The Copywriting Maven

photo credit: theogeo

Two items caught my eye today:

The Science of Sarcasm (Not That You Care)

” … perceiving sarcasm, the smirking put-down that buries its barb by stating the opposite, requires a nifty mental trick that lies at the heart of social relations: figuring out what others are thinking …”

Now I understand why there is no history of dementia in my family … we exercised our snarky, sarcastic brains a lot - even my Grandma Fanny in her less-than-perfect English could curl a lip around, “So, Miss ‘Queen of Leisure’ (that was me in my younger self), you call that a clean kitchen floor?”

Brevity - The Twitter version of the Gettysburg Address

I saw this in today’s Washington Post Magazine. Gene Weingarten, the Post’s resident humorist, tweets on Twitter and shares this final 140 character result of editing “The Gettysburg Address.”

“87 years ago, our dads made us free. Yay! Still want free, but hard! Fighting, dying, burying! Need more fight tho, so dead be happy.”

Okay, just to be fair, here’s the original, a speech already acknowledged for its brevity as much as its spare and powerful beauty:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I’m thinking this kind of writing would be worth a series of tweets just to get it all in as is.

Or maybe that’s just me.

photo credit: AdrianDC

From time to time when I see a juicy listing for goodness-gracious-genuine copywriters, I’ll pass them along.

Here’s one I just vetted. Note that on-site work will be required for a while. Contractor positions. Several available. Good hourly rate.

PLEASE CONTACT N&B CONSULTING DIRECTLY. I’m just the happy messenger.

My consulting company, N&B Consulting, L.L.C., is looking for a number of
Copywriters to help with several projects during the next 3-4 months. Below
you will find a job description and type of candidate my client is looking
for in this position.

If you are interested, please contact Michelle Bailin at michelle@bailin.us or 703-926-6831.

COPYWRITERS (Contractor) Company is redefining its customer experience
across all customer facing online and offline channels.  We are seeking
motivated, agile, self starting professional copywriting contractors to help
us succeed in our mission.  There are multiple initiatives requiring
technology marketing writing capabilities.

Job Description (Contractor)

Responsible for developing compelling, customer-facing educational content
for pre-sales experience including:
- Articles and whitepapers for vertical industries
- Articles on various basic and advanced web development topics
- Whitepapers and guides on product and solutions related topics
- Interviews with third parties for background to content
- Research on vertical industries for educational content
- Newsletter articles and other customers related content
- Creating slide presentations, handouts and other educational materials

Interface with product management and marketing to gather intelligence

Write scripts for videos and Captivate demos (ability to produce Captivate
demos a plus)

Ability to conduct independent research to generate content where needed
- Conceptualizing topics, researching and writing original copy for white
papers, fact sheets or similar communications vehicles for vertical
industries

Core Competencies Needed and Required Experience

- 5+ years copywriting/editing experience among a wide range of vertical
industries
- Ability to develop engaging, clear, concise, simple, customer-facing copy
across all mediums - Understanding of cross-functional team responsibilities
and how they build toward and impact each part of the customer experience
such that the copy creates a seamless and simple bridge from one area to
another
- Agility and flexibility particularly in very matrixed initiatives
- Understanding of Internet space and technology is preferred
- Interpersonal and collaborative skills
- Independent worker accustomed to delivering under daily/weekly deadline
pressure

Education:  Bachelor’s Degree in related field

Applicants:

.         Please provide 3-5 writing samples as well as 3-4 client
references

.         30+ hours per week; on-site preferred

Company works hard to meet the needs of our small business customers,
enabling them to build and grow their online presence. We help them realize
their dreams of self-reliance, entrepreneurship, creativity, and financial
independence. In turn, we hope that our employees and consultants are also
realizing their own dreams. That’s why we work so hard to locate talented,
passionate, and dedicated people who want to build and grow their careers
with a company like ours.

Type of candidate:

The client is in immediate term need for is someone who can be on site at
least 40 hrs per week and who can jump right in and run with writing content
for widgets, applications, training materials guides - sort of a utility
player who is comfortable interfacing with multiple stakeholders from
technical, engineering, marketing and product backgrounds.

The person needs to be extremely flexible and is able to work outside of
traditional methodical writing assignments and is comfortable receiving
untidy direction - meaning it is not all laid out on the table and we don’t
know exactly what we need all at once.   There are meetings which are called
spontaneously throughout the day and our writer needs to be able to be
plucked from a task to change direction and deliver on short timeframes.
The requirements are coming in as we find and assess gaps, and we need a
person who can essentially plug and play.  One new requirement we have is
training materials for our reps.  I think the candidate needs to have a
skills set beyond just copywriting and needs to have experience being on
project teams supporting major marketing initiatives.

Feel free to pass along to a colleague.

photo credit: anna-rchy

As someone who is still feeling her way along in social media (and yes, I think I still don’t get Twitter or why anyone remotely cares to follow me), Drew McLellan tagged me to participate in a best practices discussion about SM. Specifically, the strongest best practice in my SM arsenal, er toolbox.

Okay, I’ll play.

Drew’s best practice is to “Lift Others Up” … share something, be generous with your time, encourage and support others in their efforts.  I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll take a slightly different tack and say:

The Copywriting Maven’s Best Practice: Lead with your authentic self.

In a world where more and more we conduct business via web, IM, Twitter and all manner digital, it’s hard to get a read on the person behind the persona. What we gain so easily in speed and efficiency, we just as easily lose in gut feel and visceral sensibility, our liberal use of emoticons and other stage directoria aside.

I realized this early. So rightly or wrongly since my first days online in the mid-1980s, I decided I was just going to be who I was, personally and professionally. No differences or disconnects between the online/offline me. No games, no surprises.

