Via Rob Cottingham of the Social Signal blog and Darren Barefoot, a Vancouver-based company called GiveMeaning is taking the old Unicef coin-collecting box concept to the next level.

This is cool for so many reasons; you can trace the donated money from the source right to how the charity spends it, and the “moderator” of the process is a small child; old enough to know how to operate an online blog, and to learn the importance of donating to charity:

Each BankBox has a unique serial number. At a secure  web site, children enter their box’s serial number and a password they’ve been assigned. Each child chooses a cartoon avatar and gets her or his own web page (GiveMeaning wants to protect children’s privacy, so photos aren’t used and pages are reviewed by the organization before they go live). The child chooses any charity to receive the money they’ve raised, and reports on how much they raise.

Cooler yet, each box comes with tear-off cards that kids can give to every neighbour who makes a donation. The cards also have the serial number printed on them, so donors can see the child’s web page and where their money went – and have a chance to donate again.

Once GiveMeaning collects the money and disburses it to charities, the recipients are encouraged to post a letter on the child’s web page explaining how they used the money.

Add this to the number of reasons why I miss trick-or-treating. There might even still be time to sign up, kids. More info on the project (still in its ‘pilot’ stage) here.

Let’s get this part out of the way first, and then you may crucify me in the comments all you want: Less is not more.

If you’re writing a display ad for print, especially a classified ad, then perhaps “less is more” would hold true. But we’re talking about web copy, and I’m here to clear up this massive misconception once and for all. More is indeed more, as long as you follow the guidelines I’ve already laid out for you in previous parts of this series.

Give Your Readers What They Want

This is where I veer off on a tangent about personality types, and how all internet users are different and have different needs. Without delving too deep into the science of it all, there are several different personality types, and each one of us is composed of parts of each. Read the Wikipedia entry on the Myers-Briggs indicator for more detailed info on what I mean by all of this, but for the purpose of this series, I’ll keep this concept incredibly simple.

Some people are more expressive, and want to see fanciful imagery, and just the “broad strokes” or “big picture” of your message. Some are more dominant, and want things boiled down to the hard facts; “What can you do for them?” Others still will prefer to know every last detail about your product or service, and are more than willing to invest the time to learn it all before they’ll make a buying decision. Another cross-section of your visitors will be just as concerned with who else you have worked with, and what kind of credibility you have (in their eyes, of course).

Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. To break it down even simpler, here’s a list of what your web copy needs:

• images and summaries, and clean design
• detailed information, including statistics and hard facts combined with the benefits of what you do
• Testimonials from past clients and customers
• Tons and tons of benefit statements- “What’s in it for me?”

It goes without saying, a few paragraphs of copy spread throughout your site won’t get the job done. So more is indeed more. When you start to try to map out how to appease your various different types of visitors, you’ll realize that writing the copy for your website is a bigger job than you thought.

A while back I mentioned that I had purchased Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, and here at last is my quick-and-dirty review: It’s an incredibly comprehensive book, that focuses on building your marketing around ‘personas’ that are representative of your target market. For e.g.: ‘Shelley is a single mom who watches morning television and shouts at the tv, and listens to rap music. She’s looking for a software program that will help her tutor her daughter in math, and she wants to make sure that she chooses one that will get just the right results, as math was never her strongest subject.’ Perhaps that’s not exactly how the Eisenbergs would lay out a persona, but you get the picture. Once you can see your potential customers in your mind’s eye, you’re better prepared to speak to their needs, with the language and hot-buttons that will get the best results.

Some Shortcuts for Beginners

you’re managing a multi-million dollar e-commerce site with several consecutive campaigns and hordes of landing pages, you probably want to purchase the aforementioned text and really focus on these concepts in great detail, or even better, hire someone who understands it better than you. If you’re just trying to get the most out of your few pages of copy on your site, especially for a service company, here’s a few tricks to get more out of what you have.

For starters, remember the guidelines that I laid out in the rest of this series: Speak to your visitors directly, using “you” and “your” often, to engage them, and avoid words that mean something to you and nothing to them. And don’t forget to ask them to take the next step; when they’ve reached the bottom of a page of copy, or once you’ve laid out your offer in its entirety.

