Welcome to 2010. The last year of the decade reminds us that a lot has changed in the past nine years. The nineties saw the escalation in the popularity of the Internet and the current decade exploded in its application. Everything has changed.

At the beginning of this decade, companies were allocating just a smidgen of their marketing budget to digital marketing.  Some big companies still allocated none of their marketing budget to the Internet. Today, the focus has made a monumental shift. Brand recognition and product and service sales are dependent on the Internet. A new generation goes to the Internet as a matter of routine.

Copy writing for print media was still the focus of most big companies at the start of the decade. Content is slowly replacing print media copy.  There are no trees sacrificed to create a virtual page. Internet pages allow linking and viewer interaction.

Content still has the same mission as copy.  When content is employed on an ecommerce site, it must sell products or services. Content must also build brands. Some content goes viral and gains the influence and power of millions in ad revenues for free.

The next decade will bring an entirely different use for words. Portable devices will be the norm and content will have to deliver in very new ways. Smart companies will work with experienced content writers to harness a whole new set of opportunities for utilizing words.

How many times have I written articles on the topic of brand building and instructed clients on the subject? Over the years, it has been a regular focus of The Great Writer and Solution Content’s services.

Ironically, in an age of Internet marketing, brand building isn’t always related to SEO or SEM best practices or even a Web 2.0 or 3.0 focus. Sometimes brand building can effectively take an ‘old fashion’ approach and be very successful. That is going to be the approach with The Great Writer.

A good copywriter must think of everything
For the past few years, The Great Writer has proven to be a good domain name and has aided in SEO. It has also been central in the effort to build a positive image based on a client-focus, superior writing and effective copywriting. There has been only one potential downside of the name; some prospective clients may find the name too egotistical or haughty. In the world of marketing, everything has to be considered.

The result of this soul-searching and insightfulness will be some renewed brand building. In the weeks ahead, The Great Writer will become Acme Writing.

What’s in a name?
The word Acme means the highest point; summit; peak. Besides the legendary image of the word ‘acme’ in stories and comic strips as the generic, fictitious company, it has a meaning that is very fitting for the way we do business.

We always raise our gaze to the highest point when we are writing for a client.  Our aim is never low, but always pointed at the summit so that our writing is of the highest quality and nothing less.

In addition to the ‘established’ feel of the word ‘acme,’ it is easy to remember and does not suggest any sense that we consider ourselves pompous or self-aggrandizing. It sounds like a company that was established a hundred years ago and not a half-decade ago.

Marketing the old way to build a brand
None of the explanations above have anything to do with the Internet or digital considerations at all. A change from a business name that has some SEO benefits to one which comes out of traditional marketing speaks to the true constants in marketing and brand building. What matters most is how other people see your company. What is the emotional or intellectual impact on the prospective customer or client?

In the zeal of modern day marketers to embrace all things digital, some of the fundamentals of marketing not only survive, but prevail. When building a brand, its all perception. Much of this approach has not been advanced much by the advent of the digital age. The psychology of prospective buyers is constant.

What has changed? Even a small company, with a minimum of capital, has the ability through smart marketing to reach a global audience. This would have been impossible twenty-years ago. These same small companies can build a public perception through digital channels that can be magnified beyond the means of traditional marketing. Social media and other means of creating a buzz can amplify the company’s image and persona to gigantic proportions.

Our Company
By all measures, The Great Writer has been an enormous success. We have clients all around the world. What’s even more important, those clients have been very happy with the deliverables. We have grown our business, and it’s related buzz through many channels, but in the end the focus on quality has been our calling card.

What we do know, when the smoke clears, is that its many of the traditional means of introducing a company and creating its image that get peoples’ attention and stimulate their imaginations. For that reason, Acme Writing will carry on the best attributes of The Great Writer, but rely on a company name with a broader appeal. Brand building still has to consider these incremental changes to take companies to the peak of success.

Maybe I should say, the acme of success.

© 2009 K Richard Douglas

The freelance copywriting market has been corrupted

Who needs quality writing?  What is quality writing?  Does quality writing still exist in the world in 2009? These questions are legitimate and warranted in light of the state of freelance copywriting today. 

The staggering unemployment rate in the U.S. has flooded the freelance copywriting market with untested amateurs who use the service marketplaces to find uninformed buyers.  Copywriters in countries where English is the second language are flooding the world market also, writing English copy and content for an English-reading market.  Both groups pose problems for buyers, professional copywriters and even readers.

Service marketplace buyers suffer

In service marketplaces like Elance and Guru, buyers are snatching up the work of unproven writers because of their low-ball bids.  The buyer never sees beyond the bid amount and rarely blames the amateur writer when the copy or content falls flat.  Brand and image seem to take a back seat when a page of words comes so cheaply.

The net result of this trend is to drag down the fees for copywriting.  While free markets normally have a positive outcome for the consumer, the effect on copywriting is just the opposite.  

Buyers, in the service marketplaces, get copy and content that does not convert their site visitors or sell their products or services.  The buyers are left scratching their heads wondering if they need a new sales approach.  Their sales strategy may be sound, but the words that convey that strategy may be poorly planned and poorly structured. 

The $60 dollar copywriter-quality is not in their vernacular

Imagine the quality of writing when a writer bids $60 to author all of the content for a new website.  Juxtapose that writer’s experience and mindset with the requirements of the website.  In most cases, the website has been developed to sell a product or service.  Each page of that website has a specific purpose and mission, all of which is compromised by hiring the $60 writer.

Imagine also the impact of the web content on native English speakers and readers when the content has been authored by someone who does not speak or write English as a first language.  The writer is confident that their copy or content is written in perfect English, but the site visitor knows the difference and the image of the site owner’s company becomes dubious.

It may seem too cliché’ at times to state that ‘you get what you pay for,’ but the reality of the freelance writers marketplace is that a buyer is always left with what they paid for.  In the case of a website, the all-important content, tasked with achieving sales and brand-building, is ineffective at doing either.  The company eventually fails and the site owner points the finger at the competition or the market.  The sad truth is that the content they purchased may have done just as well as a placeholder.

The net result of hiring an inferior writer

What can a buyer get from a freelance writer for $60?  Words.

Take the example of an e-commerce website.  The content on the homepage has to be effective at selling a site visitor and prompting that visitor to explore the site beyond the homepage.  A professional content writer knows how to do this and what will motivate the site visitor to remain on the site past the first paragraph on the homepage.  A $60 content writer knows how to construct a paragraph.

The About Us, FAQ and Service or Product pages all offer additional opportunities to sell.  An inexperienced content writer sees these pages in stark terms.  There is enormous missed opportunity for the site owner because the amateur writer only regurgitates what he or she is told.  There is no value-added benefit.

How many companies will lose the potential for meeting or exceeding sales goals because they decided to take the cheap approach and hire the lowest cost copy or content writer?  How many companies will fail because they hired a writer who could barely author their own bio?  When quality writing is sacrificed, who suffers most? 

We are living in an era where service providers can access a worldwide audience.  Some of those service providers are experienced and competent and some will be a bane to their employers.  Many site owners will never realize their impact and many small businesses will fail because they scrimped on the most important commodity they require; quality writing.  Hire experience.  

Contact us today.  It’s your image.