The Copywriter Underground

It’s hardly an advanced copywriting secret. Good news sells. For most copywriters, leading with the good news is second nature — a reflex. You’ll be thinner. Richer. Happier.

You get the drift.

In my writing, it’s second nature. In my speaking life, it apparently isn’t. Last weekend I served as Ride Director for the Shasta Summit Century — an organized, fund-raising bike ride whose crown jewel is the 135 mile Mount Shasta Super Century.

The course is extremely hilly. This year, a rider crashed on a downhill, and needed an ambulance. Back at ride headquarters, we heard the news over the ham radio. We all held our breath.

The news was largely good. He’s still in the hospital, but doing OK, and they’ll release him soon. An hour after the crash, we managed to locate his wife (she was several hours away), and called her.

I took a deep breath. I started speaking. Good news first, right? (Wrong. Scheez.)

Me: “Your husband crashed on a downhill. An ambulance is on the way.”

Her: Drops phone

Me: “No wait — he’s talking, he’s conscious, and everything’s moving. There’s even a doctor right there with him. The ambulance is a precaution.”

Her: More dead air…

Brilliant, eh? Note to self: next time, lead with the “Your husband is doing well, but he had a crash…”

Today’s moral: “Applying general copywriting principles can make your everyday life easier.”

[tags]writing, copywriting, shasta summit century[/tags]

It’s not exactly “Copywriters Gone Wild,” but for the next two weeks, I’ll be posting from a remote camp on East Grand Lake, Maine.

It’s a long ways from my home in the mountains of Northern California, and since I travel about as well as most cats swim, my friends wonder why I bother. Fortunately, I can offer you one very, very good reason:

The Lovely & Talented Nancy (L&T Nancy) relaxing at East Grand Lake, ME.

It’s pretty here. It’s pretty where I live too, but too much of the same kind of pretty breeds a familiarity. And frankly, when you start getting a little crispy around the edges, different is good. Different is our friend.

And while it’s hard to put a value on quality time with my wife when we’re both largely shorn of our career responsibilities, I will say that time’s worth its weight in gold.

Reason #2: The Copy Conveyor Belt

You know the copywriters who can churn out copy, and do so for months on end? Well, I’m one of the other guys.

As lucky as I am to write for a living, I can’t ignore the stresses it generates. We’re supposed to be creative, or persuasive, or hard-hitting, or engaging — and we’ve got to do it all on a deadline.

After a while, that dulls the mind and deadens the fingers, and when the projects blend together and you start dreaming in short, punchy paragraphs, it’s time to get away.

I’ve gotten away.

Still, expect to see a post or two. I’ve blown the dust off a couple of back-burnered post ideas, and I plan to sneak them in around all the rampant recreation we’ve got planned.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

[tags]copywriting, vacation, [/tags]

If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s that your best new-business technique isn’t advertising, or networking, or picking up the phone.

It’s scheduling a badly needed vacation.

In 1.5 weeks, I’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of this boulder.

Need work? Plan a trip.

Once you’ve actually purchased the non-refundable plane ticket, clients new and old start pouring out of the woodwork. It happens every time.

The response is inversely proportional to your state of mind; the more you need the rest and relaxation, the more clients call.

I leave April 29 for a long-awaited fishing trip, and I’ll be typing pretty much non-stop until then.

Of course, one of the reasons I’m taking the trip is because I need the rest, creating a delightful (and stressful) paradox whereby the pressure builds on you at the time when you’re least able to handle it.

In truth, I’ve been remiss posting my last couple Friday Fifteen Minute Pitch Posts because I haven’t sought any new work.

No freelancer is ever unhappy to see a fully booked schedule, and I count my blessings when that’s the case, but I wanted to share this unorthodox (and cruelly effective) new business tip with my readers right away.

Keep writing (I know I will), Tom Chandler.

[tags]freelancing, copywriter, copywriting[/tags]

I stumbled across this nightmarish press release on The Bad Pitch blog. I wish I could say I was surprised. It’s a U.S. Netcom Corp release that leverages the Virginia Tech shootings… to hawk a product.

I’d like to congratulate U.S. Netcom Corp for being the first company (that I know of) to crawl over the bodies of the slain in order to make a buck.

If you’ve got the stomach for it, here are highlights of the Press Release via the PR Newswire:

James Piatt, a student at Virginia Tech, expressed a sentiment that
continues to be repeated: “I’m outraged,” said Piatt. “And I’ll say on the
record I’m outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 in the
morning and the first e-mail about it came two hours later. No mention of
locking down campus, no mention of canceled classes, they just mention
they’re investigating a shooting a few hours later at 9:26am. Meanwhile,
while they were sending out that e-mail, 21 more people got killed.”

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger indicated that it would’ve been
difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time.

The fact is, Mr. Steger is wrong. Automated mass emergency notification
could have been used to save more than 20 lives that morning. Mass
notification should have been in place that would have given students more
than two hours warning of the events unfolding on campus, including
notification to students with cell phones who were attending classes.

Like the late-night ads say — wait, there’s more:

For $1 per student per year, services such as AllCall Notification
(http://www.usnetcomcorp.com) could have provided VT with a method of
crisis control capable of reaching every student far faster than email. It
should have been in place as part of the school’s emergency preparedness
plan.

