As my Twitter followers may already know, I’m currently watching the brilliant Mad Men from the beginning. (I’m a bit late to the party – season 4 is currently airing in the US.) Central character Don Draper works as Creative Director for Sterling Cooper, a Madison Avenue advertising agency, in the early 1960s, so there’s lots of potential interest for marketing professionals.

Truth be told, however, most of the series is about emotional intrigue and the mores of post-war America, with relatively little about the art of advertising (in the episodes I’ve seen, anyway). But when the focus does move to marketing, the content is fantastic – believable, compelling and thought-provoking. As well as showing the collaboration (and conflict) between different roles within an agency – creative director, copywriter, designer, account handler – Mad Men also has lots to say about the art of marketing, its role in society and the morality of persuasion and selling.

Lighting-up time

When you watch the series, one of the first things to strike you is the incredible prevalence of cigarettes. Everyone smokes in Mad Men: executives, housewives, doctors (in their surgeries), pregnant women. You half-expect to see dogs and cats puffing away on the verandah, bad-mouthing their owners over a Marlboro. Cigarettes are a sort of emotional punctuation mark for the events of the day, both important and trivial.

Given this totemic status, it’s significant that Don Draper’s most pressing task in the first episode is coming up with an ad concept for Lucky Strike cigarettes, one of Sterling Cooper’s most important clients. In 1960, the cigarette industry is beginning to come under fire from health campaigners, backed up by researching showing the link between smoking and cancer. Lucky Strike’s executives clearly regard this as an assault on American values, but the fact remains: cigarettes can no longer be marketed as a healthy option.

Toasting the competition

At the Lucky Strike meeting, junior account manager Pete Campbell floats a radical approach. Citing in-house research into the Freudian concept of the unconscious ‘death wish’, he suggests positioning smoking as the last preserve of the macho man – someone so fearless that he can gamble with his own life. But this proposal is derided by the tobacco executives.

Draper, improvising, points out that they actually have a great opportunity – a level playing-field with equal competing products and the chance to say whatever they want in their marketing. Inviting the Lucky Strike managers to talk about the process by which their product is manufactured, he seizes on the phrase ‘it’s toasted’ as the new Lucky Strike slogan. In fact, all cigarettes contain toasted tobacco, but that’s beside the point. The use of ‘toasted’ aligns cigarettes with homeliness, comfort, warmth and simple food – as far away from poison as you can get.

Don then justifies his approach with this brilliant speech (click here to watch it).

Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.

Emotional currency

‘You are OK.’ Is that what it comes down to? If so, it’s a profound way to think about the effect we’re trying to have with our marketing, or the message we’re trying to get across. Draper is saying that benefits don’t have to be real – or unique. They just have to be emotional, powerful and believable. That’s all. If you can make your prospect feel good about buying, or offer them an escape from their fears, they’re going to buy from you. That’s why marketers can sell people something as harmful as tobacco.

Don’s lesson is clear: deal in the currency with the deepest possible resonance for your audience. Concrete benefits are just material. Ideas are just weightless abstractions. But emotions are real. This is advertiser not as shopkeeper, philosopher or entertainer, but as priest or parent – forgiving, reassuring and blessing. Don’s slogan transforms Lucky Strike from a poisoner into a bastion of comfort against the unsettling forces of change.

Safety first

Don’s position is given some psychological ballast by Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, shown in the diagram. (Source: Wikipedia.)

The needs are often presented as a pyramid to show that each level supports the one above it. The theory is that as each successive level of need is satisfied, the next highest level takes precedence. At the lowest level is physiological need – the need to carry on living, to persist as a being. After that, safety is the number-one concern. Although we’ll aspire to esteem and self-actualisation given the chance, we won’t even think about those higher levels of need if our safety isn’t assured.

Don’s slogan for Lucky Strike is a masterstroke because it outmanoeuvres the health lobby’s attack on this level. If consumers don’t believe that cigarettes are safe, it doesn’t matter how much you appeal to higher levels of the hierarchy, such as esteem (Campbell’s tack with his ‘death-wish’ creative). Don sees that people need to feel safe before that can even think about wanting anything else, such as impressing their peers.

In reality, smoking threatens consumers on a physiological level. But acceptance of facts is at the pinnacle of the hierarchy, and we’re not in the realm of rational analysis – we’re talking about appealing to an audience at the most basic emotional level possible. (Or, it could be argued, manipulating them in the most cynical way possible.) However illogical it might seem, cigarettes that are seen as safe will sell (in 1960, at least).

Higher love

Earlier in the same episode, when he’s casting about for ideas, Don interrogates a waiter about his allegiance to Old Golds as opposed to any other tobacco brand. He doesn’t really get any useful feedback from his ad hoc research, suggesting that brand loyalty is something that needs no justification – at least, not consciously. The nearest he gets to a ‘reason’ is the waiter’s stubborn affirmation that he loves smoking. Thoughtfully, Don writes ‘I love smoking’ on a napkin.

