Marketing Trenches

Some companies call it Current News.  Others call it Company News.  Still others call it Latest News.  That part doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that you keep the content updated, relevant and consistent for your website visitors.

To further clarify, what I am referring to is the section of a corporate website that contains company news, sometimes in the form of press releases, sometimes in the form of articles in which the company was included, sometimes (hopefully) both.  I visited the website of a prospective software client today, and for the umpteenth time I discovered a newsroom filled with press releases and articles from 2006.  While there are a number of problems with this, I’ll try to sum it up briefly. 

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Clients and agencies frequently ask me about how I’d structure an internal internet marketing department.  Clients typically ask because as they see their internet marketing programs expanding, they naturally begin to wonder if they can save money and take more control by bringing the entire function in-house.  Agencies typically ask because they see client dollars shifting at a rapid clip towards the internet, and they naturally begin to wonder whether they can create a new revenue stream within the agency.

No easy answers here.  Factors include company type, size, industry, budget, existing leadership, financial goals, etc.  It goes without saying that every situation is unique.  Over the next few months I’ll provide some deeper insight into the topic, but here are two initial pieces of guidance:

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Raise your hand if your website redesign or relaunch has been delayed due to website copy modifications, or specifically the idea that 2-3 members of your senior management team need to review site copy before it goes live. 

Based on experience, I am certain there are a bunch of you with your hands raised.  4 of every 5 website projects I’ve been involved in veer off track due to delays in the copy approval/revision process, not necessarily the copywriting process (although the initial copywriting phase is a delay candidate as well).

Why so many cooks in the kitchen, you might ask?  From what I can gather, the reasons are fairly simple.  In a mid-size organization, a Director or Manager level employee “owns” the website project, and may even have a webmaster or marketing manager as a “co-owner”.  Then you insert 1-3 members of the senior management team, all of whom (rightfully so) hold a stake in the success of the website.  Those members of the senior management team may be involved in the early phases of the website revamp process - they want to sign off on final design, general site structure, etc.  But what they REALLY want to get involved in is the copywriting of the website, or at least the critique of copywriting piece of the website.

Right or wrong (and senior management getting involved in copywriting is not necessarily a bad thing), here’s why senior management wants to get involved, and why it always causes delays:

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I’ve always said that writing ad copy for pay-per-click ads, particularly for Google AdWords, is an extremely challenging task.  Here’s why:

• Google gives you what seems like 10 characters in which to fit your entire marketing message.  OK, I am exaggerating, but most marketers and copywriters are long-winded folks by nature, so restricting us to somewhere in the range of 100 characters is tough. 
• As opposed to a print ad or radio spot where writers and creative folks are able to express concepts with supporting visuals or audio cues, the typical ppc ad is relatively lifeless.
• Your ads appear right above or under ads from 3-20 of your closest competitors, depending on your category.  Not exactly exclusive territory.
• If you’ve designed your ppc campaign well, you’re controlling which ad copy is appearing under individual keywords.  That being said, even knowing which keywords a search engine user is searching for does not mean the writer knows the search engine user’s ultimate goal of searching.

OK, OK.  I’ll stop giving copywriters and PPC professionals a reason to ask for a raise, and instead focus on a real-life example of solid ad copywriting.  I was recently searching for a plumbing/heating company to repair our water heater, and realized that we’ve never really liked any of the plumbers we’ve used.  Without much time to ask for any referrals from friends/neighboors, I did what most folks do these days - I googled it. 

To protect the innocent, I am going to remove the actual geographic descriptors and company names from the remainder of this post.  Here’s how the next steps unfolded:

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