Marketing Focus: Content is king #1

Friday 13 October 2017

In Connect magazine, marketing expert Chris Journeaux discusses the current key issues facing the industry. This month, he explains that the key to good copywriting and engagement boils down to one thing: content.

"I met my replacement last week; the guy who is going to usurp my position as the marketing guru that every company wants and needs. It was a humbling experience, to actually meet the person who will take my job, my livelihood and deliver marketing ideas and strategy that I could only have dreamt of back in those early years as a marketing wannabe.

"I met him at a trade show. Actually I met his father first. I was wandering the show, having polished the stand for a client, feeling pretty pleased with myself even though the many compliments about the stand were directed largely at the creative. I wrote the design brief, someone else just delivered my vision. Flimsy, sure, but I had successfully convinced myself of my own immense contribution as all good self-admiring marketers must do.

"Toying with the idea of changing the commercial worlds of other lucky new clients, I set out to stumble over a stand in need of my genius. I found one quite swiftly, screaming to all visitors that the brand was bereft of direction and positioning. I introduced myself to the team, feeling almost charitable in the knowledge that their car crash would shortly be lifted to new heights of competitive advantage.

"I was shown their social media presence. It had every channel you could imagine. They even had a profile for Ello, my personal favourite because no one else I know is there. They also had a website of quite ‘epic fail’ proportions. In short, the content was horrible. Not just horrible because I say it is horrible, but because their engagement was nil, zero.

"After many attempts to escape, (these people clearly were not aware they needed saving), I was introduced to the content writer. I already knew quite a bit about him. He was largely illiterate with only a tenuous relationship with his own language. He drifted into a quasi-street language that was peppered with the strangest, ‘non-street like’ spelling mistakes. He loved long sentences. He relished complex and often impenetrable messages and he rejoiced in the belief that his audience would come to him rather than the reality. He was 14 and dressed as though going to a fancy dress event themed uber cool, urban adolescent. His hoody had a nihilistic message on the front and the sales tag still attached.

"So what was so awful? Evidentially it was clear that something was not working, because of that lack of engagement. The problem, though, is not one limited to the illiterate copy-writers who offer their mangled services when firms want to reach the ‘yoof’. All you need to know is that good copywriting and engagement is about content. The stuff you give away in terms of the relationship you develop.

"Start with the website. Your customers are hunters, trying to track down stuff they want. Assuming you have it, lead them simply to their goal. We have become fixated on the wonders of digital, wondrous channels of communication that can deliver overly complex messages all bundled up together. Amateurish. I worked for a somewhat dysfunctional travel company a few years ago who broke records for the most convoluted and multitudinous messages and then scratched their heads when only their self-inflicted disasters generated engagement. Be simple, be relevant and be interesting.

"Content works a bit like a date, in my view. We present the best bits of ourselves first. Your website starts this process of selling the ideas, the values, the brand to your target audience. To begin with your least endearing qualities means you get the dinner bill, so why would you not showcase what it is your target segment seeks?

"Write for what we call scanners, the people who search hard and fast before alighting on content they deem worthy of more time. Achieve this by skilfully deploying sector relevant words and language. ‘Street’ is fine so long as that is the customer context. Back to the travel company: treat your customers as morons and they tend to jog on.

"Next month we tackle the thorny issues of stickability, splash pages and the alchemy of writing for search engine optimisation. "

You can read the digital edition of Connect here.