The Copywriter Underground

The emails come almost weekly. And while they take different routes, the copywriters sending them all pretty much end up in the same place:

“How do I build a career as a copywriter?”

The answer is not what they expect.

Your ability to build a lasting career as a copywriter will not be based on your knowledge of “The Ten Headlines That Always Get The Sale” or a Super-Secret, Can’t Miss Sales System or knowing by heart the “Five Reasons Twitter Will Change The Universe Forever” blog post.

In fact, no post, article or book will prepare you for what’s to come.

And while businesses would like you to believe otherwise, the success of your copywriting career doesn’t rest on your choice of smartphone, Twitter client, or high-bandwidth wireless connection.

So exactly what is the key to long-term survival?

Simple. It’s your ability to adapt.

Marketing – Now With the Great Taste of Chaos

I just hung up the phone after a lengthy client conversation – but only after agreeing to teach several more online marketing classes.

Teaching was never a career goal.

In fact, I never considered it prior to the last couple years. Yet here I am, teaching classes. A lot of them.

It’s something I couldn’t do if I was close-minded about my career.

But then, when I typed my first paying copy jobs on an electric typewriter (I wasn’t man enough to go manual), I never imagined I’d write ads for high-end racing helmets, sell $10 million semiconductor manufacturing systems, eventually derive most of my income from consulting, or be successful enough to live on a beautiful property located on the flank of an inactive volcano.

In short, you may think you’ve got it all planned.

But history suggests your long-term plan is more fiction than reality.

Guess what?

For the smart, aware and adaptable copywriters reading this, that’s a good thing.

Really.

Adapt, Adapt, Adapt

If you’re building a copywriting career today, you’re facing a fast-changing marketplace, fickle customer base – and a marketing universe which will look very, very different when you wake up five years from now.

In prehistoric times (as little as ten years ago), you could handily pay the grocery bills writing corporate capability brochures. If you sprinkled in a handful of B2B direct response packages, life was pretty good.

Annual report gigs were the frosting that funded retirement accounts and new cars.

Today, two of those markets are largely toast. The other is a shadow of of its former self.

And the copywriters who specialized in the above – and didn’t see the fast-moving bus that was the Internet – became roadkill. (Ask veteran copywriter Copywriting Maven Roberta Rosenberg what happened to a couple of her print-only copywriting friends – who never made the transition to online marketing.)

The World Is Spinning Faster

If a decade seems too long ago to feel relevant, simply consider online marketing’s recent history.

Only a few years ago, every business “needed” a Second Life presence. Then a MySpace presence.

At one time, email was hot. Then it wasn’t. Now, it’s hot again (proof common sense sometimes prevails).

And let’s not forget the latest “hot” channels: Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter’s cruising, though Facebook is experiencing the inevitable backlash against their ham-fisted handling of their users and partners.

It’s tempting to say the old media channels are fading, but they’ll likely be back, albeit in different forms.

They’ll fight for survival alongside the new marketing channels, which are springing to life almost hourly.

Simply put – even within the narrow confines of the online marketing universe – much has changed in just 12 months.

And don’t doubt for a second that more change is on the horizon.

Has your business changed with it?

All The Little Fingers, Typing

Here’s an unpleasant reality: There have never been more sets of fingers willing to type for hire.

And many of the emerging copy markets are – how do I put it tastefully – sorta low rent (the product of a [hopefully] transient lack of taste on the part of search engines, which are still in their infancy too).

And while we’re toting up the bad news, copywriting’s customer base has never been so reluctant to pay a living wage for words.

Which means today’s novice copywriter faces:

• A chaotic media landscape
• A search-engine derived emphasis of quantity over quality
• The accelerating obsolescence of existing media (which will soon include some of the current “hot” channels)
• Free-falling fee structures
• Intense competition
• Media channels which encourage “do-it-yourself” client marketing
• A guarantee of more of the same

What keeps a new copywriter fed and dry in a landscape like that?

Hint: It’s Not The Alphabet

Clearly, the basics of copywriting will never change; “what’s in it for me” will still be the first question asked by prospective buyers, and your ability to answer it will determine the health of your bank account.

Still, even the basics of marketing may be bending a little under the strain of the Internet.

After reading uber-thinker Nicholas Carr’s latest book (The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains), I’m fairly certain my current thinking is right; we’ll have the same sales conversations as before.