Here’s where we go one step further. Take a look at your homepage. Does it talk about your company, and what you do? Does it answer key questions about who you are? There’s no need to reveal every detail about your company on your homepage, but knowing what you know now about your different visitor’s needs, invite them in to have their questions answered.

If you or any key member of your company’s team are mentioned in the copy on your home page, highlight their name, and make it a link to their bio or “About” page. Same goes with important details like testimonials, services, history and most importantly your contact page. When a reader reads through the copy, they will instinctively know that on the other end of that link lies more information about that topic. If that topic is important to them or answers the question they are looking to have answered, you’ve brought them into your site further, and as I’ve mentioned before, you are now more likely to keep them around for a while.

Contact information should always be easily accessible, especially if you are a retail outlet. I can’t tell you how often I do a quick Google search for something, only to find that it takes another few minutes to locate the address or phone number of the company I’m searching for. Remember those folks that want the instant gratification? Give it to them.

Another way to expedite the process of absorbing your site’s information for the time-pressed or hurried type that wants results NOW, is to use bold letters in your copy, for the key points. If you choose the right phrases and benefit statements to make bold, a reader should be able to scan through your page and get the gist in around six seconds, and make a judgement call as quickly as they want to.

Now read that paragraph back reading only the bold phrases, and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

To sum up, you need lots of various different kinds of information to fully inform your visitors about your company. Think about it this way: If a member of your sales force were to try to close a deal with a new customer, what info would they have to share with that customer before the customer could make a confident buying decision? There’s nothing to stop you from publishing it all on the web, so that even if you don’t covert them into a customer online, you create a better, more qualified ‘lead’ when they contact you directly or visit your location.

Statistically (in urban centers), between 70-80% of buying decisions either start or end online. Sorry Yellow Pages, but your reign is over. On that note, have you noticed the listings books getting wise to this? In Canada, yellowpages.ca is now offering more extensive business info in their online listings, a direct result of consumer demand.

If we know that our customer’s crave more relevant info about us online, why not provide every last bit of what they’re looking for on our sites?

This is more of a business-related post than anything else, and I can’t lie; it’s a stop-gap between entries of my copywriting series, the next part of which is fairly large in scope, so it’s been sitting in the hopper as a draft that I revisit whenever I get time.

Instead, I just wanted to sing the praises of 37 Signals, who provide an excellent selection of business management software. On Nathaniel’s (NSHB) reccomendation, I started using Backpack a few months back, and it has been great. But recently I took on a client where I’m working as a third party contractor, and they’re using the full version of Basecamp.

The Project Manager, myself and the client have been back and forth several times daily, with all of our conversations neatly organized in one place, with different topics, etc. As the copywriter, I’ve made great use of the writeboards feature to upload drafts of my work. I have to say, I love Basecamp. If you’re using an archaic system for CRM, especially if that system is offline (what are you thinking?), then definitely check it out. I’ll be buying an implementing it for my needs in no time.

They offer free services if you want to ‘test the water’ first, so to speak, so you can check them out risk and investment free. Not a bad deal. If you’ve used any of these products, or something that you think is superior, let’s hear from you in the comments. I have yet to commit to a complete CRM solution, and I’m open to suggestions. (I’m not paid to evangelize 37 Signals, for what it’s worth)

Update: Eerily enough, Darren references Basecamp today too, just with a more critical eye, and a raises a good question:

What obligations do web-based applications like Basecamp have in terms of their customer data? Should they store it indefinitely or delete it when I stop paying them?

That should cause a fairly lively debate. Your thoughts?

Rob has made some upgrades to the blog, and I want everyone to check it out, so if you’re reading this in a feeder, please click through. Please?

Okay, thanks for that. Here’s the list of changes:

• Each post now has a spot where you can rate it, above. If you’re so inclined, feel free to search through my archives and rate your favorite posts.
• Also above you’ll notice the “email this post” to a friend link. How a blog called ‘Tell Ten Friends’ ever got along without that one before, I just can’t figure.
• We’re also wearing our stats on our sleeves, so to speak, as each post also has a snapshot of most popular items, and:
• You’ll notice in the sidebar (of the homepage), I’m now dislaying the number of readers that my feed is pulled down by each day. I consider each and every one of you a friend.

