And in his presentation he said something that really struck a chord.

“Marketing is every phone call, every text, every conversation you have. It’s more  powerful and more important than any company website or corporate brochure or ad campaign. The people answering your phones or your emails – if it’s not you – are your strongest marketers and engagers. And, unfortunately, they’re often the ones we pay the least and appreciate the least.”

Some bloke called Branson enjoying the customer service at Virgin Active

Now, if you’re a freelancer (like me) chances are you answer your own phone. (And pay your own bills. And buy your own milk and teabags.) But if you’re running a company, even a small company, are you certain everyone who works for you is representing your brand the way you’d like them too?

Take my recent experience with Virgin Active. I was walking back to the office from a breakfast meeting and on the spur of the moment I decided to check out my local Virgin Active gym. I’m already a member of another chain of gyms near where I live. But Virgin is closer to the office and would be handy for the odd lunchtime run. So I bounced up to the desk and had this conversation:

Me: Hey there, do you have a leaflet about the club and the facilities?
VA: No, we don’t have a leaflet
Me: Oh, ok can you just give me some information about the prices please?
VA: No, they vary each month. Someone can come and talk to you. You’ll have to wait about 15 minutes.
Me: I haven’t got time to wait I’m afraid. Can I just take a quick look round?
VA: No you can’t. Can you ring later?

At which point he scribbled a phone number on a Post-It note and handed it to me. Hmmmm. More pain, less pleasure as they (don’t) say in the Virgin Active ads.

I get that they may not have a brochure. So why not direct me to the website? And if you don’t want to give the prices out, why not say something like ‘we have special deals all the time. So to make sure you get the best rate I’ll get the sales manager to call you and she can run through them with you.’ Or why not give me the sales manager’s business card? Or, better still, take my card and say that the sales manager will call me? But nope. None of these happened. And I got three no’s instead.

So anyway, I get back to the office and I call the sales manager and leave a message. And an hour or so later she calls me back and was very nice. I shared the above experience with her and she was very apologetic and said ‘it’s frustrating when we work so hard in the sales office and it all comes undone at reception.’

That’s really the crux isn’t it? And it’s something Scott Stratten talks about a lot. It doesn’t matter how good your advertising is or how super cool your website is or how funny your viral is or how hard you’re grafting in the marketing department – if your customers or potential customers have a crap experience when they interact with your brand at the coal face, then in their mind your brand is crap. It’s a simple as that.

On Saturday I was shopping in Kingston and dropped into one of the more upmarket retailers on the high street. Cool advertising. Check. Slick website. Check. Nice clothes. Check. Sales assistants who are total bitches. Check. Three of them. All standing around chatting and laughing. They didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t say hello. Didn’t say anything. I even had to say ‘excuse me’ to two of them who were blocking my route to a rail of dresses I wanted to look at. And still nothing. Seriously, I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Did they get my money that day? Nope. I spent it elsewhere. And yet that company’s marketing bods are probably cooking up their next marketing campaign as we speak. But I don’t care how enticing their ads are, they’ll never get my business again. Like, ev-ah. (Not unless they have a 95% off sale anyway.)

So what’s to be done? What would happen if companies halved their advertising spend and doubled their training budget? Oooh that’s an idea. And how about calling anyone in a customer-facing position a marketing manager or a marketing officer? Because, really, that’s what they are.

In tough economic times when people are spending their cash more carefully, where are they going to go? To the company that has awful staff but are ‘really good’ with social media? Or to the business that’s friendly, approachable and consistently helpful? I know where I’m going. Where are your customers going?

Are your employees acting like Virgin’s? is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

Now, I love these ads. And I like the fact that Nationwide has been brave enough to use controversial TV characters in their advertising. So when I picked up this leaflet I was hoping to read some quirky, fun, off the wall copy. Wrong.

First of all, this leaflet isn’t aimed at Joe Public: it’s actually aimed at Nationwide staff because it talks about the ‘intranet’ and ‘customer questions’, which makes the style of this leaflet even more inappropriate. (And why was it in the banking hall for me to pick up?)

Take the opening line: “Our TV ads have been designed to cut through the noise of the media.” What? Yawnsville. With all due respect to the staff at Nationwide, how many of them will know what “cut through the noise of the media” even means? I’m not sure I know.

The best bit is under customer questions. In other words, the questions customers may come in and ask.

Question: The ads talk about “Proud to be different”. How can you justify that?
Answer: Our mutual model, combined with great service, and a commitment to long-tern value for our members all make us very different to other financial service.