But we’ll have them in smaller chunks.

An illustration?

When I first wrote corporate web sites, the word count on the average page was far higher than today’s sites.

Then we went through a spell when “clean” design was hot (I cynically named the trend “corporate sterile”), and the pages hardly said anything at all.

Thankfully, that phase passed.

Today’s site is fast becoming a convergence point for an organization’s feeds and streams (“Feed and Stream” is likely the best unused social media magazine title ever).

Home pages can no longer be considered a site’s main landing page, and in fact, the readership of many business blogs far exceeds that of the rest of the site.

Those copywriters and marketers who can’t adapt to streams, or chunking, or insist on writing web sites the same old way because “they worked before and they’ll work now” (something I once embarrassingly said) – will see their business (especially the interesting stuff) wither away.

The Big Finish

It would be wonderful if I could boil down a foolproof survival tactic into three short bullet points.

That would be highly tweetable, but not very real.

Instead, I can offer you the following:

Challenge Your Assumptions

What’s true today could be tomorrow’s empty (and cashless) cliche. Conventional logic suggested Amazon.com was never going to turn a profit (neither was Facebook or Twitter).

Something changed, and those who recognized that change prospered as a result. I have my own ideas about the future of marketing as it concerns copywriters, but what are yours?

And more importantly, which of your assumptions (“the annual report will never go away“) are about to go down in flames?

Let me add one thought. Listening to everybody else – and accepting it as gospel – is simply a cheezy way to substitute their assumptions for theirs.

The Internet is full of parrots, con men and weak-minded fools, and like Carson Brackney said, it’s your job to avoid them.

Stay Aware Of Your Revenue Streams

This is manifestly not sexy, but it is critical. Small shifts in the kinds of projects you’re seeing – and in your own revenue sources – may herald a larger, long-term shift in your business.

Ideally, you’d stay ahead of those shifts, but that’s expecting a lot.

If clients start asking for the same kind of project, is that coincidence? Or a whole new (and largely untapped) revenue stream?

Make Things Happen

If there’s one constant on the Underground, it’s that I constantly flog my readers to go out and find the clients/work/projects they want to write.

It’s truly marvelous when the world comes to you, but you don’t have to be a statistics whiz to know your chances of achieving happiness are a lot higher when you decide what happiness looks like instead of the next guy to call.

Have a Sense of Wonder

Admittedly, this concept hasn’t found a home in too many MBA programs. But it’s absolutely essential if you’re going to survive.

It’s my final piece of advice to my online marketing boot camp students, and one of the few things that can sustain you over the course of a long career.

There are few certainties in copywriting, though we can make pretty safe assumptions about two of them.

First, you will deal with rejection. Perhaps a lot of it. New clients won’t like your pitch. Existing customers won’t like your first draft (or your second). Your mother will urge you to find a real job.

Get used to it.

Don’t take it personally. And recognize that hiding in a totally safe, rejection-free world is akin to living in a padded room because it’s safer.

It might be safe, but you’ll eventually go crazy.

And – oh yes – you should regularly marvel at the idea that somebody pays you to write for a living.

Second, we can safely assume the copywriting universe is going to change.

A lot.

You either lead the change, ride along with it, or get run over.

If you see emerging technologies as interesting, wondrous things (maintaining the kind of skepticism it takes to survive in a hype-driven field), then you’ll last a whole lot longer than if you embraced a dark, sinister worldview.

I started the Copywriter Underground simply to see if blogging really was an effective lead-generation strategy – something I’d have to know if I was going to recommend it to my clients.

Four years later, my business has morphed to the point this blog has become a pointless artifact.

The time I invest here largely reflects that. Yet this is where it truly gets interesting.

I could look at the Underground and suggest it’s been a colossal waste of time. Or marvel that I could reach so many people just by typing a few ideas into a text editor every now and then.

How could anyone not have a sense of wonder about that?

Keep writing (and adapting), Tom Chandler

Storyboarding is an essential part of the creative copywriter’s process; every commercial I ever wrote first came to life as a storyboard.

But don’t think the storyboard’s utility is limited to video. Even if you don’t make movies, a storyboard can quickly become an essential tool when developing animated ads, web site sliders, podcasts, video and other “rich” media.

All require planning.

All involve movement, time, a sequence, and graphics, type or sound elements.

And all benefit from the application of a simple storyboard.