Obviosuly, I’m anxious to see those numbers climb, so search through, find your faves and vote, or be brutally honest and tell me when I’ve missed the mark with a scathing ‘one star’ rating if that’s how you play. These tools are here for you, and they’ll help me to deliver more of what you love, in the same casual, no-bullshit style that I can’t help but emit.

Thank you all very much for reading. Now don’t be strangers, let’s hear from you in the comments! Also, if you’re a newsletter subscriber, I promise…PROMISE…that the newest issue is coming soon.

Found on Youtube: A hilarious take on web 2.0, compliments of thefirstpost.co.uk.

Love the stop-motion animation technique, and the spam folder almost made me split a gut!

Just a quick “what’s up” post, as I am still buried under a large amount of copywriting work. The rest of my web copy series is still jostling around in my skull, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, a bit of Tell Ten Friends news. Rob, who you likely know by now is our graphic designer, coder, and photographer, is having a busy week. His site crashed earlier this week, and as he says in a post today, it was a result of a spike in traffic from Netvibes after they discovered his great step-by-step Netvibes tutorial. It sucks when a site crashes from traffic, but there are bragging rights involved too, I suppose.

Also, earlier this week he pointed me to the new Sony Bravia ad, a great follow-up to the “bouncy balls” ad from earlier this year. These guys have got one thing figured out; that the process of making these ads is just as exciting as the ads themselves, and therefore they have a much better chance of going viral (anybody else starting to choke on that word?) getting passed around on the in-ter-nets. The first thing you ask when you see the new ad is “What about the cleanup?” Well, they’re smart enough to answer that question for you. Follow the links through Rob’s post and watch it for yourself. It’s worth two minutes of your day. -Unless you’re on dial-up

Lastly, today I was featured in a short article in the Lifestyles section of the Vancouver Province (a very large daily here in town) and although they didn’t run my web address (Aaaargh!) they do have a very large of photo of my goofy grin, and few quips from me about “why I like Fall.”

(photo by Sam Leung. Click the image to see full size on flickr)
Not sure how long the link will last, but here you go.

This is Part 3 in a seven part series on copy writing for the web. Read also: Parts One and Two.

You Know More Than I Do

A very common mistake on business websites is to use jargon, buzzwords and gratuitous wording to explain things that should be quite simple. As an expert in your field, you surely know a lot more about what you’re talking about than many of your customers or prospects do. Unless you’re an engineer selling to engineers, cut down on the industry-insider speak, and explain things in a language that the “lowest common denominator” of customer can understand. By lowest common denominator, I mean the people who know the least about you, and need to have things explained. I’ll talk more more about how to appease several different types of visitors with different needs later in this series, but for now just recognize that not everyone understands (or gives a rat’s ass) about the industry-specific language you use to describe what you do or what you sell. Speak in words that they’ll understand, and you’ll have way better success.

Eliminating the ‘Gobbledygook’

I was forwarded an item recently by a peer in the realm of web content, David Meerman Scott, who shares most of my beliefs about web content, and the future of public relations. David prepared this insightful (and at times, quite funny) post about the most over-used words and phrases in press releases today, in effort to train people not to use them.

Although he’s speaking about press releases, the same rules apply. Shake it up a bit. Be interesting, and be easy easy to understand, without empty phrases that are used by everyone but mean nothing at all.

He calls these all-too-popular-yet-grossly-overused terms “Gobbledygook.” Excerpted from his post:

Your buyers (and the media that cover your company) want to know what specific problems your product solves, and they want proof that it works—in plain language. Your marketing and PR is meant to be the beginning of a relationship with buyers and to drive action (such as generating sales leads), which requires a focus on buyer problems. Your buyers want to hear this in their own words. Every time you write—yes, even in news releases—you have an opportunity to communicate. At each stage of the sales process, well written materials will help your buyers understand how you, specifically, will help them.

He also created an analysis tool, and his post includes a graph of the most hilariously useless phrases, and their usage in over 388, 000 press releases in 2006 alone:

(Click image to enlarge)

If I had to guess, I’d say that if you included the use of these terms on all websites, the numbers would be so staggering that we’d fall over laughing. Plus, who wants to be “industry standard,” when you can be different?

