Lately, I’ve been noticing how small the online world can be despite its vastness. We all have our favorite bloggers, websites, and Tweeters that we interact with. We even have a select few that we look up to and draw inspiration from. And even though this list is unique for everyone, we all have one thing in common:

We’re here to learn something.

Which also means that we feel we have a lot to learn. Which means we feel like someone out there is better than us at what we’re trying to do. Which means if we’re not careful, we can do some serious internal damage to our own confidence and aspirations if we spend too much time comparing ourselves to them.

And by “we” of course I mean “I”

Because that’s what I did this week. I’ve been thinking of offering new products and services through Inky Clean, so naturally I started doing some research. What’s already out there? What are other writers doing? How are they making it work and how can I approach it differently?

The deeper I got into my research the louder this little voice inside of me started saying, “What makes you think you can do this? What makes you so special?”

I got into quite the slump, and I realize it’s risky to share this online. Online, we’re supposed to showcase ourselves. We’re supposed to sell our expertise and know-how in a neatly-bundled package. Perhaps this is how we end up with online idols who, in our minds, never experience self-doubt, never question whether or not they’re getting everything right, never wonder how they’ll pull things off.

How I got out of this slump

I’ve been having a lot of great conversations with writers lately, and they are all in different stages of their career. One of them actually told me that they looked up to me, that they considered me an example of a successful writer. And I really had to step back, shift my perspective away from the impossible standards I’d set up for myself, and realize that they were right. Not in an arrogant, “You’re right, I’m wonderful” kind of way, but in a healthy, “You’re right, I should be proud with what I’ve accomplished” kind of way.

I should mention that the person who said this to me is a fantastic writer, and I also know for a fact that she experiences moments of self-doubt just like I do. And if that’s the case, then that’s probably the case for the people I look up to, and the people those people look up to, until it all becomes this crazy cycle of accomplished, but occasionally insecure, awesome people.

Only, we don’t often see that. We see beautifully-designed websites, prolific blogs and swarms of comments and we forget that the people we admire are more than their traffic numbers or client lists. And then we compare ourselves to them based on this incomplete ideal that we’ve created in our minds.

Maybe it’s time we broke that cycle. Maybe it’s time we stopped comparing ourselves—our real, living, breathing, thinking, selves—to the online brands and personalities we become attached to. If we stop idolizing them, an interesting thing could happen: we could learn a lot from them, without putting ourselves down like I did. We could get to know the real people behind the personas and realize that we’re not all that different.

What do you think? Have you ever been in a similar slump? Or is it just me?

photo credit: Mike Kanert

So many wonderful things happen when you let yourself take a vacation, like I did last week. You might find that the world actually does not come crumbling down if you deactivate the email accounts on your Blackberry (I didn’t believe it at first, but it’s true!). You might experience moments that leave you speechless or on the brink of tears, like when I saw the Grand Canyon or heard the first opening notes of The Phantom of the Opera.

Or, after having carefully planned your wardrobe for the entire week but choosing your bummiest outfit for a 5:30 a.m. flight home, you might run into Tim Gunn at a Las Vegas hotel. You can’t take a picture with Tim Gunn in a wrinkled sweater, white/beige T-shirt, baggy jeans and crazy hair. At least I can’t, but I’ll pretend that the real reason I didn’t walk up to him was because he was talking to someone.

Anywho…Here’s where this is going:

Some bad things can happen upon your return from said vacation. Like forgetting how to use your fingers to push those pretty buttons on your computer and make words with them (oh yes, it’s called typing!) or forgetting the right words for things. Or, after spending a long period of time trying to take a break from what it is you do for a living, you suddenly forget how to eloquently describe your job.

The simple question with the Not-so-simple Answer

The night after I got back from vacation, I went to an art gallery for the opening reception of my husband’s photography teacher’s exhibit. As we made small talk with some of his classmates, one of them turned to me and said:

So what do you do for a living?

