Do you know that digital marketing is exploding today? In case you don’t know what digital marketing is, it’s any kind of marketing which is conducted online.
If you aren’t savvy as to how it can help your business then you have a real problem, because I can guarantee your competitors are heavily invested into it. That means they’ll be leaving you behind and eating your lunch in a horrifying way.
If you take a look at Google Trends, you’ll see just how massive digital marketing has become. As of this date, June 2019, the term digital marketing is far surpassing other competitive terms online.
One of the reasons why digital marketing is so alive is because every year there is a 5% increase in the number of people that are using the web. (Hard to believe, isn’t it?)
Of course, that means more customers looking for what your company delivers. And the first place prospects will go looking is online. They could bump into you on your website, social media channel or a variety of other places.
Why Your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs a Freelance Copywriter
There are many reasons why you’ll need a copywriter. Since digital marketing encompasses all marketing online you have a wide variety of methods and tools at your disposal.
Each one of these channels needs to have its copy written in a way that will compel your prospects to take some sort of action and move them further down your sales funnel.
Email Copywriting: The No-Brainer for Any Digital Marketing Strategy
Here’s a breakdown of the different channels and how a copywriter can help you with each of them.
Considering how cheap and effective an email campaign is, you’d have to be nuts to leave it out of your digital marketing plans.
[ctt template=”6″ link=”2a2gy” via=”yes” ]Adobe recently pointed out that 61% of consumers would rather be contacted by businesses through email. [/ctt]
Adobe recently pointed out that 61% of consumers would rather be contacted by businesses through email. Globally, 30% of active marketers say that email marketing gives them the highest return on investment (ROI), as researched by Smart Insights.
Trying to write your own email campaigns is fool-hardy. It takes knowledge and experience in this area if you are going to sell your products and services. Not only that, but you will eat up a lot of time trying to do the work of a pro.
Here’s how a good freelance email copywriter can help:
Tracking
Since it’s very easy to track your conversions, a good freelancer will make sure that each email campaign has a call to action to tell your readers what they need to do.
When your prospects take action and click on any of the links in your email messages it will register with your email service and you can keep a record of what works and what doesn’t.
Personalization
Good freelance copywriters know that adding a personal touch to your email messages is super effective. They know a mass email that’s generalized is a disaster.
A copywriter will pull out all stops making sure that your email service uses the right tools and coding to put your prospects name into the email message.
Familiarity
If you hire a good copywriter for your email campaign, the first thing she will do is dig deep to find out as much as possible about your target audience.
Considerations are factors like the age of your audience, style of voice, income level, and a specific problem. If you can help them get valuable information and solutions you’ll have a captive audience.
Benefits
This is probably the most important factor in copywriting; skillfully stressing what you can do for your readers. Features of your product or service are great, but benefits will trump them every time.
A good freelance copywriter will know how to address your readers pain and lead them through a series of emails which highlight benefits and spur them to take action.
Brevity
Good copywriters know that less is more. The last thing an email prospect wants to see is something like this:
Good freelance copywriters know that by limiting their word count, they are writing laser-focused copy that will convert much better.
Psychology
Copywriters understand the mindset of consumers. Having a copywriter that knows what will push a prospect over the line to purchase is pure gold.
They know the power of using guarantees, free trials, discounts, and other promotional tactics are important and can include them in your email drips to your list.
Split Testing
Testing your copy constantly will tell you immediately what works and what doesn’t. A good copywriter will use an A/B test to see what copy converts better. She will send out one message to half of your list and another one to the other half to see what converts better.
This usually results in a pattern that a copywriter will be able to recognize and act on to increase your conversions and your message’s performance.
Email copywriting is a skill that takes time to learn. If you aren’t using it in your digital marketing you should seriously consider it. Hiring a freelance copywriter to write your campaign for you will cost your business money, but the benefits of saving time and increasing your conversions are well worth it.
Why You Desperately Need to Hire a Copywriter for Your Blog Posts
Writing copy for blog posts is a specialized skill. Just like any other skill, it can take years of practice and work to write blog posts that produce results.
First of all, a good blog post is very similar to advertising copy, and writing advertising copy is not easy. I’ve been writing copy in different venues for over 20 years, and it took me 4 years of steady practice to learn how to write a decent sales page.
Just like a good sales page, a blog post needs:
- A great, eye-catching headline
- An introduction that’ll grab readers
- A good lead into your main content
- Compelling content
- Benefits of why you should take the advice in the post
- Proper voice for your target readers
- Proof of results
- Conclusion
- Call to action message
- Images that interest and inform
- An irresistible offer that leads a prospect to do business with you
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Formatting for reading on the Web
- Internal linking to reduce bounce rates
- Formatted images for SEO
So you can see that there is more to a blog post than just churning out a pile of words once a week. A good freelance copywriter can write use all of these elements in a seamless way which will lead your reader to take action.
3 Big Things Copywriters can Address in Writing Blog Posts
The 3 concerns for bloggers who really want to crush their competition are the value of content, repetition of keywords, and user experience (or formatting).
Why are these 3 things so important?
Because they are the 3 big parts of using search engine optimization (SEO) that will get your blog free organic traffic. Just to be clear, organic traffic is traffic you won’t have to pay for with online advertising.
If you’re using advertising to drive traffic to your site, you’ll have to fork over big bucks. Organic traffic is a much cheaper alternative.
What Readers are Really Looking For
Creating valuable blog content is so important for SEO because it’s what separates the leaders from the rest of the pack. Readers want content that will help them learn something of value or help them solve a problem.
