Content
What is Web Copy and How Should I Use It?
Pearce responded to our “Ask the Experts” post, looking for a definition of “web copy.”
If you look up its definition, copy refers to any “written matter intended to be reproduced in printed form” (e.g., “The text of a news story, advertisement, television commercial, etc., as distinguished from related visual material”). The word was originally used in the context of the printing press, but it essentially means the same thing online.
Since all copy is content, but not all content is copy, some people separate the two. They use “copy” exclusively to mean text that is written to persuade visitors to take action. “Content,” meanwhile, doesn’t imply an intent to persuade. (For example, think of a website that features celebrity news Content, with a page urging visitors, via persuasive Copy, to subscribe.)
So, “web copy” refers to any and all words published on your website. And without it, your site looks something like this.
I don’t know if this is all that helpful for Pearce, but here’s what is important…
Web Copy is different from Offline Copy.
Offline copy (like a billboard) isn’t interactive. Web copy (like what you read on this blog) is. Web copy needs to be formatted in easy-to-read chunks. It’s hard to read a lot of copy online. Break up your copy with headers, subheaders, short paragraphs and bullet points.
Web copy has a powerful advantage over offline copy: Hyperlinks.
Hyperlinks create persuasive momentum. They provide a clear pathway for your visitor to accomplish his or her goals, and your business to accomplish your goals. What actions do you want your visitors to take? Your website should be planned with visitor goals and company goals in mind. Use your web copy to answer your visitors’ questions, address their objections, and provide hyperlinks that move them toward the actions you want them to take.
How do I plan goals for my website?
Pearce’s second question (”"Do you have any ideas on how to come up with goals for college websites?”) helps illustrate where web copy fits into the overall process of planning, building, and optimizing a website.
To find your website’s goals and use copy to support them, ask yourself these three questions:
- Who is my audience?
- What actions do I want them to take?
- What information do they need in order to feel confident taking action?
Pearce should look at all the different types of visitors who might come to a college website (prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni, people in the community), then map out what each of these visitors is trying to accomplish. What questions are they asking? What information are they hoping to find? What information would you most like each of these groups to see?
For Pearce, this involves looking not only at his visitors’ goals, but the goals of the college itself. (Do they have a new program they want to push, a special event, or a special benefit that prospective students would love?) Once he has this information, he can plan pathways and provide information that is relevant for each of these types of visitors.
All pathways should lead toward an action you want your visitors to take. After all, how can you measure success if you haven’t defined what success looks like?
Thanks for the questions, Pearce!
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[Editor’s Note: Got a question for FutureNow? All you have to do is “Ask the Experts“.]
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
Do Men and Women Laugh at the Same Ads?
It was one of those eye-opening moments. I was watching Bryan Eisenberg teach Call to Action — the seminar, not the book. (Even though I’ve seen him teach it several times, I still learn something new every time I attend.)
He showed the “Bra Scientist” video clip by Zafu that I blogged about last year.
As the audience was watching the clip, I noticed something interesting: There were certain points when the men were laughing and the women weren’t. And there were other points when the women were guffawing but the men weren’t even smiling.
The guys laughed when the scientist asked the woman in the parking lot if she would talk about her “um, well… you know, uh… breasts.” It’s a funny line, well delivered. (The guys found it funny, anyway.) She responds “Sure” and the scientist is quite pleased the interview can continue. But then she kicks his head off. Literally.
Some of the women looked a little shocked, but for other women, it garnered full-on belly laughs.
Why is this important? Because humor is one of the most pervasive devices advertisers use to try to sell products. Is that humor hitting the mark with target audiences? A recent Advertising Age article claims that “Snide Advertising is Bad for Business and Society” (subscription required but it’s available here).
In the article, Richard Rapaport discusses “the nasty tone that seems to dominate advertising” and “commercials built on sadism, on derision, on one-upsmanship — in a word, ’snide.’” He gives this example:
Another building block of snide advertising is physical aggression. Consider the quite literally shocking ad for Priceline.com in which William Shatner enters the house of a frustrated online vacation shopper and stuns him with a Taser before sitting down at the man’s computer. “Did I zap your daddy?” Shatner coos at the man’s disquieted child. “Yes, I did,” he admits, “but I saved him lots of money.”
I’m not sure what percentage of Priceline’s audience is women, but women book more online travel than men do. I wonder how they feel about that ad.
While I do believe some humor is universal, I think there are certain types of jokes and subject matter that men find funny that women don’t, and vice-versa. Part of what makes something funny is that it rings true to you (”Oh my God, I’ve so been there!”). Different content may speak more to one gender than the other.
Eric Berger at the Sci Guy blog asked if women have a better sense of humor. One comment grabbed my attention. A reader named Scott has this to say:
The women in my office say that the reason they have less expectation of a reward is that most guys tell such bad jokes, and repeat them over and over. Women don’t tend to be entertained by jokes about bodily functions, sexual performance, or many of the other common topics of guy jokes. I’ve never heard a woman tell a Christa Macaullife/Space Shuttle Challenger joke, yet there are guys who still crack up over them. So perhaps women have a more “refined” sense of humor, not necessarily a “better” sense of humor.
