If you say you’re good at what you do, people might be a little sceptical. If someone who has used your business says you’re good at what you do (i.e. gives you a testimonial), that’s more convincing. And if you set that endorsement within a wider context that lays out what exactly was achieved (i.e. a case study), you’re onto a real winner.
We all know that storytelling is a powerful way to engage people. The human race has been using stories – to entertain, to teach, to persuade – since the dawn of time. Good stories use the ‘show, don’t tell’ method of communication to bypass our conscious mind and tap into something much more primitive.
That’s why case studies are so effective. Or rather, why they can be so effective – if they’re done well. This is a guide for business owners and marketers who want to create genuinely effective case studies that get results.
TL:DR
- How to pick the right subject for your case study
- Transformation and benefits – the absolute essentials
- Taking it to the next level
- How to interview a client for a case study
- How to make your case studies more engaging
- How to get more eyes on your case studies
- Effective case studies – a conclusion
How to pick the right subject for your case study
Naturally when it comes to choosing the right subject for a case study, you want an example where you can show that you delivered excellent results. You’ll also need to make sure that the customer or client in question is happy to put their name to it and, ideally, get actively involved (more on that later).
Beyond this, the main thing to think about is whether the example you’re considering is a good reflection of your ideal customer, client or project. The point of a case study is to attract more of the same sort of work, so if a job wasn’t all that profitable, for example, then don’t feature it, even if the results were good.
The best case studies are the ones that highlight a particular benefit you want to promote, which are in a sector you’re planning to pursue, or have some other feature that makes them a beacon for the kinds of work that you most want to do.
Transformation and benefits – the absolute essentials
The most important element of a case study is the transformation. You want to start out by showing the reader the situation your customer or client was in when they first engaged with your business.
Ideally, this will be a problem that they recognise themselves. Something that makes them think, “Yes, this is exactly what I’m struggling with!” Something that will compel them to keep reading because they want to know what the solution is.
Then, you want to finish with the positive difference that working with you or using your product had on their lives. That contrast – the transformation – is the foundation that every case study should be built on.
Just be sure that you’re not limiting your transformation to the practicalities. We need to go beyond features here, and focus on benefits.
For example, if you designed a new piece of software that achieves a key admin task in half the time of the manual process, that’s great. But make sure that you also talk about how customer experience has improved thanks to the faster service, and employees are happier now that they’re not spending half their day doing tedious admin tasks.
“ You can create the most powerful and well written case study in the world but if it isn’t easy to read, most people are going to give up after a couple of lines.”
Taking it to the next level
Now that you’ve got the foundations in place, you want to start building up layers of evidence that support your case study.
Hard facts
Any empirical facts that you can include will add weight to your assertions. In the example above, don’t just talk about customer experience improving – tell the reader that the client’s average Trustpilot score has increased from 4.2 to 4.8. Or that their staff turnover is down 15% on the previous year.
Direct quotes
Direct quotes are another useful way to back up your assertions, especially if your case study doesn’t naturally lend itself to tangible numbers.
In one of our case studies, our client Vaq Hussain, marketing manager at Actual Experience, said, “I would say Rin Hamburgh & Co’s strengths are not just in their writing. Rin and her team are excellent listeners. Finding the important details in what we were telling them, understanding the relevance to our audience and converting it to a usable content piece is what impressed me the most.”
If we say we’re good listeners, there’s no reason for you to believe us. If someone else says it, it’s far more convincing.
Other formats
You can also build on your case study by using a range of formats. If your customer or client is willing to give you quotes to include, why not ask them to record a video so you have a visual testimonial to share?
Or if you have lots of great facts and figures, turn them into infographics. These are easy to share, quick to process and perfect for a time-poor audience that wants to engage quickly with your content.
How to interview a client for a case study
If you want to use first person quotes for your case study, you’ll need to think about how to get the information you want from them. Simply asking them to write a few lines or paragraphs about their experience with you is going to get mixed results at best.
