Digital Marketing Archives

Write Product Descriptions with Verve!

February 18, 2014 By Tracee Loftus

When you write product descriptions for your new website, the following four tips could be followed as a template to be sure you are in the correct ballpark:

1) Focus should be on the ideal client – describe who it is that is the highest value buyer for this product.

~ Does your ideal buyer have a sense of humor? Can we use humor with this product?

~ What is your ideal buyers vocabulary like?

~ Are their words the buyer gets turned off by?

2) Spell out the Benefits – as you write product descriptions, translate the boring technical specification into something your ideal buyer wants to experience.

~ How will your buyer’s life be enhanced by this product?

~ Will more women be attracted to him?

~ Will the mom feel like she has everything in control?

~ Do not use descriptions that are the same for every product (within the company nor competitive products).

Be specific when describing benefits. If a superlative is used, it should be justified. Continue on to explain why this product is AWESOME! Practice using power words in adjectives versus generic ones.

3) Some products lend themselves to a wide berth in imaginative scenarios as the product’s use or experience is described.

See yourself in the Amazon jungle, snakes and mosquitoes bearing down around your sweat-drenched neck as you are hacking the vines away to clear your path. Use this soothing scented lotion and before you realize why, you will have forgotten all about the trail of hissing and buzzing as you made it to the other side of the jungle into the clearing.

Or, tell a story about the creator of the product. Who inspired the product and why. Then without being blatant, tell why a buyer might identify with the creator. For example, this product was not tested on animals because we know you love those little white bunnies as much as we do.

4) Lastly, the ideal buyer should be able to make it through the product description quickly without being bogged down by actually having to read and read and read! The copy should be laid out in a way so that the reader can scan, focus on which information they think it the most important. Font size, white space, bullet points and headlines all lend a hand in this easy readability effort.

Remember, focus on your ideal client or buyer. This about how they want to receive information. Allow the reader to discover the information they are looking for packaged as benefits and/or as the storyline of the product or manufacturer. Be creative with scenarios and descriptive words and explanations.

Content Marketing is Essential!

February 6, 2014 By Tracee Loftus

Content Marketing is essential to any internet marketing strategy in this free-flow of information frenzied environment. Ages ago my mom told me a story of getting a job in a delicatessen and the heavy set, accented supervisor continuously insisted upon her, “Speed is Essential”! In these search engine marketing days, “Content is Essential”!

Content marketing includes more than just a written blog article or home page blurb about your company. There are so many uses for video content, picture or photo content, infographics (like the one below), white papers – or PDF’s that talk in depth about a certain topic, DIY guides, case studies, slide presentations, specific landing pages for targeted campaigns and much more. All of these content opportunities provide valuable resources to the user or reader. Once it is found to be valuable, natural linking will occur.

The fundamentals to making your content valuable is through making it useful, interactive, relatable (relevant, applicable) and having some emotional impact. Another perspective is to write with your character – focus on the key characters that make up the author and the company. Some of these might be honesty, integrity, professionalism, hard-working, unstoppable, creative, etc.

When writing or designing these content marketing assets, allow the writing to flow organically so the target keywords happen naturally in the copy. Basically, content marketing’s altruistic use is to inform the public; to help a seeker find the answer for which they are looking. However, providing great content is also very useful in search engine optimization (SEO). Strive to accomplish both. We all love a win-win! Also, don’t forget to sprinkle a call to action every now and then. After all, this is the real purpose of the content – to engage the reader in an influential way so they will consider moving to customer.

Finally, always return back to measurements to see that you content marketing is on the right path. Go to your analytics to prove you are finding the right people, that your branding is working, your message is valuable, interesting and engaging. Finally, make adjustments as necessary and repeat the process.

content marketing infographic — Infographic posted on ezedia.com

8 Digital Marketers share tips for 2014

January 21, 2014 By Tracee Loftus

Video interview from ClickZ (by Melanie White). Nothing seems new here (this year) – all about social, data and telling a brand story. See the full video here.

1) John Costello, Dunkin Donuts, “I think this year marketers should really focus on differentiation – why should our customers choose us over everyone else? And, understanding digital, social and your Return on Investment (ROI).

2) Michael Goodman, Campell Soup, “You have to put the consumer first (not just doing social, digital) but being aware what the consumer is interested in, being relevant and having the conversation consumer wants to have not wanted the business owner wants them to have

3) Nancy Newman, Buzzfeed, “Have to go social and mobile has to be a big part of it.”

4) Mari Kim Novak, Ad Club of New York, “I think data is big – understanding the data you have. Understand consumers in a more focused way to give consumers what they want. Data allows us to be better marketers, better storytellers and really bring the brand story to life.”

5) Camille Hackney, Atlantic Records, “Understand how to best use entertainment and celebrity to connect their brand with the consumer.”

6) Matt Weiss, Havas Worldwide. “Same thing people should be thinking about since the beginning of time when it comes to communications; great storytelling, great content that engages your consumers and then translating it so it is meaningful to them in places where they interact and hopefully share.

7) Alvin Bowles, Grab Media, “Most brands should be focused on their connection to their consumers from a really engaging perspective using video, mobile and in contextual relevance – it is really about having a personal conversation with consumers directly to be able to engage individuals in order to attract purchase intent.”

8) Barry Frey, Digital Place-Based Advertising Association, “Marketers should be focused on analytics – in addition to keeping the unity component. We need to keep the ability to craft and tell a story. The story is what connects people – and the data and automation can measure that – a great mix of humanity and automation.”