Marketing Basics

How to Write a Business Email - Watch Your Tone

You may think you don't need to learn how to write a business email (or Slack message, or Skype). After all, you've probably been sending business emails for years, perhaps since you began working.

During this unusual time in history in which everyone is working virtually, learning how to write a business email is essential. Not just any email, but one that considers emotion and tone.

How to Write a Business Email

I'm older than most of you reading this, and I didn't begin my career writing emails. In fact, email didn't exist when I started my first full-time job.

Instead, when necessary, communications were typed in a specific format called a memo. These formal communications followed a very traditional format and tone; and, because they were typed (on an IBM Selectric, no less), each one was crafted with diligence and precision.

Emails, on the other hand, can be dashed off as quickly as one can type. Skype and Slack messages pose even great problems because they are often typed as part of the ebb and flow of a conversation.

These conversations taking place in cyberspace using pixels and emojis often lack the nuances of actual in-person conversations. Lacking physical expressions, gestures, and the subtle cues people give each other during the give-and-take of conversations, arguments, and meetings, they can be misunderstood.

Mind Your Tone! Emotional Mistakes Made in Writing

Have you ever been in an email war of words? It usually starts when one person mistakenly "reads" into the tone of the initial email. What began as an innocent attempt at communication ends up in a string of ever-increasing angry emails that may end up as a phone call or virtual meeting to straighten things out.

What leads to such email wars? Emotional mistakes in tone.

What is tone in writing?

Tone, according to the literary definition, is the attitude of the writer towards his or her subject.

Word choice conveys a great deal of the tone in any piece of literature, including instant messages, emails, and other communications.

Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist of the rock band Deep Purple, said something in a documentary on the making of their (awesome) album Machine Head (yes huge Purple fan here) that underscores the importance of tone.

"When things are positive, the management always says 'we' as in 'We're going up the charts!' But if something is negative, it's you: 'You're going down the charts.'"

Ritchie is sensitive to tone. The choice of management's words -- we verus you -- is a perfect illustration of tone. Sensitivity to tone enables him to read instantly into the situation. He knows that if the record company sends a message such as "Can you talk?" it's probably something unpleasant whereas "We would like to talk to you" it may be positive.

Words Matter

Your choice of words matters a great deal when crafting email messages. As you're writing your emails, your brain chooses words seemingly on its own. But your intuitive understanding of the connotation of each words - it's unspoken bias or meaning - helps you choose the "right" words to convey what you truly feel.

Learning How to Write a Business Email - 5 Steps to Avoid Miscommunication

Without the nuance of spoken language, emails can be construed as passive-aggressive. "Let's talk" can start an email war of words. "I'm not clear about the direction of the program - can we speak at 1 o'clock and go over the details?" is a much better way of asking for the same conversation.

Let's avoid those war of words and look at 5 steps to avoid miscommunication when you write a business email.

1. Pause before you hit send, especially when angry or upset. Your brain is merrily tootling along choosing words as your fingers fly across the keyboard. You may think that your message is neutral when you want to reach through the monitor and throttle a coworker, but your brain's circumventing your common sense and selects a few choice hot button words sure to begin the dreaded war or words. Pausing before you hit send, rereading messages, and changing hot button phrases can defuse problems before they start.
2. Watch out for typos. A typo may be simply that - a typo - or it can convey that you are so angry your fingers are flying over the keyboard. It can also make your communications appear rushed and unprofessional. While typos are common in instant messages and text, often due to the smaller keyboards and quick nature of the responses, eliminate typos from emails to avoid sending unintended messages about your urgency or tone. A program such as Grammarly, which can check all types of written communications including social media messages, instant messages, and emails, can highlight typos for correction on screen.
3. Walk away from the computer. Did something set you off? Walk away from the computer and let the message cool. We're all working in a strange environment now with kids screaming in the background, dogs barking, and the stress-relieving afternoon Starbucks run a thing of the past. As we learn how to navigate the new work from home environment in which kids need the computer, spouses need quiet to close a deal, and you need the video for a conference call, it's no wonder that little things trigger emotions. Walking away and pausing before answering can save a world of hurt.
4. Don't use emoticons. The Harvard Business Review (of all places) accepts the inevitable use of emoticons. I don't mind them in Skype or Slack messages - I was famous for using my "Queen" emoticon when making editorial pronouncements at one job - but using too many in a formal email looks amateurish and unprofessional. It's a smart idea to avoid emoticons, especially in an email.
5. Use email appropriately. Email is best for conveying lengthier thoughts. Use instant messenger for quick questions. In other words, don't hit "Respond All" and say "Thank you" or "Yes."

