How to Drive Marketing Crazy – The Flip Side
A response to Mr. Geoffrey James’s BNet article – “How to Drive Marketing Crazy. “ (http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=12)
I have an advantage over most copywriters. I used to sell for a living and I did quite well at it. Now - as a commercial writer - I ride the grey area between the conflict of sales vs marketing. Let me begin this dissertation - by mentioning why people buy.
AIDA - Attention, Interest, Decision, Action –works because that is how people buy. Commercial writers and sales people use the AIDA approach, so everyone agrees on this part.
The truth of the matter is, the buying public is very predictable. Today for the most part – AIDA will always work for 90% of the buying public. However, in the real world of dollars and cents, a strict AIDA approach can be expensive. For example - during the Super Bowl, a full blown AIDA approach is not needed. Action takes over – preceding Decision. A Decision phase is a given. Interest and Attention are already present because after all, it’s the Super Bowl.
Give the viewer a firm cute Cheerleader in a short skirt, holding out a bottle of brew, and they are suddenly thirsty (hopefully for the brew) without having heard a word. Your million dollar “associative” message is being memorized while their eyes are feasting on that Cheerleader.
Sorry ladies, but sex sells and that is what is supposed to happen with that ad. Just like the affect a half naked male body with a double six pack– glistening sweat dripping from soulful dark eyes will have on you. Wrap those huge muscular arms around a slim bare waist of a female body builder, and without the ad saying a word you want to join a gym. Attention and Interest are visually presented in few words. Action is needed – now. That is the quest – fewest words conveying the most meaning - costing less.
Marketing lives to say a lot in a few words. In contrast, sales people say hello in 500 words or more. But marketing knows that today’s sophisticated -fast paced reader can readily translate these buzz words into meaningful information and render decisions based on that translation. In most cases they demand short - distinctive key words. They will fill in the blanks when they have time.
Words like “award-winning, collaborative, convenient, customer-focused, cutting-edge, empower, enterprise-wide, deployable, globally-focused, industry-leading, inexpensive, instantaneous, interactive, leverage, market-driven, mission-critical, multimedia-based, next-generation, paradigm, performance-based, proactive, revolutionary, robust, scalable, seamless, sophisticated, state-of-the-art, synergistic,” came into existence because of the high cost of advertising and the need for speed.
By using short buzz words, meaning is quickly conveyed and the intelligent person gets through them. Some sales people want to remove those words from all copy. In fact, their quest is to say what you mean using everyday English. My salesperson side agrees but my copywriting side says – it won’t work. Here’s why. Let’s use the example “globally focused” meaning “built for the needs of the world-wide community. “
Note the two words as opposed to eight words. Sales people can afford the gift of gab. Copywriters cannot. If a salesperson thinks we can – then have them describe their company and their product/service in 50 words or less and get the signature on the dotted line. Or if you are working web copy, ask a salesperson to sell you that widget in 15 seconds as you walk past them.
Tell them their income depends on how “few” words they use to sell the same item. Suggest that their paycheck starts at $4,000 a week and goes down by a $100 dollar bill for every word they use. It won’t take you long to see them with a gun to their customers head saying, “Buy? Die?” while slowly pulling the trigger back.
A copywriter who writes out all the “buzzwords,” becomes a novelist. They will not work long in the copywriting business. A salesperson that uses buzzwords in his sales discussion - will be broke. Two different venues - each with different requirements.
That is the point. The copywriter has to get that person to the table. They do it with short quick copy and buzzwords that should never leave the page. It is the sales person however, who can discuss pros and cons, counter objections, and who can answer the needs of the client. He or she should never write copy. But the two of them working together create a very powerful team.
Gary A. Clark – www.write4me.biz
I have an advantage over most copywriters. I used to sell for a living and I did quite well at it. Now - as a commercial writer - I ride the grey area between the conflict of sales vs marketing. Let me begin this dissertation - by mentioning why people buy.
AIDA - Attention, Interest, Decision, Action –works because that is how people buy. Commercial writers and sales people use the AIDA approach, so everyone agrees on this part.
The truth of the matter is, the buying public is very predictable. Today for the most part – AIDA will always work for 90% of the buying public. However, in the real world of dollars and cents, a strict AIDA approach can be expensive. For example - during the Super Bowl, a full blown AIDA approach is not needed. Action takes over – preceding Decision. A Decision phase is a given. Interest and Attention are already present because after all, it’s the Super Bowl.
Give the viewer a firm cute Cheerleader in a short skirt, holding out a bottle of brew, and they are suddenly thirsty (hopefully for the brew) without having heard a word. Your million dollar “associative” message is being memorized while their eyes are feasting on that Cheerleader.
