Most marketing campaigns can be stripped down to one of two themes: build the dream or stop the pain. Marketers tend to favour stop the pain. After all, not everyone has a dream, but everyone has a problem.

Knowing this, marketers use a technique of sticking their finger in there to get people to feel pain and motivate them to action. Let’s look at a few examples of this technique.

Proactive Solutions – Problem Skin

Proactive Solutions markets their skin care product line through TV commercials and infomercials. Their ads invoke the pain of skin blemishes and promote their product as a solution.

Do you stress out about your skin?
Do you freak when you breakout over night?
Well, hope is on the way.
It’s called Proactive Solutions.

Now that’s sticking your finger in the pain! If you weren’t terribly worried about your acne before, you’re probably worried about it now. And if you’ve been freaking over breakouts, then this commercial grabs your attention.

Old El Paso – Falling Tacos

Pain doesn’t have to be personal or even all that painful. Sometimes the pain is slight, but it’s still enough to motivate. Check out this Old El Paso Taco commercial:

How to you stop tacos from falling over?
What if it had a flat bottom?

Are falling tacos a problem? Likely, you never thought about falling tacos until now. The problem would seem ridiculous if presented seriously, but the light humour makes the message more palatable.

Sticking your finger in the pain is a great way to get people to recognize problems as problems. You’ve never hammered nails into your table to stop your taco from falling over, but, hey, now that you mention it, a flat bottom taco is not such a bad idea.

1-800-Got-Junk? – Furniture, Appliances, Electronics and More

At Webcopyplus, we recently used stick your finger in the pain marketing for 1-800-Got-Junk, the garbage removal franchise. Here the pain is the hassle of getting rid of unwanted stuff.

Here’s a web copy excerpt:

Got old furniture, appliances, electronics, tires, construction debris, or yard waste you need to make disappear? 1-800-GOT-JUNK? can take away almost any material we can fit in our trucks, without you ever lifting a finger. We’ll remove junk from wherever it’s located, and we won’t leave a dent or speck of dirt behind.

The pain point is old furniture, appliances, electronics, tires, construction debris or yard waste…that you need to get rid of.

Trotting out this list of items makes potential customers think about what they have at home. If we merely asked, “Got any old stuff you need to get rid of?” people would tend to respond, “No.” By providing specific examples, we’re prompting people to scan their home environment to see if they have anything on our list.

Do I have old furniture, appliances, or electronics to get rid of? Well, I do have that old computer downstairs, and I haven’t used that old freezer in years. Maybe I should call 1-800-Got-Junk.

Of course not everyone has old furniture, appliances, electronics, etc. they need to get rid of. But if you do, the message will resonate.

As you can see, stick your finger in there and feel the pain can be a great way to motivate people to recognize a problem and take action.

Where do you see marketers using this approach? Have you tried it in your own marketing?

We all know that B2B marketing differs from B2C. B2B’s longer and more complex buying process has implications for marketing — and your web copy. Here are some tips to get your B2B web copy right.

1. Businesses Might Not “Buy Now” — But You Still Need a Call to Action

The B2B purchasing process is more complex than B2C — it can take weeks, months, even years to negotiate. Consequently, you won’t find too many B2B websites with “buy now” calls-to-action and accompanying shopping carts.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you should put up a purely informational site. You still want your readers to take action, whether it’s to pick up the phone, send an email, or request a quote.

Take Cisco, for example. Cisco is a multinational corporation that designs and sells electronics, networking, voice and communications technology and services, and B2B is a big part of their business. Their site contains tons of information about their products and services, but there’s no shopping cart. Instead, when listing their C3945 Integrated Services Router on their website, they use the following calls-to-action:

• Chat now
• Email | Request a price
• Find a local reseller
• Call 1-866-428-9596
• Download software

The reader (and potential customer) is not left to browse around and drift off to the next site. They are guided to take action.

2. Trust and Relationship Building Are Even More Important

The relationship between B2B businesses and their customers is even more important than B2C relationships. B2B customers tend to engage for multiple sales over a longer period of time, and ongoing support is frequently part of the package. Consequently, choosing the wrong B2B partner can be dire, potentially leading to years of problems and headaches.

Naturally, B2B customers want to get it right the first time, and the seller needs to reassure them they’re making the right choice. One powerful way to gain the trust of your B2B customers is to use your web copy to showcase successful customer relationships.

For example, Xerox’s website makes it clear they’ve successfully implemented their business process and document management services with other customers. On its US home page, Xerox has the following copy:

• Xerox and Michelin: We manage Michelin’s finance processing so they can focus on keeping the world moving.
• Xerox and Virgin America: We manage Virgin America’s call centers so they have time to run America’s coolest airline.