Better Emails, Easier Communications

If you're struggling with how to write a business email, and you're uncomfortable writing longer emails, think about how you can overcome your discomfort. What's holding you back?

Right now, we're all struggling to work virtually, juggling Slack, Skype, text, and email messages. But let's face it: email is also an important aspect of all workplace communications, pandemic or no pandemic. Learning how to write effective business emails is an important skill everyone should master.

(c) by Jeanne Grunert - "the Marketing Writer" at Seven Oaks Consulting, a content marketing writing agency in Prospect, Virginia.

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by Jeanne Grunert

B2B Content Marketing Writing - Sell the Story First

When it comes to B2B content marketing writing, you must sell the story first. Here's what that means to your business and brand.

B2B Content Marketing Writing

Tell the Story First

Everyone loves a good story. From the time we're able to understand the world around us, the words "once upon a time" transport us to new worlds.

This is the power that we tap into when we tell brand stories. Unlike product descriptions or sales copy, brand stories shape perception by engaging the imagination.

Scientists tell us that information flows in different directions in the brain depending on whether we engage our imagination or reality. Sales copy which focuses on product descriptions engages the reality centers. Stories, on the other hand, engage the imaginative centers of the brain.

Despite the difference in how the information flows through the brain, imagination is perceived as reality by our minds. What this means to content marketers is that encouraging consumers to imagine themselves using a product (videos or stories) or facing a similar problem in which the product solves (case studies) brings people one step closer to actually owning the product. Engaging the imagination feels real; the next step is to make it real by owning the product.

Content Marketing Writing Storytelling Basics

Like all good writing, good B2B content marketing writing includes the basics of strong narration:

• A hero
• A villain
• A challenge to overcome
• A beginning, middle, and end

Let's look at an example: manufacturing ERP software. ERP, or enterprise resource planning software, is a business process management software. It integrates many areas of business knowledge, including accounting, finances, manufacturing, supply chain, inventory, and more.

Companies researching ERP software have a problem. Perhaps that problem is siloed information, a common problem faced by manufacturing firms that add software piecemeal over time and find that it's no longer working well for their needs.

Our hero, in this case, is the software. Let's name it Software X. Software X challenges a villain. The villain is the proliferation of software across the company. The challenge to overcome is how to synchronize information across multiple departments and plant locations.

One Narrative, Multiple Formats and Channels

I love writing B2B content marketing writing stories because one story can turn into multiple formats for a variety of channels.

Once I have the gist of the story and a hero, villain, and challenge in mind, I can then spin the story in many ways for different audiences.

I might:

• Write a series of blog posts about the "villain" or problem of older software not communicating with one another. The bad guy in this scenario is lost profits and time.
• Narrate it as a story using illustrations of a child's game of telephone where messages get lost as they are passed along. Removing steps in the transfer of information maintain data integrity and accuracy.
• Choose a different angle on the problem, such as how much time is wasted by gathering raw data and inputting it into spreadsheets in order to make it usable by the organization.

Once the basic story format is known, you can spin so many narratives and formats from it that it starts to fill an editorial calendar by itself!

In every case, the B2B content marketing writing begins with figuring out the story angle.

Every brand tells a story. The implicit promise, the problem solved, the villain conquered. Figure out the characters in your story and you'll engage the imagination of your customers, motivating them to take action.

 

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by Jeanne Grunert

SEO Expert Reveals 3 Secret Optimization Tips

As an SEO expert, especially in the realm of marketing writing, I have my 'secret optimization' tips that I use to really grab Google's attention in the SERPs.

These are my three most powerful SEO tips.