Tags: marketing, content, copywriting, writing, webcopy

This is Part 2 in a seven part series on great copy writing for the web. When I wrote part one, I arbitrarily decided that there would be seven parts, so seven parts there will be.

Ask for the Business

Ask any great salesperson, and they’ll tell you that you’ll never make a sale if you don’t ask for the business. In fact, if you ask a Sales Trainer like Howard Olsen, he’ll tell you that 62% of salespeople (even the trained ‘professionals’) never ask for the business. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable to so so. But the fact remains, if you don’t ask for it, you might never get it. And in web copy, you don’t have to feel that knot in your stomach when you have to ask a question you don’t feel comfortable with.
Why would I keep related web copy back to sales, you ask? Because as Business Owners, that’s what our sites should be designed to do: Sell. Why else would a business have one? I can appreciate that using that kind of language is maybe a little too direct for some. Plus, not every website out there is built strictly for making sales. So I’ll switch up the language a bit here. Let’s eliminate the words sales, and start using the word conversion.

In this context, my definition of conversion is very simple: It is when a site visitor takes the “next step,” and gets closer to becoming your customer.

So, let’s go back to the start. We’ve already talked about the importance of using “you” to engage the customer, and talk about what is important to them. Now, we’ll engage them one step further, with a few basic “calls to action.”

Let’s say you’ve written a page of copy on your site. Your home page, just for the sake of the example. When the reader gets to the bottom of the page, where do they go next? Where might they like to go? Well, if you tell them, or give them some options, maybe they’ll end up where you want them to go. A great example of this would be:

Now that you know a little more about Tell Ten Friends, keep reading to find out about the services we provide for our clients. Or if you’re ready, contact us to ask about how we can help you with your needs.

And so on and so forth until they’ve had all of their questions answered, and are ready to take the action you want them to take. In the example above, there are two possible conversions. In one, the reader carries on to have more questions answered, or they click through to the contact form. If they end up filling out that form, they become a very qualified lead, which in my business is as good as currency. A conversion like that for me is extremely valuable, as it provides the opportunity to start a new relationship.

Admittedly, this is a rather passive way of engaging people on your site; letting them explore what you’re all about on their own terms. But this is also key; everyone has their own terms. They all have questions, and different things will be important to different people. This will be the focus of yet another chapter in this copy writing saga, but for now, use this basic rule of thumb: If a reader has taken the time to read through your page of copy, don’t leave them hanging with a dead end, and force them to go back to your menu and find where they might like to go next.

People have a short attention span, and statistically, the longer you can keep them on your site, the better chance you have of making them your customer.

Ask and Thou Shalt Receive, Sometimes

For some, a more direct approach is necessary, like the case of Pay-Per-Click Advertising Campaigns. If you’ve spent ad dollars on bringing that traffic to your site for a specific product, then a passive approach won’t do, and a powerful call to action is even more critical, especially “above the fold” which is there area of screen visible before any scrolling is done. Explaining the nuances of a great landing page and convincing visitors to “Buy Now” is also an item for another day, but the important message is this: You must ask people to take the next action if you ever expect them to take it. And “Add to Cart” or “Click here” are just simply not enough. Like any good campaign, you must test and measure to see what works best, but let me save you some time:

• Give them compelling reasons and benefits for why they want what you’ve got
• Ask them to buy it, in no uncertain terms.

Once You’ve Got ‘Em, Keep ‘Em

For statistics junkies like me, adding this one simple element of a call to action on each page will help your site stats a great deal. For starters, page views will go up. And average time on site, too. Fewer people will just bounce away from your homepage if you give them a reason and invite them to keep reading: Statistically, on a “static site” your home page will be both the most and the least popular page. The highest number of visitors will see it, and it will almost always have the highest number of exits from it as well. Asking people nicely to continue on to another page should help eliminate that number of hasty exits, and bring you one step closer to converting a new contact, customer or friend.

Read also: Part One of this Series.