By putting these relationships up front, Xerox’s potential customers are more likely to trust Xerox to have the capacity, expertise and desire to help them succeed.

3. Share Your Research and Forecasting

Unlike demand for B2C consumer products and services (which comes directly from consumers), demand for B2B is indirectly derived. Derived demand is based on future consumer demand, so B2B businesses need to do a lot of research and forecasting. By sharing this insight on your B2B website, you may drive more business.

Airplane manufacturer Boeing does this beautifully. Their website has loads of data and future projections for the travel industry. This data can help airlines determine if they need to order more planes now, before consumer demand for air travel increases.

4. B2B Customers Aren’t Emotionless Automatons

You often hear that B2B purchases are an emotionless decision. But we must remind ourselves that despite piles of internal policies and processes, humans ultimately make B2B buying decisions. And where there are humans, there are emotions.

So you may not be able to motivate with “limited time offer, just three days left, buy now,” but you can motivate by alleviating fears and developing trust. Employees still fear making the wrong buying decision and looking bad in front of their peers or the big, bad boss.

Microprocessor manufacturer Intel uses its web copy to reassure, support and persuade its B2B customers. On their US home page, Intel’s copy states:

• Take Amazing for a Spin. Test drive the 2nd Gen Intel Core Processor that’s right for you
• 10 Million Teachers Trained. Countless Classrooms Reinvented. Join the Celebration.
• Get the processor that’s right for you (and your business) and you’ll be amazing too.

5. Just Because It’s B2B Doesn’t Mean You Can Fill Your Copy With Jargon

Some marketers believe because their business is B2B, they can use jargon and super technical language. Keep in mind B2B purchases are made by cross-functional teams of people. These teams include some technical users, but also representatives from non-technical departments, such as purchasing or finance. So some members of the group may understand your techno-jargon copy, but some won’t.

The challenge for copywriters is to write copy that persuades all members of the purchasing team throughout the buying cycle. You can include technical specifications on drill-down pages, but you also need to include product/service benefits in clear, simple language.

Industrial equipment manufacturer Caterpillar doesn’t need jargon or technical language to explain the benefits of its new Cat 789D large mining truck. Even heavy equipment novices can understand the scrolling copy on their home page:

• “Lowest cost per ton in class”
• “Increased payload capacity”
• “Engine, tire and dump body options”

B2B sales and marketing impacts your web copy. By understanding the B2B buying process — and tailoring your web copy to it — you’ll have more business customers banging on your door.

Humour is a great way to sell. It catches people’s attention, engages them, and injects an element of humanity into otherwise static information. People love to be entertained, and if you can keep them amused while promoting your products or services, then all the better (nice job, Old Spice). What’s more, humour can be a great way to distinguish yourself from the competition (take a bow, Groupon).

But selling through humour isn’t easy. Even if your target market finds you funny, it might not translate into sales. Every time you put that arrow through your head and play the banjo, you risk ignoring or alienating part of the market. Humour is culturally, socially, even gender specific, so you need to get it right.

Four Tips for Using Humour to Sell

1. Know your target market. True for most things in marketing, but especially critical when using humour to sell: you need to know your target market. What do they find funny? What not? What special knowledge or experiences do they share?

If you know your target market very well (and have a good read on who is not your target market) you can risk ignoring and maybe even offending everyone else. The marketers of Axe hair, body and shower products have run with this approach. Judging from their advertising, their target market is males age 16-25. With this narrow niche, they don’t concern themselves with others not getting (or liking) the joke.

2. Don’t let humour get in the way. It’s one thing to be funny but another to have it benefit your business. Remember those funny ads with the sensitive cavemen? Remember what company it was for? Neither did we. (We looked it up: it was GEICO.)

How can you make sure humour doesn’t get in the way of the product? Either keep the humour subtle or make sure your product is front and centre.

For example, we recently wrote web copy for UrbanBound, a relocation service serving the Chicago area. We added little shots of humour throughout the copy — just enough to keep it light, engaging and fun to read. Humour is a subtle side note.

When humour is more upfront, you need to keep your product or service in focus. Toyota did this brilliantly in promotional videos for the Sienna wagon. Here, humour doesn’t get in the way of the product because the product is central to the story.

3. Make sure humour is appropriate for your product or service. Humour doesn’t suit all products or services. Should City Funeral Service play for laughs? (They’re not, unless “welcome veterans” is supposed to be funny.)

For some companies, humour is a natural fit. Naked Pizza, one of the fastest growing franchises in the U.S., has nice splashes of irreverent humour throughout its web copy. And with a name like Naked Pizza, humour is a great fit. In fact, without humour the name would seem pretty creepy.