This is one of those questions that’s always tough for me to answer in social, non-business settings. Do I say, “I’m a writer” or that I own my own copywriting business? Or do I simply say I’m a copywriter, which usually gets followed by the “Yes, but who do you work for” question.

But online—on my website, my Twitter stream, Facebook page, blog—what I do should be pretty clear to anyone that visits, right? I was pretty sure of this until I started catching up on my Google Reader feed and came across this post by IttyBiz. She asks an important question:

How many of YOUR readers don’t really understand your business?

Then she asks us to answer the following questions in a blog post. The point is to make sure you’re clearly communicating what you do to your readers. Seeing as how my brain is still getting reacquainted with work (seriously, it just took me like five tries to write reacquainted) I’m more than happy to let someone else think of a blog topic for me.

So I’ll play. Here goes.

What I Do:

What’s your game? What do you do?

I help businesses get their message across with the written word. This sounds simple but rarely is. Anyone who’s ever started a business knows there is an endless amount of material that needs to be written—from the web copy that needs to capture your brand perfectly, to the ad you’re spending a small fortune on, to the words that will ultimately end up on your product’s packaging. All of these communications need to be consistent with the company’s brand and messaging, so I find the right words and write copy that will speak to the intended audience. Copywriting isn’t just about getting something written. It’s about getting the right message across with those words. I make sure we’re doing that.

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

I love it. I surprise myself with how much I love it. Back when I was mainly writing for magazines I thought writing marketing copy would stifle my creativity. But there’s nothing more creative than having to find the perfect combination of three to five words (out of what? Millions?) for a company’s tagline or slipping into a voice that lets you say something in a completely new way.

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

My customers are business owners who aren’t afraid to get creative with their messaging (or who are at least willing to let me do it for them). They don’t want boring, overused, corporatese and they don’t want to say things in the same way that a thousand other companies are saying them. They embrace the idea of showing some personality in their branding because they understand that this is what will make them stand out.

One thing I’ve noticed a lot of my customers say to me is “I’m not good with words.” That’s perfectly fine. They’re great at what they do, at whatever skill makes up their business, and they understand the importance of hiring someone who IS great with words so that they can keep working their kind of magic.

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

Because I don’t just focus on the words, I focus on a company’s brand. The words should give that brand a voice and help it come alive and be memorable. So I make sure that the copy I write is full of personality and says more than the words do. There are multiple messages being sent in a company’s copy. There’s the actual statement that’s being made, and there’s the impression that those words will leave long after a person’s forgotten what they read.

I make sure that impression is consistent with a company’s brand; that’s it’s the impression they’re hoping to make. All companies should seize the opportunity to let their personality show in big or small ways. Maybe they’re charming, or witty, or smart-asses, or wholesome goody-goodies—but they have to be something that will stick in their target audiences’ minds.

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

My main focus right now is growing my business according to my definition of growth. So it’s not just about bringing in tons of clients, but rather finding the clients I totally click with, and working with them long-term. I’m lucky that I have several regular clients who I’m able to grow and adapt with as their business develops, and I’m hoping to make that kind of connection with a few more.

And, I know this is random, but you know what I would absolutely love to write? The copy for a museum exhibit, preferably a children’s museum. Have you ever thought about how much information has to get reduced and simplified so that it can fit on those small plastic plaques that people walk by? That’s a challenge I’d totally be up for: getting the important stuff across in a way that’s fun and concise so that people read it and actually learn something they won’t forget.

So there you have it. What I do. Sound like something you need? Contact me and we’ll start up a brainstorm. I promise my brain’s working now. It better be after this 1200-word post.

And if reading these questions has made you give another think to whether your readers know what you do, why not blog about it like I did? Or better yet, leave a little something in the comments below!

Last week I went to the doctor for this terrible soreness I was having in my jaw. The pain was so bad I couldn’t even chew, and my jaw bone was clicking and snapping out of place to the point that my bottom teeth were no longer aligning with my top. This wasn’t something my dentist could fix—I had to see a specialist.

