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One of my side jobs is as a furniture painter. I can make a tatty old piece of solid furniture look lovely and new. I can stand back and find joy in this creative sideline. It is something I feel I do very well, judging by the reaction of my clients who buy my furniture.

They love the pristine finish of a piece of furniture which, at its heart, has seen the comings and goings of many households in its lifetime.

But it’s not a matter of slapping a coat of paint on it and calling it ‘done’. What the clients don’t see is the lengthy process that got that shabby piece of furniture to such a new-loved and admired piece; the hours I spend fixing, sanding, priming and undercoating and then the final three coats of paint to turn trash with potential, into treasure. But it only looks that good because of the time and effort that went into the layers beneath.

There is a similar process for copywriting – many hours of work go into one finely tuned sentence. A sentence that is the result of years of practice, experience and learning – that’s what you pay for.

When you buy copywriting, you’re not just buying the words you see; you are investing in the value of a copywriter’s experience and effort that put those words into the best arrangement they can possibly be.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

A good copywriter doesn’t need to be you. They don’t need to have been working at your business or in your industry for years in order to sound like you in the blog posts. A good copywriter does her research.

Does it bug you to see a glaring typo in an email, newsletter or any other correspondence? It does me. And you won’t believe the angst that I go through to stop myself telling my friends that it’s not “Your lovely” but it’s “You’re lovely”.

Doesn’t it make sense that at least some of your pages are offering timely, relevant and engaging content?

Unless you write every day, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to knock out a blog post before your morning Coco Pops. Follow this guide to turbo boost your blog post writing.

You’ve probably been told a million and 1 times to write blog posts as frequently as every day if possible, to get your words in front of as many eyeballs as you can. But do you really want to churn out rubbish?

I can feel your pain. You need to get a blog post, complete with images, live by the end of the day but don’t know where to start.  You don’t even have a topic.

If you’re a small business owner or a freelancer, you’ll likely to have days when not much is happening. You might start panicking that you’ll never get work again.

I was asked by a small business owner – When and how often should I be marketing? How much time should I devote to it each day?

Marketing is not something you should turn on and off when you have a spare moment. Whether it’s writing a tweet, an email or a blog post or speaking to people at a network meeting, you should be marketing your business or your brand all the time.

Marketing is not something you can outsource and forget about. Whatever you are doing, you and everyone in your company should be marketing. Whenever you communicate with people, you are marketing your business.

Sending an email is marketing your business – you should be showing the recipient that you are efficient, diligent and reliable. So, write all your emails to reflect this.

Every time you speak about your business – whether it’s to clients, suppliers or staff – you are marketing your business.

Every time you go over and above the call of duty, you are marketing your business as one that cares.

Every time you make it easy for someone to buy something from you, you are marketing your business as one that wants happy customers.

Conversely,

Every time a customer has to wait to get hold of you, you are marketing your business (the wrong way) *

Every time you publish a blog post or web copy with spelling and grammar mistakes, you are marketing your business (the wrong way) *

And, every time you try to hide mistakes your company has made, you are marketing your business (the wrong way) *

Whatever you are doing, or whatever the customer’s experience of your business, you are revealing it in a certain light – make sure it’s a positive one.

*This is the perfect opportunity to admit to your mistakes and turn things around = a positive marketing message.

If you work in a less that glamourous industry, there is a risk that reader’s eyes will start to glaze over as soon as they read your headline.