There is a tragic lesson for every educator of every school-age
student: AllCall or other notification services can save lives. If it had
been in place at Virginia Tech, the situation could have been, and probably
would have been, much different.

I’m not wholly against discussions about what could have been done to save lives, but this is a clumsy, ham-fisted attempt to insert a product name into the discussion (before it’s even truly clear what happened).

It’s not about the tragedy or the students. It’s about the product.

That’s why sentences like “Automated mass emergency notification could have been used to save more than 20 lives” are so galling. And so damaging. I’m tempted to say this is a textbook study in marketing opportunism at its worst, but that’s a little sanitized.

It’s shameless. It’s bad marketing, and it’s shameless.

Which is exactly what I told US Netcom at the e-mail address at the bottom of their press release: jeff.warhol@usnetcomcorp.com

[tags]virginia tech[/tags]

The shootings at Virginia Tech dominate the news cycle, and it’s not exactly the kind of atmosphere that lends itself to a zany blog post.

Of course, people die every day — a state of affairs we accept because we know that nobody gets out alive to begin with.

Still, we’re shocked by the random and inexplicable, and this certainly qualifies.

Adding to the load in this case are the ages of the victims. Nothing defines a young life more than hope, possibility and promise, and to see those things stolen from us all affects me on an elemental level.

Best wishes to all affected by this this tragedy, and the only solace I can find is the belief that the sun never sets on one part of the globe without rising on another.

fini.

[tags]virginia tech, va tech, shooting[/tags]

The old saw about learning more from your students than they do from you is likely true.

Last night I guest-taught a class of small business owners (or soon-to-be-small-biz-owners) about “The Messaging Platform” — the statement that provides a foundation for all of an organization’s marketing messages.

The idea is simple; these small business owners have devoted considerable time to researching their target markets, customers and competitors.

It’s time for them to market.

But what are they going to say?

Focus on the Message

Small business users often seize on unimportant or undifferentiated messages — or worse, market a different message every day.

My solution is the messaging platform.

It’s how I get clients focused on a message (and keep them on it). It’s a good example of the kind of service I like to offer my clients as a value added copywriter – the concept of which I prattle on endlessly about here on my blog.

The messaging platform is a great tool for small businesses, and these entrepreneurs were hungry for the information.

So I explained the concepts, outlined the five characteristics of the successful messaging platform (Unique, Real, Provocative, Consistent and Benefit-Oriented), and showed them a few case studies from my own practice.

For the final exercise, we broke the class into groups of four, gave them information about me, and let them develop my messaging platform.

The results were startling. This group learned fast.

Teaching & Learning

Of course, I learned more than they did. The simple act of creating the presentation dramatically improved my understanding of my own messaging process.

It forced me to transform my largely “in-brain” messaging process into something understandable by my students (and ultimately my clients).

Next week I teach the “Internet Marketing Overview” — a subject I couldn’t cover if I had a solid week of classes.

Still, I expect to learn a lot.

[tags]teaching, marketing, messaging, value added copywriter[/tags]

The last couple weeks have flown by. Copy’s been flowing like the Amazon at flood stage. Juggling work, proposals, blogs and a personal life meant a few late nights at the keyboard

Now even my friends say I look like hell.

From all this, one thing is clear; all-nighters aren’t the fun they used to be.

Lots of Vowels. Lots of Consonants.

As a writer, the temptation is to write. A lot.

In addition to my paid projects, there are blog posts, story ideas and essays pinging around, and the inevitable book project squatting somewhere in the “tomorrow” part of my brain.

The temptation is to write all those after the paid writing’s been done, but eventually, entropy wins out and I have to take a break.

Otherwise my head grows thick; solid bone given to glacial thought (if at all), and my copy turns muddy and lifeless.

Which means it’s time to take a break.

I’ll see everyone bright and early Monday morning. Enjoy your restful, boring, relaxing, non-working weekend. I will.

[tags]writing, copywriting[/tags]

I like the freedom of self-employment. You make your own decisions and answer only to your own instincts (and those of your two-dozen bosses).

Simply put, it means if I want to work for a “green” company, I can.

Now I do.

It’s Easy Being Green

My wife and I try to keep our energy footprint to a minimum, but decided to offset the carbon dioxide we produce by heating and lighting the house.

Carbon offsets are easy, affordable, and I even accounted for my Web server and home office. Suddenly, my blogs are green too.

The first “green” blogger? Unlikely, but I might be the first “green copywriter blogger” – a distinction that’s almost certainly worth a Wikipedia entry or an appearance on Lettermen (take that, Carson).

But enough crowing. I’ll cut right to the clear, simple explanation.

The Clear Explanation

Essentially, a carbon offset translates your global warming guilt (represented by your dollars) into carbon-dioxide free energy in an amount equal to your carbon footprint.

Several Web-based companies offer carbon offsets, though I chose Terra Pass for its excellent reputation. Patagonia clothing – no slouch in the green department – uses Terra Pass, which was research enough.

From the Terra Pass Web site:

When you buy a TerraPass, your money funds renewable energy projects such as wind farms. These projects result in verified reductions in greenhouse gas pollution. And these reductions counterbalance your own emissions.

You can use their online calculator to figure your carbon offset and even buy an offset online.

And remember, you heard it here first – at The Green Copywriter Blog.

[tags]carbon offset, terrapass, blog, copywriter underground[/tags]