Also, if you’re seeking world domination, be especially careful when considering humour as a marketing ingredient. What might be hilarious to a New Yorker might upset people in different states or countries.

4. When humour is over-the-top, limit where you use it. When your humour is controversial or over-the-top, you might not want to apply it everywhere. Domain name and web hosting service Go Daddy gets a lot of attention for their TV and print ads, featuring underdressed, over-bosomy babes. But their web copy is straight-ahead — all business. Injecting the same humour into their web copy wouldn’t inspire confidence in their services. The no-jokes copy might also help those not enamoured with Go Daddy’s approach to hold their noses and sign up anyway.

By doing a little bit of research and carefully considering your approach, humour may bring new life to your marketing and help you stand out from stodgy competitors. Now all you have to do is make us laugh.

What tips do you have for using humour to sell? Who’s doing it well? Who’s not?

Good marketers and copywriters alike know the more you understand your target audience, the better job you can do writing and delivering your message. Sure demographics help — age, location, marital status, ethnicity and religion. But you’ll have a much richer understanding of your ideal customer if you get to know their psychographics — their lifestyles, behaviors and attitudes.

In today’s insanely diverse and competitive climate, it’s good to know everything about the person you’re trying to engage:

• What turns them on
• What turns them off
• Which words catch their attention
• What keeps their attention
• What makes them tune things out

Ways to capture groups’ subjective preferences include in-person interviews, focus groups and surveys. Also, snooping around sites like Twitter and Facebook offers a quick, easy and inexpensive route to uncover streams of priceless insight.

As you gain greater awareness about your audience’s lifestyles, attitudes, beliefs, values and personalities, you’ll also better understand their buying motives and product usage. For instance, would they purchase the beautification product to look younger, attract a mate, or for general health, and would they use the beautification product at home, on trips, or only at a salon?

What Types of Psychographic Groups Are There?

There are common psychographic profiles that people fit into:

The Belonger — Family-orientated, and likes the feeling of belonging to a community. Much of their time is spent with friends and family. The way to tap into this group is to build rapport within their communities.

The Achiever — Mostly businesspeople (such as bankers and managers), who work long hours, but are always looking for more success. They are independent and respond well to individuality, power, money and profit.

The Wannabe — They strive to be an Achiever, but have yet to fit this profile. Most of the products they buy are knock-offs of those owned by the Achiever (think counterfeit sunglasses or watches). Wannabes can be insecure with a small amount of disposable income.

The Socially Conscious — They are concerned about the environment and the effect their spending has on it. This group recycles frequently, walks and cycles, and, not surprisingly, buys environmentally friendly products.

The Balanced — A combination of the Achiever and the Socially Conscious, the Balanced want to use their money and power to do something positive for the environment. They avoid purchasing products and services that exploit workers in poor countries.

The Needs Driven — They tend to be impulse buyers. You can often reach this group by appealing to their fear of being inadequate (consider late night shopping channels: “Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”).

Use Psychographics to Build the Right Message

The more you know about your target audiences, the more you’ll understand how they spend their money — and the better equipped you’ll be to fine-tune your marketing.

For additional information, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychographic
http://www.northcrossing.com/PsychographicMarketing.html

That depends… does your website contain quality content? Google’s latest algorithm change, which they are calling significant compared to the ongoing subtle changes, will impact 11.8% of search queries. What kind of impact? Essentially, high-quality content will be rewarded with higher rankings, while websites with low-quality content will plummet, and in some cases, disappear from search results. Even websites containing predominantly good content can be hurt by a few bad pages. Ouch!

So, what determines whether or not your site contains ‘good content’? Isn’t that somewhat subjective? Without giving away any of those precious algorithm secrets coveted by many a web marketing nerd, Google outlined the criteria on which the new algorithm is based. The long list can be boiled down into these  points:

• Is the content original, thorough, insightful and written by an expert, or is it shallow fluff?
• Does the site contain duplicate content, even very similar content with different keyword variations?
• Are there any grammatical, stylistic or factual errors?
• Is the content created based on reader interest or high-ranking search terms?
• Does the site offer trustworthy advice and secure credit card processing?
• Would you bookmark, recommend or share the content?
• Do excessive ads distract from the main content?

Aside from suggesting you pay attention to the above criteria when developing new content, Google also recommends removing any existing content that could be deemed low quality by these standards.

The Big Picture

Essentially this algorithm change is good news for good copywriters, white hat SEO experts and the smart business folks who hire them. It’s bad news for people who try to cut corners and trick search engines into driving traffic with fluffy, keyword-stuffed content that doesn’t consider the reader.

