How Boutique IT Service Firms Lose Money Through Poor Web Copy
Many moons ago, French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher, Fran?ois-Marie Arouet, commonly known as Voltaire, posited, "God is on the side not of the heavy battalions, but of the best shots."
Today, in a business context, we can say, profitability is on the side not of the army-sized field sales forces, but of the best copywriters.
If firm A has a sales force of 100 and firm B has a one good copywriter, not world-class or outstanding, but a merely good copywriter, firm B is likely to be much more profitable than firm A.
Why?
Because firm B can engage with its target market at an early stage when buyers are still fairly flexible in their thinking and are willing to consider and choose from several solutions.
By the time, salespeople connect with buyers, buyers' decisions are 57% carved in stone. Buyers have their pet solutions in mind, and sellers' attempts to diagnose buyers' problems is about as futile as using the warmth of a heated argument to avoid freezing to death.
At that point, buyers want sellers to present their capabilities of performing the required manual labour that sellers have in mind.
It all comes down to...
Buyers' Awareness Levels
Different buyers are aware of their situations at five different levels.
- Completely-unaware buyers have no knowledge of anything except their own – usually flawed - opinions. They are the proverbial ostriches with their heads in the sand. E.g.: Business owners who are not aware of the existence of computers and happily use index cards and other paper solutions to manage their firms.
- Problem-aware buyers know about their problems but don't know how to solve them. It comes from the fact that they confuse experienced symptoms and root causes. Since they think in terms of experienced symptoms, they keep coming up with the wrong solutions, and they are getting as frustrated as a centipede on a shoe-shopping spree. E.g.: Business owners who lose production on a daily basis due to various computer misbehaviour.
- Solution-aware buyers know their pet solutions and are now searching high and low for those solutions. They are so blinded by their pet solutions that they don't even consider that they may be totally wrong. So, they are searching the market for a pair of hands to implement it – almost always – at the lowest possible price. E.g.: Business owners who believe that all they need to do is migrate all their desktop applications to cloud-based applications.
- Product-aware buyers have selected a few vendors that sell their pet solutions, but haven't selected specific sellers yet. what they want. They know solutions in general, but haven't settled on specific sellers yet. E.g.: Business owners who have selected the world-famous Cloud Migrant application to migrate their whole desktops to the cloud, but they don't know yet where to buy the service from.
- The most aware buyers only need to know “the deal.” They've selected their sellers, and now all they need is the details of the deal. E.g.: Business owners who've already selected everything and now want to see the details of their deal.
What it means is that in your web copy, you have to cater for buyers at different awareness levels.
Over 30 years of working in and with the IT industry has taught me that the most profitable projects are between the tail-end (~20%) of unaware buyers and the nose-end (~20%) of solution aware buyers.
Some 80% of unaware buyers still operate at candle light and listen to gramophones and are quite happy with their current setups. It would cost you lots of pulled hair and a small fortune to budge them out of their technological laggardness.
Similarly, some 80% of solution aware buyers – mistakenly believe – they know what exactly they want and are not open to possibilities. They are the people who demanded faster horses from Henry Ford, not an automobile.
They are so busy admiring what's on the photograph that they totally and ignore what's on the X-ray.
Problem aware buyers are your sweet spot because they are open to your content marketing efforts.
But Where Does Content Marketing Go Wrong?
Well, either with the target market selection or the content itself.
To get the target market right, you can benefit from engaging a marketing consultant (the best copywriters naturally offer marketing strategy) who has subject matter expertise and industrial experience in your industry.
And then the creation of the content.
You can have the best target market but if your content marketing is all about $100 web pages, $20 blog posts and $5 emails, then you have a problem.
Ideally, you may want your content to be...
- ...one of a kind in a style and substance and is not easily available.
- ...relevant both for humans and search engines.
- ...solves the readers' problems in a useful, effective manner.
- ...uniquely valuable in its unique information.
- ...convenient and enjoyable to read anywhere on any device.
- ...advances readers in your sales funnel towards the buying decision.
And rest assured $20 blog posts just don't do the job.
Just look at Upwork's guide to copywriters and their going rates.
For instance, a blog post is between $700 and $1,500 and a sales landing page is $4,500-$10,000.
