When marketing was a soapbox and companies held the bull horn, that statement made sense. To get noticed, you had to yell the loudest, to create a most eye-catching graphics, to have the best deal (Del Taco anyone?). You had to wow the buyer with the most eye-catching, earth-shattering marketing campaign ever.

How true is that statement now?

In the age of the Internet and social media, where information is prevalent and there is no lack of naysayers, does this still hold true? I ask the question because I am constantly reminded in my industry (where most the buyers know their tech inside and out) that savvy buyers see through the bold, and focus on the details.

Sure, the bold might grab their attention, but if there is no substance behind it – no substance to satisfy their need – then the buyer will walk away. Unless the product or service is truly earth-shattering, there are simply too many options (including those they’ll develop by themselves) to keep the buyer focused on you.

In the world of entertainment technology, I propose a qualification to “Go Bold or Go Home”. Go Bold if you can back it up. Go Home if you can’t. Differentiate yourself and your product in real terms (real features, real benefits). The buyer may not be wowed all the time, but they will certainly see how it applies to them, and that connection will get them thinking…and talking.

Advertisers love it because they are no longer relegated to the oft-overlooked side bar. Online sites argue that their editors know their readers best, so who better to write the copy. Even if this is seems like a marriage of the long-divorced church and state, I argue that both advertisers and sites are missing the point. There is a reason why TiVo exists, why print ads are dwindling in number and why social media is gaining steam – consumers don’t want to be interrupted.

So what does all that mean for copywriters who have built their careers on catchy ad slogans? For the savvy copywriter who knows how to evolve, it can spell opportunity.

Consider these points:

Internet search is based on words – Web sites are ranked according to the fancy algorithms that google and other search engines employ. Those algorithms are based in large part on written content, e.g. how many times a word is used on a page; whether a word is bold or not; whether graphics and tags have descriptive text to support them; and so on.

Keywords drive awareness – In today’s 2.0 world, it’s all about relevance. Fancy graphics and classic TV spots might grab your attention (interrupt you), but well-chosen words written by smart copywriters can connect relevant messages to the right audience.

Social media is based on written conversation – Twitter and Facebook are based on written conversations. Copywriters should learn how to join those conversations for their benefit, and the benefit of their clients.

Traditional media is not dead – Even though some forms of traditional marketing are decreasing in importance, they are by no means gone. Flyers and brochures, press releases, videos, case studies, white papers, print and web ads – all of these techniques are still used across marketing departments and throughout agencies.

Companies still need messaging – I’ve saved the most important for last. Everything above is just a tactic. Crafting corporate and product messages, and ensuring that they are flowing through the right forms of media in the right way, is still critical to a company’s success.

Marketing is changing. There is no doubt about that. But with that change has come new opportunity, especially for copywriters who are willing to embrace the shifting landscape.

But what if it’s an early stage company that is just beginning to focus more attention on raising its visibility? What if it never really had an official marketing budget? If your company is in that situation, here are four budgeting approaches that can help:

Flat Dollar Approach
Particularly useful for early-stage businesses, the flat dollar approach bases marketing budgets on what the company thinks it can afford. This approach is usually most effective in budgeting for specific projects that are one-time expenses, such as exhibiting at a trade show.

Defining a flat dollar amount may be challenging in the first year of a business, since there are no past records of sales and marketing expenditures. To help you define appropriate budgets, contact others in the field, such as partners or consultants, to inquire about cost estimations. The last thing your early-stage business needs is large cost overruns.

Percentage-of-Revenue
Allocating a percentage of sales revenue is one of the most popular methods for developing a marketing budget. The average allocation can range anywhere from 1% to 12% of annual projected sales. If your business is selling to consumers, typically budgets need to be greater. If your business is launching a new product or service, advertising and publicity needs are greater, so the percentage will also increase.

The main advantage to using a percentage of revenue approach is that the marketing budget will increase, or decrease, with the sales revenue of the company. The marketing budget will never spin out of control and deplete sales revenue. However, your marketing budget can change from one quarter to the next, making it difficult to stick to long-term plans.

Matching Competitors
Another method for creating a marketing budget is to analyze and estimate what the competition is spending. This is another simple way to set a budget, since maintaining costs comparable with competitors keeps the business in line with others in the field.

However, this method also assumes the competitors are spending the right amount and have a comparable business philosophy and plan, product mix and target audience. Even if you do not use this method, it can be useful as a checking mechanism to ensure that your budgets are not too low or too high.

Marketing Plan Objectives
The final approach uses the objectives in the marketing plan (such as the number of opportunities you’re aiming to achieve, etc) to determine the marketing budget. The budget is developed by estimating the expenditures needed to achieve the desired marketing objectives.

Although this method of budgeting can be the most realistic way to align budgets with the needs of your company, it is can also run headlong into competing financial constraints for a given year. Thus, it may take a little more effort to defend it.

Good luck!

Not exactly.