At the very least, make sure to email over a list of questions that encourages them to explore the aspects you want to focus on. For example, ask them to describe the problem that they were facing when they came to you, so you have the base for your transformation story.
If you particularly want to highlight an aspect of your product or service, make sure one of the questions leads to that. Perhaps you know that your machinery operates much more quietly than most. Be sure to ask, “How has using X impacted on noise levels at your site?”
The best scenario, however, is to actually ask your questions live. That way you can use follow up questions to explore interesting lines that emerge as you talk. Often the best and most useful nuggets of information come from pursuing what was originally a throwaway comment.
If it doesn’t feel natural to conduct an interview like this in-house – and it’s true that it can be a bit awkward to ask people to say nice things about you to your face – you can use a freelance marketer or agency such as RH&Co to do it for you.
How to make your case studies more engaging
You can create the most powerful and well written case study in the world but if it isn’t easy to read, most people are going to give up after a couple of lines. Structuring an engaging case study is very much like structuring an engaging blog post.
Subheads
Use subhead to stop the ‘scary wall of text’ effect, which is a sure fire way to put off a busy reader. Subheads can be functional, clearly showcasing what each section contains e.g. The Challenge, The Solution, The Result. Or they can be more conceptual, drawing out elements of the story.
Images
Another way to break up solid text is by using images. Some case studies will naturally lend themselves to imagery – for example, if you run an event business, you can use photographs taken at the event you’re highlighting. But more generic brand images can also work to create interest on the page – see our case studies as an example.
If your case study contains data, you can represent this visually. It doesn’t have to be a full infographic; a graph or pie chart can be enough to lift a page that would otherwise look dull or impenetrable.
Pull quotes
This refers to a single line or short paragraph of text that is highlighted in a different font size and / or colour to help it stand out from the rest of the copy. Like graphics, these provide ‘entry points’ into the page, stopping your reader from scrolling and hooking their interest so that they read more.
How to get more eyes on your case studies
Of course, in order for your readers to engage with your case studies, they first need to know that they exist. That’s why it’s important that you make them as easy to find as possible.
Optimise them for SEO
A byproduct of formatting your case study well with images and subheads is that you will add great SEO value. For images, make sure you’ve included the right keywords in both the image files and the alt text. Other areas to focus on include meta descriptions and the case study URL itself.
Make them prominent on your website
If you have a decent selection of case studies, you should have a dedicated spot on your website where your visitors can go and look through them. This should be easy to find via the menu on your website.
But don’t stop there. Use a panel on your homepage to showcase highlights and include a strong call to action to lead people through to the case study page. You can include relevant highlights on product, services and industry / sector pages too.
Share them on social media
As with blog posts, there are various ways to share your case studies. Don’t just push them out once and then forget about it. Draw out different elements of the story, share testimonial quotes and hard facts, ask questions to find out what struggles your audience is facing. And remember to tag the company and individual(s) involved so that you increase your reach.
Use them in your emails
If you’ve got a newsletter, you can use it as a platform to share new case studies as you publish them. But there are more powerful ways to use case studies in emails too.
If you use lead magnets, for example, make sure to use case studies within your nurture sequences. You can also use them within direct sales emails as a way to help overcome objections and move leads through the buying journey.
Effective case studies – a conclusion
To be effective, a case study needs to do five things.
- Be easy to find, be that on social, via search or for visitors coming to your website.
- Be easy to read. Forget an off putting wall of text. Use images, subheads and pull quotes to create entry points for your reader.
- Be built around a foundation of transformation that highlights the end benefits of your products and services.
- Speak to your ideal audience, drawing in clients who will benefit your business (and vice versa) and putting off anyone who wouldn’t be a good fit.
- Stand out from the crowd and be memorable. Use infographics or video to make an impression, and facts and testimonial quotes to back up your assertions.