Interesting. There’s a fascinating study done by Professor Hugo Carretero Dios at the University of Granada that finds that humor depends on the person. Or, as the press release claims, “Scientific research on sense of humor sheds light on psychological profiles.”
Carretero Dios observed a generational change in the women’s preferences to the different types of humour. “There has been change in women’s values and roles in our society,” says Carretero Dios. “In people over 45-50, we observed that both men and women laughed more at jokes degrading to women than those degrading to men”. At the same time, both men and women showed more rejection to jokes degrading to men.
However, among the participants between 18-25 years old, the trend was different and men and women had different reactions. Men laugh more at jokes degrading to women and reject those degrading to men. By contrast, women laugh more at jokes degrading to men and reject those degrading to women. Indeed, this trend is more pronounced in women.
“Could these findings show a change in educational values or even a new pattern in the roles played by women”
I think the whole subject deserves more analysis, but it underscores the importance of understanding who your audience is and how gender could affect whether that audience thinks your ads are funny.
What ads have you seen recently that you found funny — or unfunny — and why?
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About the Author: Holly Buchanan is a Persuasion Architect at FutureNow and co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth — Today’s Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys.
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
Does a 100-ton Drill Rig Need Web Copy?
Last week, one of our readers emailed Bryan after finding herself in a tough situation.
Her firm does content development for websites, so she’d never literally been at a loss for words — not online, anyway — until a new client hired her to write some search engine-friendly copy. For the first time, she questioned whether her client’s site actually needed Web copy to do its job. She was stumped.
The client sells new and used industrial drill rigs, augers, hammer grabs, oscillators — stuff they sell at construction equipment auctions (and, no, you can’t find it on eBay). The current website consists of a few image galleries and, thus far, the conventional wisdom has been that all they need to do is show pictures of massive, earth-moving objects, list some basic technical specs, and that’s all their audience needs to know before buying one of these things at a live auction.
A 100-ton drill rig is a 100-ton drill rig is a 100-ton drill rig, right?
Here’s how our anonymous friend described the situation:
According to the [client], there’s not much to say, and the pictures are apparently more important than words in conveying a description of the item. I suggested adding content — a product description — to each picture, so I could get in keywords and so forth, but there’s so little to say about it, and that’s part of [the] problem.
Their visitors are construction companies who already know what kind of equipment they’re looking for. It’s mostly a matter of price competition and whether they want new or used equipment. So descriptions are hardly necessary, especially with the descriptive pictures telling most of the story.
I’ve worked on a ton of web sites and never encountered this before. Any suggestions on what I can do to help them increase page rank?
Let’s start by unpacking some the dangerous assumptions she’s making:
- There’s not much to say
- Pictures are more important than words
- The problem is that “there’s so little to say”
- Their visitors are all from construction companies
- Their visitors already know what kind of equipment they want
- It’s mostly a matter of price competition
- Visitors already know if they’re looking to buy new or used
- It’s unnecessary to describe such products with text
- Pictures can tell most of the story
- Page rank and content are independent variables
Still, the most dangerous assumption she’s made is that the client’s assumptions are true. Yes, they know their business better than she (or any other consultant) possibly could, but that doesn’t mean they know how to market. Whether they can imagine a scenario where someone might need more than just a picture before purchasing 100 tons of construction equipment is irrelevant.
Besides, has a search engine ever bought an oscillator at auction?
Since this was taken on as an SEO gig, not a strategic planning and copywriting project, it’s based on a false premise (”We’ll pay you to help us rank higher, but you shouldn’t have to do much writing to accomplish that”). Until this client understands the value of Web copy — to both humans and search engines — this blog post will likely rank higher for relevant search terms than their website.
Here’s what Seth Godin says about this common SEO myth in his latest book, Meatball Sundae:
My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That’s because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don’t do that and you don’t get much.
Do they really believe “there’s not much to say” about a used hydraulic rotary drill rig that (probably) costs hundreds of thousands of dollars? Where has it been? What type of condition is it in? What sorts of jobs is it best suited for? What distinguishes one design or manufacturer from another? Are the needs of a big-budget construction project manager the same as those of an owner-operator of an excavation company? What should I know about each model before I show up to the live auction to bid? If it breaks, do you sell replacement parts? Is everything being sold “as is”? How long have you been in business? Why should I trust your brand?
These are fair questions, and the current site doesn’t answer one of them. There’s not even an ‘About Us’ page.
Of course the client’s customers “already know what kind of equipment they’re looking for.” Those are the only people who would ever be persuaded by a site with no content!
Could you imagine if a real estate website listed houses that were to go up for auction, but showed nothing except for a few pics of the exterior? This is how Christie’s hypes an upcoming auction. Her client should take a look.