As the needs hierarchy shows, love and belonging are one level up from safety – so they won’t have power to persuade unless safety needs are satisfied. But, conversely, love is more basic and powerful than other more intellectual concerns such as confidence or creativity. We want to be loved more than we want to make choices, or to be clever.

Of course, the love we feel for a cigarette, or any other product, isn’t the same as the love we feel for another human – and they can’t reciprocate. And yet people clearly do get very attached to things, investing emotion in the inanimate – houses, cars, iPods. The book that I used to give up smoking was at pains to point out that ‘cigarettes are not your friends’. For committed smokers, tobacco is a lot more than a product – it’s an ally to turn to when things get rough.

Deeper engagement

Recently, I’ve been writing a suite of case studies for a B2B company. They make a software application that their clients can use to run pretty much every aspect of their businesses. Often, adopting the software literally transforms working life, sweeping up dozens of bitty administrative tasks into a single interface.

During interviews, some of the clients have told me, spontaneously, that they ‘love’ the system. Of course, the first thing they say is it that helps them solve practical problems (the top level of the hierarchy) or achieve on a personal level (second-from-top level). But as the conversation progresses, we get down to their true level of engagement.

For me, that suggests that, even in the dry world of B2B, copywriters and marketers could talk about love a lot more than they do. Personally, I often try to include the word ‘love’ in my copy (e.g. ‘You’ll love working with us’). However, I often find that my clients are unwilling to approve it.

Perhaps they’re uncomfortable with plumbing these depths, since marketing activity is often more about self-actualisation for the sellers (creativity, problem-solving) than building relationships with buyers. But it’s no good offering abstract, high-level benefits if your prospect doesn’t feel safe or loved. We should never be afraid of addressing the audience’s most basic needs before we elaborate on the higher-level benefits we can offer them. After all, that’s what Don would do.

• Generalise from the outset. Social media has changed everything, everywhere, for ever, and you need to get your checklist started with a bang.
• Admonish the workshy. It’s no good waiting until competitors have created four or five checklists before you get started. Those Web 1.0 attitudes won’t cut it any more. Just get started!
• Impose conflicting demands. Your checklist should support your corporate brand and tone of voice at all times. But at the same time, it should be all funny and friendly, like Bambi or something.
• Drop some jargon. If you want to create the sort of list that generates twitstops, and avoid the problems of brand teases and wiki warts, get those buzzwords in early and often. (Definitions here.)
• Set stupidly exacting targets. If one checklist boosts your rep and attracts new clients, just imagine what two or three checklists could do. Aim to write a new one every day. No, every hour!
• Neglect the practical. Don’t check how many people read your list, or whether it makes money, or whether it ultimately brings you any benefit at all. In fact, forget the whole concept of return on investment.
• Be holier than thou. Witter on sanctimoniously about ‘helping others’, ‘joining the conversation’ and ‘paying it forward’. Never admit that social media can never offer what real friends can – bitching about other friends, retelling old anecdotes and accompanying you to the pub to cover for your creeping alcoholism.
• Trash the traditional. Yep, you’re going to have to unlearn all those useless offline marketing ways… granddad.
• Post valuable content. Users really value original, carefully considered content. Not derivative rubbish you’ve posted to jump on the bandwagon. No, wait a minute…
• Don’t try to control the conversation. Because let’s face it, your utterly lame tip list is going to get some deservedly ‘mixed’ feedback. But that’s what social media is all about!

Clients sometimes ask me to clarify the copyright position with text I write for them. (I also receive the occasional enquiry about ‘copyrighting’ someone’s intellectual property.) Since I’ve had to research copyright for myself, I thought it might be helpful to share my knowledge in a post.

Please note that this post refers only to UK law on copyright.

Who owns copyright in text?

In simple terms, if you write something, you own the copyright in it. No-one else can copy, distribute, publish or adapt it without your permission.

Written materials – or ‘literary, dramatic and musical works’ – are protected by law under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). They must be recorded in writing or otherwise to be granted copyright, and copyright subsists from the date at which recording takes place.

The fact that a third party is a subject of the work makes no difference. For example, if I take a photo of you, I hold the copyright in the photo, even though it contains your likeness. If I interview you and write it up into an article, I hold copyright in the article, even though it contains words that you spoke.

Only content can be copyrighted, not ideas. If you’ve written a book and I write a summary of the ideas in it, copyright in that summary belongs to me – regardless of how unique or new your ideas are. However, I can’t quote your text word for word, only quote short passages to review or refer to your work.

How do I acquire copyright?

You don’t have to do anything to get your writing ‘copyrighted’. You automatically have copyright in anything you write. You can assert this with a statement somewhere in the work (such as ‘© 2010 ABC Copywriting’) but this is purely for information – you hold copyright whether you say so or not.

How long does copyright last?

Under the CDPA, copyright in written works lapses 70 years after the death of the author. Given the likely lifespan of most written marketing material, that effectively means that copywriters hold copyright in their work forever.

Assigning copyright to copywriting clients

Even though a client might pay you to create some text for them, you still hold the copyright in that text unless you assign it to them. They have paid you to do some work, not for the right to exploit the product of your labour.

