers go to 70% – you ought to think about going to at least 50% if you can to really create some momentum
4. Pitch the rest of your sale products between 20% and 40% off RRP – please, please please avoid 10%. It just isn’t compelling enough
5. Consider whether you also want to think about other sales promotion techniques – BuyOneGetOneFree (BOGOF), product upgrades, shipping discounts, bundle offers and so on
6. Keep it short and sharp – it needs to end on 31st Jan at the very latest
7. Launch your sale on Christmas Eve/ Christmas Day – don’t wait until 1st Jan or you’ll miss the boat
8. It sounds dreadful, but if you do one thing, send a sale emailer on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. We were genuinely shocked at the number of online orders Yarwood-White received on Christmas Day. Just because you wouldn’t shop on that day, doesn’t mean that your customers won’t, so think about it seriously
9. If you’re really committed to making this work, back up your online offering with direct mail
10. Keep up the communication throughout the sale one email on Christmas Eve isn’t going to cut it, you need to be persistent!