SEO Expert Tips

These secrets aren't some arcane knowledge available only to a powerful few. They aren't really secrets, either -- just search engine optimization techniques that the average site owner or blogger doesn't bother with using.

1. Optimize your images
2. Use plenty of internal links
3. Write in a natural, conversational style

1. Optimize Your Images

Images are the unsung heroes of search engine optimization. Many people use Google Images to find out more about a topic of interest. Just the other day, I used Google's Image search to identify a bug, check on a rash on my cat, and find a map of a city I used to live in. Okay, weird searches to be sure, but a Cooperative Extension website, veterinary hospital site, and a town website each received search engine traffic from those images.

When optimizing images, be sure to incorporate several best practices:

• License images properly and be sure to follow use and attribution requirements or take your own pictures
• Resize images from your camera to minimize the file size! This is super important. Big images slow down your website and Google hates slow sites. Resize as JPGs to the proper size for your site.
• Use a compression tool such as the Smush WordPress plugin to further shrink image file size and make them load faster.
• Rename the file with your keyword phrase.
• Add an alt tag that accurately describes the image and utilizes a keyword phrase or synonym if appropriate

SEO experts agree that optimizing images may help boost your posts!

2. Use plenty of internal links

I love internal links for SEO for a variety of reasons. Not only do they link to other content on your site as a helpful resource to readers but they give Google's crawls more pathways to follow to find and index additional pages.

Use plenty of internal links but be sure to link from a keyword phrase or at least a useful phrase. Avoid "click here" and "learn more." Yes, I know, this SEP expert has indeed done that on this website, but I do so only when it is a simple call to action. Blog posts like this one are linked from within to juicy keyword phrases.

3. Write in a natural, conversational style

Have you heard of BERT? BERT is Google's new natural language processing code and it is driving an enormous change throughout many industries. It's an open-source code, which means that Google has shared it with other companies, too.

BERT processes language in context. It can read the words both before and after a phrase to understand a search query better. Unlike other artificial intelligence language processors that look at words in sequence, BERT can understand everything in context...so it knows when you mean the past or present tense of the verb "read" for example.

More people search using voice-activated tools than ever before and that trend is likely to continue in the future. The more natural your online content sounds, the better.

Avoid stilted, outdated SEO writing that uses rigid rules to infuse keyword phrases into the content. The days of writing X keywords Y number of times into the content and calling it a day are over and have been since 2012.

Natural writing, conversational writing, and writing that matches a user's query exactly carry more weight with Google than ever before.

Revise, Refresh, Keep Writing

Revise and refresh old blog posts. Keep writing new ones.

One of the beautiful things about the internet and search engine optimization is that it's never-ending. I used to think of it as "once and done" but it's really an ongoing, evolutionary process.

As you learn more about SEO, use what you have learned to improve old posts..

If you need help, we're running a Winter Blogging Special to help you produce SEO blog writing that gets your blog noticed.

 

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by Jeanne Grunert

Should You Start a Blog?

Did you know that February 7 is international Start a Blog day? Plan now to begin the blog that's been on your to-do list forever!

It may seem crazy to encourage people to start a blog. After all, there's a ton of blogs out there covering almost every topic you can imagine. Mom blogs, cooking blogs, business blogs, gardening blogs, you name it, there is a blog for it.

Even though the internet seems saturated with blog content, there's still room for more blogs. If you have an original idea and are willing to invest the time and energy into creating unique content, blogging may be a good way to generate site traffic and content for your digital advertising programs.

5 Reasons to Start a Blog

1. Search visibility - blogs enable site owners to post multiple pages with keywords associated with their site. Think of each blog post like a page and you'll see what I mean. Each post acts as a potential entry point into your website, adding plenty of places for Google to find, index, and serve your site to searchers.
2. Branding - a blog provides your company with a unique opportunity to share your perspective on business issues. A well-constructed blog filled with content that supports your brand style offers another excellent branding opportunity.
3. Social shares - blogging provides fresh content links to share across multiple social media platforms. Such links may reach new audiences, people who may not otherwise have found your site.
4. Expertise - sharing your expertise on a topic helps boost your digital persona. A digital persona is an online impression people receive from all of your online interactions. Blogging around a topic of interest provides a focus to find experts on such a topic, and others may seek you out based on your posts.
5. Profit - yes, blogging can be profitable. A good blog can earn money through advertising, affiliate programs, product sales, and more. Some bloggers do earn their living solely from their blogging work and related products, such as books and courses, they sell from their blogs. How profitable a blog can be depends upon the skill of the blogger, the audience, and the topic, of course, but I do know two people who make their living solely through blogging. It can be done.