Think that’s a stretch, comparing the way 20th century British art is sold to how one should sell drill rigs online? Volvo Construction Equipment begs to differ.
When Volvo hired Future Now, we started with an uncovery session to get to know their business and its key metrics. Then, based on what we learned, we developed personas to match various customer segments. We then performed a scenario analysis of the site to see how it met the expectations of each persona, and to identify fixes that could be made without a redesign. Once they could see how visitors’ needs were unique, they were able to write copy that sold gigantic new and used construction vehicles, machinery and parts.
There’s still work to be done, but with these adjustments, Volvo CE’s lead generation went up 700%. (Here’s the case study from Web Trends, if you’re interested.)
If her client wants rank well and sell more construction equipment, she needs to know more about their business. The client needs to be more forthcoming and she needs to push back for answers. Of course, it would have been better if they’d discussed these things before she took the job, but if both parties continue to look for quick fixes, the site will continue to be “nothing but pictures of drills, augers, and oscillators.”
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[Editor’s Note: This has been the first post in our new “Ask Future Now” series. If you have questions about interactive marketing optimization, let us know in the comments or contact us directly and we’ll start a dialog via email. We’ll answer your question in a new post.
Hat tip to Dave Young for reminding us of the Meatball Sundae excerpt.]
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Written by:Robert Gorell
The Cost of Leaving Hispanics Lost in Translation
Talking about Latinos — especially Latinos online — is quite trendy these days. We’re online, alright, but the numbers aren’t as impressive as one might think. Currently, one in ten U.S. internet users are Latino. Meanwhile, the conservative estimate is that 18.8 million of the 44.3 million Hispanics living in the United States today are online.
But that’s changing — fast.
You’re probably aware that Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the U.S., yet most businesses don’t realize that by 2050, Latinos will be 29% of the entire American population.*
On top of that, their buying power is growing at even a faster pace. This combination of factors has to add up for businesses, especially online merchants.
But in the words of countless political pundits — who, if you turn on your TV right now, are analyzing our voting patterns — “the Hispanic population is not monolithic.” In fact, there are quite a few factors that, combined, illustrate completely different types of people, living different realities, yet all part of the Latino community. (Without getting too deep, these factors include: country of origin; heritage; generation; place of residence; socio-economic status; acculturation; assimilation; and language preference.)
Varias Personas
Consider the differences between these two individuals:
Alejandro Ramirez — 19 years old. Mexican-American. Bilingual (speaks both languages but reads and writes better in English). 2nd generation (born in the US from immigrant parents). Lives in Petaluma, CA, with his parents, who come from lower-middle class families in Torreon, Cuahuila. His family’s annual household income is $80,000. Although he was born and raised in the U.S. and is quite familiar with the cultural landscape, his parents have nurtured a strong love for Mexico and have ensured that he understands his family’s roots.
Fernando Zachniuk — 43 years old. Argentinean. Moved to the U.S. 10 years ago to start a business. He’s bilingual, but more comfortable in Spanish. He rents a condo in Boca Ratón. He comes from an upper-middle class Russian-Jewish family from Buenos Aires. He’s dating a Cuban-American divorcée who has a 10 year old son. Their annual household income is in the low $20o,000’s. He enjoys the amenities and comfort America has to offer, but he will always be an Argentinean at heart.
You wouldn’t market to them the same way, would you?
Exactly.
I could go on, referring to each single difference that defines Hispanic subgroups, but let’s focus on Language preference for the time being.
En Español, Por Favor
Since many Latinos, especially those of us online, are either English-dominant or fully bilingual, it’s easy for a company to say they’re already reaching out to Hispanics. After all, if they’re online and able to read the content, isn’t that enough?
At first glance, that logic makes sense. But the reality is this: Even if the Latino who comes to your website is fully bilingual and looking for exactly what you sell, they may prefer to read about your offering in Spanish.
Example: If I’m reading about marketing, I have no problem — and may even prefer — reading a website’s content in English. But when the same bald guy (me) is suddenly presented with a desire or need for medical or financial investment information, you can bet the farm (la granja) that I would prefer reading it in Spanish!
The situation that bilingual and Spanish-dominant Hispanics encounter in many cases is that there isn’t enough online content that speaks to them. They either can’t find it, or — more often — it’ so bad that they go back to the site’s English version.
It seems most organizations aren’t taking their outreach to Spanish-dominant Latinos seriously. Instead, they choose to feel safe in the knowledge that there is a translation of their site — no matter how awful. Others pay some attention to the fact that a translated version should actually make sense, but such translations are often way too literal and don’t account for cultural nuance.
“Getting all your ducks in row,” a common phrase in America, is used to describe the action of being fully organized prior to starting a new course of action, but there is no literal translation of it that wouldn’t make a Spanish speaker break out in laughter! Same goes for “Barking up the wrong tree,” “Two peas in a pod,” “The whole nine yards,” and so on.
