“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”
- Seth Godin
Strategic copy for a brand shift
In 2004, my clients opened a small shop with the mission to bring hand-crafted artisanal European cabinetry to the San Francisco Peninsula. Their concept was quickly embraced by a devoted community and, in time, they saw the opportunity to expand into custom home remodeling and trade partnerships. They approached me with the task to work in tandem with their web designer to create a compelling narrative to introduce their new service offerings. But how do we tell the story of a brand pivot from hand-crafted, artisan-built kitchens to whole home remodeling in a way that conjures a rich sensory experience?
Scope:
I was tasked to create:
Approximately 10 pages of website copy that considers the user journey, their anticipated questions and hesitations, and leads them to a sales call.
A welcome email series for newsletter subscribers. Five emails in total.
An email series for new additions to their tradesperson email list. Five emails in total.
This begins with a “nice to meet you” email and leads them to explore a partnership together.
I’m fearless. Give me all your goals—I’m excited to exceed them!
In my client’s words:
“Marketing, as a whole, was stagnant. Not much had changed in years. The biggest problem is that we have not done much in terms of appealing to other customer types.”
Research:
The first step in any copywriting process is to start with research and a strong cup of tea. I interviewed the company leadership closely to identify and prioritize their business goals. This included understanding the product and service offerings and the current and intended customer journey. Tell me what happens when I submit an inquiry about your remodeling services? I observed, took notes, asked questions, took more notes, and drank a lot of tea. I compared this data with customer feedback to see where business goals were being met and, if not, why. What story is the brand already telling without using words?
Copywriting is really just user experience set to words.
I drilled down to understand the typical and ideal customers and what their main motivations were to work with my client.
Discoveries:
Many of their typical clients are first-generation residents of the US who seek an international flair in their homes.
Their typical and ideal clients share a love of high-quality craftsmanship. They’re willing to sacrifice timeline for exquisite design.
They all drive luxury European cars.
They’re highly-driven perfectionists.
Their home life must be serene.
They will spend more to avoid hassle.
They love to entertain and desire an impressive home.
They fear communication issues throughout their project.
Copy sprints:
Anne Lamott used the term Shitty First Draft (SFD) to describe her workflow. It’s important to start writing even if you don’t think you have the best content flowing at the moment. This is why I love design and copy sprints. Get all the words out—create a SFD—and then begin sculpting beautiful copy during the editing process. Keep your mind actively creating.
That was my approach during the initial strategizing, brainstorming, and copywriting for this project.
I started by arranging the customer experience into a nice, neat timeline. What happens first and then at each step until the project is complete? What are the customer’s goals at each step of the way? At what point do they face a fear or hesitation? What would they be delighted to find at each step? Does this align with the established business goals?
Storyboarding:
I took this data and wrote a storyboard narrative that prioritized customer needs and addressed potential trigger points before they became painful.
I created at least ten iterations of each piece of copy. Yes, that means ten iterations each for ten webpages and ten emails. It goes quickly and I’m a happy worker.
For the email series, I devised a sequence that would maximize value without overwhelming the customer’s inbox. At this point, it was only noted and I would later map it into a flow within the client’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Once I’d amassed a nice collection of copy, I revisited my research. Does this narrative confirm the goals of both the business and the customer? Does it answer questions, halt frustrations in their tracks, and inspire confidence?
Search Engine Optimization:
My client was very clear on one goal: “we want to be found on the internet.” That can be difficult for do-it-yourselfers, so I was happy to roll up my sleeves and strategize their web copy to maximize their marketing. I did this by:
Embedding keywords early in their content.
Developing search-friendly tags and tagging systems.
Creating a strategy for technical SEO.
This means collaborating with the web designer to ensure our loading speeds were lightning fast and error free.
Ensuring that all media was tagged and backlinked.
Spam Filter Optimization:
The goal of creating an email series is for it to be read, loved, and converted into sales, so it’s important that these emails actually made it to the customer’s inbox. I used proven strategies to avoid spam filters so that my customer’s open and response rate would be through the roof. This includes:
Creating clear subject lines without excessive punctuation.
Pointing content to a singular call to action.
Keep the message short and scannable.
At this point, I created a copy mockup to present to my client. Here is what they had to say:
“I think the process of brainstorming this whole campaign helped clarify our thinking. Mainly, how we see the customer, what problems they’re having, and how we can genuinely help them solve these problems. There’s value in doing these types of exercises! ”
They were thrilled. This kind of feedback gives me the warm-fuzzies. I love helping businesses understand their ideal clients and the best ways to communicate meaningfully with them. It’s great for business, but it also enhances people’s lives by connecting them with the products and services that enable them to live their why.
Prototyping:
I love working with web designers and programmers. We worked together through iterative design sprints to compile the copy in a way that makes the right people want to buy. We included SEO considerations and ran extensive tests to ensure our client would see the results they hoped for and more.
We also worked together to make the email campaigns beautiful across all devices in the client’s CRM, Active Campaign.
Prototype Presentation:
The web designer and I worked together to create a site map, wireframes, and a clickable prototype based on my copy and information architecture suggestions. We proudly presented it to the client. Not having seen a website upgrade in years, they were elated.
We also showed them through their email series and explained the automated release timeline.
What happened?
The client chose to launch their new website three weeks ahead of the first email campaign. Aside from being proud of their new digital home, the client saw a significant increase in clicks attributed to improved SEO. The leads generated from the website were of higher-quality and more closely matched their ideal clients.
The email series designed for tradespeople was a success and allowed my client to forge new connections with allied professionals. Because the content is evergreen, it continues to be of value when new connections are made and imported into their CRM.
The welcome series for new customers has been “helpful and informative.” Because their target market values consistent, clear communication, it has nurtured relationships and instilled buyer confidence.
Further, my client and their web designer have both recommended me to their network for other projects. Time to start another pot of tea!