Two Popular Free Blogging Platforms to Try

Today on this "start a blog day" check out the two most popular blogging platforms.

WordPress: WordPress remains the most popular blogging platform despite a steeper learning curve than its competitor, Blogger. A free WordPress blog offers an excellent starting point for any content and can be upgraded to a paid site. (We recommend Web Design of Palm Beach if you want to upgrade. They host our sites and do a great job.)

Blogger: I started most of my blogs on Blogger. It used to be independent but is now owned by Google. It's difficult to create pretty blogs using their outdated templates but it is an easy, intuitive way to start a blog. Plus because it is owned by Google it is easy to incorporate Google AdSense and track your posts.

Now is the time to start a blog. If you'd like help starting a blog or creating unique content for your blog, please contact Seven Oaks Consulting. We provide consultation and writing services with an emphasis on SEO writing, including blogging.

 

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by Jeanne Grunert

Marketing Case Study: Mailing List Fail

Direct mail continues to produce strong results with an average response rate of 9% for house lists. A house list is a list of a business' customers or people with whom the business has a connection.

Prospect lists also do well these days with an average 4.9% response rate. Prospect lists can be sourced from other companies, compiled from public directories, gathered from subscribers of magazines, or rented from sweepstakes and coupon companies. The results of a mailing using either a house or prospect lists depend, of course, not just on the list, but on three additional factors: the offer, timing, creative.

This marketing case study looks at how a company got everything right...except for the mailing list.

It's a company you may have heard about: Chewy.com.

Marketing Case Study: Pet Product Company Mailing List Fail

Chewy.com is an online retailer of pet products selling everything from dog training equipment to goldfish food. They are known for great customer service, fast shipping, and competitive pricing.

A few months ago, we received an offer of $15 off of our first order. With seven cats and a new puppy on the way, we gladly used our coupon and were delighted with the entire ordering experience. We purchased cat food and continued to hope for more offers from the company via email, but the offers we received were for specialty products and gourmet foods, which our rescued cats don't get. (Sorry, fellas, but y'all just showed up here...you get what you get, and that's Friskies and Meow Mix.)

Marketing Case Study: Direct Mailing List Failure

Then in July, we received another mailer from Chewy.com. This mailer touted $15 off again. We held onto it knowing our new puppy, Zeke, would arrive in August and need some items.

We tried to utilize the coupon this week only to find we could not - it was for first-time customers only, and of course, we were returning customers now.

It was supposed to be our second order. We did not place the order.

Always Suppress Current Customers from a Mailing to New Customers

Chewy offers excellent customer service, but somehow, their marketing department neglected to update their mailing list against their customer list.

An offer for a new or first time customer should NEVER be sent to current customers.

Mailing lists can be compared using specialized software so that any potential duplicates are flagged and removed. If Chewy purchased a list of pet owners or people who own pets, for example, they could then send this list to a mailing list company or data provider and have any potential duplicates suppressed from the final list.

Why bother spending the money to suppress duplicates?

Because customers like us, eager to order again, left disappointed and annoyed at the fine print on an offer that we thought we qualified for but didn't.

If a company mails us a coupon, we assume we can use it. It should never be incumbent on the customer to get out a magnifying glass and check the fine print on the offer. And it is deadly to your e-commerce business to have customers get all the way to the checkout and as a last step, enter a coupon code only to be told the offer isn't valid.

We abandoned our shopping cart and bought the cat food and dog harness from Amazon. No, we didn't get $15 off, but we got free shipping and didn't feel cheated by the offer.

Key Takeaways: Direct Mail Basics

DO...