(Note that this only applies to freelance writers. If you are employed and you write something as part of your work, your employer holds the copyright in it.)

In practice, most writers and their clients act as though copyright passes to the client when the invoice is paid. But legally, that’s not the case. To make it so, you need to include a clause somewhere that explicitly states how and when copyright in text you write will pass to the client. You could put it in your terms and conditions, on your invoice or even ask a lawyer to draw up a contract (something you might consider for longer works, such as books).

Wherever your clause appears, you need to make sure the client actually agrees to it in writing – by confirming their acceptance of your terms in an email, for example. This is the method I use. My own terms and conditions include the following clause:

Copyright in all published content (such as text and designs produced on your behalf) will pass to you on payment of your invoice.

Before I start a job, I make sure the client confirms their order in an email, along with their acceptance of my price and my terms and conditions. Then, if there’s any query later on, I can state with confidence that they have copyright once they’ve paid.

In some cases, you might want to retain copyright in your work – for example, if you write an article for publication in a magazine and you want to retain the right to publish it elsewhere as well. In this kind of situation, it’s probably worth having some sort of letter of agreement that clarifies exactly what rights you’re granting to your client in return for the fee, just to avoid any doubt or confusion.

Protecting against copyright infringement

One interesting question is whether you could have recourse to legal action if a client uses your text without paying. For example, if they published your text on a website without settling your invoice, they would technically be infringing your copyright, and you could take (or threaten) legal action. However, I’ve never tested this in practice or received legal advice about it – so consult a solicitor before you consider it.

Another possible scenario is writing material as a sample of your work, or as part of a proposal. If you don’t know the client well, you might feel there’s a risk of the content being used without permission or payment. To give yourself ammunition for a dispute, you can send your content to a trusted third party (I use my accountant) and simply ask them to retain it. You need to use a despatch method that incorporates the date, such as email or post. This allows you to establish later on, perhaps during a dispute, that you had created the content at a particular time.

To make it clear that any copyright infringement will be challenged, you can include a warning somewhere in your proposal, alongside an explicit claim to copyright. I use a form of words along these lines:

The content of this proposal is © 2010 ABC Copywriting and is not to be used without permission. ABC takes active steps to protect its intellectual property.

Finally, just in case you were wondering – the keystroke for the © symbol is alt-G on Macs, and Ctril-Alt-C on PCs (in Microsoft Office). In Microsoft Word, you can simply type (c) and it will be corrected to © if you have AutoCorrect activated.

This morning, I noticed the following text on the back of the Alpen bag (no copyright infringement intended):

A breath of fresh air – brought to you by Alpen…
We know you know this is just another promotion on the back of your bag of cereal, so we’re not going to pretend it’s anything else.
It’s simply a chance to win great prizes…

This is what we might call a metanarrative: a story about a story, or a text whose subject is itself. Instead of promotional text talking about the benefits of the product, or the prizes you can win, the first paragraph here talks about the promotion itself.

That metatextual Alpen bag in full

I find metatexts fascinating, partly because I enjoyed studying them as a literature undergrad many years ago. But do they really work as marketing copy? Let’s unpack the pros and cons of this particular example.

On the plus side:

• It’s unusual. Metacopy is very rare, and this in itself generates interest. Not many cereal packets are written like Borges, Beckett or Baker. And this is, as the Alpen packet observes, a breath of fresh air.
• It’s exciting. In a world where corporate- or consumer-speak stands in for real human communication, honesty has a frisson of risk. So there’s a certain excitement to seeing metanarrative actually being used. You’re thinking, ‘Did they really say that?’
• It can build rapport. In metanarrative, the authorial voice shrugs off its bonds, breaking through the boundaries of the text to address the reader directly. This can generate a sense of one-on-one interaction, of talking to a real human. In a marketing context, this could build trust and a sense of identification.

And on the downside:

• It’s thin. By which I mean that there isn’t a lot of meaning there. The two main ‘takeaways’ from the Alpen copy above are ‘You’re clever’ and ‘We’re not lying’. While that’s an unusual message, it’s arguably not a very compelling one. The reader might well respond, ‘So what?’
• It’s egotistical. There’s always benefit in flattering the reader, but in this example most of the credit is being given to the advertiser themselves, for being so honest about their promotion. And that’s a turn-off.
• It’s weak. When you get to the second paragraph in the Alpen example, you discover that behind the pretence, it really is just the same as other competition promotions – which is exactly what the first paragraph said, but it’s still disappointing somehow. All that difference ended up as just more sameness.
• It’s still marketing. Post-structuralism succeeded structuralism when it became clear that there could be no fixed point ‘outside’ the text from which to determine its ‘real’ or ultimate meaning. In other words, a book about books is still a book. A literary critic is still a writer. ‘Freedom’ from narrative, like moral certainty, is an illusion and all meaning is ultimately relative – or endlessly deferred, as Derrida postulated. In the present context, that means that ‘honest’ marketing messages are still marketing, because the medium is the message. Any text included on a cereal packet – even a Zen koan – is intrinsically commercial; this is a place where we expect (and get) material transaction, not friendship or truth.
• It’s cynical. Following on from that point, marketers should always, always remember that people aren’t stupid. They’re not going to buy into your message just because you said it in an unusual way. To expect them to is profoundly cynical and manipulative, so don’t kid yourself. (The only exception is if you manage to generate a positive emotional response, as opposed to a wry intellectual smirk.) Perhaps there’s greater honesty in selling with genre and cliché – giving the readers what they want, know or expect – than putting on a pose of originality for purely self-centred reasons.