Also, if the content is written professionally, readers will stay on your site longer. Sophisticated search engines like Google keep track of how long people stay on sites and it uses that data to rank pages.
A good freelance copywriter knows how to write your content concisely while adding value for your readers.
Knowing how to use keywords properly in your posts is very important. Of the entire on-page SEO factors that will help you get free organic traffic, having the right keywords and the right amount of them is the most important.
Almost 40% to 50% of blog post SEO is related to your choice of keywords and how you use them.
A copywriter that’s experienced in writing search engine optimized posts will know how to do this. She will be able to write in a way which uses keywords and their phrases naturally. (This is not an easy task, trust me.)
What you don’t want is something that looks like this:
A copywriter that writes blog posts will know how to use your keywords naturally in your title, subheads, paragraphs, meta descriptions, images, and slugs.
If you’re going to produce high-quality blog posts for your site hiring a freelance copywriter is the way to go. You will save a ton of time researching, formatting, and writing the posts, allowing you to focus more of your attention on running your business.
Why Your Social Media Marketing Needs a Freelance Copywriter
Another area of importance to any digital marketing strategy is social media. Here are a few reasons why social media cannot be ignored:
- As of 2018 Facebook alone has over 2 billion monthly active users
- 65% of the major brands use to participate in marketing through social media channels
- It took YouTube a mere 10 years to gather 10 billion viewers and collectively watch about one billion hours of video every day
- LinkedIn is focused on only social media for business minded people and it has over 460 million members
- Snapchat is a social media app that has jumped from zero to $33 billion dollars in just 8 years.
So you can easily see, social media is a serious force in the digital marketing realm and it’s not going away.
What most people don’t understand is when it comes to marketing business on these sites, well-written copy is very important. You can’t just slap down a bunch of words and get followers; you must understand how to write for social media.
A good copywriter knows that each social media platform has its own style of content that will lead to sales for your company.
In other words, the writing and format you use on Facebook will not get the same results on Pinterest.
You need to know what will and will not work on those sites, and a freelance copywriter can help you develop a content plan for each social media channel you choose to use.
Examples of How to Write for Two Different Social Media Channels
Just to give you an idea of how extremely different writing copy for two different social media channels can be, let’s look at LinkedIn and Pinterest.
One of the ways you can use LinkedIn is by writing valuable content which will help your target market.
This will help you become an authority in your niche, and let prospective clients and customers see that you can help them solve their problems. You want to have well-written articles and posts for LinkedIn.
Posts that display that you are a pro at what you and your company can do for a prospect will speak volumes on this social media channel.
Get on the Inside Track of Linkedin
However, I have a great insider tip for you: if you can somehow add a personal story to your LinkedIn articles and posts, you’ll gather a lot more attention.
Trying to post “viral” rubbish on LinkedIn will not work. Cute cat videos and taking pictures of what you had to eat at a restaurant don’t usually cut it. LinkedIn’s niche is tightly focused on professionals and their businesses.
However, you don’t have to be a robot in a suit either.
People want to see the human side of you on LinkedIn not some sort of façade, so inspiring people with real stories and ideas will go much further. Take a look below at a good example of how a personal story can help you or your company get exposure on LinkedIn.
This example is from the LinkedIn expert, John Nemo:
If you’re going to market your business on LinkedIn be professional, original, and honest.
Don’t You Dare Underestimate the Power of Pinterest
The other site I wanted to contrast against LinkedIn is Pinterest. The reason why I picked this image-driven social media site is that it is totally different than LinkedIn, requiring a different style of copy.
So the way you would write on Pinterest is totally different than on LinkedIn.
The other reason I picked Pinterest is that it is a force to be reckoned with. Statista.com reports that Pinterest has over 256 million users a day! That company is currently worth 11 billion dollars. Don’t think for a second that it’s only used by women, because over 25 million of its users are men. ( I’ll bet all of the men’s magazines would love to have a subscription base that enormous!)
[ctt template=”6″ link=”defsJ” via=”no” ]Pinterest Facts: Pinterest is worth over $11 billion dollars, has 256 million active users a day, and believe it or not — 25 million of them are men.[/ctt]
Pinterest requires a good combination of graphics and copy to help you get your messages across. So this site requires a different skill set to produce copy that will get noticed by an audience.
The ability to write compelling copy about your product or service and have it blended with dynamic and powerful imagery is epic when it comes to digital marketing.
Two Main Things to Consider with Pinterest
The main two things a freelance copywriter can do for your Pinterest campaign is to write copy with your graphics in a way that makes sense and keyword research.
As a professional that has a degree in Education Technology, I’ll tell you that the clearer you can match your images to your text, the better.
If you have a clear set of instructions or message, you need to make sure that your reader understands exactly what you want them to understand or do.
The other important thing a freelancer can do for you is your keyword research. Keyword research takes time to learn and do. But it is very important to your Pinterest campaign if it’s going to be successful.
Just plunking down words into your Pin description, will not get your target market’s eyes onto your message. They have to be able to find it first.
Conclusion
I hope this has opened your eyes to some of the possibilities of digital marketing and how valuable a freelance copywriter can be for your business. If you are interested in having a seasoned freelance copywriter help you with your business, please call me at (859) 797-9560.
If you have any experience with digital marketing or any questions, please leave them in the comment box below. It would really make my day.
Cheers!
Mark Elmo Ellis
Copywriter – Digital Marketer