And those estimated fees are based on generic US-based copywriters with intermediate skills and without subject matter expertise and industrial experience.
Note that according to a study of Global Fortune 1000 recruiters by the Wellesley Group and Broderick & Co., the top two most valuable benefits writers can offer besides their writing skills are subject matter expertise and hands-on industrial experience in the buyers’ industries.
Another basis of comparison can be the American Writers & Artists Inc. (AWAI)'s How Much to Charge for Web Copy Projects.
Some More Of Content's Wrong-Going?
Sadly, many IT service firms' websites are riddled with bad content.
Many firm owners hire top-notch graphics artists, SEO experts and other web experts, and then try to save a fortune by hiring some school kids some third world countries for $20 per blog post.
All in all, bad content...
- Positions your firm as an undifferentiated tech vendor with “nothing unique, nothing distinct” type commoditised services that can be bought by the pound like sacks of potatoes. Every sale is the same drudgery: A canned dog-and-pony show of capabilities presentation to impress apathetic, price-obsessed procurement agents. Then spend weeks to respond to RFPs with very low win rate.
- Presents your firm as a “we do any IT for anyone” type "low budget" generalist business.
- Forces you to follow your buyers’ buying processes and adhere to their buying criteria.
- Undermines the trust in your firm. Selling premium IT services is a trust-based business. It requires a huge level of trust on your clients’ parts to let you tweak their IT systems. And technical competence, or even excellence, is not enough to earn trust. There is a tad more to it. And bad copy fails to communicate that extra.
- Opens the door to price objections during the negotiation process.
- Undermines the response to your communication. When you meet buyers, having read your written materials which have ill-positioned your business, they treat your firm as a fungible vendor who can be replaced at the drop of a hat.
- Forces you to run a bigger sales force because, instead of the sales copy, now your salespeople have to do against increasing resistance what your sales copy could have done more effectively against almost zero resistance. All you end up with is astronomic cost of sales.
- Creates inconsistencies in your sales process. It lends itself to speaking too much “server room” tech English and not enough “C-suite” business English. And inconsistencies undermine your brand faster than Bill Clinton’s falling trousers in the Oval Office.
- Fails to create your desired action. You need buyers to take certain actions to move to the next stage of the buying cycle. If that doesn’t happen, you end up wasting your time on buyers who never buy from you.
Connects you with procurement agents. Instead of peer-to-peer relationships with buyers, you meet procurement agents and get evaluated through RFPs. If hired, you get hired into master-slave relationships to do commodity latrine duty, like pulling cables, fixing pieces of code and replacing hard drives. At the same time, your well-positioned competitors are doing the high-level, high-paid strategic work.
So What To Watch Out For In Your Web Content?
There are many nuances and moving parts in web content, and contrary to the 1976 Black Sabbath song, All Moving Parts Stand Still, no they don't.
As the web is evolving and buyer habits are changing, many web content parts are moving rather fast to accommodate marketplace changes.
But there are some bad elements that move a bit more slowly.
So, let's look at them...
Bad Copy Element #1: Single Readership Path
When arriving at your website, some people skim your copy and some others read it.
Some people assume that visitors don't read long copy, so they all skim, and long copy is about as useful as a cat flap on the elephant house.
In my experience, the more effectively you hit on the problems the readers have and your firm solves, the more they read.
They may skim first, but when they understand what your page is all about, they start reading properly.
And for them, no amount of copy is too much.
Bad Copy Element #2: Vague Copy With Flailing Generalities And Meaningless Platitudes
Don't you just love it when you get on the web in search of a plumber to deal with your blocked toilet and you come across a business that does a broad range of services from accountancy to zoology for individuals, small businesses, big businesses, non-profits and governments on every continent on and outside planet Earth?
What can you use a business like that?
Personally, I wouldn’t use it even with a 10-foot bargepole.
A big chunk of an IT firm's delivered value lies in understanding the client's industry, business model and other fiendish factors.
But when you offer general IT services to any industry, then you're in deep yoghurt because your web copy must be general and, by definition, pretty meaningless.
My suggestion is that you narrow both the range of your services and your target market.
Granted, you won't be able to jump on any opportunity, but your opportunities will be more profitable.