Just because you can write does not mean you know how to write for marketing purposes, how to define corporate messaging, or how to pen copy that calls customers to action. Just because you can write does not mean you can advise companies on what to say to help them jump to the next step in their growth.

Messaging (for a client or for your own organization) is a learned skill and it requires in-depth knowledge of some very broad topics, including:

1) Branding – What are your company’s mission and vision? How are those defined in its culture, its structure, its products, its messaging, its design?

2) Positioning – How does your company position itself? Has it ever really defined its position? What are its objectives? What are its products’/services’ unique selling propositions and benefits?

3) Competitive Landscape – Who is the company up against? What are those competitors saying about themselves and their products/services? How does that differ from what you are saying?

4) Knowledge of the Customer – Which messages work in the market and which mediums do customers use to pick up on those messages? Which tone works best?

5) Marketing Communications – What are the specific rules of certain marketing communication mediums? How can you combine those mediums into an integrated messaging strategy? How do you write for specific mediums so that your words have more impact?

Hundreds of great books have been written about each one of these areas. Some of my favorites are: Crossing the Chasm, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and The Copywriter’s Handbook. Just take a quick look at Amazon, and you quickly begin to understand how much there is to know.

So sure, everyone can write. But not everyone can effectively take corporate concepts and mold them into marketing messaging and messaging strategies that drive sales.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Executives at an early stage company want the company to have more visibility in the market. Their idea is to run ads, reach out to editors, do direct mail, re-design the web site, and other tactics – all of which can be effective tools for raising awareness and driving leads.

Problem is, the company has never really spent time defining its brand. It has no unique or compelling brand message that sets it apart from the competition, that captures a share of its customers’ minds, or that motivates the employees to do and the customers to act.

Strangely enough, this is a relatively common problem, especially among early stage companies. That is not to say that these companies are naïve or inexperienced. On the contrary, most of these companies have great products and intelligent executives; they’ve just been focused on a number of very pressing issues (like developing the product and securing revenue) and marketing has fallen on the priority list.

But there comes a point in a company’s evolution when it must start thinking strategically about how it wants to define itself. And it is then that the needs for copywriting and marketing intersect. Marketers can help companies define their position in the market, and strategize about how to reach those customers. Copywriters can help a company craft a truly differentiated message that complements the marketers strategy and that flows through all the tactics a marketer plans and implements, from ads, to PR, to web sites and beyond.

The world is changing, and our language is striving to keep pace. The advent of new technology and evolving culture is taking us into places for which we have no descriptive vernacular. To wit, words like “google”, “blogosphere”, “tweet”, “phishing”, “crowdsourcing”, “vaporware”, and “skype” didn’t exist 10 years ago. Now it’s hard to get a sentence out without using one of these neologisms.

Our language has never been very good at precision. I mean, where is the word describing the orange dust left on your fingers after eating Doritos? Or the word that explains the insatiable need to constantly check your phone for calls, text messages and emails? Shouldn’t we be devising these and recording them in some recognized Wordipedia?

It’s time to loosen our grip on what the English language should be and accept newer words for what they are: useable, descriptive content that fits comfortably beside any Dictionary 1.0 word. After all, those senescent words were once neologisms too.

1. Know your Audience. Before one word is put on a site, it is critical to understand your audience and what motivates them to act. Without that key information, you run the risk of producing rambling, ineffectual copy and organizing it in such a way that does not motivate your customers to contact you.

2. Get to the Point Quickly. Consider this – the average time a browser spends on a web page is three seconds. That’s all the time you have to deliver your key messages. Your page headers and first paragraph should answer all the main questions one would expect to have answered on that page; and those answers need to be clear as soon as the page opens.

3. Keep It Concise. Given the attention span of browsers, drop the long, complex sentences and keep your paragraphs short. This is not always easy to do, especially when the product or service is complex. But if you don’t at least try, you run the risk of losing the browser in a forest of intelligent, but ineffectual words.

4. Layout Counts. To make your copy easy to read, try using bulleted text, headers and shorter paragraphs to break up the copy. This will help browsers scan pages faster and get your point quicker.

5. Use Accessible Words. Web users want and expect things to move quickly. Straightforward, user-friendly language is far more effective than long, drawn out prose. When faced with a choice, avoid large, “intelligent-sounding” words and opt for sharper content.

6. Edit and Re-edit. When it comes to grammar and spelling, web content is like any other copy. Nothing says “amateur” like obvious misspellings and grammatical errors. Before taking a page live, proofread everything, and then have others proofread it too. The more eyes the better.

7. Drive Browsers to Do Something. B2B web content almost always has a goal. Whether that goal is to drive browsers to a contact form, a video, or a webinar, each page should contain a call to action that drives them closer to sales. That call to action could be a button on the sidebar, or a link within the content. Whatever you choose, make sure you are always thinking about the end goal.

Remember, your web site is not only your calling card; it is often the first experience potential customers have with your company, and it is becoming more and more the place where transactions are instigated. Make sure that the words convey your message quickly, concisely and uniquely, while never losing sight of the action(s) you want your customers to take.