Sorry ladies, but sex sells and that is what is supposed to happen with that ad. Just like the affect a half naked male body with a double six pack– glistening sweat dripping from soulful dark eyes will have on you. Wrap those huge muscular arms around a slim bare waist of a female body builder, and without the ad saying a word you want to join a gym. Attention and Interest are visually presented in few words. Action is needed – now. That is the quest – fewest words conveying the most meaning - costing less.
Marketing lives to say a lot in a few words. In contrast, sales people say hello in 500 words or more. But marketing knows that today’s sophisticated -fast paced reader can readily translate these buzz words into meaningful information and render decisions based on that translation. In most cases they demand short - distinctive key words. They will fill in the blanks when they have time.
Words like “award-winning, collaborative, convenient, customer-focused, cutting-edge, empower, enterprise-wide, deployable, globally-focused, industry-leading, inexpensive, instantaneous, interactive, leverage, market-driven, mission-critical, multimedia-based, next-generation, paradigm, performance-based, proactive, revolutionary, robust, scalable, seamless, sophisticated, state-of-the-art, synergistic,” came into existence because of the high cost of advertising and the need for speed.
By using short buzz words, meaning is quickly conveyed and the intelligent person gets through them. Some sales people want to remove those words from all copy. In fact, their quest is to say what you mean using everyday English. My salesperson side agrees but my copywriting side says – it won’t work. Here’s why. Let’s use the example “globally focused” meaning “built for the needs of the world-wide community. “
Note the two words as opposed to eight words. Sales people can afford the gift of gab. Copywriters cannot. If a salesperson thinks we can – then have them describe their company and their product/service in 50 words or less and get the signature on the dotted line. Or if you are working web copy, ask a salesperson to sell you that widget in 15 seconds as you walk past them.
Tell them their income depends on how “few” words they use to sell the same item. Suggest that their paycheck starts at $4,000 a week and goes down by a $100 dollar bill for every word they use. It won’t take you long to see them with a gun to their customers head saying, “Buy? Die?” while slowly pulling the trigger back.
A copywriter who writes out all the “buzzwords,” becomes a novelist. They will not work long in the copywriting business. A salesperson that uses buzzwords in his sales discussion - will be broke. Two different venues - each with different requirements.
That is the point. The copywriter has to get that person to the table. They do it with short quick copy and buzzwords that should never leave the page. It is the sales person however, who can discuss pros and cons, counter objections, and who can answer the needs of the client. He or she should never write copy. But the two of them working together create a very powerful team.
Gary A. Clark – www.write4me.biz
posted by Write4Me @ 8:53 AM
2 Comments:
At 5:20 PM ,
Unknown said...
Thanks for the counterpoint to Geoffrey's post! Great point about the two halves serving different functions but forming the whole.
Leslie Leite
BNET
At 7:31 AM ,
Geoffrey James, Sales Machine, BNET said...
Buzzword cliches are not shorthand for something meaningful. The example that you give about "globally focused" is a case in point. The longer circumlocution is so vague that I defy you to define what it actually means. Just piling on more buzzwords doesn't help.
More than that, the term "globally focused" is a complete oxymoron. How can something be "focused" on the entire world? Does that mean that we cancel the ad campaign on the planet Jupiter? It's ridiculous.
I don't mean to cast aspersions on copywriting, but the buzzwordery that you defend is laughable to everybody outside of the marketing teams that write and read it.
I'll give you an example. A top executive at Gartner told me that whenever software firms present to them, the analysts now use their blackberries to play the "spot the buzzword" game. Every time the vendor representative trots out one of your precious buzzwords, the person who clicks first gets a point. In other words, the analysts aren't being impressed into thinking that the should recommend the software, they're laughing up their sleeves. This is not good for a company's reputation.
The same thing is true of customers. Eyes roll when vendors trot out this stuff. As for reporters... every buzzword we read is another nail in the coffin of a marketing group's reputation.
Example: As a reporter (and I write on software frequently) I can't take Oracle marketing seriously because their press releases are so mush minded that I can't figure out what they're trying to say. As a result, I now longer believe that Oracle marketing is capable of logical thought. I perceive all their recent corporate acquisitions through a lens colored by the willful obtuseness that's evident in everything that comes out of the firm. How can those acquisitions make any sense if nobody can't write a coherent sentence explaining why they did them?
In short, goofball cliches and weasely business buzzwords just make companies look stupid to everybody... except other marketing people who talk the same lingo.
I'm saddened that your clients apparently force you to write that kind of mental creamcake because, based on what I've read here, you're obviously capable of giving them some copy that wouldn't make them sound like minor cast members in a made-for-TV Dilbert movie.
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