Instead of making impressive gross revenue on high volume, you start making impressive net profits on high margins.
Bad Copy Element #3: Seller-Focused Copy
Open five of your top competitors' websites. What do you see besides looking almost identical?
Yes, they are almost identical chest-beating and self-glorifying. The other thing you see is that there is no definite target market.
Most of them are "We do any IT for anyone" websites.
Why is the copy seller focused?
It's a lot easier to write self-glorifying copy about what you know inside out, a.k.a. your own firm, than writing about a target market that is not even clearly defined.
You try to use a language that can be applied to any industry but your message has the same effect as a small jar of jam on a truckload of bread. There is so little jam on each slice that it's hardy impossible to recognise it, let alone taste it.
It's like winking at a girl in the dark. You know about it, but she doesn't.
The problem is that this kind of self-centred copy creates excitement inside the firm and disappointment outside of the firm.
Visitors arrive at the page, sigh and buzz off never to return.
Bad Copy Element #4: Incorrect Feature-Benefit Balance
Buyers of IT services don't make buying decisions on benefits alone. They want to know the features too.
The reason is that while the economic buyer probably is a businessperson seeking business benefits, but the decisions is supported by the decisions and opinions of several technical people.
And those technical people want to see the inner workings of your solution, that is, the technical features.
It means you have to keep a healthy feature-benefit balance in your copy.
Also, make sure you don't separate features and benefits but seamlessly weave features and benefits together.
As people read your copy, features will hit their analytical left brains and the benefits their creative right brains and their subconscious minds, the ultimate decision-makers.
Think about some of what people want in their lives.
- Better health
- More comfort, money and leisure
- Greater popularity
- Business advancement
- Praise from others
- Have influence over others
- Express their personalities
- Satisfy their curiosity
And many other factors.
So, watch out for this magic balance.
Bad Copy Element #5: Copy That Puts Readers To Sleep
Depending what you sell, you have to adjust your enthusiasm level accordingly.
In B2C writing, you can get away with lots of hype in your copy. Yes, I know many people call it enthusiasm and excitement, but let's get real. In many cases, it's way over the top.
When you write about seemingly boring topics, you can always spice them up with some similes, metaphors and alliterations.
It's a good idea to start your own dictionary of phrases, similes and other linguistic beauties.
Yes, you can write about something as boring as an unknown relative’s funeral, but you can add your own spices to make it more readable and enjoyable.
But this is where you have to match your writing to the target market. And the narrower your target market is, the easier job you have here.
Bad Copy Element #6: Copy Full Of The Wrong Jargon
It's a sin usually committed by in-house writers because management orders them what words to use and how to use them.
Oh, and I use the word "writer", not "copywriter" because in-house copywriters know that they have to write in buyer's English, not in seller's English. And many of them are willing to argue with their bosses to use proper buyer's English.
Avoid jargon, but also use jargon. But instead of your own jargon, use your target market's jargon.
If your target market is doctors, then use "myocardial infarction", not "heart attack".
But, again, if your target market is too broad, then you have a problem.
But all in all, don't be afraid of jargon but match it to your target market.
Bad Copy Element #7: Copy Infested With Hype And Bullshit
This problem can hit your web pages if you hire B2C copywriters.
Unlike in the B2B world, in the B2C arena some hype is tolerated, and knowing that many B2C copywriters generously apply hype in their copy.
The difference is that in B2C copy, you write to laypeople most of whom know nothing about what they buy. If you sell cybersecurity services, for most B2C buyers, it means a $50 antivirus software for their computers.
And since they know nothing about how antivirus works, you can get away with some hype.
But in the B2B world, your offer is evaluated by both technical and business people and they check both its technical and business capabilities.
What are the common culprits?
- Lots of exclamation marks
- Going overboard on presenting the problems and the long-term consequences of not addressing the problem
- Not even hinting the solution
- Big bold red headlines
- Lots of yellow highlighting in the copy
- Reprimanding tone if readers don't take action
- Tight response deadlines to get special deals
- Mile-long list of irrelevant bonuses
- Drummed-up enthusiasm
- Lots of unquantifiable superlatives: "Best service", "most responsive team" and "most attractive guarantee".