Tags: marketing, content, copywriting, writing, webcopy

(This is Part 1 in a 7 part series on great copywriting for the web and beyond)

What defines great web content? How do you engage the reader, hold their attention and get them to really fall in love with your company, your service or you, with mere words on a website?

The secret, dear friends, lies within you. I know what you might be thinking: “Oh Gaaawd, is he serious?”

Yes. Yes I am. But I don’t mean to insinuate that somewhere in the deep recesses of your grey matter lies some magical formula that will cause your site visitors to salivate, add multiple items to their shopping cart and fork over their billing information with nary a question asked. Actually, the concept that I’m referring is surprisingly simple, and just might produce the results you’ve been hoping for.

(Photo by flickr user zoghal, tagged: iloveyou)

Just use the word “you” a lot. Do you understand what I mean by that? Is this a concept that you can put to good use in your own marketing ? Do you think I used “you” or “your” enough in the last few sentences to drive an otherwise healthy Alberta beef cow completely mad? Maybe you’re right. Ha! Snuck another one in there.

It’s All About Your Customers

One of the most common mistakes that companies make on their sites (There’s a lot, this just happens to be the most common. We’ll cover some more in a later post) is in focussing too much on themselves. It’s as if they believe that the same information that has wasted paper on their brochures for years is suitable for their website. And that’s just simply not the case, I’m afraid. (Notice ‘they’ and ‘their’ in this instance? I wouldn’t dare beat up on you)

I use the comparison of a salesperson, from both then and now. Back then, a sales person could use hard-selling tactics, smoke-and-mirrors and any other number of tricks to sell their snake-oil from town-to-town. Now, any professional salesperson can tell you that to sell anything, anywhere, you first have to establish a relationship with your customer. You’ve got to ask plenty of questions to find out a lot about them, and eventually build a rapport that will make the customer confident they are making a wise buying decision, long before they ever will. After all, in this day and age the customer has an infinite number of choices, and if they smell a rat, your competition will make a sale, and not you.

Well, the same is true for great copywriting on your website. In this case, you don’t have the benefit of asking questions, but you’d better know what questions or needs your customer has, and provide easy access to all of the answers. And although you’ve got to let them know what you’re all about, resist the urge to make it all about you, and instead focus on the benefits to them.

A Tool to Keep You on Track

The guys over at FutureNowInc.com have developed a cool tool called the “We We Monitor.” No, it doesn’t emit alarming beepy noises when your little ones wet their diapers. Sorry. But it is very cool, and could tell you whether you’re copywriting is to much about “We” and not enough about “You” (the customer).

Here’s how to do it. Visit the We We Monitor by clicking here. Enter the address of the page you want to measure. Be sure to add the names of your company, your CEO, and anyone else in your organization that appears on the page, in order to get an accurate reading. The results you receive will look something like this:

These are the Customer Focus Calculator results:

For the url: www.telltenfriends.com

Your Customer Focus Rate: 62.79%
You have 27 instances of customer-focused words.

Here it is folks, the definitive guide to RSS for beginners:

My good (Australian) friend, and the designer behind this site (and every last scratch of our stunning client work here at Tell Ten Friends) Rob Masefield has just published an incredible tutorial on how to set up a netvibes.com home page, complete with your own favorite RSS feeds:

He takes a very patient step-by-step approach, without getting too complex, and even provides a bit of anecdotal “what is RSS” stuff, in case you don’t know a feed from a chain email. (yuck)*

My advice: follow the links from his post to the tutorial, and skip through most of the stuff on the second tab of the tutorial about tabs, until you’ve got your first tab full of goodies (skip to the third tab once you’ve named your page, but you’ll need that tab info later).

This is great stuff, folks. You can unlock the secret behind the RSS feed, and open a new world of fast browsing, the news you want, and content that is controlled by you. Like a living, ever-changing subscription to every magazine and news source you ever wanted, all on your home page, and just a click away.
P.S. don’t forget to add: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TellTenFriends on your first tab! (Always ask for the business, right?)

*If you’re already familiar with RSS feeds, and you’re still reading this, then God bless you. Please pass the word along and open a friend’s eyes to the world of RSS feeds, and for good measure while you’re at it, make sure they subscribe to your blog.