On the whole, I think the cons outweigh the pros. And yet, I think there are circumstances when metacopywriting can work. Predictably, they’re the times when the metanarrative can allude to some benefit for the reader, or a problem of theirs that could be solved.

This example is taken from Ian Moore’s excellent book Does Your Marketing Sell? It was used to promote a new insurance product introduced by Royal & Sun Alliance to brokers, who sell insurance on its behalf. At the time it was used, insurance brokers were having to put up with fluctuating service levels from insurers, as a result of internal upheaval following big structural changes in the insurance market. Rather than gloss over that background, it made a virtue of the fact that R&SA wasn’t perfect:

Announcing the launch of yet another household product that’s not quite right for your customers (and seven reasons you should sell it)

The body text went on to appeal to brokers to help R&SA develop and improve the product.

In my opinion, this is a more successful metatext because it engages the emotions, rather than just playing games with meaning. It talks directly to a problem that the readership had. And the body made good on the promise of the headline, using it as the jumping-off point for a set of real benefits, honestly presented and maintaining the metatextual authorial voice established by the headline. Alpen, by contrast, stoked up the fire of expectation with its metanarrative, but threw cold water on it by bookending it with cliché.

So in summary, meta isn’t always better. This most radical of copywriting strategies works best when it’s allied with the two most traditional – focusing on the customer and communicating benefits.

I spend an increasing amount of time providing SEO advice to my clients. They’re usually the kind of firms you’d expect to need such advice: sole traders, SMEs, firms inexperienced in digital marketing, startups without a site. And what all those clients have in common is a strong need for sound advice coupled with an even stronger need to invest resources wisely.

Often, there will be a discussion about what I could do for them before they commit to buy. And that discussion is usually pretty wide-ranging. To illustrate the services I can provide or broker, I’ll propose many SEO tactics that would be specifically useful for them – as opposed to generic tactics that would work for anyone.

In fact, if they were taking careful notes, they’d end up with a passable SEO strategy just from the conversation. What’s more, the follow-up tasks involved are sometimes relatively mechanical (directory submissions, article marketing), allowing them to be handled in-house or overseas. The prospect could easily take what I’ve given them for free and use it to create significant value for themselves – and I’d never know. In other words, my effusive proposal could easily lead straight to being jilted at the altar.

It’s a serious issue for freelancers, and service providers generally. When does advice stop being an incentive to purchase and start being a product in itself? Where does a comprehensive proposal become a suicidal value giveaway? How much valuable knowledge should you share without payment? And just what is your advice really worth?

What you want

Let’s say you’re submitting a proposal to a client. On the face of it, your aim couldn’t be simpler: convert the prospect to a sale. But there are subtler concerns. The negotiation or proposal stage offers a valuable insight into how the working relationship might pan out. What will the client be like to work with? What if they question your advice, or refuse to act on it? How will differences of opinion be dealt with? Working through a proposal now could give you a chance to find out before any commitment is made. That gives you the option of walking away, or (more likely) quietly incorporating some ‘messing around money’ into your price.

Even if they’re not going to buy right now, you want them to remember you fondly and come back later – possibly after trying someone cheaper. And even if they’re never coming back, you should be mindful that people do talk to each other. Not just locally, but globally, through social media and other networks. Deal or no deal, you’re putting your reputation out there every time you pitch.

What you don’t want

So there are lots of reasons to submit a detailed proposal, offer useful advice and answer your prospect’s questions in some detail. But there are just as many reasons to hold back, or at least carefully consider what you want to share.

The first and most obvious reason is that you’re not being paid. The time you spend preparing and discussing your proposal must be either written off as an overhead (effectively, spreading the cost across all your clients) or charged to this particular prospect when they become a client (not explicitly, but as a tacit element of the price). For freelances, this sort of accounting is largely notional, since they rarely tot up every hour and assign it to a cost centre. But it’s still worth considering how much time you’re investing for an uncertain reward. Think of the opportunity cost – the money you could have earned elsewhere with the time you’re spending. Is this prospect actually worth that many hours?

The second reason is that you don’t want to give away valuable knowledge for free. For freelances who are paid for tangible deliverables (text, designs, websites), it can be tough to get clients to recognise the value of advice. The idea that ‘talk is cheap’ is pretty powerful. Indeed, it can be hard to recognise the value of your own consultancy, if you’re stuck in the same materialistic mindset.

Remember: if your free proposal can help someone add value to their business, in any way at all, you’re effectively giving them something for nothing. From this perspective, it’s worth thinking more like a lawyer, who charges for every conversation regardless of its content. That might be an impossible goal for most freelances, but it’s still a worthy principle: the band don’t play for free.