• Create a compelling offer. The Chewy offer was great. So was their timing and their creative execution.

• Be 100% sure that offers for new or first-time customers ONLY get sent ONLY to new and first-time customers. You can do this by sending your list data to a mailing house who runs it through a computer program and compares the prospect list to your customer file and suppresses any duplicates.

• Provide a way to honor the coupon if you make a mistake. Don't just turn customers away.

If Chewy woos us back with a great offer, we may consider shopping from them again. But with Amazon so convenient and accessible, and no feeling of being screwed over by them as we did when we were disappointed at finding our coupon didn't work, we may not.

 

 

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by Jeanne Grunert

Customer Service and Product Development

Customer service can be one of your best marketing allies. Listening to customer complaints can help you adjust your product marketing strategy.

Listen to Complaints

A young friend of mine launched an Etsy business this month. I watched from a distance as she carefully photographed and listed her products. She celebrated her first sales...and then came hot on the heels of those first transactions, her very first return.

She was devastated. She took to social media to share her disgust with the person who didn't read her listing. The customer thought they were purchasing one type of item, when in fact she did not sell that item.

Customer Service: The Underused Product Development Strategy

I don't know what the final outcome was of that transaction, but knowing my honest young friend, I suspected she eventually refunded the customer's money and moved on. However, a few things stood out for me in the story, and I thought I'd take a moment to share my perspective on customer service, particularly in an ecommerce or retail environment.

(A note from me first: I worked in retail, in the trenches so to speak, for two years. I ran a successful ecommerce business for over a decade. I managed marketing for an upscale retail store. I have a peculiar love of retail. It's exhausting. It's exhilarating. It's my thing. What can I say?)

4 Tips for Better Customer Service

1. Respect: The customer may not always be right, but should always be treated as if THEY believe they are right. In other words, you may have done nothing wrong. You may have provided the exact service they requested. You may have listed the product clearly on your Etsy store. But if they are unhappy, they are unhappy. That is the fact you must deal with - their unhappiness. Try to make them happy, even if they are not right.
2. Consideration: Issuing returns should be rare. If you find you are constantly issuing returns, it's time to check your marketing. There's a gap somewhere between customer expectations and what you are offering.
3. Integrity: NEVER take your frustrations out on social media. The second you start posting about your customers in any way, the second someone, somewhere, is going to read those comments. I don't care if you set your privacy status to super-duper lock down mode. Word will get out that you talk trash about customers, and they won't shop with you anymore. Don't do it. Just walk away from your computer before you share something you'll regret.
4. Marketing: You know the old chestnut about how you get 80% of your business from 20% of your customers? It's pretty accurate. If your customers aren't repeat customers because what you sell isn't conducive to repeat business, they tell others about their experience, and that brings more business to you. Be always on your guard against poor customer service. It can kill your business faster than you think.

Good customer service is often what sets apart similar products. People choose to do business with companies that treat them like valued customers, not like an annoyance. If you have any unhappy customer, accept graciously their feedback, take what you can and leave the rest.

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by Jeanne Grunert

Why Are Stock Photos for Business Websites So Boring?

Stock photos for business websites are boring. I don’t care which website you’re looking at; most feature one or more of the following

• People in gray or black business attire around a conference table
• Hands at a keyboard/calculator
• Desks
• Office buildings
• Binary code to make you think of “high tech”
• Two people shaking hands

Yes, stock images for business sites are boring.

Stock Images for Business Sites Are Boring!

Looking at this list, I notice one thing: a lack. A lack of zest, of creativity, of energy, of daring!

Unless your business is super conservative – and there are few of those left in this world – these photos are boring, clichéd, and (shudder) safe. So safe they blend into the woodwork like beige-painted walls.

Let’s not play it safe, shall we? Let’s be daring. Let’s talk like pirates. Let’s be bold, free, and most importantly – ourselves when it comes to images for our business websites!

Branding Through Images

Branding is more than the logo and colors chosen for your business. Branding actually consists of the spaces in between the tangible, the feelings and emotions evoked by a business. Diving deeply into your business through the feedback from your customers is the surest way I know to find your true brand image. Often what you believe is your brand isn’t your brand, but someone else’s ideas about your brand.