If you can get your case study firing on all five cylinders, it can be an incredibly powerful tool in your marketing and sales toolkit. For support in creating case studies for your business, get in touch with us on talktous@rin-hamburgh.co.uk or call 0117 990 2690.
If there’s one thing we can pretty much all agree on it’s the fact that expert-led businesses need to produce written content. Blogging may have been around for years, but it’s still an incredibly powerful tool in your marketing kit.
There are endless studies and stats to back this up. For example, Hubspot reports that marketers who prioritise blogging see three times the return on investment (ROI) of those that don’t. And according to DemandMetric, companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog.
What isn’t always clear to marketing teams is whether a blog should – or can – be outsourced, or whether it’s best written in house. There are naturally arguments both for and against. Let’s look at some of the benefits of outsourcing your blog first.
TL:DR
- From sporadic to consistent
- An honest outside perspective
- A strategic approach to blogging
- The benefit of more than one brain
- Consistently great quality writing that engages
- 3 signs you should write your blog in-house
1) From sporadic to consistent
A lack of time is one of the key issues many of our clients have. Which means blogging – if it happens at all – is sporadic. As a result, the channel never really gains traction, those who write or promote the posts become discouraged and, at worst, blogging is abandoned because it “doesn’t work”.
Using a professional blogging partner brings that additional level of resource needed to keep things moving consistently. There’s also a degree of accountability in having to attend diarised briefing sessions, not to mention strategy support, reporting and general encouragement to keep going.
2) An honest outside perspective
One regular piece of feedback we get from clients is how much they appreciate having an outside perspective. Subject matter experts are often so close to their own knowledge that they struggle to see the wood for the trees.
What we bring during the strategy and briefing stages of a blogging project is a fresh perspective and the important “So what?” pushback that is often needed. And being outsiders, we usually find that the experts pay that little bit more attention to our direction than they might to their internal marketing manager, making us that manager’s secret weapon!
“By bouncing ideas around – especially with an outside party who bring a different set of expertise (in this case marketing) – our clients often find they join the dots in new ways.”
3) A strategic approach to blogging
Subject matter experts fall into two camps. Either they have no idea what to write about or they’re buzzing with ideas. The problem is, even when they have ideas, they aren’t always ones that will deliver results. It’s important to think from the reader’s perspective, which can be hard to do when you’ve got a business agenda or even just loads of personal passion.
A good copywriter will be able to put themselves in your audience’s shoes and understand what adds the most value. We look at everything from the persona a blog is targeting to where that person is likely to be on their buyer journey – not to mention how the blog fits into the wider marketing strategy – to ensure there’s a return on the investment.
4) The benefit of more than one brain
Writing can be a lonely venture. Whereas a briefing with a copywriter can – and should – be a collaborative affair. The interview-style briefing method we use, which is designed to draw out the right knowledge from those subject matter experts, isn’t just a way to ensure that the reader gets what they want. It’s also an opportunity to deep dive into a subject and create something that is greater than one person alone might produce.
Two heads, as they say, are better than one. And by bouncing ideas around – especially with an outside party who bring a different set of expertise (in this case marketing) – our clients often find they join the dots in new ways. Blogging, when done properly, doesn’t just showcase expertise, it builds it.
5) Consistently great quality writing that engages
Knowing how to write is one thing. Being able to write in a way that captures busy people’s attention, engages them throughout, and gets them to think or act differently by the end is quite another.
While many of our clients are perfectly capable of writing an articulate email, they come to us for something that goes a little bit further. A good copywriter will be able to consistently produce the kind of targeted writing that gets a blog to actually deliver results.
3 signs you should write your blog in-house
Having listed all the benefits of outsourcing your blog, there are some circumstances in which trying to work with a copywriter or copywriting agency just isn’t going to work.
1) If you can’t let go of control: It’s understandable. You’re the expert. Perhaps it’s even your business. You want to make sure every last word, phrase, comma and full stop is exactly where you think it should be. But if you can’t step back and allow your copywriter to do their part of the job, you’re going to struggle with outsourcing your blog.
