Should you use the fear of recession in your copywriting this year?

February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

People are becoming afraid of spending money. The threat of a recession on both sides of the pond and the global credit crunch means it’s getting harder to coax credit cards out of people’s wallets.

Shoppers are staying at home and businesses are revising their spending plans. Does this mean copywriters need to rethink which buttons to push to sell their products and services?

Is fear taking over from desire as the dominant emotion that will drive people to take action?

This question was inspired by a recent post by Seth Godin in which he questioned whether marketers should reconsider the stories they’re telling people. The product hasn’t changed but the stories you tell need to be different under a gloomier economic climate.

Whilst a $4 cup of coffee was a symbol of confidence in your earnings a few years ago it’s now a small indulgence you allow yourself after downgrading your apartment.

Copywriting is all about appealing to emotions, rather than purely logic. You tell people why a product will make them more successful, more popular or richer so they can justify a purchase because you’ve convinced them it will improve their lives.

In general, it’s the positive emotions of desire that will inspire people to respond to your words. Spending money is a proactive reaction, rather than defensive.

The Yin to desire’s Yang is that of the fear of loss and what can happen if you don’t buy a water purifier or take advantage of a limited time offer on Dimoxonil magical hair growth.

Making people afraid of missing out or what can happen if they don’t take action can be a powerful emotional trigger.

It’s the weapon of choice for many politicians.

Politics has never been more heavily influenced by marketing and telling stories to make people afraid. In this post, copywriter Peter Hobday compared Tony Blair’s speech on Iraq’s WMD threat to a long sales letter designed to make people afraid of what can happen if they don’t respond to his call to arms/action.

The success of Blair’s speech in building support for the war amongst voters says as much about the power of fear as it does about his speech writing.

So if people are afraid of spending money and are now revising their expectations this year, is appealing to their desires for wealth, popularity and happiness going to succeed?

Or should your copywriting make people afraid of losing their dignity or losing a competitive advantage under the approaching storm clouds of a recession?

Is spending money still a reward or a way of staying out of trouble?

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting

How to Cultivate Buzz with Journalists

February 7, 2008 | 4 Comments

Last week I published my top ten tips for marketing your website, although admittedly many of them have already been covered to death elsewhere. But one tactic that has always posed a puzzle for every marketing and PR agency is how to generate buzz in the traditional media. It’s all well and good being able to publish articles every week, but they’re not going to attract traffic and back-links unless you’re also generating exposure.

Almost on cue, last week Anna Farmery on her podcast ‘The Engaging Brand’ discussed ways of generating buzz with veteran business journalist Nettie Hartsock, who now concentrates on helping individuals and companies to get their stories heard.

Nettie shared some valuable tips on not only how to engage with bloggers, but also how to get your stories noticed by traditional journalists.

Discover what stories they cover

A key point she raised is that whilst bloggers have the creative freedom to set their own topic guidelines journalists can only cover stories that fit within their editorial framework and appeal to their target audience.

Therefore the trick is put together a dossier of the type of stories being covered by your industry’s 5-10 journalists and then assess how you can build a similar story around your own company.

Once you’ve got your story together, Nettie’s advice is to compose a two paragraph, concisely worded email in the style of a query.

Detail to the journalist your interest in the last couple of stories they’ve covered, and then offer some fresh insight into how the topic could be expanded.

Become their trusted source

Journalists are always on the hunt for new sources to feed them fresh, unique content in order to stay on-the-ball and to be able to offer their readers info they wont find elsewhere.

By reaching out in this helpful and respectful manner, rather than trying to mail bomb them into submission, journalists will be more inclined to respond and listen to what you have to say. Then you can start feeding them details of your own company’s story and why they should be the main feature in their next issue.

For this tactic to work you have to be able to offer the journalist useful information they won’t find after a quick search on Google. This means you either have to become and expert in your industry or find someone in the company who already is.

Then you’ve got to coax them into spilling the beans on what the journalists are missing so you can offer a story that differentiates you from the hundreds of pitches a journalist is bombarded with every day.

Not everybody spends all day online

It’s easy to get carried away with all the enthusiasm for throwing all your marketing onto the internet when you read blogs all day. But it’s important to remember that the majority of people still get a lot of their information offline and from the traditional media.

Consequently, journalists can be powerful friends because they still wield significant power in cultivating buzz for your products and brand.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Marketing