For example, on a recent Web project, I used a simple storyboard to plan the order & content of the site’s home-page sliders.

I was happy I did.

Originally, the concept in my head seemed lucid and logical. But getting it on paper made it clear my “lucid” idea was muddled and out of order.

Score one for storyboarding.

Storyboards: Care & Feeding

Storyboarding doesn’t require a lot of instruction; it’s about as intuitive as it gets.

You simply use the solid-line boxes to represent the visual elements, and add directions in the box below.

Those directions can include:

• Copy
• Transitions (like “fade to black”)
• Voiceover directions
• Music
• Visual ideas
• Actor’s direction
• Whatever the heck you want

A Few Helpful Hints

Don’t overthink the details on your first pass.

Getting your concept down on paper – in broad strokes – is more important than sewing up every detail.

And you’ll be amazed at the number of times you realize – after storyboarding your drop-dead solid idea – that you’ve gotten it all wrong.

Also, some folks – who feel they can’t draw – won’t attempt a storyboard.

Which is a huge mistake.

A storyboard’s screen is not the place for a detailed drawing (unless you’re making a movie).

Use an oval to represent a face. A square to represent a book. In other words, use symbols.

You need a visual representation of any graphic element, but mostly to offer a reality check on size, movement, etc.

In other words, if you’re using a human face to convey an emotion, that face better be big enough to “read.”

In the same vein, storyboarding an animated 125 x 125 banner ad could make it clear you’ve got too much happening in too little space.

Finally, don’t be hemmed in by your storyboard. It’s a rare concept that can’t be improved by more thought, so don’t narrow your vision simply because you’re working within little square boundaries.

In other words, live a little (creatively speaking).

Templates? Did Someone Say Template?

In the past, I used a storyboard I created in a graphics program – complete with rounded corners on the screen – but found it too specialized for today’s online work.

And happily, I stumbled across one I like better. (Visit this site for other storyboard options.)

(click to visit the download site)

It’s nothing fancy – it represents the storyboard stripped to its bare essentials – but it’s the perfect all-around storyboard for the all-around copywriter.

A Word of Warning

You might be tempted to storyboard on your computer.

Don’t do it.

At least not on your first draft.

You’ll find yourself contaminating your “big think” time with details.

Get the concept roughed out using broad strokes, refine it – and only then move to a computer storyboard.

I’ve used computer generated storyboards in the past, but in the client pitch stage, where the time invested finding photographs or drawings (and the readability of computer-set type) really pay off.

An Old Tool For New Media

Given the “rich” nature of today’s media channels, a storyboard could easily become one of the modern copywriter’s most useful tools.

Download it, save it, print it and use it whenever you’re working on a sequential, moving project.

It will help you get your head into the game. And your concept in order.

Keep storyboarding, Tom Chandler.

One of the most painful aspects of working as a copywriter is seeing your painstakingly assembled sentences sliced and diced by a client with a fourth-grader’s grasp of syntax.

It’s painful (we’re writers after all, eager for the occasional morsel of praise), but hell, we’re getting paid.

So we suck it up and move on, trying not to let the client drive a stake through our response rate or dangle a modifier in the midst of our call to action.

After all, almost no writer’s work is universally accepted or loved, and anyone who needs a reminder of that little fact might want to peruse an Examiner article titled “The 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time.“

Even literature’s giants can’t agree about what’s good and what’s not – so what chance do we have?

A few examples of the carnage:

3. John Keats, according to Lord Byron (1820)

Here are Johnny Keats’s p@# a-bed poetry…There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables, that I am ashamed to look at them.

4. Edgar Allen Poe, according to Henry James (1876)

An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.

5. John Updike, according to Gore Vidal (2008)

I can’t stand him. Nobody will think to ask because I’m supposedly jealous; but I out-sell him. I’m more popular than he is, and I don’t take him very seriously…oh, he comes on like the worker’s son, like a modern-day D.H. Lawrence, but he’s just another boring little middle-class boy hustling his way to the top if he can do it.

6. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, according to Samuel Pepys (1662)

…we saw ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.

Today’s moral? Nobody’s words gain universal acceptance, and neither will ours. You just do good work, feel good about it all, and move along.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

From The Department of Time-Killing Online Diversions comes the OneWord site, which simply gives you one word, an editor, and sixty seconds to write about it.

The results are streamed for all to see:

Not all the results are necessarily pretty (in fact, most are horrifying), but the occasional gem makes it interesting.