Translate Concepts, Not Sentences
If you’re serious about reaching out to the entire Latino community, your site should be bilingual. And when it comes to bilingual sites, “transcreation” is what separates the men from the boys. (Hey, it’s just a figure of speech!)
To paraphrase Lingo24’s definition, transcreation is a form of translation, closer to copywriting, resulting in a text linguistically and culturally adapted for its intended audience. Transcreated material is supposed to have the same impact on the target audience as the original source text.
Transcreation is like taking the scenic route instead of the direct highway, so it requires a greater investment to fuel it. Still, the rewards for businesses — especially considering what the numbers tell us about current and future supply and demand — are plenty to justify the expense. It will most certainly take more time, money, and effort to end up with a transcreated site, but my advice to anyone marketing in the U.S. is that they shouldn’t risk not having one.
Back to Alejandro and Fernando for a moment, since this could be the crucial element that either converts them into clients or sends them elsewhere looking for what they need.
Let’s assume they visit your site today. How will you speak to them? Will you give them the choice to experience your content in their preferred language? Will the Spanish section of your site be a straightforward translation or a transcreation? If they navigate your site in Spanish, would they actually care if the language were stiff, confusing, or (worse) boring?
I assure you, they will care.
. . . .
* Pew Hispanic Center report on social and demographic trends
[Editor’s Note: Each month, Juan Tornoe joins us on GrokDotCom to share his insights on Hispanic marketing trends.]
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Written by:Juan Tornoe
Top 3 Problems of Social Media
“The problem with social media is… there are more people writing it than reading it. That isn’t very social, huh?”
I laughed when I first heard it, but my friend explained:
At last count, there were some 75 million+ blogs out there, but very few of those blogs have many readers besides the writer, his mom and the family pet; and if it’s a cat, they just casually glance at it. If you care to argue that people use it as a personal journal, I’d suggest they use a more elegant and simpler technology, a moleskine notebook and a pen.
In fact, besides a few really popular blogs, most blogs don’t have enough readers for a pickup game of basketball. Please don’t lecture me about the long tail — I understand niche, even micro-niche. I think as marketers, though, we have bigger issues to overcome if we ever expect to see the acceptance of social media as a viable media channel.
1. Splogs, Scrapers and Money Making Fakers
Way too many of the blogs out there have been created because someone heard the search engines love blogs. And eventually, some low life figured they could get more traffic is grabbing garbage content from others to post and post and post. The frightening part is that Google and Technorati can’t filter out these content thieves and their sites often show up in listings so that in aggregate they deliver traffic. Both blog publishers and readers feel this pain.
Also, according to Google, of the 2 billion or so pages containing the word “blog,” only about 200,000,000 of them don’t contain the word “money” somewhere on the page.
Based on these statistics, close to 90% of the blogs you’ll find on the internet are the products of get rich quick schemes.
2. New Year’s Resolution Makers and Promise Breakers
Do you have your list of things you plan to do in the new year? Ready for a fresh start? Do you plan to lose weight, start exercising, find a better job and quit smoking? Like many people, you might sign up for the gym the first week of January; you’ll feel the burn of that first session you have with the personal trainer. You’ll thrill from buzz and bustle of the crowds. Waiting for your next machine may whisk you back to memories of standing in airport TSA lines during the holiday travel season. You’ll return, but, unfortunately, by March the gym will be so empty that you’ll hear an echo every time you swallow. Sure you’ll keep going, because you’re different.
Blogging, like any of these resolutions takes a real commitment. Out of the 75 million plus blogs started, in April Technorati reported that 15.5 million of them were “active.” What exactly does that mean?
Technorati claims about 1.5 million new posts a day. Take a look at popular blogs like, Boing Boing, Engadget, TechCrunch, Lifehacker, Scoblelizer, Search Engine Watch, and Search Engine Land, and you’ll notice many of these are publishing 5 or more posts a day. Meanwhile others — top marketing blogs like Seth Godin, SEOmoz, Duct Tape Marketing, Search Engine Journal, Marketing Pilgrim and us at GrokDotCom — try to publish a couple of posts a day. To really feel the benefits of blogging, or any of those other resolutions, you have to do it regularly and you have to do it well. How many actual blogs do you think are doing it and not just polluting the interwebs?
3. Link Baiters and Content Masturbators
If you don’t have easy access to Reddit’s leaked algorithm or know the secret formula to be Dugg, let me tell you how most people get to the front page of these sites.
- Create a list. Title it any of the following: The top 10…, a definitive guide…, 101 resources for…
- Pick a hot topic. These include: Apple, Ubuntu, Linux, Wii, Halo, Ron Paul, or choose something trendy from Google.
- Link to a whole bunch of other people’s posts.
- Voila, you have viral post.
Need an example? Just this week I saw a post on analyzing traffic and improving conversions rise through the social media networks. Not to take anything away from the effort made to create the post, but its first link is to a parked GoDaddy domain page with no content. Even still, people saw the list, didn’t read, didn’t click, but just bookmarked it. Is that the promise and purpose of social media?