Ewwww. “Our mutual model”? Can you imagine any building society cashier actually saying this. Nope.

Or how about:
Question: How much has the advertising cost?
Answer: We’ve benchmarked our production costs and we’re in line with the market.

So if I went into a branch this afternoon and asked how much the ad campaign cost do you think I would get the answer above?

Was this written by the ad agency and then butchered in-house by some corporate bod who had been on a marketing course? Or was it knocked together by an intern in the marketing department? ’After all, it’s only for the staff.’ It’s a shame. Because this was an opportunity for Nationwide to get their teams a-buzzin’ about the new campaign. This misses the mark by miles. 

What. Ever.

Yeah, but, no, but, yeah…How Nationwide Building Society’s copy is more ‘whatever’ than ‘wow’ is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

So, I had a few of my own postcards printed up and I’ve been sending them to people I’ve met out and about at networking events and conferences. I’ve even used them as thank you cards.

They were pretty cheap too. About £60, I think, for two hundred and something. Four colour one side and black on reverse.

I even fished out my old Waterman fountain pen to use and bought some new green ink. The downside, of course, is that my handwriting is a bit of a scrawl. And I’ve now got an inky middle finger. Sigh. Just like the old days.

So far they’ve been really well received. And they’re a nice alternative to email.

What do you think? Do you send handwritten notes at all?

And this time…it’s personal. Why handwritten notes are making a comeback is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

It seems that Amnesty knows this. Because their latest direct mail piece has on its front cover:

This flyer will ask you to make six choices. Here’s the first: Read it or bin it.

Now there’s no way I’m going to bin it now. The least I’m going to do is open it. Inside follow more choices:

Speak out or stay silent? Object or accept? Make a stand or walk away? Act or do nothing?

And then finally Join or not join?

The copy includes the line ‘for these and many, many more the fact you chose to read this leaflet rather than bin it, is a source of unimaginable help.’ Powerful stuff.

As a direct mail piece this is superb. Eye catching, emotional, appealing and with a strong call to action.

Find our more about Amnesty.

.

What would you do with this flyer? Read it or bin it? is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

But yesterday, this arrived from my Lib Dem MP Edward Davey: a personal letter. Well, not quite. It’s one of those handwritten-but-printed letters but it still felt more personal than all the other stuff I’d received.

And do you know what? I read the whole thing from beginning to end.

A few weeks ago, at a networking event, I met Jerry Marshall from Tozer Marshall Design in Kingston. We chatted. We swapped business cards. The usual. And then a few days later I received a handwritten postcard from him saying thanks for the chat and hopefully we can work together at some point in the future. How cool? I actually called him up to say thank you, and the postcard is now pinned to my wall.

Is this old style personal correspondence making a bit of a comeback in these days of impersonal emails, tweets and texts?

James over at Freelance Switch thinks so. In a blog post this week James has some great old school ideas:

Write a handwritten thank-you note to your clients, then tuck in an extra business card – and a request that the client pass on that card to a colleague who could use your services.

So I’m digging out my fountain pen and I’m getting writing. Which only leaves the question: Should I vote for Ed Davy or Monkey the Drummer from the Monster Raving Loony Party? (And yes, he really is standing in Kingston.)

Why old school communication gets my vote is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

But if you’re a freelancer or you run your own company, it’s easy to put your own blog on the back burner while you get your real work done. Especially if you’ve run out of ideas about what to write.   

But stick with it. Because your blog is one of the easiest, quickest and cheapest ways of getting freshly baked content on to your site – and Google loves fresh content; it’s a great way of getting traffic to your site; and it’s the perfect way to build relationships with your customers and attract new clients.

But what to write about? Try some of these ideas for inspiration.

• Interview someone in your industry or someone you’re inspired by
• Ask a question
• Review a product and show how you use it in your business
• Tell a personal story and let people know the real you
• Review a book
• Write about something that affects your industry
• Read the Sunday papers for inspiration (I especially like the Sunday Times magazine)
• Write a response to something someone else has posted, giving your point of view (and link to the original post)
• Review a piece of software and show how it’s helped your business
• Take photos on your camera phone, whilst you’re out and about, and use in a post
• Write a post on something that’s in the news today (look at the BBC website first thing or see what’s trending on Twitter)
• Use a band or a movie as inspiration. The Sex and the City post over at Copyblogger was one of my favourites, like, ev-ah.
• Do a survey – and then publish the results
• Write about how you screwed up or how you learned a lesson
• Write a How to blog post…

And if you have a flash of inspiration for a post, leave yourself a voice memo on your iPhone or write a note in Evernote.