It’s yet another online-fueled way to kill an afternoon (similar to the WriteOrDie program, which administers irritating noises when you stop typing).

Still, you can’t watch an episode of Top Chef without wondering if a similar, timed format wouldn’t offer a compelling online competition for writers, who would chop, slice and cook up sentences for general consumption – and a trio of judges.

Keep dreaming, Tom Chandler.

For those who would kill for a great number comparison quote (we grew revenues $2.2 million – enough to buy a MacBook for everyone in North Pole City, AK), but are too lazy to make one up themselves, we’re pleased to bring you the NumberQuotes.com site:

It’s simple. You enter a number (let’s say you’re writing a presentation for a company that has 146 stores), and it spits back dozens of bizarre number relationships, like:

“146 7 Eleven Hot Dogs would buy 1.61 iPhones”

or

“146: The population of Maiden Rock village, Wisconsin, USA in 2008″

OK. Maybe not the best example. Let’s try a bigger number.

Type in 112.8 million (the estimated number of blogs in existence in February, 2008), and you’ll get:

“112,800,000 dollars would buy a 2010 Cadillac Escalade for everyone living in Minco city, Oklahoma (population 1802)”

or,

”
112,334,376 US Dollars = The 1960 GDP (current dollars) for Fiji”

Frankly, this should revolutionize blogging as we know it – no longer will we be forced to make up statistics to fill blanks in our posts.

Now we can have pointless, irrelevant, real-life statistics generated for us in mere seconds.

While the NumberQuotes.com database seems a little limited, with a little work, it could actually blossom into a perversely useful tool for speakers and those trying to make an (admittedly obscure) point.

Keep making up statistics writing, Tom Chandler.

I wrote my first copywriting projects on a typewriter (I should be posting this on GeezerCopywriter.com), and while that late 70′s electric hardly qualified as an antique, I’m like most writers – I get a shiver up and down my spine when I see a really old typewriter.

That’s why antiquetypewriters.com stopped me in my tracks.

For those stuck on the machines writers formerly used to put words to paper, this site represents the motherload. It’s somebody’s antique typewriter collection, lovingly photographed and put on display for all to see.

In an era when novels are being written on cell phones, big, mechanical, clunky typewriters have undergone a transformation.

From the machines which are recognizably “modern” in design to the oddball constructs, typewriters no longer bear the burden of useful tools; they’ve become little mechanical works of art, and I simply can’t look away.

For those who have never done it, writing on a typewriter demands a level of commitment word processors don’t require.

And while I wouldn’t trade my out-of-control text processor addiction for a typewriter (I can stop anytime I want), I admit writing’s current “fire hose” approach to productivity lacks the elegance of thinking first, and writing second.

The kind of thinking forced on us by clunky mechanical beasts who now occupy museums, not desks.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

I’m behind. Way behind. I’ve been sick almost continuously the last month – the result of my adorable daughter bringing home every bug in the county. I’m recovering, but several iterations of the flu (and a cold, and a wave of power outages) clearly don’t respect a deadline.

In simple terms, I’m well and truly behind the 8-ball. Deadlines loom, and clients are waiting.

It’s an uncomfortable place for any freelance copywriter – especially given that my marketing consultant business continues to grow.

What’s a freelance copywriter to do when circumstances put you way, way behind the curve?

#1: Pare Down

This is the blatantly obvious – yet wholly painful – step where you stop investing energy in the things that can wait (the personal or vanity projects, speculative ventures, test sites, new technology, etc).

Instead, you focus on keeping your paying clients happy.

It sounds simple, but frankly, it’s not.

Because I’m trying to meet my clients’ needs, I’m in the embarrassing position of finishing my third project for my “marketing” company – yet my marketing Web site is only half completed.

And it will stay that way – at least until I catch up on my other commitments.

Painful? You bet.

Necessary? I think so.

#2: Stay In Touch With Your Clients!

I rarely sprinkle exclamation points in my copy, but made an exception for #2.

Sadly, I have to admit I’m not always great at keeping my clients in the loop when I’m struggling – usually the result of delusional, “I’ll pull a couple all-nighters and get caught up” thinking.

Or worse, I’ll embrace what I call embarrassing thinking like: “For several days – despite being sick and tired – I’ll be just as productive as I was when I wrote that entire ad campaign in two hours.”