A good example of hype-driven copy is the lead commercials in YouTube videos.
Bad Copy Element #8: "Energiser Bunny" Copy – Just Goes On And On And On
Just like the Energiser Bunny, this copy just goes on and on and on, often without saying anything significant.
It's usually never-ending geek speak.
The problem is that when technical people write copy, there is a bit of internal conflict because most of them look down on marketing and selling. They believe clients should flock to them because they are technical geniuses.
They fail to realise that clients are seeking business solutions to business problems. Yes, your business solution is IT, but you have to hide the IT bit behind the business aspect of your solution.
But, most technical people are not business savvy. And they can't even be because their firms are not positioned vertically. They don't have specific target markets.
And now tech people sit down to write copy, but instead of proper copy, they write technical treatises. So, on basic landing pages, they go into the pin assignment of the CPUs their computers have and similar lunacies.
Visitors start reading, fall asleep, fall off their chairs, hit their heads and when they come around, they have no earthly idea what they do lurking on your website. So, they click away.
Bad Copy Element #9: Error Infested Copy
Many companies hire the boss' niece or nephew who are studying for their English or journalism degrees.
Grammatically, they write correct English, but the kind of English that has no place in copywriting.
Many of the top-notch copywriters once were written off by their English teachers as lost causes who should be exiled to some of the more pestilential pits of hell if they even try to pick up a pen.
You have to understand that there is a world of difference between writing and copywriting.
Everyday writing is writing to inform, educate and entertain. And that's the kind of writing that's taught in schools.
But copywriting is writing to sell. Your copywriter is your silent back office rainmaker.
It's like the difference between having a chat with a doctor in a pub over a pint of beer and seeing the same doctor in his clinic.
In the former case, you're having a no-agenda friendly chat with someone who happens to be a doctor.
In the latter case, you go to see a doctor who may happen to be the guy from the pub.
The flows of the two conversations are drastically different. And one takes place without beer.
And although anyone in the pub can have a chat with you, not anyone can diagnose your illness.
The same happens in writing.
Just because someone can write blog posts that create LinkedIn connects, Facebook likes and Twitter follows, it doesn't mean she can write blog posts which take readers closer to the buying decision.
Bad Copy Element #10: SEO Ignorant Copy
Copy is not optimised for search engines.
There is a difference between search engine optimisation and search engine optimisation. With my clients, we focus on light search engine optimisation and heavy optimisation for visitors.
Yes, we lose a bit on traffic generation but gain on conversion. Also, we don't rely only on the search engines to bring traffic.
By light search engine optimisation, I mean paying attention to keywords, title tags, description tags and H1 and H2 tags.
Yes, there is more to it, but unless the search engines are your sole traffic source, you don't need to go overboard.
At the same time, you can use many other methods to get traffic to your website, and some other methods may be more effective.
Bad Copy Element #11: Inconsistent Copy
Have you read web copy that uses both "website" and "web site"; both "Mr. John Smith" and "Johnny"; both "internet" and "Internet"?
They all scream the same: AOL. Amateurs Online.
We all know what a brand book is. It's a documented set of distinct guidelines to maintain your brand's brand identity.
The best brands also have written guidelines for writing.
One of the services that I offer my clients is writing a Master Brand Message Playbook (MBMP), which is a compilation of guidelines and repository of phrases and expressions that clients can use over and over again to maintain consistency in their communication.
This document can include slogan variations, positioning statements, tone of voice, grammar, formatting, readability: Sentence structures, readability levels, writing style: Technical vs. business, email: Email structure, email signature, editorial style guide: Guidelines to formatting and structuring content pieces, social media style guide: Purpose, posting times, post types, for each social channel, and much more depending on individual requirements.
Have you seen movies in which the same actors and actresses are both right- and left-handed?
Just see the mistakes in the movie, Gladiator...
- (00:42:00) As Maximus approaches his home after the his botched-up execution, there are tractor marks in the grain fields.
- (01:22:55) In the "Battle of Carthage" in the Colosseum, once the dust settles you can see a gas cylinder in the back of the turned-over chariot.
- (01:23:30) In the above scene, Maximus takes one of the horses from a chariot and jumps on it. Although it's a pulling horse, it's got a saddle complete with stirrups, ready for riding.