Any more ideas? Share in the comments.

How to write a blog post…when you’ve run out of ideas is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

Yuppies was an acronym (sort of) for Young Urban Professional. Those upper-middle class, upwardly mobile twenty-to thirty-somethings that barked into their phones, carried a Filofax and wore red braces. And that was the girls.

But using acronyms to describe social groups has been around since the 1950s, when the term WASP was coined by Andrew Hacker in American Political Science Review. WASP or white Anglo Saxon Protestant was used to describe affluent white North Americans of north European descent (who were often neither Anglo Saxon nor Protestant. But, hey).

So, what other acronyms do marking bods use? October’s The Marketer explains.

SINBAD: Single Income No Boyfriend Absolutely Desperate. Ouch. An acronym for all the Bridget Joneses of the world.

SKIPPY: School Kids With Purchasing Power. Those annoying kids who want a 3G iPhone, a Nintendo DSi, the new shape PS3 and Wii Sports Resort. And they’ve got the cash to buy them. Grrr.

DINKY: Double Income No Kids. High earning couple without the financial drain of sprogs. Marketers love these people. We hate them.

SITCOM: Single Income Two Children Oppressive Mortgage. Yeah, not a great place to be right now.

YEPPIES: Young Experimenting Perfection Seekers. These peeps shop around looking for the perfect plasma screen, the perfect relationship, the perfect career, home and lifestyle. But will they recognise it when they get it?

So what acronym would you be?

I’d be ACNEE. Amazing copywriter never earns enough. Oh dear.

Yuppies, Yeppies and other acronyms we love is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

So there I was at London’s Gatwick Airport at the weekend, waiting with breathless anticipation for my case to arrive, when I spied this ad for Gatwick Express, the fast train service into central London.

It’s not the ad so much that bemused me as the strapline: ‘anything else is a risk’.

What? Risks are normally associated with going on holiday and not having medical insurance. Or missing your mortgage repayments and getting your home repossessed. Or driving around without motor insurance and hoping you don’t crash into anything.

But using another mode of transport, other than Gatwick Express, seems like a perfectly safe and risk-free option.

Sure, the other trains may take a little longer. The Express takes only 30 minutes after all. But it does cost a whopping £16.50. (At least.)

The local train services, on the other hand, cost between £7.90 and £10.90 and take 35 to 45 minutes. And they’ll get you there in perfect comfort – even if they do take a few minutes longer.

You can even take a coach. Only £7.30. Or a bus for two quid. What a bargain!

So as far as I can tell, all the other options seem unrisky.

What is Gatwick Express going on about then? Are they saying that because they offer a fast, direct service, there’s less likely to be hold-ups, delays or traffic jams? And if you really have to be in central London super-fast-quick, for a very important meeting, than this is the way to go?

Why not say that then? How about:

The fastest way to central London
Your first class journey continues
Next stop: central London

Or

Gatwick to London non-stop

They took me all of five minutes to think of, and all seem infinitely better than ‘anything else is a risk’.

Got a good strapline for Gatwick Express? Leave it in the comments.

Why Gatwick Express needs to get its marketing on track is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

How many people have seen that review, I wonder, as the Ma Goa car has been delivering its Tandoori Bathaks with Pullao Rice all over south London? More than would have seen an expensive advertisement in a local newspaper, probably.

When it comes to marketing your company – do all the free stuff first. Open a Linkedin profile and encourage customers and clients to make recommendations. Set up a Twitter account and give your followers a discount. Write great press releases, which the local press will be happy to publish. Include a testimonial in your email signature. And don’t forget to include links to your website, Linkedin and Twitter pages as well.

In fact, of all the marketing techniques you can use, paying for an advertisement should be last thing on your list.

Oh and check out Ma Goa’s fantastic menu here.

Drive your marketing for free is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog

Turner Ink: A few weeks ago I wrote a post about why companies shouldn’t cut their marketing budgets during economic downturns. Are you finding that’s the case Alison? Are companies increasing their spend? Or are they cutting back?

Add Agency: Well spend on printed materials has definitely been cut right back. I wouldn’t want to be a printer right now! But clients are still spending on marketing and much of it is going on online. Clients are realising that they really need an effective web presence, and a cost-effective way to stay in contact with their customers, like email newsletters, or they could risk losing out to their competitors.

TI: So are you doing more online marketing these days with PPC, SEO and email marketing?