Never mind your most productive day ever occurred over ten years ago, and you’ve not come close since.

As writers, we tend to remember the high points more readily than the daily slogs, and sometimes, fate doesn’t tap you on the shoulder and hand you a project after ten minutes work.

Sometimes you can pull all-nighters and catch up – your client none the wiser – but as I approach the half-century mark and now raise a little daughter, those all-nighters hurt a lot more.

And truthfully, are you really doing the best work you can for a client when you’re exhausted from working all night?

The moral? Tell your clients about your problem. See if you can’t buy a little more time (you do this by uncovering their real deadlines, or if there’s wriggle room left in the schedule).

If you don’t keep in touch, you run the risk of blindsiding your clients, which is where the real trouble begins – both now, and in the future.

#3: Don’t Make Things Worse

In the midst of my second brush with the flu, my Web host – which had been experiencing increasing problems with a server, but hadn’t addressed them – crashed spectacularly, losing several days worth of data for me and my clients.

When the dust settled (after a couple of long nights), I decided to switch to a new host. Immediately.

Good decision, but bad timing.

The move cost me several more all-nighters, a week’s worth of hassle, and yes – I got sicker in a hurry.

Simply put, I should have waited until I was better, and my deadlines weren’t so pressing.

If you’re sick, working on three hours sleep promises to make you sicker, creating a cascade which will put you even farther behind.

Don’t do it.

Other Strategies?

I outlined three critical strategies, but life’s never really simple enough to boil down to three bullet points. That’s why (absolutely free of charge) I’m including a few other useful strategies:

• Hire help (Find another writer who can help you out of the jungle.)
• Telescope existing projects (Find out which project bits must be finished now, and what can wait until later.)
• Look for productivity gains (Grinding along on a ten year-old laptop? Maybe it’s time to upgrade. Write long, detailed emails? Time to shorten them.)

Freelance long enough, and you’ll find yourself the victim of circumstance – whether through sickness, accident, natural disaster or other calamity.

Some things can’t be avoided, but your response to those moments is always in your hands.

What will it be?

Keep writing (despite disease, power outage, etc), Tom Chandler.

A couple weeks ago we experienced what the local paper termed “The Storm of a Lifetime” – which left six feet of snow on the ground, many of the trees on my wooded three-acre lot broken and toppled over, and the power out for the better part of a week.

That it happened while I was running headlong into several copywriting and consulting deadlines is likely proof of a vengeful god, and – like the snow-shattered trees in the yard – I’m still cleaning up the mess.

I’m also making big changes to my business model, and if it’s one lesson I’ve learned over the years, writing your own copy and consulting on your own marketing plan are much, much harder than doing it for others.

As several other bloggers have noted, the copywriting world is changing fast, and not always for the better. I’m simply recognizing those differences.

The new venture is the logical outgrowth of my focus on the value-added copywriter, and while I’d suggest I’m taking a bold new step, the reality is less hyperbolic; I’m hurrying the transition that’s been occurring for the last handful of years.

I’m a fly fishermen, and given water’s tendency to flow downhill, I’ve always known that you never foot in the same river twice.

Given the nature of our times, it’s equally true you never step out of bed into the same world you left when you crawled in.

Ignoring that reality is a prescription for something other than fulfillment, gratification and success.

We’ll resume normal function here soon – once the trees are off the roof (and the porch, and the driveway, and the…).

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

It turns out that pitting our tiny new daughter against my previously comfortable writing routine results in the following: the wholesale slaughter of the routine.

Embarrassingly, I had to read my own blog to discover where my last post left off (hint: Zombie Copywriter attacks Slacker Building Contractor).

The Good News?

• The new kid is doing great (she is a sweetheart and my cynical marketer’s heart soars every time I see her – unbearably adorable photograph added below)
• Despite the madness, I launched a tourism Web site project (with all the trimmings), and the client is happy (they should be)

The Bad News?

I remain barely a half-step ahead of my client commitments.

Which leaves little time for a blog. Or personal writing. Or sleep. Or even a shared (fun) Web site project (aided and abetted by another copywriter).

Naturally – now that the Thanksgiving Madness is over (as is the last-minute Black Friday client rush) – I’m teaching four nights a week for the next three weeks.

Like raising a kid, teaching is hugely exhausting and wildly gratifying at the same time (more on that in an upcoming post).

I expect to have a lot of fun.