We carry with us the images of all of the things we have encountered throughout our lives, and this colors our perception of “what a business should look like.” Most of us are numb to the images we see daily around us. The billboards, the websites, the signs. We are used to what others think a bakery should look like, or a pet grooming service, or a marketing agency.

My own business suffered from this for years. I had vowed a long time ago not to resort to the old-typewriter look on my website. Too many copywriters, marketing writers and freelance writers use the typewriter as a metaphor for writing. But truly, how many companies hiring us these days even remember what a typewriter was, never mind realize it’s a symbol of a writer? The only industry still clinging to its ancient symbolic roots like this is the caduceus in medicine or the draft horses on the teamsters union sign.

Computer keyboards are, alas, a typical stand-in to demonstrate our finesse as writers, but does this truly exemplify what we do? I am no more a typist than I am a red-pen artist; I write and I edit, I create and I craft, I define and I refine.

But how do you visually express create, craft, define, refine?

My customers tell me they love working with me for the solid, dependable experience I bring to the encounter, the warmth of our working relationships, the feeling that I “get” their business and am able to express what’s in their hearts and minds about their own work. How do you express that visually?

Storytelling Includes Metaphors. So Should Can Your Brand Images.

Storytellers often use metaphors to express feelings. When metaphors become clichéd, they are boring and detract from the writing.

Visual storytellers or web designers must reach for metaphors, too. It’s easy to fall back on boring and clichéd visual metaphors such as hands hovering over a keyboard or concerned people seated around a conference table. Visual and verbal metaphors remain part of the common consciousness because they work, at least on the superficial level.

To truly stand out, however, you must dig deeply for your next metaphor. Your visual images should convey your brand attributes in ways that feel right for your business. My own brand visual includes references to nature; I am at home in nature, whether walking the woodland trails near my home or tending to my garden. It is in nature that I am myself, and in nature that I am most creative, so in nature do I place my business.

The metaphors I’ve chosen echo what clients say and what our company name reflects: oak, a solid wood, one of the strongest, symbol of the great Norse gods and of strength, durability, and power.

As you choose images for your website, consider your brand attributes.

Creativity? Reach for the creative. Think big! Black and white with splashes of color, interesting angles, close-ups or panoramas. Give your audience the unexpected, the jarring, the unique.

Attention to detail is your brand attribute? Think tiny, intricate photos of the weave of cloth, of frost on a windowpane, or cells in a leaf. All of these are available as stock photos you can license.

Professional? Ditch the men in business suits, please. Consider abstract prints, artistic swirls, or something fun. Consider unusual images that reflect your bright shining personality, not the personality of Big Corporate Culture.

Choosing and defining your brand takes time. Once you’ve figured it out, however, you’re well on your way to avoiding the stock photos for business websites that make you sleep syndrome. Be the wake-up call for your industry. Be the leader.

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by Jeanne Grunert

Why Customer Service Matters

We've all experienced awful service. We've all experienced good service.

As business people, we all know - or should know- the value of excellent customer service.

How valuable is good customer service? If you improve service by just 5%, according to Bain & Company, profits can increase 25 to 90%.

So with just a little effort, training, and better hiring practices, you may be able to increase profits. Who wouldn't want that?

In this article written for Medium, I share not just the facts about why good customer service matters, but how to achieve it without spending a fortunate on fancy loyalty programs, punch cards, free gift with purchase items and so on.

Enacting a strong customer service policy isn't expensive, but it's not easy. It takes thought, effort, and consistency. When it's done well, however, it can reduce customer attrition (churn) and boost profits.

Again, I ask: Who wouldn't want that?

Read the full article here: The Customer Pays Your Salary - Why Excellent Customer Service Is Vital for Client Retention

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by Jeanne Grunert

Content Marketing Mistakes

I really liked this post from Amy Gynn on Content Marketing mistakes. I see so many of these mistakes, and most of them are easily prevented or corrected. Besides, a good infographic on content marketing deserves to be shared.

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by Jeanne Grunert