Now, more than ever, good, customer-centric content is king, and farming less than stellar content with little or no effort in order to drive traffic is becoming a rejected practice. Writing for the site visitor is taking an even bigger role over writing for search engines (according to a search engine, ironically).

The main concern with this update, however, is that well-meaning websites that contain good content for the most part could still be negatively affected should Google detect even a small amount of what the algorithm registers as bad content.

Can Your Site Be Affected?

If you’re concerned your site could be affected by the algorithm change and are confused about the criteria, you could submit your site for review by a web copywriter or other web marketing specialist. A professional copywriter, especially one who’s familiar with ethical SEO practices, can spot bad content a mile away, and even offer suggestions for improvement.

If you’re starting a website for your business from scratch, working with SEO specialists can help you get started right, and reduce your chances of low rankings.

Aside from hiring professionals, these general guidelines should also improve your chances of achieving higher rankings:

• Spend a little extra time planning, researching and writing your blog posts or articles. If you don’t have the time, approach experts in your field to write guest articles.
• Avoid the money-saving temptation of outsourcing to spammy, low-cost service providers, which greatly increases the chances of populating your site with grammatically incorrect, typo-riddled, low quality content.
• Don’t hire ‘black hat’ SEO companies, who often employ unethical and spammy techniques, which did work at one point, but can get your site blacklisted (essentially removing it from search results) now more than ever.
• If you’re writing your own content — edit, edit, edit! And then edit some more and have colleagues proofread it for you to prevent typos and errors from slipping by.
• If you’re including keywords in your content for search engine optimization, ensure they fit logically, and in a way that makes sense to the reader. Don’t force it or overdo it.
• Check your facts and support your claims.
• If you’ve got an online store, ensure your e-commerce system is trusted and secure.

Quality Over Quantity

From what Google has communicated regarding this latest algorithm change, it’s evident they’re moving toward offering greater rewards for genuine, user-centric, thoughtful and technically flawless content. If you haven’t already, it’s probably wise to take our Google overlords’ lead.

Are you happy with the Panda update? Share your thoughts below.

Some companies post fluff on the web as a marketing strategy. We’ve all seen it: “helpful” articles written without the benefit of a decent encyclopedia by writers paid pennies per post. Until recently, Google’s preference for content-heavy sites rewarded these content farms with improved search rankings.

In February, Google took steps to downgrade the search rankings of high volume, low quality sites by making a significant adjustment to it’s algorithm. In April, Google expanded its algorithm change from just U.S. sites to all English-language sites. By some estimates, visibility of some of these sites fell as much as 94% after Google’s initial adjustment.

But fluff isn’t just limited to content farms. Could your site get caught in Google’s fluff reduction efforts? How much of your website is fluff?

The Webcopyplus Fluff Quiz

Take our quiz to see if your site is fluffy or fantastic. Rank your level of agreement with each statement below, then tally your points and read our assessment. Good luck!

1. Our main website priority is search engine optimization.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Unless your target market runs on a chip and looks like the Tin Man, your priority should be human visitors first, and search engines second.

By letting SEO drive your web content, you are creating fluff. It is better to write for your target market first (i.e. some subset of the human race) and then amend as needed to maximize SEO without sacrificing your human audience. SEO tactics may improve your ranking, but people still need to view the site.

2. We like to see what keywords people are searching for and then come up with content to match.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

And that new content is typically fluff.

Creating content based on popular searches might direct traffic your way, but it’s not going to help your conversion rates. It’s fine to amend your content to utilize hot keywords, but only if the keywords are a natural fit for your site. Content driven by keywords not relevant to your site is a recipe for fluff.

3. We sometimes repeat content on our website to maximize keywords.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Repeated content is fluffy content. Repeated content is fluffy content. It irritates the reader. It irritates the reader.

Create your best content and put it on your site once. It disorientates the reader to find the same information in different locations on your site. If you find you need to put the same information in two places, then you need to take closer look at your site architecture.

4.  We sometimes add extra paragraphs or web pages to improve our search engine ranking.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Snore. Oh, sorry. What were you writing there? It was so deathly boring I nodded off.

Never create content just for the sake of creating content. It’s lazy, unimaginative, bores your readers, and makes your brand look bad.

5. When we need to add more content to our site, we randomly link another page or two to our sitemap.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

Building a website is like building a home: You need a good plan. You don’t want to rip down walls or build lean-tos in your backyard every time you want to make a change.

If your site architecture is well-planned, it should be scalable, both up and down. It also makes it easier to see where more content is needed and where it is not. If you have one-pagers hanging off your root folder, you may have a fluff infestation.