What Else is Coming on the Underground?

I’ve got some great stuff ahead.

I’m putting the finishing touches on an update to the profile I wrote of Airgun niche writer Tom Gaylord, who now hosts a TV show and is even signing lucrative product development contracts.

In his typically direct, impassioned style, Tom offers ample food for thought for anyone dominating their niche – but wonders what comes after you own the space.

Then there’s my call for a Modern Word Processor for the Contemporary Online Writer. Today’s writers are using yesterday’s writing tools, and it’s time that changed.

In other words, the Copywriter Underground’s not dead, just moving at whatever pace the world’s best one year-old daughter allows.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

Adorable Photograph of Reason You’re Not Reading This Blog Very Often:

Lately, there’s been precious little writing going on here – an odd reality given that you’ll find the word “writer” in this blog’s title.

It’s not sloth.

It’s a slew of new Web projects. A little teaching. A rare fly fishing vacation/road trip. And the happy byproduct of taking my own advice (I know, it amuses me too).

That advice?

The Value-Added Copywriter, Meet the Online Marketing Map

Becoming an indispensable resource for your clients – the “value-added copywriter” concept I’ve plugged ad nauseum on the Underground – is a concept becoming more relevant to marketers, not less.

It’s where you apply knowledge and experience to your client’s problems, thereby transcending simple “word jockey” status.

My reality? Clients are happily paying me to craft their online presence instead of simply writing their copy.

In a purely economic sense, that’s a good thing.

The copywriting industry is not the rose garden it used to be – especially at the middle and low end – and after you’ve done something for a while (hint to social media gurus – a “while” is longer than two months), you might as well get paid for what you’ve learned along the way.

Tapping into a couple decades of marketing experience is how my recent teaching gig – which I expected to be a temporary, short-lived thing – became an ongoing concern. In fact, I just signed to do what amounts to a monthlong, fulltime classroom stint later this year.

I still write – and I’m not here to mourn the passing of my copywriting career. It’s alive and kicking. But it’s changing.

Is my online marketing presence changing along with it?

And more importantly to my gentle readers, is yours changing as your business does?

Now, The Inevitable Online Overhaul

I tell my online marketing students the basics of marketing remain in place, but that all the details are subject to change by the end of our class session.

They laugh, but only because they recognize the grain of truth buried there.

I’m simply recognizing the dynamic nature of our online world, and I mean it when I say marketing has changed more in the last ten years than in the prior 100.

Those that sit still too long risk becoming embarrassing dinosaurs.

That’s not to say you must embrace every new social media fad. Or abandon your current online presence after five minute’s thought. And in fact, if your current system involves sales letters and phone calls – and it’s working – then keep it.

Success trumps faddishness every time.

For example, this Copywriter Underground blog was first launched as an experiment; I didn’t feel right advising clients about blogs without really knowing how they worked.

The response was gratifying, and I quickly ended up on Google’s first page for “Copywriter” – a move which saved me a big chunk of change in Google ad fees.

Still, after 24 months, I realized the leads generated weren’t all that relevant to my changing business. So the Underground simply became a writer’s platform.

Regular readers will know I stopped relying on random leads, and began courting the clients I wanted to work for – often using personalized methods like my lumpy mailer.

The results haven’t been swift, but they have been gratifying.

Is this whole post a long-winded gloat? No (though yes, I’m perfectly capable of gloating).

How long has it been since you sat down and evaluated your online marketing presence? How long has it been since you’ve taken stock of your own marketing – and the media channels you’re using?

Are you working for the clients you want? Are you doing the kind of work you want do do?

The Online Marketing Map

When my small business students emerge from my Online Marketing Boot Camp, they do so with an online marketing map – a guide which directs their online marketing efforts.

It’s both aspirational and realistic; it’s used to define what marketing the business wants to happen (and how, and when), but also provides the kind of reality check needed in an era where already-stretched small business owner is told they need to foolishly commit to five blog posts a week.

Marketing is driven by business goals (not the latest technology), and yet an increasing number of small businesses are letting technology drive their marketing decisions, not their brains.

When the technology tail starts wagging the dog, trouble often follows.

In this case, my own online marketing map has fallen on hard times.

My bare-bones copywriting site hasn’t changed significantly for years. And it doesn’t reflect my new reality.

Time to follow my own advice. Time to craft a new Online Marketing Map.

What time is it for you?