Thirdly, you don’t want to cede negotiating power. You want the prospect to understand what they’re buying, but not gain the ‘little knowledge’ that would allow them to misguidedly pick and choose from the service menu, or attempt to impose an alternative pricing model (for example, hourly rate instead of price-per-service). You also don’t want to give them the confidence to go back to the market for a different provider (say, one from a low-cost economy) – or, again, use the threat of doing so to secure a lower price.

Finally, and most subtly, you don’t want to seem too needy. Giving away the farm at the proposal stage suggests you’re desperate for work, which won’t instil confidence in the prospect. Remember the negotiation adage: ‘she who cares least wins’. So you need to respect yourself and do the right thing by your business – although, obviously, without striking an arrogant tone that will turn the prospect off.

What they want

It’s worth considering the client’s viewpoint too. They want to understand what they’re buying, but they’re probably making a foray into an unfamiliar market where they must buy with incomplete knowledge. They’re not going to splurge on a ‘black box’ solution where money goes in and results come out – most firms will stick with the status quo rather than take that sort of risk. (A notable recent exception is social media – in its infancy, firms were clearly spending on ‘gurus’ with little idea of what would be delivered in return for their fees.)

Most firms also appreciate that experts must have trust in order to deliver, but they don’t want to pay for snake oil. And behind the business rationale lies the deep-seated and very powerful need of human beings not to feel humiliated in front of peers by making a mistake or being taken for a ride.

Setting the boundary

In such a situation, only those in-demand suppliers with stellar reputations can set their personal ‘paywalls’ at the outer limits of their expertise. Like film stars who no longer have to audition, they don’t have to prove their worth. The rest of us need to do our little dance to make it rain.

So somehow, you have to set the boundaries on the advice you’ll give away for free. In theory, this will dictate the point in the conversation at which you will say (or imply), ‘If you want to know more, you must pay’. And it’s clearly worth deciding where this point is before you get talking, so you don’t end up putting the phone down with the sinking feeling that you’ve given away far too much.

General knowledge

One solution is to provide loads of advice, but keep it generic. You could have a ‘one size fits all’ template that you simply adapt for each new client, tweaking the content a little and changing the title page.

This can work, but most firms have already moved this type of content one stage earlier in the sales process by offering it for free in the form of web pages, blogs, white papers or free ebooks. Available to everyone online, it serves a dual purpose: building credibility before the client approach, and building SEO profile. So you might not win many client hearts by serving up this kind of content as a proposal.

Also, it’s not really about what you know, but how it’s applied. You may have testimonials, articles and past clients in abundance, but your prospect is still asking themselves whether you can do it for them.  Will you understand what they do? Will the service benefit their business? Generic content won’t deliver that kind of reassurance.

A better approach is probably to indicate the general themes of the service you’d deliver, without going into great detail on what will be involved. This can still be very valuable to a client who knows nothing, but it should be possible to leave them a lot of work to do if they want to exploit it without you.

Buying with the heart

Another perspective on the proposal dilemma is the emotional mindset of the prospect.

No-one likes buying stuff they know nothing about. And yet most of us buy far more with our hearts than with our heads. At some point in the process of appraising a product or supplier, we’ll decide (perhaps unconsciously) that we’re going to buy. This might happen, for example, when we first step over the threshold of a property, or when we see a pair of shoes on someone else’s feet. Our subsequent ‘research’ or ‘shopping around’ is actually about building up confidence and gathering data to support a decision that’s already been made – or, perhaps, so we can justify it to others. The intellect serves the emotions, not vice versa – and we may never admit how and when the true decision was made.

So you need to be attuned to the point at which your prospect clicks emotionally with your offer. If you feel they have decided to use you, you can force the free consultation phase to a close with confidence. Continued unpaid dialogue adds no value for you and could even risk unselling them. Prospects will carry on listening to free advice even though they’re ready to buy – they won’t want to look stupid or gullible by thrusting cash into your hands for something you’re willing to give away. People need a cue to act, so give them it.

I’d be fascinated to hear your own experiences on this topic, and how you decide where to set the limits on proposals you submit to clients.

Modern marketing is a lot like a party. Work the room right and you’ll attract interest and new contacts. Fail to shine and you’ll be going home alone. Here are the ten marketing partygoers you don’t want to meet – or to become.

The egotist

The egotist holds forth interminably on his favourite topic, himself. He’s oblivious to the bored sighs of those around him, failing to notice them backing away towards the vol-au-vents.

Marketing moral: focus on the customer, not yourself.

The counsellor

The counsellor is full of unwelcome ‘why don’t you’ advice for everyone she meets – she’s the answer to a question nobody asked. Sadly, her ideas aren’t always that useful.

Marketing moral: expertise is becoming devalued in some fields (notably social media). Cultivating strong personal connections may work better than positioning yourself as an expert.

The geek

It's not a party if there aren't any vol-au-vents

The geek batters you into submission with an enthusiastic but crashingly dull monologue about his phone, computer or other gadget.