I got to the office with two main concerns in mind: what’s going on with my mouth and when will I be able eat more than just milkshakes and soup (not that I minded the milkshakes).

photo credit: Mister Sprock
The doctor must’ve spent maybe one minute examining my jaw, and another fifteen explaining to me, in detail, what was going on with it. And he did it with pictures–little scribbles that he drew on the back of a recycled sheet of paper. He compared the joints and tendons in my jaw to an overused hammock that’d been stretched too far and was now swollen from the effort.

He knew I hadn’t gone to medical school, so there was no point in him getting all technical with me. He didn’t bother using anatomical terms, and when he did, he took the time to explain them to me.

And because of that, I left his office completely satisfied with the consultation and trusting that I was in good hands.

All because he tried to speak my language.

More often times than not, we are not at all like our target audience. We’re specialists in one thing, and clients need us precisely because they don’t know much about that one thing. A teacher might look for a nutritionist to advise her on eating better. A doctor might hire a dog trainer to help her get through to her new pup. A writer might try to find a blog template designer because she doesn’t know the first thing about coding.

None of these people use the same terminology in their work. So if you’re the person being hired, it’s up to you to cross that language barrier and get your message across to the potential customer. It’s up to you to make them understand how you can help them.

The thing is, it’s not always easy to set aside the years of training and education it took to make you an expert on a topic, and put yourself in someone else’s frame of reference. What you think is common knowledge about positive reinforcement in dog training is not at all common to someone who’s memorized what types of bacteria can cause certain symptoms in infants. That’s when it helps to bring in a copywriter.

Oftentimes when I’m talking to a potential client they’ll ask me: Have you written about [neurosurgery, feng shui, printing presses, parenting] before? Sometimes I have. Sometimes I haven’t. It doesn’t matter because my specialty is writing. It’s asking the right questions so that I can understand all sorts of specialists. It’s writing about it in a way that people who aren’t specialists—those who are coming to someone with a need, and with not nearly as much knowledge about the topic—will understand how they can benefit from their service.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my lunchtime milkshake.

Have you ever encountered language barriers with customers? How do you overcome them?

Two months ago, starting an email newsletter had, quite frankly, not even entered my mind. I know how ridiculous that sounds considering I write email newsletters for my clients, but for me it was always one of those things I’d decided I’d do…eventually.

So you can imagine my surprise when I signed up for a Personalized Twitter Strategy session with Marian Schembari and she basically said: You really should start a newsletter. I’m not one to argue with Marian (the girl knows her stuff), so I agreed to start a newsletter…eventually. I procrastinated by implementing every other suggestion she’d made about how I could engage more people on Twitter until finally the inevitable was staring me in the face. I’d resisted because I’d thought starting a newsletter would be a huge time-suck. There was the question of what to focus it on, what to call it, how often to send it out, what software to manage it with.

The not-so-simple process of getting started

When I finally got around to the newsletter, I took what I thought would be baby steps. I signed up for MailChimp and started poking my nose around. Then I dove (or maybe fell) head-first into what became quite the branding endeavor.

When MailChimp said, “Hey! You can create your own header for your newsletter” I went and got my logo and the newsletter name (Wordy Goodness) and meshed them into a pretty little graphic that would be on top of each newsletter.

When they said, “Here’s the link to your signup form!” I rewrote the copy they’d provided in each template. I could have just stuck with “To confirm your subscription, please click the link we just sent to your email” but that just didn’t sound like me. I rewrote (as much as they’d let me) of the copy on the unsubscribe form, even though I’m hoping not many people will click on that. I made sure the fonts and colors on each form matched the ones I’d been using on my site.

The YOU Filter

I was feeling pretty happy with myself. Getting started with my email newsletter even gave me an idea for a blog post about how we should seize every little opportunity to brand our business. If the signup form for your email newsletter supplies you with some generic copy, don’t settle for it. If you have to write a “Please do not disturb” sign outside your office, who says you have to use those words? And if someone stumbles upon a page that no longer exists on your site, why not find a way to tell them that other than “This page no longer exists”?

