So you need little help with your marketing materials to give your business a little boost?
Well, if you’re reading this
, you’ve come to the right place. But do you know your business well enough to develop your marketing materials?
I get lots of calls from clients with great business ideas but who sometimes aren’t sure of what they want. If you’re not well-prepared, you may find yourself spending money on a project that hasn’t been fully flushed out and you could lose money, energy and clients.
This is where a copywriter comes in. Together, we find the answers to the most important questions about your marketing communications project.
These five simple questions are critical to your partnership with a copywriter and to the success of your project.
1. What are the objectives of your project?
Getting clear on the scope of your project is the most important step. Do you already have your creative brief or do you need your copywriter to help you formulate your strategy?
- To get the best possible results from a copywriter, you should know what you’re trying to achieve. Are you looking for more visibility? More sales? Do you want to establish credibility or showcase a particular product?
- Make sure you differentiate between your objectives, which are operational and measurable, and your goals, which are larger statements about what you’d like to accomplish.
- How will you measure the success of your project. Will it be through increased user satisfaction, acceptance by a Board, increased sales?
Figuring out the specifics of what you want to do is the heart of the project. Once we know where we need to get to, we can start creating an appropriate strategy to get those results.
2. What kind of audience are you targeting?
So you have your marketing materials ready to go, but do you know who will be reading them?
Your target audience will determine your content, style and marketing approaches, so it’s important to hit the nail on the head. You could even discover an audience that you hadn’t thought of yet.
- Think about what typically appeals to your target audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What are their expectations? What motivates them? What objections could they have, and how can we overcome this? Answer questions they haven’t yet thought of asking.
- Getting a copywriter to help you refine your audience is a great step in the right direction. Copywriters are excellent researchers. We have access to tools and tips to help you adapt and target your message to the right audience.
3. What sets your apart?
Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is vital to a business. How does your company differentiate itself from competitors? What can you offer that they don’t?
- If you haven’t already articulated your USP, now is a great time to get started. Your USP is one of the most important aspects of your business – and your marketing material!
- Think about whether or not your target market recognizes how you’re different. If they don’t, you need to have a strong message and more convincing marketing material.
- How you’d like to be perceived by your target market? What kind of emotional response do you want your customers to have when they experience your brand?
- List adjectives that you’d like people to associate to your business (like prestigious, friendly, corporate, trustworthy, fun, forward-thinking, innovative, crisp, colourful, traditional, etc.). What kind of style and tone of voice should be used in your materials (formal, friendly, knowledgeable, cute, entertaining, quirky, snappy to-the-point, etc)?
A professional copywriter can help you effectively communicate your USP and integrate it into your messaging and marketing material.
4. What are your deadlines?
This can be an easy question to ask but the answers can be complicated.
Most people want things done yesterday. It’s normal when we have a great idea to want to move on it right away. And so it should be. But first, we need to make sure we have the right strategy in place.
We often have to deliver quickly if we want our businesses to be successful. How much time will you need? Well, that depends a lot on the project.
- When we have short deadlines ahead, I always implement best practices (the tried and tested!), choose an approach that corresponds to the amount of time we have, and look at the big picture.
- This helps us break the project down into bite-sized pieces – to split it into separate mini-projects – that we can deliver one-by-one, launching the most important ones first.
- A true professional will help you manage your project and plan the stages appropriately given the time, resources, financials and tools available.
- If you have a fixed deadline (a PR launch, a tradeshow, an annual report, etc), plan to meet it earlier and work backwards. Don’t plan a timescale that is overly ambitious. Anticipate the possibility that it may not all go as planned.
Give yourself (and your copywriter) the time that’s needed to get a solid marketing strategy in place at the start and deliver a quality product at the end.
5. What’s your budget?
This can be the trickiest question for many clients.
Do you have a specific budget range already established for your marketing materials?
If not, you may start by checking out typical copywriting rates and doing some research on the internet. Or you could simply call me to discuss your project and get an idea of the costs involved, and we’ll go from there.
If you don’t have a huge budget, start small. Divide your project into smaller phases that can be launched one-by-one.
- A professional copywriter brings years of experience to your project, resulting in higher quality products and increased sales and visibility.
- Hiring a professional copywriter will cut costs and free you to focus on the big picture – your business as a whole!
- A copywriter can also bring a very specific marketing perspective to your business.
- Sure, you may know your business well, but do you know how to bring out your best assets? It’s a copywriter’s business to connect with people and develop persuasive materials, no matter what the product. We help you keep up with the latest trends and shifts in consumer demand.
- Remember that the investment you make in a professional writer will be paid for many times over through the leads and sales you’ll generate with the marketing materials they develop.
The cost of your project will depend on its scope and complexity, but ultimately, what’s important to remember is that you truly do get what you pay for.
For more advice on your marketing materials or professional copywriting, contact me today.