Marketing moral: don’t confuse technical features with customer benefits. Unless you’re targeting early adopters or gadget fiends, new technology does not sell itself.

The wiseguy

The wiseguy keeps the jokes coming even if they’re not appreciated, appropriate or even funny.

Marketing moral: humour doesn’t travel well and should be used with great care – are you sure you’ll get the reaction you’re hoping for?

The wallflower

The wallflower stands shyly on the sidelines even though her best friend could be introducing her to plenty of guests if asked.

Marketing moral: proactively cultivate and request referrals and testimonials; join the conversation in social media and see where it takes you.

The skinflint

The skinflint brings Liebfraumilch but drinks Moët.

Marketing moral: reciprocity is everything in modern marketing, particularly social media. You have to give something (of yourself) before you receive.

The butterfly

The butterfly is always looking around the room for someone more interesting to talk to.

Marketing moral: don’t neglect here-and-now customer needs in the quest for new connections or business, however exciting it might feel. It’s far easier to get an order from an existing customer than from a ‘cold’ lead.

The nervous hostess

The nervous hostess flits between conversations, asking everyone if they’re enjoying themselves (and the vol-au-vents).

Marketing moral: don’t over-regulate the social media conversation about your brand or content. Allowing criticism shows strength and confirms authenticity. Allow time and space for others to answer on your behalf; it will be more powerful.

The gatecrasher

The gatecrasher shouldn’t even be here at all but he never misses the chance to party, even if he doesn’t know anyone.

Marketing moral: don’t waste marketing spend on making a big splash when you really need focused exposure. Only relevant attention can be converted to sales.

The chatterbox

The chatterbox just won’t shut up!

Marketing moral: We can’t talk and listen at the same time; make time for learning and sharing as well as pushing out content. No one wants to work with a consultant or service provider who can’t listen.

So much for my list. Can you suggest more?

7am. I wake up, turn on my mobile and check in at Twitter for my daily dose of inspirational quotes, motivational thoughts and self-improvement wisdom. Very soon I’m feeling supercharged for another day of relentless material wealth-seeking, with a kooky New Age veneer. Sometimes I wish I could just sit down for a while, but no-one on Twitter seems to take it easy…

9am. I notice that, as usual, I’ve received a number of friendly direct messages from people I followed yesterday. They arrive so quickly that I sometimes wonder if the people have some sort of servant to do their Tweeting for them. Nevertheless, I dutifully reply to each one, saying that I’m looking forward to their Tweets too. Social media’s all about reciprocity!

10am. In summer, the sun comes round the house next door and shines on my monitor, so I close the blind. Sometimes the noise of the birds singing gets on my nerves too, but my double-glazing keeps it out.

11am. This is the time when I catch up with all the blog posts and articles I’ve been told to read. And there’s so much great content out there! Sometimes I’m not sure if I need to read another ‘how to’ guide for social media, but I plough on anyway. You never know, there might be something new in one of them today.

12pm. I grab some lunch. Normally, my choice is prompted by an image someone else has uploaded of what they’re eating. It saves me thinking for myself. If I can’t get hold of it – for instance, because they’re eating in an achingly trendy Soho noodle bar – I just munch a slice of bread while staring at the image on the screen. It’s just as satisfying.

1pm. The afternoon hours are my time for making money online. What? You didn’t know it was possible? Well, it is. Just go to Twitter and you’ll soon see. I’ve already signed up for hundreds of MLM schemes, affiliate marketing programmes and wealth-generation systems, and I’ve bought so many e-books I’m going to need TWO iPads, one for each eye. And I’m pretty sure that once all these systems start kicking in, I’m going to be seriously rich.

4pm. A quick trip to the shops for bread, milk and Optrex, during which I make sure to Tweet my location. I’ve been burgled three times this year, but it’s a small price to pay for everyone knowing where I am.

5pm. Time to RT a few good Tweets and answer some questions people have posted, like you’re supposed to on social media. Got to take care of your circle! Sometimes, friends call round for me about this time, but most of them have got fed up with me Tweeting on my phone during conversations, so they don’t bother.

9pm. Towards the middle of the evening, I can get a bit down in the dumps. Sometimes it just seems like everyone else on Twitter is wealthier, wittier, more interesting, more passionate about their work and more… well, social than I’ll ever be. Maybe if I had a few more followers, things would be better? But there’s no room for doubt or anxiety on Twitter – it’s just smiles and positivity all the way. So I force a , Tweet ‘goodnight’ to my Tweeples and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be another long day…

‘Pride only hurts. It never helps.’
Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction

A while ago, a long-standing and highly valued client asked me to write a web page for her. As usual, we spoke at some length about the audience, the messages and the tone. I went away, produced a draft and submitted it.

In response, my client produced an entirely new draft and sent it over. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Marsellus (Ving Rhames) invites Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) to take a dive

The instant I read her version, I knew it was better. She’d got the right tone, the right choice of words, the right structure. Apart from a couple of minor grammar tweaks, it was good to go. And that left me with two options:

• Option 1 was to climb back on top of the situation by combing through her text, finding everything that could possibly be changed and mounting a persuasive case for a new version with my fingerprints on it.
• Option 2 was to step back, accept that I’d missed the target and simply endorse my client’s version.