I’m not suggesting that you strip yourself bare - unless that’s the kind of thing you’re into. But I am suggesting that by being your most genuine self, whether it’s in SM interactions or face2face in that quaint, old-fashioned way, just makes the most possible sense. Easy, too.

Now to the tag … direct from my NetVibes Reader, here’s who I’d like to hear from!

• VanSEODesign
• JennSays
• Dina Eisenberg

Here’s how it works:

1. Blog it or add it to the comments here.
2. Link to Mitch Joel’s blog - this is the guy who started the whole thing
3. Tag it “social media marketing best practices project”
4. And then tag someone else with the meme.

And don’t forget to have fun!

photo credit: borrowed time | demi-brooke

In the few weeks while I was working on the renewal series to nowheresville, tending my kids until I got to shout ‘yippee’ and skip down the street after the school bus came and got ‘em, I’ve been collecting, yet again, a host of odd thoughts, mentions and links to ponder.

In no particular order:

• Bob Bly and I - whoa, and in the same article no less - were interviewed by the lovely and talented Pattie Simone for an article in WomenEntrepreneur.com … For Compelling Copywriting, Hire a Pro
• Mike Stelzner is running his 3rd annual “Name Your Favorite Writing Blog” Contest. My copywriting partner in crime, Tom Chandler, was kind enough to give me a nod. He even said I was humorous on occasion. Perhaps you’d like to give a Maven nomination shout-out, too.
• Today is my son’s 11th birthday. In honor of this event, my MIL sent a huge collection of my hubby’s GI Joes with accessories (now completely vintage and Ebay-able) for my son’s enjoyment. It struck me that in the late ’60s/early ’70s you couldn’t sell candy cigarettes or bubble gum cigars anymore but you could sell strikingly detailed M-16s, rocket launchers, and hand grenades for children to play with. Nice.
• I’m late on this but I loved Obama’s speech. It made this middle-aged woman - and Clinton supporter - feel hopeful and inspired.
• On the other hand, if Rudy Guiliani uses the obsolete boogey man phrase, “socialized medicine” one more time, I think I’m going to scream. Right now, I don’t think there’s anyone - especially freelancers - who would mind a little (okay, a lot) of socialized medicine right now. Keeping our family in COBRA coverage when my husband was laid off was a huge hardship when we went from being a 2-income to 1-income family for a while - and when we could least afford it. Get with it, GOP.
• More and more mail from Capital One. Looks like they’re keeping an army of copywriters busy drumming up new tests. Lots of different envelope colors and textures. Lots of different ‘lumps’ inside the carrier.
• This made me laugh - YouTube in 1985
• This made me laugh even harder

And now a request … in my search for the perfect collection of anti-aging everything, I’m looking for suggestions for the best undereye concealer. Ladies (and gents) - what’s your pleasure?

photo credit: Mandi Maebe

… and what does it mean to you? To me it means get your all your fees in advance because chances are when they say “different” what they really want is “more of the same.”

Case in point. I’ve just spent the last several weeks - nose to the grindstone, fingers a’ tapping - working on a 12 component B2B publication renewal series. Lots of DM, carrier teasers, a new form template, a few emails, and a list of talking points for telephone follow-up.

By themselves, most renewal series are pretty formulaic. Sometimes you start the renewal series during the ‘honeymoon’ phase very early in the subscription. But, generally speaking, they tend to start about halfway through the subscription cycle — beginning with a soft, hiya-hiya approach, perhaps a special offer of some sort and ending with the usual urgent call.

Unlike the sexy and pricey front-end acquisitions promos, the back-end renewal series is the workhorse that ultimately drives the sales process. I like doing them for that reason. It’s all words and offers to your customers. The renewal series matters.

That is I usually like doing them. I imagine in time, I’ll like doing them again. But, and I mean it this time, when a client comes to me to write a “brand-new, sky’s the limit, anything you want Roberta” renewal series, trust me … I’m asking for the entire fee … upfront.

Why? Because they don’t really mean it. They think they want something different but when they see different, it makes them anxious. So you revise but with each revision you get closer to the copy they are, in fact, already using.

Here are a few of the tip-offs I should have spent more time listening to:

• This copy is too conversational; it doesn’t read like traditional B2B renewal copy.
• We’re not sure our IT/database manager can pull that data from the existing records.
• Make it sound more urgent (with 5 months to go on the subscription.)
• Don’t tell them how many issues (or months) left on the subscription.
• Do we have to be so specific?
• Do we have to be so negative?
• Don’t say “best rates available” because maybe they’re not.
• Don’t mention “Send no money now. Be billed later.” even in the 12th effort. It might hurt the pay-up rate. [My head was exploding with "FROM SUBSCRIBERS WHO HAVEN'T RESPONDED TO THE FIRST 11?"]
• Don’t mention the guarantee.

And oh, did I mention that the series was to be generic and work for dozens of their publications? Other challenges? No additional savings … or issues … or freebies … to encourage response.

Still I wrote a very nice series. Still, whatever it is they wanted, I failed to hit their sweet spot. In retrospect, I don’t know why I was surprised. The tell tales signs abounded. Especially when my one enthusiastic contact became a committee of “Gee, I dunno” and every revision needed an hour’s phone conference.

The project status? Dead like doornail. No surprise there.

Ah well. It’s good to be back. Kids have returned to school and I’m enjoying the calm … and a weekly league bowling with hubby.

Yes. I said bowling. Lots more to write on many more topics. Stay tuned.

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• My favorite resource on landing pages - The ultimate guide to writing and designing effective landing pages - Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook, 2008