Bring the Social Back to Social Media in 2008
Promise to create useful, updated, and unique content every day. I toast each and every one of you who make valuable contributions to this blogosphere every day. It’s hard work and I, for one, respect and appreciate it. Will you?
P.S. Happy New Year to you all.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
The Search Engine’s Love Affair With Blogs
You’ve heard it time and time again: “Search engines love blogs.” You’ve read in one too many places that your website should include a blog in order to get better positioning in search engine results.
It’s not as simple as some may lead you to believe.
First, there’s the issue of relevance. A blog won’t magically give you a top ranking position on Google, Yahoo! or the like. The content your blog has, the frequency with which such content is being updated, and the amount of relevant incoming links to your site are some of the factors that will make-or-break the effectiveness of your weblog.
Don’t add a blog to your site if you’re not willing to consistently invest time and effort. An outdated blog will reflect the opposite image of whatever it is you want potential customers to know about your company.
Some bloggers are a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to “keeping it fresh.” No, you don’t need to add 10+ posts per day; what you need is consistency and relevance. You can update your blog daily, weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly, but you need to do it on a regular basis.
More importantly, write about your product/service/industry from as many angles as you can imagine. Link and opine on news and commentary related to your business. Doing so will benefit your customers as they try to wrap their heads around the issue (or problem) that your organization is able to solve.
If you are selling Piñatas, talk about piñatas; how they originated, the different materials/manufacturing techniques being utilized, market share, growth opportunities, or give examples of when and where it’s appropriate to have one. Show piñatas across the world, client testimonials, the most commonly used characters, licensing issues, what NOT to put inside them, the best sticks used to break them, how to liven any party, how to grab the kid’s attention during a birthday party . . . you get the picture.
Don’t go off on a weird tangent by addressing personal interests (outside of Piñata World) in your company blog. Have the need to do it? Start a personal blog and be as weird, nerdy, cool, public or anonymous as you wish to be. And, when it’s appropriate, link to your company’s blog.
Here’s a personal example of the true power or blogs: “Hi, my name’s Juan, and I’m an obsessive-compulsive blogger.” I have to blog on a daily basis about my passion, the Hispanic Community.
Every single post on my blog has something to do with Latinos; marketing and advertising, culture, religion, language, sports, business, buying power, politics, education, health. Bottom line: If it’s relevant information that will help you acquire a stronger grasp of Hispanics, you will find it on Hispanic Trending.
Through many years of non-stop blogging on the subject, I’ve been blessed to have established good relationships with many interesting people, from all walks of life, with the same interests as me.
One such individual is Dave Schechter, a news editor at CNN. In late September 2007, when interest regarding Hispanic Heritage Month was reaching its zenith, CNN and CNN.com launched a very insightful initiative, both on and off line, under the name, “Uncovering America,” with humongous coverage of everything Latino in a very professional and thorough manner. Early morning on September 28th, I received an email from Dave, requesting that “Uncovering America” be mentioned on Hispanic Trending. He even emphasized that coverage would be on both CNN and CNN.com.
Knowing that the entire coverage would be extremely relevant to the blog’s readers, I complied with my friend’s request and added a simple (and truly short) post that evening, with a link to “Uncovering America’s” landing page on CNN.com. Programming began on September 29th and everything was business as usual at Hispanic Trending. Being addicted beyond hope to my site’s analytics, on October 1st, I noticed abnormally high traffic numbers (trending towards 4 times the “normal” number of visitors for a single day). My analytics showed that the traffic spike was being generated through Google, specifically for the search term: “cnn.com/uncoveringamerica.”
I was fascinated by the phenomenon and kept digging deeper into it. I went to Google Trends (also captivating) and finally grasped the magnitude what was going on. For reasons beyond my control (I’m guessing the mention of the website on CNN’s TV coverage), “CNN.com/UncoveringAmerica” had reached, according to Google Trends, “On Fire” search term status that day; ranked #2, right between “veratril” and “aliens in america.”
Google Trends not only shows the most popular search terms of the day, it provides links to the news articles, blog posts and websites people are visiting after performing that specific search. There were no results under the news articles section, and my guess is that there wasn’t one article from any tracked media outlet that included the specific term being searched.
Under blog posts, I was pleasantly surprised to see my blog ranked number one. Then, looking closer, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The actual CNN.com site had the #2 and #3 positions behind, you guessed it, my blog. People were searching for the term “cnn.com/uncovering america” and clicking on my blog. Once there, they found a prominent and clear link to the information they were looking for and off they went. Since that day, the blog’s readership — although not at the record level it reached — was permanently increased to a new level that otherwise would have taken much longer to achieve.
The power of a relevant and consistently updated blog is not to be taken lightly, nor is it for the faint of heart. Years and years of posting relevant information about the subject made Google consider the blog so relevant that, when this specific term was searched, they listed it “Numero Uno.”
