eMarketing Blog

By: Samantha Sherwin

Most of the time we write copy focused on a company and product and not on the customer.  Providing information, the customer needs to know, to make a decision isn’t hard, but it requires one to think.  A great approach for selling to the customer is to help the customer make a decision to buy.  Holly Buchanan, a sought after copywriter and marketing consultant, shared information and tips on how to avoid clichés and write for different customer personas along with how to effectively write for the web.

Holly mentioned that your company needs to have a Unique Value Proposition (UVP).  Get specific with your UVP, answer questions like: who are you?, what do you do?, who is your target market?, what’s the problem you solve?, and why should someone do business with you and not a competitor?  When writing your UVP use what Holly calls the “Which Means” test.  It’s a way to help drill down to specific values. 

Example: “Great customer service” is a cliche everyone uses.  How does your company exhibit great customer service?  Is it the training method and years of experience?  Dig down deep and pull forward the value of your company so that you stand out.

Holly also talked about writing for different persona types that visit your website and the appropriate vocabulary that should be used for each one.  The four persona types are competitive, spontaneous, methodical and humanistic.  When writing for each of these persona’s here are some words to think about using.

Competitive: direct, achieve, imagine, knowledgeable, innovative

Spontaneous: explore, fast, now, choose, easy

Methodical: organize, how to, efficient, plan, prepared

Humanistic: caring, share, concern, connect, believe

Get together with your sales team and find out who your customers are.  The sales teams are the ones who are having the conversations with customers and know what the frequently asked questions are.  Use that information to write copy that addresses their FAQ’s and the problems that your customers are having.

Holly did an excellent job presenting her information; she included the audience in exercises and helped them drill down to specifics.  She even took the time to review some of the company websites and give them tips on how to improve them. Based on the feedback from the seminar, creating a UVP and using the “Which Means” test, were the two tips that people were going to use.

Other tips that the attendees found helpful were:

• Remove cliché’s.
• Address the four persona types.
• Collect testimonials from customers.

“Wonderful! Very informative. Like the suggestions and how to take action now.  Examples were very helpful. Thank you!”
-Megan Fellows

“The entire presentation was very “how to” oriented.  The content was explained in a manner that not only talked about the why, but showed you what and how to do it in as a specific manner as possible.”
-Erica DeWolf

“I wanted to say how much I enjoyed your program today.  Holly was excellent and it's clear you work well together.  I've taken many Continuing Ed  and other short courses over the years, but none better.  I'm looking forward to taking the SEO course.”
-Dan Hill

Check out our Facebook page to see photos and comments from the Writing for the Web Workshop.