When I take a copywriting brief, I always try to take the
client back to first principles.
What are your aspirations for the business? What
are the strategic goals of this campaign? What are your specific medium-term
objectives? How is performance against these at the moment? What do you think
is holding you back?
At this point the client usually sighs and says, “Like I
said, we need a new website.” The thing is, that might not be the whole problem.
Customers deal with a whole company – correction, a whole
market. We need to think about their whole experience of coming to do business
with you. Not your sales process; their buying process.
How do you look alongside your direct competitors? How do
you shape up against other things customers could spend their money on? How
compelling is your offer? How distinctive do you look? How swift, easy and
enjoyable is it to ride with you on a journey to purchase – and then come back
for another?
So the issue may be (partly) what the client is asking for:
the words on the website. Or it might be how the enquiry call is handled in the
call centre, a lack of enticing offers to bring them over the line, or inadequately
trained sales staff. Right up to the name of the business and its prominence in
search results.
So I like to briefly analyse the whole customer buying
process, and identify the wrinkles and rough patches that are obstructing a
smooth journey to purchase.
We need to think not “this is what we want to tell the
customer”, but “what does the customer need to know, think, feel and do at each
stage of their buying process?”
Then we look at what channel and touch point is best to
deliver that result. It may be the website, or the call centre, or the
receptionist or the sales person – the combination of these, or something else
nobody had thought about.
From the customer’s point of view all these are connected.
Together they make up what your business means to them. The customer has an
integrated view of you, but often your view of them is fragmented. And that’s what needs fixing.
Once we’ve assembled all the components of a successful
customer journey, writing it up is actually not that hard. Of course, we need
to think about the character of the brand and how we want it to come across in
tone of voice, style, feel – but that’s the copywriter’s bread and butter.
Pitfall alert: take subjective preference out of the
equation and serve the brand. What I like doesn’t matter. Actually what the
client likes isn’t necessarily right either (though they are the piper, and they
do call the tune). It’s really all about what’s right for the brand and right
for the customer.
You may only end up with 180 words on the website, buy
they’ll be the right 180 words. Because they’ll get the customer to do want you
want them to do – happily.
And that’s what’ll bring you the strategic results you were
looking for all along.
The author is
currently a full-time senior copywriter at BT Global Services.