Advertising investment: $0.00
Hispanic Trending didn’t reach this milestone because of a catchy name, a nice design, or by who I know; it was a combination of perseverance and focus over time.
Sure, a blog can do wonders to increase traffic to your site, but do you must consider it a long-term investment.
Has blogging helped your organization? Got any lesser-known examples of how blogging has or hasn’t helped business?
[Editor’s Note: This is Juan Tornoe’s first guest post for GrokDotCom. He’ll be joining us at least once a month to share his insights about blogging and online Hispanic marketing trends.]
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Written by:Juan Tornoe
How Viacom Could Have Avoided the Writers’ Strike
In a move that should add fuel to the debate over the writers’ guild strike, MTV Networks has announced that all episodes of its grotesquely funny cartoon satire hit, South Park, will be shown in their entirety online. MTV’s decision to host the South Park archives online for free comes just over a month after they did the same thing for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, resulting in significant boosts to traffic and ad revenue.
While the move is win-win for its creators, Trey Parker & Matt Stone (also the writers), their lawyers, Viacom (MTV’s parent company), the advertisers and the fans, what’s striking, so to say, is that South Park is the only show on MTV’s roster sitting on a contract for a 50/50 digital ad revenue share.
Although it was smart of Viacom to ink an online revenue share with the people behind South Park, it seems odd that such offers aren’t available for writers of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, both of which are huge ad-money makers and award winners for the company. Here’s what Viacom told The New York Times back in August when South Park’s $75 million deal was penned:
“Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment, acknowledged that the 50-50 digital deal, which was approved by Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom’s chief, would set a precedent. If this is seen as a bold stroke, all the better, because it’s going to take bold thinking to move ahead,” he said. But he said it was justified by the “South Park” team’s stellar track record and by the changing balance of power between the buyers and creators of entertainment.
[…] Adding to the likely interest in the revenue-sharing pact is that digital income is one of the key issues confronting negotiators for the Hollywood studios and the guilds representing writers, directors and actors, who want to ensure they are compensated fairly for their work for the Web, mobile devices and other technologies still in their infancy.
“Talent will look at this and say, ‘Why not us?’ ” said Warren Littlefield, a television producer and former president of NBC Entertainment. “Unfortunately, what you’ll probably find is the response is, ‘We’ll tell you why not you: because you haven’t achieved what they’ve achieved.’ This is based upon a decade of proven success; it’s not a deal that’s made on the come, it’s not a deal made with an established creator who’s about to create something new. It’s 10 years in.”
While it’s nice that Viacom has finally discovered how to leverage “the ROI of free,” many fans — and certainly the writers — have a hard time viewing the media giant’s selective awareness of online marketing as anything but greedy. So, what do writers for The Daily Show, now in its 11th year, really have to say to the execs?
John Oliver: “…all our Daily Show clips were pulled off YouTube by Viacom, who is suing them for a billion dollars. That was not at our instigation – we were happy for people to watch the clips. But instead they wanted to set up a website where they can sell advertising while the clip is buffering, although I thought we were at the point where clips don’t need to buffer anymore. So you have to watch a commercial for thirty seconds or whatever. So they’re clearly making money on that; they’re also clearly making money because they’re suing YouTube for a billion. So that seems quite strange when they’re saying, ‘Well, there’s no money to be made off the internet but we’re suing YouTube for a billion dollars.’ That takes spectacular ba…”
…what I think John’s trying to say is that, well, this YouTube video sums it up.
Even The Daily Show’s friends (colleagues?) in the “real” news media are hearing the echoes from this void. NBC News anchor Brian Williams writes…
Jon Stewart and his colleagues in comedy — along with the writers who support them — serve an invaluable purpose by skewering the pompous and deflating the egos of the high and mighty. They function almost as a separate branch of government. We need them, and we miss them.
But Slate.com’s Dana Stevens said it best:
…The Daily Show is the ultimate Web-ready television show. It’s divisible into discrete chunks (the headlines at the top of the show, followed by reported segments and interviews) that tie in to the political and cultural conversations of the day, and those chunks can easily be collected, shuffled, and exchanged among friends like trading cards.
It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this. In a strike, everyone loses. Had Viacom invested in online channels years ago, they wouldn’t be awkwardly wading through bad word-of-mouth as they sue YouTube and play favorites with their writers.
This is a branding problem, wrapped in a PR problem, spawned by a marketing problem. But the good news for Viacom is that it could all end tomorrow with an online revenue share agreement.
[Picture taken from myyearofnewthings on Flickr. Originally seen at TechCrunch.]
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Written by:Robert Gorell
Writers: The Most Undervalued People Online
Anyone else enjoy life 3% more when The Daily Show isn’t in reruns? Well, if you think TV’s gotten bad since the writers’ strike, just wait until online copywriters wise up. In fact, copywriters and bloggers should consider picketing right along with the TV & film writers. (Notice I didn’t say “screenwriters.” In today’s media, a screen is a screen is a screen.) This strike isn’t about television or film. It’s about high-profile screenwriters — as high-profile as unknown gets, anyway — insisting that online content has value.