Let your voice pop up and charm customers with your unique personality in the most unexpected places—they’ll remember you for it. Before you do or say anything, pass it through the “You Filter.” Let your brand filter out all the generic gunk that’s floating about. Serve up a cup full of freshly brewed, customized goodness that says you know who you are and can’t help but show it.

So that’s what this blog post was supposed to be about. Until I pulled up my blog on my browser to start writing it.

Every last drop counts

You see, if you’ve ever been to the Inky Clean website, you’ll realize it doesn’t even look like a distant relative of this blog. *Update: The blog has since been redesigned (yay!), but here’s what it used to look like:

That’s because at the time I designed my website, I didn’t know enough about WordPress to make this blog match. So I picked the most unoffensive-looking free template I could find and left it at that. The result is that when you go from my site to this blog there is no brand continuity whatsoever. It basically goes from bubbly and fun to blah. Meh. Eh.

Not very memorable at all.

So there I was with this newsletter coming up in September, ready to send writing tips, special offers, links to this blog and Inky Clean’s latest news to subscribers. And I thought, if I worked so hard to brand the newsletter, why would I send people to this blog where the branding falls flat?

It was clearly time to keep filtering until every last drop had passed through my “You Filter” (or my Me Filter, or my Inky Clean filter, or…you get the point). So I went and hired someone to create a custom WordPress template for this blog that’ll match the Inky Clean site. I couldn’t be more excited about it, and I’m hoping that in the next few days the makeover will be complete.

I’ll make sure to let you know when it is (though hopefully, it’ll be pretty obvious). In the meantime, you can always sign up for my newsletter. Let me know what you think about the forms

Last week, it took me two hours to find the right facial sunblock online. A year ago, it would’ve taken me ten minutes—just a quick drive to my neighborhood pharmacy, picking up the same brand I’d used for years.

Why the big change?

About a year ago, I started copywriting for a new skin care line as they prepared to launch. I’ve written their web copy, bottle labels, product descriptions, brochures. Their goal was to make people rethink how they shop for beauty products and take a closer look at the ingredients. There are all sorts of potentially harmful chemicals in skin care products we see on shelves every day, in brands that many people trust (this video sums it up beautifully). Recently I also started writing for another beauty line that has a similar mission and because of this, sticks to natural ingredients.

There’s a point to all this, I swear.

Just yesterday, as I was explaining to my sister that many popular fragrances contain potentially harmful chemicals that are not listed on the label, I realized that I was the perfect example of a marketer’s dream consumer. I heard their message. I believed in it and made it part of my life. What’s more, I even passed the message on to others.

Clients often come to me with the concern that they don’t want to sound too pushy in their marketing copy (or sales-y, which has become a common term). When I initially sat down with the first skin care client, listening to how her products were different and how she was trying to improve her customers’ lives, it was enlightening. She didn’t need to be pushy because she knew exactly what problem she was solving for people. She had a genuine concern for their well-being and wanted to help.

The word “sales-y” has gotten a bad rap. We assume that to sell someone, we have to convince them, possibly even trick them, into thinking that they need what we’re offering. There’s a connotation of deception there, of sleaziness, of having to keep a person’s attention because they’d rather be doing something else. Those are clear signs of two things:

1) you’re targeting the wrong audience

2) you’re focusing on how they can help you instead of how you can help them

When people are truly loyal to a brand, it’s because they consider them a friend. That brand looks out for them, that brand helps them out every time. Instead of being pushy, the best thing we can do is listen to our audience’s needs and be that friend. Only then will they listen to your message and look for more of it. And, when they realize it’s not just talk, that your product can really follow through on the promise you’ve made, they’ll take it in and pass it on to their friends.