I went for option 2.

It was less work. It didn’t put me at odds with the client. And, most importantly, it was the right course of action.

Was it humiliating? Maybe a little. But I reminded myself that…

• I’d done the spadework. On the face of it, it might seem that my client could have just written her version alone, without any input from me. But her version, though very different from mine, still came after it. I’d conducted the initial discussion and drawn out a brief from it. I’d conquered the blank page, allowing her to learn from my mistakes. And, before I even sent my draft, I’d already rejected a number of non-starter approaches.
• I was still involved. Again, on the face of it, my client could have proceeded to publish the content without me. But she didn’t. She still wanted me to be involved in the process, however tangentially.
• Approval adds value. A lawyer might read through a contract, confirm that it’s OK as it stands and charge you £1000. They might not have ‘done’ anything tangible, but they’ve still helped you. Without their input, you’d feel much less confident about going ahead. By confirming that my client’s version was OK, I was still adding value to the project.
• Only results matter. Often, the path to the goal is more circuitous and time-consuming than we would have hoped. Or perhaps it doesn’t allow us to shine as we might like. But the point is that we get there. Better to get something that works for the client – by whatever method – than something that just makes you look good.

It all comes down to a focus on adding value, rather than feeling valued. Ultimately, clients remember outcomes rather than processes. (They’ll only remember processes if you make them more complicated than they need to be.) It’s not all about you.

As you can see, I’ve got a ‘follow me’ button in my navigation, so Twitter is one click away from every page on this site. And that means that visitors’ experience of my online presence might include a sharp variation in tone. Depending on my mood and willingness to Tweet at any particular point in time, a potential client might step from my carefully crafted corporate content to a confession of Cheddars addiction, a sarky comment on last night’s TV or (if they’re lucky) a throwaway observation about search marketing or online copywriting.

When I’m comparing my unique visitor stats to the number of leads I get through the site, this thought gives me pause. Are visitors put off by my Twitter content, or perhaps even this blog? And more broadly, does social media – even when done exactly as the gurus suggest – invariably enhance reputation?

Talking to strangers

Everyone understands that different online media require different tones (I’ve covered it in this post). For most businesses, Tweeting in the same voice as you use on your corporate site would be absolutely deadly, resulting in a desperately dry, po-faced and self-centred feed. While competitors were asking their customers what they did on Friday night, you’d be Tweeting about your dull-as-ditchwater product launch. You’d have no followers, no profile and no ROI.

Does careless talk cost reputation?

However, what works for friends and followers might look strange to newcomers. A prospect clicking through to my Twitter profile will see my last Tweet prominently displayed in 28pt type. If that Tweet is frivolous, or even offensive (a subjective judgement, after all), it surely won’t make a good impression. At the very least, the positive ‘he has a personality’ points could easily be offset by a ‘not very professional’ penalty.

I serve clients from all over the world. What would a visitor from Russia or El Salvador make of a conversation about liking cheesy biscuits, on Monday morning, from someone who presents themselves as a professional? In fact, what would a UK visitor who just didn’t know much about Twitter think of it?

For me, casual Tweets are the online equivalent of having the radio on in the background when you answer the phone. Some people just aren’t going to like it. That’s why, when I remember, I’ll try and make sure that I leave the feed with something relatively sensible or useful at the top, like a retweet from @econsultancy. Sure, it’s inauthentic, but it feels safer.

Unseen damage

I often point out to clients that a poor website can do serious harm to their reputation without them necessarily being aware of it. A site riddled with ancient content, inconsistent formatting and spelling errors won’t have the phone ringing off the hook with complaints. Instead, visitors will come, form a negative impression and leave – almost certainly without comment. If they judge by appearances – and why shouldn’t they? – you’ll simply never hear from them.

When I view some firms’ websites, I’m astonished at the substandard content they leave online for years on end, apparently oblivious to the impression it’s giving. If I work with such firms, it often transpires that they are aware of the problem, and plan to sort it out. But with no negative feedback from the prospects that got away, there’s no sense of a ‘burning platform’ to force them to act.

Reputation bomb

With that in mind, consider a Twitter feed that’s easily accessible from the home page, or actually visible on it (as it should be, according to the received wisdom). It could easily be a reputation bomb primed to explode.

If you’re an active Tweeter who combines business and pleasure in one account (as most sole traders and SMEs do), you’re Tweeting stuff you’d never dream of publishing at your main site (humour, politics, personal life etc) on an hourly basis. And if you don’t mix in some personal stuff, your feed will be too dry. Who’s to say a fantastic prospect might not click into your feed at a time when it shows something catastrophically trivial?