If your site architecture is a problem, consider whether:

6. We developed our website as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

If you assigned the design, development, and content of your site to a junior assistant, you have fluff. If your web developer scribbled your site plan on pages torn from the back of a Tom Clancy novel, you have fluff. If you acquired a writer with promises of portfolio development and pizza, then you have fluff.

A strong team of professional designers, developers and copywriters can help make sure your website meets your goals while keeping fluff to a minimum.

Fluff is cheap. But it may end up costing you more than you know.

7. If we create an interesting table, list or graph for a presentation, we also like to post it on our website.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

That’s about as appealing as belly button fluff!

Repurposing content is fine. It can be a time-effective way to keep your web content fresh. But you must present all content in context. Don’t post pretty tables, lists, graphs or illustrations without explaining what they are and why people should care. Otherwise: fluff.

8. There is nothing we enjoy more than auto-generating content or scraping content from other sites.

Strongly Disagree (1)     Disagree (2)     Undecided (3)     Agree (4)     Strongly Agree (5)

You need a fluff intervention, my friend. These black hat activities will generate fluff and a Google delisting. Can jail time be far behind?

No need to calculate your score. Delete that website and return to question one.

Scoring

Add up your score and see how you did:

If you scored 8-15:
Congratulations, you are officially fluff-free! Your content is relevant, topical and useful to readers.

If you scored 16-23:
Your website is a little soft and chubby. Time to bring out your inner-editor and start editing.

If you scored 24-31:
You have more fluff than the corporate headquarters of Build-a-Bear. Time for some serious website reworking. Start deleting pages and sections, and think about revising your site architecture.

If you scored 32-40:
Call the fluff exterminators! It’s a fluff swarm of biblical proportions. You can either delete the site and start over, or translate the entire site into Swahili. It might keep you safe until Google expands its algorithmic adjustment to non-English sites, but don’t expect the people of East Africa to be grateful.

FAQs are questions your website visitors and customers frequently ask. But sometimes you need to ask yourself: “Why do they keep asking these same questions?”

The answer could mean there are problems with your website content. What message are you not getting across? What information do people often have problems finding?

Some argue that FAQs are completely unnecessary if you’ve got the right web content. Ideally, your website visitors should be able to find information they need right away, which would prevent them from asking further questions. However, FAQs can serve a purpose if done right.

When FAQs Go Wrong

A recent survey of a person sitting in the same room as myself at this very moment revealed the following poignant insights:

Jill: “What are you doing?”
Me: “Writing an article about FAQs”
Jill: “Ugh, I hate those things!”
Me: “Really? Why do you hate them, Jill?”
Jill: “They’re so wordy! The questions I need answered are never there. Maybe it’s just that no one else wants to know what I want to know.”

While Jill is certainly no web content expert, her comments illustrate some common problems experienced by average website visitors regarding FAQ pages:

• They’re too lengthy and don’t answer questions quickly
• They miss the mark regarding your web visitors’ desires
• They alienate your visitors

Another common mistake happens when people use their FAQ page as a sales opportunity. Notable usability expert Jakob Nielsen believes your FAQ page should never be an excuse to post questions you wish your visitors would ask. For example, “Why is your company so awesome?” answered with, “We’re the best at everything because…” If you are doing this, then consider your FAQ page a waste of valuable Internet space. You could be using that space to show your website visitors you actually care about them by answering their real questions.

When FAQs Go Right

Even when your web content covers everything your site visitor needs to know, an FAQ page can be beneficial if done correctly. Here are some reasons why you might want to keep your FAQ page:

• An FAQ page presents an opportunity to add more keywords to your website, which is great for getting you noticed by search engines.
• If your site visitors are short on time, they can find quick answers to their questions on your FAQ page.
• If you’ve researched your FAQs well, they can demonstrate your knowledge of your visitors’ needs.

With all of this in mind, you’re now ready to develop the content for your FAQ page. What’s the best way to go about that? Like the other content on your site your FAQs should be:

• Scannable: The visitor likely came to the FAQ page with a specific question in mind, so make it easy for them to find it by breaking questions into sections and categorizing them with bold headlines.
• Concise: Perhaps even more so than the rest of your website, your FAQ answers should get to the point immediately. Your visitor wants to find their question, find the answer, and then move on. It’s not a place to tell stories or wax poetics. Additionally, if you think the question could be answered elsewhere on your site, add the appropriate content there, instead.
• Customer-centric: As with your other web content, speak directly to your customer. Find out the questions they really want answered. How can you do this? Monitor customer service calls, emails, and all other customer communication channels to discover the questions being frequently asked.