As I got my new sunblock in the mail today, I was actually grateful that there are companies out there looking out for their customers’ well-being. I changed my shopping habits and switched brands because I wanted a healthier alternative. Nobody had to convince me to make that decision. It was a matter of me wanting something, and of someone else having exactly what I was looking for.

How about you? What brands are you most loyal to, and why?

I’ve never mentioned this before, but I’ve been writing a novel for a few years now and am finally at the final draft stage. It’s been a crazy ride (I’ve changed characters, entire plot points, and settings, so much that it’s almost as if I’ve written three books) and as overwhelming and close to me as this book is, I never mentioned it on this blog because I thought I had to keep my copywriting and my fiction separate.

And then it dawned on me: that’s just silly. Good copy tells a story, just like a great book does. Why should I keep my copywriting and fiction separate when the skills I use for both are so closely related?

In fiction, one of the most important skills a writer has to develop is that of building believable characters. Readers need to feel like they know these people, they need to believe that they’re real, that they have motivations, virtues, vices, issues, opinions and hot buttons just like any other person. Most of all, the writer needs to create a character that readers care about. Why else would a reader follow someone’s journey for 300 pages if they’re not loyal to them?

It’s the same in copywriting. A company’s brand is like the characters in a book. If it’s bland, forgettable, doesn’t feel genuine, or fails to set itself apart from the thousands of other brands/characters in the marketplace, then people aren’t going to connect with it enough to go on a journey with them. Just like in creative writing, your character needs to be fleshed out. It needs to come alive. To do this through copywriting, it’s all about the voice and the word choice and the messages you put out there.

So…quick question for all of you. If your brand were a character in a book, who would it be, and why?

You can’t take the journalist out of the copywriter—at least not this one, anyways. You could say my journalism background extends as far back as that time I was eight and checked out a “So You Want to Be a Journalist?” book. But for the purposes of this blog, I guess I’ll stick mainly to college and beyond.

In Journalism 101, we all learn the importance of the 5 Ws and one H: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. These are the key components of a story, the main elements that will give us the overall picture. Recently, I was writing web copy for a client when I realized that these factors apply equally well in copywriting.

As I was looking through their original drafts of copy, the one thing that kept tipping me off was that there was no H. There was lots of talk about what the product did, but not how it would do it. There was a good emphasis on benefits rather than features, but not a whole lot of context as to how those benefits would come about. Without the “How”, the copy lacked a complete picture. It wasn’t doing a good job of conveying the user experience. And if it wasn’t selling an experience, how would people be sold?

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that the “How” gets left out so often. When you’ve got 5 Ws that fit so nicely together, the lonely H might wander off occasionally. So maybe the 5 Ws and One H should be rewritten and adapted to copywriting. Rather than applying them to a particular incident, as in journalism, these would apply to a product or service:

Who is this product helping?

What problem is it solving for them?

Where will they be using it?

When will they need or want it?

Why should they choose this one over another one?

and of course, don’t forget:

How will it do this?

What about you? In what ways do parts of your background inform what you’re doing now?

Great copy can be a lot like air: it’s everywhere, but not everyone notices it unless it’s missing. Think of all the billboard ads you see on your daily commute, the brochure you take with you as you leave the bank, or the product descriptions you read as you browse through your favorite online store. These are all examples of a copywriter’s work, and if they did their job right, you’d never even know it.

Similar to the mark of a great editor, a good copywriter is often invisible. She’s more concerned with her writing doing its job than she is with getting recognition for it. When the copy’s written effectively, the first thing that pops into a reader’s mind shouldn’t be “Wow, what great writing.”

The first thing that pops into the reader’s head should be the message.

Whatever point the writing is supposed to make should take center stage. Writing that’s effectively communicating the benefits of a product will make a person think of all the ways the product will make their life easier. Writing that’s aligned with a company’s brand will leave the reader feeling like they understand what that company’s about and what makes them unique. Writing that’s witty and clever will make someone laugh and remember you. And writing that succinctly explains complex topics—whether in an instruction manual or on a website’s FAQ page—will inform readers by simplifying.

