A very great portion of the work we do here at Load Bearing Creative is copywriting or graphic support for copywriting – the words, and the pictures that go with them.
Much of that work is in support of technical products and services, white papers and case studies for companies great and small. As writers and graphic designers, we see our roles as essentially communicators. We are there to tell the story, not star in it.
There are any number of articles and even books out there about how sharp, well-written copy can make you money. And effective communication can certainly do that. It can also cement your reputation, crack open an important market, and clarify your prospect’s problem into a decision to move forward.
But instead of rehashing the marketing-makes-money argument that everyone already knows by heart, I wanted to take a moment this week and look at the flip side: how it saves you money, and actively contributes to the strategic success of your business.
There is a real difference between good communication – copy or design – and bad communication. In the long term (and often the short), bad communication is a lot more expensive. It wastes time. It sows confusion. It ruins strategy. It hides sins rather than revealing virtues.
While we work hard to approach every project as an opportunity to engage and motivate, and maybe even entertain, we also try to approach your copywriting and design marketing projects from a more pragmatic perspective. These are the four principles we follow with every project we take on at Load Bearing Creative:
Build it to age well. For most businesses, small or mighty, the average piece of written copy or graphic design can have an exceptionally short shelf life.
Marketing programs evolve and change, ideas get replaced, services are discontinued, and new ones take priority. But overhauling your entire marketing suite every three months gets very expensive, not to mention confusing.
Good copy, on the other hand, is written for the long haul, focusing on the underlying cultural principles of your company and helping them shine through what you offer. If it is written clearly and to the point, it will age well and only require light revisions from time to time to keep it current.
Build it to be flexible. Good copy should be adaptable into several different media: online, print brochures, even press releases. We try never to let a one-time-use-only piece of collateral leave our offices.
If the material is flexible enough to accommodate larger parts of your sales message and other aspects of your customers’ changing needs, what would have been a throwaway marketing piece will now help serve to consolidate your prospecting efforts over the long term. The value then builds steadily over time, rather than dissipating quickly.
Think about the current customers, too. Your prospects aren’t the only ones who will read the materials your marketing team creates. Do you find that your customer support staff or sales teams are answering the same questions over and over when your customers call?
Communication is not just about getting new business, or even developing further business out of existing customers, but also about helping your existing customers to reap the most rewards from the good decisions they’ve already made by working with you. Three hundred words of well-written copy can save hours and hours of time spent on customer support – and badly written copy can be so confusing that countless more hours are wasted that could be spent appreciating your offering.
Don’t simply focus on the prospect pain point. Encourage existing customers to love you more, as well.
Reflect and focus. Good marketing conveys what you are trying to say, but great marketing does more: it streamlines your own thinking, revealing the key values of both your business and industry that you hadn’t seen before.
It should reflect and serve as an important tool to structure your company’s tacit knowledge internally, ultimately contributing to a stronger and healthier business.
We sometimes think of it as “business therapy” – the important revelations that emerge from the process of refining communication to a sharp edge. Your marketing should not only convince people outside your company, but also help refocus and renew your strategy internally.
Do we regularly manage to achieve all four goals in every project? No, of course not. But we try our best, and when that effort is a success, we find that the resulting communication really sings. Better than that, it both saves and makes money for our clients.
If you are struggling with your company’s marketing, consider the all-important question. Are you only focused on making the sale, or are you taking advantage of the full power of quality communication?
Does your company need professional creative help on an upcoming marketing project? We would love to talk with you. Contact us today and let us show you how Load Bearing Creative can help support your hard marketing work with our quality copywriting and graphic design services.