By conducting thoughtful research surrounding your visitor FAQs, you’ll not only be armed with the tools to build an effective FAQ page, but you’ll also gain insight on how you can serve your customers better, and improve your web content overall. For more on how to improve your web content, check out How to KISS When Your Web Content Isn’t Short and Simple.

Did you forego your venti half-sweet hazelnut soy latte habit to experiment with a pay-per-click ad campaign this month? We’re offering some tips to help you get started, so you can sleep tight knowing you didn’t renounce your coffee princess throne for nothing.

The Facebook Ad

Buying Facebook ads is a great way to reach the 90% of the population that are wasting 85% of their work day checking out Becky from high school’s baby bump photos (exact percentages TBD).

Some great features of Facebook ads: You can pick whom your ads are targeting, specify the amount you’re willing to pay per click, and monitor your campaign’s effectiveness with the insights function.

Here are some general guidelines to help you get started:

Facebook ads only allow 25 characters per headline and 135 for content, so think carefully about both the image and copy. As the copy is limited, a strong image is ideal to help illustrate the benefits of your product or service. Make sure it’s recognizable. If you’re a relatively new company with lower brand recognition, it’s probably best to go with an image other than your logo.

In terms of the text, think of your Facebook ad as a quick call to action. There’s not enough room to capture everything that’s great about what you’re selling, but you can certainly pique interest and encourage a click-through for more information. Keep it concise, persuasive and benefit-centric.  Try highlighting your unique selling proposition and make it snappy.

Ensure your messaging is consistent wherever the visitor lands after clicking, whether it’s your Facebook page or a landing page on your website. For example, if you’re promoting a particular deal you’re offering, make sure the click-through leads to a page that includes more information about said deal. Otherwise, the clicker will become confused and your chances of losing them will increase.

You may want to consider using your ad to promote a special Facebook-only discount, which will also allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Facebook suggests making any special offers easy to find on the corresponding landing page.

Optimize your ad for your desired audience. While developing your Facebook ad, you’re given the opportunity to highlight keywords that you believe your target audience will list in their interests.  These words don’t necessarily have to be included in your content, but they help Facebook direct your ad to the appropriate eyeballs.  For example, if you’re advertising your web design services, you might want to target people who list “web marketing” in their interests.

Bad

Whoever wrote this Seventh Generation Facebook ad should probably just spray some of their cleaning products on their marketing budget and use it to wipe down the bathroom.  Do you care whether they’re “committed to being the most trusted brand of household and personal-care products for your living home”? Are you remotely compelled to click? Personally, I’m trying to wrap my head around my home having a pulse. They should have at least highlighted their main selling point – that their products are environmentally friendly.

Good

Whoever wrote this ad for Café Crepe deserves a free pitcher of beer.  Although the business is called “Café Crepe,” the ad copy tells us they serve more than just crepes.  On top of that, they’re offering a great deal on a burger and fries, and a pitcher of beer.  Plus, they used the magic word “FREE.”

Google AdWords

Google ads are great since they’re not limited to one social network. Although the headline also has a 25-character limit, the Google ad differs from the Facebook ad in several ways.

• No images or colour allowed
• 35 characters per text row (four rows allowed in total, including your URL and headline)
• You can optimize it with keywords

Since there is no visual aid, the words in your Google ad are even more important for delivering your brand message.  As with Facebook ads, ensure your Google ad content conveys your product or service’s most attractive benefits, and that it relates to the content on your landing page.

You can use the Google Keyword Tool to find appropriate keywords to use in your ad, and as with other web copywriting, ensure that the placement of keywords for search engine optimization doesn’t compromise the logic of your content.  Remember – you’re writing for both search engines AND people, who will ideally click through your ad and interact with your brand.

The fact that you can include your URL, and that it can be modified to whatever you wish, as long as the domain remains the same, is another opportunity to use text wisely in your Google ad. For example, if Webcopyplus ran an ad that promoted our white paper writing services, we might make the URL www.webcopyplus.com/WhitePapers.

What a Google Ad Looks Like

These ads are all customer and benefit-centric, although the last one is a bit yawn-worthy.

As with other PPC ads, you can run different ads and switch up certain elements to see which works better. Try different headlines, promotional offers, calls to action and display URLs, let them run for a while, and use the click-through data to determine which works best for future use. You might be surprised at what switching one word here and there will do for your click-through rates. Of course, starting with a solid foundation can help you save money in your testing.

The Landing Page

The landing page is an equally important component of your campaign. A great one helps you reduce your PPC costs by boosting conversions. For example, someone clicks on your ad, which leads them to the landing page that, if well done, will get the clicker to do what you want them to do — sign up for your newsletter, submit their email address for lead follow up, complete a transaction, or what have you.