Yes, movies can get away with this because viewers are focused on watching the whole move not the details.
Don't let that happen. Even out all the inconsistencies.
Bad Copy Element #12: SEO-Ignorant Copy
Yes, you don't want to get carried away on SEO, but you don't want to ignore the basics either.
There is lots of good content on the web that is valuable but because it's not optimised, it ends up like planet Earth's destruction plan (to make way for a hyperspace bypass) in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: In the display department, at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, "Beware of the leopard."
And that would be a rather miserable end for a good piece of content.
Take some time to find good keywords, craft a good title tag, description tag and H1 and H2 tags and Bob's your uncle. You're ready to post your literary masterpiece.
There is no need to overcomplicate things.
Bad Copy Element #13: Copy Full Of Bombastic Words
This is not hype, but still makes your copy "too loud".
Words like "bleeding edge", "robust", "state of the art", etc. They try to boost sellers' accomplishments and reputation higher than they should be.
The good news is that it applies to firms that are not exactly on the top of their games. They try to create the appearance of market leaders by using peacock style language, which is nothing more than tail feather ruffling.
But that's only one culprit.
The other one is stiff and unnecessarily formal English.
You can often read it on "About Us" written in the third person.
· Mr. Johns is world-renowned...
· Ms. Smith is the world's highest paid Internet marketer.
Well, if you want to see the world's highest paid internet marketers, yes, plural, just watch the commercials both at the nose- and tail ends of YouTube videos.
Those videos are also good examples of bombastic language.
Bad Copy Element #14: Telling Your Story Incorrectly
Every website should tell a story with a hero, a villain and a guide or mentor who helps the hero to fight the villain to achieve his goal.
You can read more about it in Donald Miller's book: Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen.
Ideally, your web visitor should be the hero, an expensive business problem is the villain and the seller is the guide helping visitors.
In that setup, the hero has a problem which he wants to solve. He meets a guide and together they hatch a plan to solve that problem. Then the hero takes action, solves the problem and avoids the negative consequences.
The problem is when the order is messed up and the seller appoints himself as the hero and the client is a mere afterthought.
Just look at your competitors' websites and you can instantly see what I mean. Their whole websites are all about them and their methodologies.
Bad Copy Element #15: Copy Written For Traffic Generation Not Conversion
Even in 2019, you still can see websites whose creators got stuck in 2005, and use the most popular 2005 SEO tricks to write their web pages.
Just look at the content source and you can see the stuffed keywords. Or just read the page and it somehow doesn't flow. Why? Because the copy is written for search engines not for humans.
So, the search engines can index the pages. These pages can generate lots of traffic but due to the wonky copy those pages convert very poorly.
My idea is that first you should write for humans.
My logic is that you can get visitors to a page in many ways, but conversion works only one way.
Yes, by all means, optimise the page for both traffic generation and conversion, but my take is that you're better off focusing more on conversion.
Bad Copy Element #16: Cliché-Infested Copy
Considering that lots of people use clichés, you'd better just get rid of them.
Clichés can create a "Oh, hell, you too!" response from readers, who've probably read the same cliché a few times already... the same day.
Summary
Since your website is a significant part of your marketing effort, it has three vital ingredients to success.
- People who visit your website
- The offer you make to your visitors
- The copy that conveys your offer to your visitors
And each ingredient contributes to your overall success to different degrees.
- Quality of your website visitors 60%
- Quality of your offer 30%
- Quality of your copy 10%
As you can see, graphic elements are not even on the list. That's how much difference graphics makes to the overall success of your website. Nothing. Not a sausage.
Think about these percentages next time when you're about to hire a $200 per hour graphics artist, calling his rates "pretty reasonable", while haggling with a $50 per hour copywriter over her outrageous rates.
Well, besides, hourly rates scream amateur anyway, and if you hire people on an hourly basis, I encourage you to revamp your hiring practices.
And if you sell your own expertise on an hourly basis, then you have some work to do. To see where your firm is on the fungible peddler (selling brown power – manual labour – "We do it FOR you") respected industrial authority (selling brain power – expertise and experience – "We do it WITH you") continuum, check my IT Peddler Quiz.