Don’t think copywriters are undervalued? Show me a marketing budget without a serious chunk of cash set aside for Web copy, and I’ll show you a website that doesn’t convert, sell, or even explain why it exists in the first place.
Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, who decided to follow his script-writing dreams until he realized what an awful gig it can be, makes some great points about “What Web Writers Can Learn from the Writers’ Strike.” Lucky for us, 10 years later, Brian’s selling content online — and he decides which of his content is free; a real advantage over Daily Show writers like this guy:
(If video doesn’t load, click here.)
As you can see, one of the more telling points about about the writers’ strike is that these “traditional media” writers really do know how to leverage the Web. They’re even taking a cue from the “Save Jericho” campaign and mailing boxes of pencils to the media moguls.
For most organizations, copywriting is an afterthought. And surely, the web design community would agree. When businesses don’t take copy seriously, they’re the ones who get fired when the site doesn’t do its job. Consider this recent snapshot of a slide at the Future of Web Design conference:
Businesses can optimize their online content all they like, but stale copy leads to poor sales and limp branding. The good news is that if a company’s text doesn’t persuade in the first place, they’ll never know how much business is being left on the table. But the bad news is that if their text didn’t persuade in the first place, they’d never know how much was left on the table. So unless you’ve invented an iPhone that doubles as a teleporter, and you can show all of that with some press clippings and a Flash demo, you’re better off not being cheap with your words.
It may look rough at the moment, but the floodgates have opened, and the real value of online content has become clear. So if you’re writing for television or film, and want to control what your words are worth, now’s a good time to become a persuasive online copywriter.
[Hat tip to Tim Miles for sharing the “Not the Daily Show” clip.]
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Written by:Robert Gorell
Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet
Blues icon B.B. King was once asked how he found his heart-warming, bone-chilling sound. “It’s simple,” he said. “I only steal from the best.”
After publishing more than 2 million words — online and print — we’re convinced that King was right. To become a good writer, one must first be a studious reader. (How else will you know whom to steal, er, borrow from?) So, in that spirit, we’ve compiled a list of some of GrokDotCom’s favorite Web copy resources in hopes that copywriters everywhere will steal the best tips from our colleagues, friends, and staff. Enjoy!
Writing Headlines
1.) “Headlines: Do You Really Need 200 to Land a Good One?” — Attversumption.com
2.) “Are Your Headlines Missing These Precise Psychological Triggers?” — Ezine @rticles
3.) “Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines” — GrokDotCom
Readability
4.) “Nobody Reads Web Pages — But Everybody Engages Websites” — American Small Business
5.) “The Secret of Writing to be Read” — Seth Godin
6.) “People Really Do Read Online — Who Knew?” — Marketing Interactions
7.) “Fight the Bull” — Bullfighter software helps to eliminate jargon from web copy
Customer-focused Copy
8.) Test your customer-focus ratio with Future Now’s ‘We-We’ Monitor.
Copywriting Techniques
9.) “Six Types of Words That You Should Axe in Business Writing” — Bizcovering
10.) “Going for Broca: Show Don’t Tell in Action” — GrokDotCom
11.) “Time vs. Money” — GrokDotCom
12.) “What is Substance?” — GrokDotCom
13.) “Style vs. Substance” — GrokDotCom
14.) “Pain vs. Gain” — GrokDotCom
15.) “Intellect vs. Emotion” — GrokDotCom
16.) “Emotional Perspective Redux” — GrokDotCom
17.) “You Ain’t All That! — A Marketing Copy Autopsy” — GrokDotCom
Trust & Relationship Building
18.) “Transparent Marketing: How to Earn the Trust of a Skeptical Consumer” — Marketing Experiments Journal
19.) “Inspiring Online Credibility” (a three-part series) — GrokDotCom
20.) “Screencast: Building Trust & Credibility Online” — GrokDotCom
Email Marketing
21.) Retail Email blog
22.) MailChimp resources center
23.) GravityMail — keeps your emails and newsletters from getting junked by sp@m blockers
24.) SpamAssassin — Open-source spam filter
Copywriting Blogs & Resources
25.) Copyblogger — Brian Clark
26.) The Copywriter Underground – Tom Chandler
27.) Grammar Girl — Mignon Fogarty
28.) ChrisG — Chris Garrett
29.) ProBlogger — Darren Rowse
30.) The Copywriting Maven — Roberta Rosenberg
31.) WebInkNow — David Meerman Scott
32.) Visual Thesaurus
33.) Word Spy
Transcription Services
34.) SpeakWrite
35.) Casting Words
36.) AccuConference — Record interviews and conference calls, download them as MP3 files, and even have them transcribed for an extra fee. Great for podcast interviews, content planning and tutorials.