Landing page content is easy to test for effectiveness. Using methods such as A/B testing (running two different landing pages at once) allows you to try different copy and see what works best.

More points for writing a great landing page that makes click-throughs worthwhile:

• Ensure the copy relates to the corresponding ad in tone and content
• Deliver the important information up front, preferably before the fold (where the visitor must start scrolling down)
• Make the call to action strong and straightforward, with a boldly designed button or form, so there’s no mistake about what you want the visitor to do
• Keep it simple and focused on getting the visitor to complete the desired task
• Keep links to a minimum, since these are distractions from your goal
• Keep the copy customer-centric – don’t talk about your company, but what it can do for ‘you’ (your prospect)

Bad

Leads to…

… which then leads you to confirm your city (hasn’t this already been established as Vancouver?), then enter your email address to see today’s deal. There is no mention of how doing these things will help you cross things off your bucket list (and what is up with that image in the Facebook ad?!) Not to mention, if you know anything about Groupon, the deals certainly don’t often have much to do with life-changing activities or events. I don’t know about you, but my bucket list doesn’t include getting 50% off my next bikini wax (p.s. there are some things you should never buy at discounted rates.)

Good

Leads to…

The Facebook ad copy directly relates to the landing page content, which gets to the point quickly, before you need to scroll down. You’re given two easy contact options – a phone number or a form to get more information. You’re told exactly what the program is and how it will train you. And there’s that magic word “FREE” again. Nice!

For more on how design and copy can work together for a killer landing page, check out Formstack’s tips. Need help with your PPC ad or Landing page copy? Check out How to Find the Right Tone for Your Web Copy.

Dear business owner,

We know vision, mission and value statements make you feel warm and fuzzy. They may even make a few of your keenest employees feel giddy. But inflicting them on your website visitors is cruel, and it’s time to put a stop this sleep-inducing torture.

To be sure: a mission statement is important for guiding your business direction and every decision you make. But that doesn’t mean it belongs on your website. In fact, putting your vision, mission and values on your About Us page is just a waste of valuable Internet real estate.

Copywriting, for your website especially, is all about delivering information your customers want as quickly as possible. Prospects come to your website looking for information on your products or services, the benefits you offer, and reasons to choose you over the competition. So your web copy should speak directly to these points, and deliver them right away.

The way a mission statement is written is almost in direct opposition to this goal. Mission statements often feature flowery, idealistic language that doesn’t talk about what your company really does, but rather, the principles that guide your day-to-day operations. On top of that, the language is often ‘we’ (company) centric rather than ‘you’ (customer) centric, which is proven ineffective in copywriting. For example:

(Any idea which company’s website this mission statement belongs to? No? That’s not good.)

When considering the appropriate content for your website, ask yourself: “Do my prospects want to read that I am committed to providing outstanding customer service?” That statement is vague at best, and anyone can make that claim and still be crappy at customer service. Real proof of this claim, such as mention of an actual customer service award or percentage of satisfied customers revealed in a survey, would be much more convincing.

Replacing the Mission Statement

So what kind of information should you include in your About Us page? Mostly, it should be real facts about your company that demonstrate your experience and skill — things that a customer wants to know when deciding whether you’re worthy of his or her hard-earned dollars. It shouldn’t be about the ideals that guide most businesses. It should literally be about your company, and the unique features that make it great.

Better than a mission statement:

• How long you have been in business
• The professional experience of your management team
• The kind of customers you’ve worked with over the years
• Any awards you’ve received (that speak to customer desires)
• Links to other pages of your site that offer more information on your products and services
• Contact information or a link to your Contact Us page
• Any other unique facts about your business that demonstrate your sheer awesomeness

Moving Forward

If you’re a designer, web marketer, or business owner establishing a website or refreshing one, please ditch the mission statement and replace it with something worthwhile. Your mission statement belongs in your business plan, in the back of your mind, or framed prominently in the boardroom. On your website — it’s ineffective, space-wasting filler.

(In case you’re wondering, the mission statement above belongs to Coca Cola.)

Content and design. Written communications and visual communications. When it comes to creating winning websites, which plays a more important role? Our web copywriters reached out to six experienced agency professionals from the US, Canada and England to get their take.

Web content or design — which is more important?

James Archer
Managing Director, Forty

“At Forty, we view words and visuals as inseparably intertwined; they’re just different manifestations of the same message.

“We always assign both a writer and a designer to every project, and our brand strategy work always includes both verbal and visual direction.

“Ultimately, the viewer doesn’t distinguish between the visual design and the verbal message of a piece. They take in the overall experience, and they remember (or don’t) based on what they feel.