I’m relatively paranoid about Twitter. I aim for friendliness, humour and relevancy and set myself strict rules: no politics, no swearing, no arguing, no boasting about work, no chat about clients. (The one evening I did Tweet about politics, I lost a follower for every Tweet I posted.) But many Tweeters don’t police themselves in this way, giving their language, feelings and reactions free rein. I respect that – after all, I’ve argued before that we should market honestly and be ourselves in social media. But some Tweets are so pointed that they elicit a sharp intake of breath as you read them. Does the author really want those words online?

Broadcasting trivia

We’ve all seen the alarmist, ill-informed articles in mainstream media about the perils of Facebook, when in fact it’s easy enough to restrict access to your page (or at least it was, until the privacy options started to look like this). Twitter, as most people choose to use it, exposes your posted content far more widely.

Each Tweet lives forever at its own URL, and Google now searches Twitter in real time, more efficiently than ever before. And it might not index the Tweets you want it to. For example, my highest-ranking Tweet on a search for my name (mercifully on page 2) is this effort (presumably because of its keyword density for ‘Tom’):

Not offensive, but hardly inspiring, and undeniably trivial. On balance, probably not a URL I’d want a prospective client to see. And it could have been worse.

But it doesn’t end there. You can opt to have your Tweets syndicated to third-party sites. One such is LinkedIn, surely the most pin-striped and buttoned-down of all the networking sites. It’s a place where serious job-hunting and reputation-building is the order of the day (along, it seems, with an ever-increasing volume of discussion spam). But depending on when a potential client or employer visits, your carefully edited CV could be gatecrashed by the most hasty, drunken, offensive Tweet you’ve ever Tweeted. That’s why I haven’t, er, linked in my Twitter profile to the site.

Imaginary walls

In my experience, although most people’s Twitter accounts are unprotected, in practice they still Tweet as if their accounts were somehow private – everything is ‘between friends’ in terms of both content and tone. Others go further, treating Twitter like a confessional, or even a diary – despite having thousands of followers. Certainly, many Tweets clearly originate with the urge to unburden rather than the need to communicate.

You might regard your Twitter account as more ‘personal’ than your business content, with a clear division between the corporate and social worlds, but in reality the distinction may be largely in your head (and not in your client’s).

This can apply to other types of social-media content as well. Many of my blog posts, for example, are primarily of interest to other copywriters, marketers or media professionals, and not really aimed at general business readers (i.e. my potential customers). Sometimes, the resulting comment discussion will stray into areas, such as pricing, where an honest response isn’t something I’d really want my clients to read. So, as with Twitter, I have to think carefully about everyone who might be reading, rather than imagining there’s some kind of invisible wall between my main site and the blog. It’s important to remember that anyone could be reading anything, at any time.

What do you think? Should we worry about the reputational risk of social media, or have we entered a new, more relaxed age where saying something online is no different from saying it in the pub?

• Thanks to Sarah Turner of Turner Ink for the conversation that inspired this post.

If you sell services, whether as a freelance or an employee, you know the scenario all too well. One day you and your client are getting on like a house on fire. The next, the phone stops ringing. What happened? Here’s a few clues:

• They’re broke. These days, many firms are tight for cash, or choosing to safeguard their reserves. Don’t take it personally. If you got paid, count yourself lucky that you got the heads-up in time.
• They got bored. B2B relationships are like marriages. First comes the thrill of getting it together. Then the satisfaction of developing deeper understanding. Before you know it, the spark is gone. The flip side of reliability is predictability, and sometimes people just want a change.
• They moved on. Businesses change. Their strategies, priorities and cultures develop. Perhaps your client, once a perfect fit for your services, is a different company these days.
• Your service wasn’t sexy enough. People like to feel cutting-edge. They don’t want to miss out on trends. Shallow, but understandable. If you’re an established player using proven methods, however effective, a new kid on the block can make you look staid and uninspiring. It may not be fair, but it could get them a foot in the door.
• You weren’t sexy enough. Buyers are people. All else being equal, they’ll go with the provider who gives them an emotional thrill as well as a tick in a box. What’s more, they’ll bend the rules for someone they like. Being fit for purpose might not be enough.

Now, here’s why all that doesn’t matter:

• Plenty more fish. There are always more clients out there. Look at your remaining clients, identify the common thread and profile your ideal customer. Now go and find more clients like that. Your existing clients might be able to introduce you.
• Everything flows. Companies are formed, go bust, merge, split, buy each other. People move on, change role, get fired, start companies. Change throws up opportunities every day. Remember: ‘every exit is an entrance somewhere else’.
• Go where you give value. If your client moved on, it could mean you can’t meet all their needs. But that’s a reflection on them, not on you. Now you need to find new clients for whom you can add major value. There’s no point chasing a gig that’s not right for both parties.
• You are still you. You’ve lost a client. You have not lost your ability to gain clients, or to add value. Your offer is still just as strong as it was yesterday.

The psychological theme here is attribution: the way we think about the causes of events. Natural optimists attribute negative outcomes to others, while taking credit for success. Pessimists do the opposite, blaming themselves for setbacks while putting success down to fluke, circumstance or the actions of others.

If you want to move on from losing a client, cultivate optimistic mental habits. The client has moved on for reasons of their own, not because you fell short. And you already have all the resources you need to find a replacement.