Copywriters
37.) Jack Forde
38.) Cynthia Williamson
39.) David Garfinke
40.) Chuck McKay
41.) Bob Bly
42.) Tim Miles
Public Relations
43.) “Podcast: David Meerman Scott on the New Rules of Marketing & PR” (a two-part interview on how to make the most of multi-channel public relations) — GrokDotCom
Blogging
44.) “Blogging for Beginners” — ProBlogger (Whether you’re starting a blog or just thinking about it, this is the place to be. A great collection of must-read how-to posts from Darren Rowse.)
45.) “5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang” — Copyblogger (Finesse tips from Brian Clark.)
46.) “Write a Review — Rediscover Your Blogging Groove” — ProBlogger
47.) “How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic — The Ultimate Guide” — Copyblogger
48.) “The Two Most Important Words in Blogging” — Copyblogger
49.) “Lessons in Corporate Blogging” — Nicholas Carr for BusinessWeek
Persuasive Online Copywriting
50.) Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Lisa T. Davis. In our first book, the Future Now team gives a step-by-step tutorial in writing for the Web. Out-of-print since 2006, you can either pay $100 or more for a used copy on Amazon, or download the ebook for just $19.95.
Part 2 of the Cheat Sheet…
Since there are so many great resources to copy, we’ve decided to start with the essentials first — but, yes, there really are 101 links! In Part 2, we share some our favorite tips, including how to use web copy to engage different customer personas and personality types. To make sure you don’t miss out on future copywriting and marketing optimization tips, subscribe to GrokDotCom (weekly, monthly, or daily newsletter — or read daily via RSS). Thanks for reading!
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Written by:The Grok
When Developers Write Copy — Part 1
If you think big-budget websites have a natural advantage over small business, think again. Web copy is often the great equalizer. While many online businesses don’t hesitate to spend a large chunk of change on hiring a real copywriter for the homepage, ‘About Us’ page, and so on, so-called “details” — like bits of copy in ‘Contact’ forms or shopping carts — get sacrificed. It’s in these moments, web developers are forced to wave a magic wand and transform themselves into copywriters. And good luck to anyone who thinks their visitors don’t notice this trade-off. They do.
At risk of shooting fish in a barrel, I’d like to warm up this series with a screenshot from the social networking site every web developer and/or designer (who isn’t in a band) loves to hate: MySpace
Now, before I discuss a fourth problem, let’s take a look at points 1, 2 & 3:1.) “Click click here to read FAQ” — You don’t need to have entered our hyperlink contest to know why that’s off.
2.) Are you sure there’s a sub-topic? I haven’t selected anything. (Submit may not be the best choice, either.) Regardless, this drop-down menu tells MySpace visitors that they will be funneled to a stock answer on MySpace’s own terms. It’s the “Contact Us” page equivalent of getting a robotic customer service operator (”Hi! My name’s Lucy. I’m here to waste your time and frustrate you by pretending there’s a real human on the other side of this call.”)
3.) This could be nitpicking, but if that’s their fifth most popular question, it’s no wonder the developers are spending more time on fixing bugs than writing copy. They could have just said, “Has my Profile page been hacked?” The way this is phrased makes the website and its members look bad (e.g., “It has music, sound or strange graphics on it?” isn’t a question).
In a recent blog post, The New York Times‘ David Pogue gives us a great example of sin and syntax:
My friend Rich Koster noticed a funny new feature in the latest iPhone software. In Settings, under Safari, there’s a button called Developer. It offers you a button called Debug Console, and there’s a little description there to help you:
“Debug Console will automatically appear to help resolve web page errors.”
Rich read this message the same way I did: “It will APPEAR to help resolve web errors, but won’t REALLY resolve them.”
The copy editor in me thinks that what they really meant was, “Debug Console will appear automatically to help resolve web page errors.”
Now for my #4.) If you look closely, MySpace’s red “NOTE” text can be distorted in similar ways:
Please choose “Cancel” from the Account Settings to delete your account. If you do not receive the confirmation e-mail for account deletion, please email us from the email address you use on myspace.
We will not honor delete requests sent via this form.
Hmm… So, I just got to this page and, before I’ve even selected anything, you want to tell me how I can cancel my account? What if I haven’t even created an account yet? Is canceling that common? Are you saying that I should email you from the MySpace account I just deleted, or the email address I used to create the MySpace account? Oh, and if you “won’t honor delete requests sent via this form,” why are you offering them? Are you not honoring them, or are you not offering them? What’s the deal, MySpace?
We’ve got a stockpile of similar screenshots from other sites, but it would be great to hear from you. Care to link us to places where the company would’ve been better off paying copywriters to follow through at each step?
UPDATE: If you liked this post, “click click here” for Part 2. 
[Author’s Note to web developers and designers: I come not to bury you, but to praise you. There’s enough on your plate already, and I’ve seen this happen too many times. You’re expected to “make it happen,” regardless