AA: Yes definitely. Having an online ‘brochure’ style site is OK if you only expect people you know to refer to it occasionally. If you want customers you don’t know to find you on their own – by searching – then you need to work much harder. That’s where SEO and PPC comes into their own. Lots can be achieved through just SEO but if immediate results are needed then PPC is essential.

TI: What other services does Add Agency offer?

AA: We offer campaign planning, creative design and implementation for all forms of marketing communications. We design corporate identities, create websites, do SEO and online advertising. As well as email and printed newsletters, brochures, direct mail, catalogues and annual reports.

If you have something you need to say, we can work out the most cost effective and creative way of getting your message delivered to the right people

TI: So do clients have a clear idea of what kind of marketing they want when they come to you? Or do they tell you what they want to achieve and you tell them how to do it?

AA: Well most clients come to us with an idea of what they want and we can advise the best way to achieve it, usually through using a mixture of activities, from website updates to email marketing and even printed literature.

TI: What type of clients do you work with Alison?

AA: We work with a wide range of business to business and consumer clients. Understanding the different challenges facing each client is what keeps our day interesting!

TI: What’s your ideal client though? Apart from one with a huge budget?

AA: I guess our ideal client is a company that has been in business for 5 to 10 years. They have experienced rapid growth through the boom times and now need to focus on strengthening their marketing to allow them to continue to grow over the next few years.

They might have marketing expertise in-house, which is good, but not necessarily the design skills to implement their ideas.

TI: Does Add Agency have any particular area of expertise?

AA: Planning and developing testing strategies for direct marketing is actually my forte, but this includes integrated campaigns across all communication channels, i.e. mail, email, press, web and online ads.

TI: What does Add Agency offer that other marketing agencies don’t?

AA: Well our USP is the synergy of our combined skills together with our commitment to long-term relations. For us it’s not about a quick fix. But understanding and developing life time value from our clients. When that level of trust occurs between client and agency then you can really start noticing the results.

TI: What’s been your most successful campaign to date?

AA: That’s a hard one to choose. There’s been a few. But I suppose my favourite would be winning a DMA Gold Award for an internal communications campaign for Royal Mail. On a relatively small budget we had to convince postal workers that Mailsort 3 mail was also important and should be sorted quickly.

It was about taking a technical issue and relating it to individuals on a personal level, so they could see the impact the activity had upon others. We used a mixture of creative workplace posters as well direct mail. And as a result of the campaign we improved service by about 28%.

My job is all about understanding client problems and identifying what needs to be achieved. I then have to bring out the best in the creative teams, so they can deliver imaginative and outstanding campaigns for our clients.

I also remember my worst campaign quite clearly. We launched a unit trust for Commercial Union on Black Monday 1987 when the worldwide stock markets crashed. We didn’t even recoup the £7m marketing costs!
I learnt that timing can have a far more major effect on results than any creative message!

TI: Have you always been a marketing ‘bod?’ What’s your background Alison?

AA: Yes, thoroughly marketing, I’m pleased to say. After graduating I went straight into classic FMCG training. I then completed a diploma in direct marketing which opened my eyes to the benefits of measureable marketing, testing and targeting your message to individual audiences.

I’ve worked both agency and client side, including time as European Marketing Manager for Philips and Marketing Manager at HarperCollins. And I’ve worked in top advertising agencies like Leo Burnett and BMP which was great fun. I long for some of the budgets and campaigns we used to control. Now it’s the same theory but just smaller budgets!

TI: So how did Add Agency come about? What prompted you to set up your own agency?

AA: I had been working at my previous agency for nearly 6 years but I recognised that the industry was changing and that budgets were moving from traditional print to digital marketing. We didn’t have the facilities to expand in-house so I decided it was a good time to leave, and set up my own agency in 2006.

TI: Thanks Alison. If someone wants to discuss a marketing campaign with you, what’s the best way to get in touch?

AA: They can call us on 020 8973 4320 or drop us an email at enquiries@addagency.co.uk. Or visit the Add Agency website for more information on some of our recent projects. Thanks Sarah.

Alison Blake is founder and director of Add Agency based in London. Her experience covers both B2C and B2B accounts, working in top London advertising and direct marketing agencies, Leo Burnett, BMP and Grey (now Joshua), for clients such as Royal Mail, Orange, Cigna Insurance, Commercial Union and Pedigree Petfoods.

She has worked client side as European Marketing Manager for Philips Electronics and as Marketing Manager at HarperCollins publishers. And provided in-house training for the Institute of Direct Marketing, Lorien, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Mail and Ford.

Alison is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Making it all Add up: An interview with Alison Blake is a post from the Turner Ink Copywriting Blog