It's a competitive world. It's a noisy world. It's easy for a small fish, in a global pond to get lost. Drowned out by mega ads, big budget media plans, the volume of comms, bursting databases and an endless stream of talent.
However, changing consumer behaviour and a growing social conscience, people are warier of big brands. So small, medium enterprises (SMEs) are the way forward. But how can they compete against multi-million-pound corporations?
Step 1: hire a copywriter.
SMEs need to work harder to make themselves known; relying on word-of-mouth, local press coverage and social media. Largely, they're too focused on their bread and butter to invest in the time needed for marketing. And nearly always lacking in the expertise. That's where we come in, with a menagerie of indispensable skills to boost profit margins and longevity.
We're like the bird
Cheap. Perching on the thinnest of branches, we can change a nuance in a sentence or a word, tightening communications to make sure your message soars above the treetops.
We've feathered our nests with delights like basic tone of voice principles, previous learnings, and stacks of experience, which are tried and tested. So we can create something out of not very much. Meaning that all you need to do is pay us (a copywriter) for our time - which could be minimal.
WARNING: Pay peanuts, get monkeys. So don't be lured by copywriters with ridiculously cheap rates - they might just be starting out. To get a decent one on your books, you're looking between £30 to £50 per hour. Sounds steep, but it'll be fewer iterations so costing you less in the long-run.
We're like the wolf
Scavengers. The advent of content marketing and innovation in digital means with a little time, creativity, analysis, strategy and a word aficionado, you can bring your business to life, build a community and maximise potential. And the best bit, if done right, it's way more effective than paying David Beckham to stride through explosions. Just looked at YouTubers like Zoella and Deliciously Ella.
We're like the hare
Quick. Ready to leap into action, we can amend a bio, leaflet or menu and it can be deployed immediately. So you'll start to see its benefits sooner.
This is because all we need is a laptop with a word processing program and an internet connection. There isn't endless coding, programming or meticulous design work.
You brief requirements. We write words. We send words. You upload words. Job done. Leaving those laborious tortoises behind. Don't listen to ancient fables.
We're like the lion
Hunters. We're bloodthirsty for those conversion rates. So we stalk the marketing plains, peering through grass reeds for the juiciest selling techniques; from looking at competitors are doing, staying abreast of industry standards and constantly testing our tactics.
A copywriter would savage your marketing collateral to expertly rewrite and/or produce:
- Flyers, leaflets or merchandise
- Websites optimised for search and conversion
- Blog posts
- Emails or texts to your database
- Press releases to be picked up by local press
- Radio ads
- Clear, concise and friendly customer experience for digital and buying journeys
It's all about awareness, conversion and footfall, so if you can punch out a message that captures someone's attention in a blink of an eye - that's half the jungle conquered.
We're like the dolphin
Creative. Copywriters don't just work within the realms of the ordinary, swimming through known oceans. They can also help you with the extraordinary, by putting on displays in unknown waters.
There's a reason we sit in the creative pod. And while we might not be so good with the colouring in, tests show that design is secondary to the words on a page. So not only can we increase conversion the conventional way, we can also:
- Conceptualising great social media campaigns to get traction online
- Writing articles to build relevance for your product/service
- Scriptwriting video content
- Develop hashtags
- Create guerilla marketing campaigns
- Capture data to build a database of customers
Step 2. Hire a designer
You can't just rely on a copywriter... And I've run out of steam with the animal analogies. But you'd need a designer and possibly a developer. However, a copywriter is a good starting point. And, as stated above, it's the quickest and easiest way to get results.
A designer or a developer will take a lot more time, fastidiously looking at Pantones, sizing and pixels. Moving things around to see what does and doesn't work. If you're a senior copywriter; the thinking, writing, rewriting and reworking copy takes have the time it takes a designer to go through the same process. Purely because the words on the page are about vocabulary and structure. Words, colours, positioning and images on a page rely on a lot of things, like technical restrictions and aesthetics.
Once you've identified you need extra creatives, you need to make sure your copywriter and designer can work together effectively, so you reduce your costs. If they don't communicate, you'll find that words don't work on the page or there are copy requirements missing. So your best bet would be to ask your copywriter to dip into their little black book and let them manage the process for you.