“Because we take the approach of focusing on the overall experience rather than a ‘words first’ or ‘design first’ approach, we find it works best when designers and writers work side by side. Not always possible, but certainly the ideal.”

Follow James @jamesarcher

William A. Beachy
President, Go Media Inc.

“When I was in college, there were two bulletin boards in the lobby of my dorm. The first bulletin board was maintained by the resident advisers and was intended for all of the residents. It was a colorful explosion of photos, event fliers, clip-art, logos and decorative trim. Just to the left of that was the second bulletin board; maintained and intended for the engineering club. On it were plain white 8.5×11 sheets of paper with single-spaced black type neatly hung in a perfect grid. There wasn’t a single image, color or graphical element anywhere on the engineers’ bulletin board.

“So, which one was the superior bulletin board? Well, my answer, as it relates to this question of content versus design is — it depends. It depends who your audience is. It depends what your content is. In this specific case, the engineers’ bulletin board was superior — for the engineers, and probably nobody else. As with any website development project, you have to start with understanding the user. And to use this oft quoted design axiom: form follows function. You have to know what the purpose of the site is. Only then can you possibly answer the question of what’s more important.”

Follow William @william_beachy

Christina Calderon
Creative Director, JB Chicago

“I believe that there should be a perfect marriage between function and form. As a visual person, I am naturally drawn to websites that look good, but as a Creative Director I fully understand the value in content and the written language. Words bring clarity and act as the persuasive element to a message.

“Ideally, there should be a call to action and sense of urgency wrapped around a good, compelling design in order to engage and move the consumer, so any good ad contains a combination of the two. The story that is told through visual means is reinforced by the copy — the tagline seals the deal.”

Follow Christina @cryandesign

Jason Hamilton
Director, Digital Marketing, Acart Communications

“If, by design, we are referring to the visual look and feel of a site, and, by content, we are referring to the information that resides on the site, then content wins hands down.

“When someone visits your website, blog or Facebook page, they do not visit to stare in awe of your beautiful design; they visit for one reason: they have a problem that needs solving. Whether that problem is where to find the lowest gas prices, how to measure social media, or discover Charlie Sheen’s latest crazy stunt, they are looking for an answer. Knowing what your audience is looking for and creating quality content around that is the key to effective Web communications.

“Content is not, and should not be, restricted to the written word; video, audio, and infographics are increasingly popular and should be part of any effective content strategy.

“I am not saying that visual design is not important. It is, because effective design supports and enhances (not dictates) content, whereas quality content inspires and guides design.

“Look at Wikipedia, Craigslist, and Google — three of the most successful websites in the world — and ask yourself why you return to these sites?”

Follow Jason @acartcomm

Ben Harris
Managing Director, New Brand Vision Group

“When it comes to the creation of quality website design, text and images should not be thought of in isolation, as a healthy balance of both content and visual communications is essential for a successful approach.

“To begin with, part of your audience will be more visual, while others will respond more proactively to information, and it is therefore vital that you communicate to both sets of audiences.

“It is also important to recognize that content and visuals provide two slightly different functions on a website. Inviting branding will make your website more appealing and memorable, while the right content will demonstrate thought leadership and improve search engine rankings.

“Bold, attractive visuals are what initially attract a user’s attention; while quality content will draw that user into a deeper level of engagement.

“This psychological understanding of user behaviour is critical to a websites success, and must be addressed in the early stages of the planning process. Knowing where to use content and where to use visuals, and how to effectively blend the two is the key to achieving both aesthetic and ergonomic success with your website design.”

Follow Ben @NewBrandVision

Cynthia Passanante
Director, Design & UI, TRAFFIQ, and Blogger, CMYKaboom

“Can you compare a car to its driver? Likewise, to compare design and content is an irrational exercise, as they each serve unique, vital functions in the digital landscape. When used properly, they are two assets that work in tandem to create a holistic, sublime experience, not forces vying for significance.

“Within the industry the phrase, ‘content is king’ is thrown around a great deal. I would position it more as a lesser duke. The goal of a successful site is not only to deliver unique content, but to do so in a way that is intuitive and accessible to the end user. Design is imperative to accomplish this task. It is the vehicle that drives content to the user — without one, the other invariably falters.

“Don’t believe me? I propose an experiment — take your best content, and type it out in black text on a site with a black background. Granted, this is a rather heavy-handed example, but one that summarizes the subtler problem found on countless websites: no matter how sexy the material, if the interface does not offer ease of discovery then the content will rot on the vine, search engine or no search engine.

“The king is dead. Long live the diarchy!”

Follow Cynthia @CMYKaboom

What’s your take on website content versus design?