So why hire a copywriter, if people might not notice you hired one in the first place?

read more…

Feeling rebellious? It’s okay to break the rules when you know what you’re doing (or writing). Here are three writing rules that you don’t always have to follow. Breaking them might even make for better writing, as long as you know how and when to do it.

1. Starting sentences with a conjunction. Whenever I start a sentence with and, but, or or, I think of my seventh grade writing teacher who taught me never, ever, to do this. But when you’re writing a blog post, or email, or anything else that’s rather informal, it’s best to mimic the way we talk. And we talk a lot like this.

2. Ending a sentence with a preposition. Winston Churchill said it best when an editor rearranged his words so they wouldn’t break this rule. Churchill responded with a note that said “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” His point was that the rules don’t always work, like in this case, where following them actually made the sentence clumsy, difficult to read and just plain ugly to look at.

3. Don’t use fragments. I’m actually a fan of fragments when they’re short, punchy and used for emphasis. They have to be intentional, because long fragments tend to sound like the author just forgot his way around a sentence. Think of a fragment as a puppy in a squirrel-filled park. You gotta keep it on a short leash or else you don’t know where it’ll end up. Maybe on another thought completely. Or at another park. Or something like that, anyways.

See? Breaking those rules wasn’t so bad after all. But I should add one rule to make this list of breakable rules work:

Know your audience. All three of these rules can be broken when the tone of the writing is meant to be informal and conversational. But that cover letter for the job you’ve been eyeing? Best to stick with formalities. You never know when the person in charge of hiring really took those seventh-grade English lessons to heart.

What about you? Can you think of any other writing rules you occasionally throw out the window?

When I moved my copywriting business from Miami to Austin, I decided it was time to rebrand. I didn’t think my current brand showed enough personality. I thought, if I’m not clear about my business identity, how am I going to attract clients who are a good fit?

Less than a month after I arrived in Austin I relaunched as Inky Clean. I didn’t worry about the fact that my brand was kinda quirky, nerdy and even a bit cute. I enjoy writing for businesses that can appreciate these qualities, in their copywriting or in general. Shouldn’t my brand speak to this audience instead of trying to reach out to a faceless mass?

Turns out, I’d landed in just the kind of town that could appreciate quirky. In case you haven’t heard it before, “Keep Austin Weird” is the slogan adapted by the Austin Independent Business Alliance to promote small businesses. It was coined as the result of an offhand remark by a librarian calling a local radio station, then caused some controversy once it was trademarked by a company that printed shirts with the phrase.

The slogan is all over the Austin area: t-shirts, bumper stickers…and probably tattooed on a die-hard Austinite or two.

But in the short few months I’ve lived here, it’s become apparent that “Keep Austin Weird” is much more than a slogan. It’s a way of life around here, and a great way to do business and approach copywriting.

Austinites protect their mom and pop shops and their trailer eateries and independent bookstores because they know that this “weirdness” is what gives the city its character and charm. (Not to mention that keeping it weird stimulates the local economy). They don’t want Austin to turn into just another city, where all the coffeeshops are Starbucks and all the bookstores are a Barnes & Noble.

You could say they’re trying to preserve who they are. What they stand for. Their uniqueness. Their brand.

Shouldn’t all businesses, large or small, be doing the same?

That’s why copywriting is so important. The words on a business’s marketing materials make up their voice; they determine how readers will hear them in their minds. What you say and how you say it is just as important as how you look. If you’re going to make an impression, shouldn’t you make one that’s a real reflection of you, what you stand for, and what makes you different?

Shouldn’t you build your true brand?

Maybe your brand isn’t weird, like Austin’s is. That’s okay. “Weird” isn’t so much about being weird as it is about embracing what makes us all different. And when a business does that, they stand a much better chance of attracting the right people.

That must be how I ended up in Austin. The weirdness was calling to me.

What about you? In what ways are you keeping your business “weird” and embracing its unique qualities?