2) You don’t have the budget*: You’ve heard the saying that you can’t have good, cheap and fast at the same time. Working with a decent copywriter or copywriting agency is an investment. We’ve had clients come to us after trying marketplaces such as Fiverr and finding out the hard way that unrealistic budgets won’t get quality results.
*We’re absolutely not criticising businesses with small budgets here. Everyone starts somewhere! But be realistic about what that budget can achieve. If you haven’t got money to spend, you’re probably better off going down a DIY or ‘done with you’ route.
3) You’re not committed to the process: Blogging isn’t an overnight miracle cure. It takes time and consistent effort to get real results – usually at least 6 months. It will also take a degree of input from you, even if you’re outsourcing. Attending a briefing without having done any prep is a surefire way to ensure your copywriter fails to deliver the goods. If you’re not going to stick to the plan, there’s no point throwing money at it.
Around 60% of businesses never make it to their fifth birthday. As we reach this important milestone, Rin looks back on some of the important factors she believes have helped us to beat the odds.
This month RH&Co turns five. I say this month because I can’t remember the exact day. I can’t remember an awful lot from that period in my life, to be honest. I was single-parenting 9-month-old twins at the time, so I spent most days in a fog of feeding and changing and bashing out the odd email or blog post in between.
If you’d have walked down my street around then, you may well have seen me in the front passenger seat of my car, tapping away at my laptop while the babies slept in the back. Or I might have been asleep too, my head lolling against the window. Goodness knows what my neighbours must have thought.
Things have come a long way since then. We’re now a team of six with two more starting in September and job ads out for two more. We have clients around the world, we’ve won awards, attended events at Number 10 Downing Street and the House of Lords…
If you’d predicted any of those things when we got started, I would have laughed in your face. I know you’re supposed to start a business with a strategy and a vision and a plan of some sort, but honestly I started mine with little more than bullheaded determination to make it work.
Luckily, I’ve learned a lot along the way….
TL:DR
- Surround yourself with people who understand
- Actively pursue knowledge
- Understand what your zone of genius is
- Trust the marketing process
- Don’t be afraid to fire a client
- Never stop dreaming
Surround yourself with people who understand
About a month or two before I launched RH&Co, I was invited to a networking group called Freelance Mum where you could (and still can) bring your kids along. Bored of baby groups full of mums on mat leave talking about the benefits of baby led weaning and whether or not to try sleep training, I gave it a go.
Being surrounded by other mums juggling kids and running a business was both encouraging and inspiring. These women got it! They loved their children but they had other passions to follow too. They made me feel normal and they became my cheerleaders as well. I’m still friends with them today.
My business has changed since then though. So now I have a monthly Zoom catch up with a small group of female founders who all have teams of between 5 and 15 people and who are dealing with many of the same issues as I am. Again, our meetings inspire and encourage me, helping me to see that it’s not just me.
Running a business can be so lonely at times. It really does pay to have people around who understand.
Actively pursue knowledge
One of the best things that happened to me as a new business owner was hearing about what was then called Entrepreneurial Spark and is now the Natwest Accelerator. I started on the programme when the agency was just six months old and was thrown headfirst into one of the steepest learning curves of my life.
I learned from my mentor (thank you, Andy!). I learned from other business owners on the programme. I learned from the many experts they brought in to talk us through the first steps (and next steps) in everything from recruitment and finance to growth mindset and resilience.
I’ve continued to learn since, devouring books, podcasts and webinars, attending conferences and simply talking to other people. I genuinely believe that everyone has something to teach me – even if it’s what not to do.
I think a lot of founders feel a pressure to know everything, but to me there’s nothing as important as being teachable and prioritising your own development.
“Don’t try to be all things to all people. Understand what you do best and keep getting better at it. ”
Understand what your zone of genius is
This is something that works at both an individual and a business level. Just as we need to remember that we don’t always know everything, it’s also important to admit where your weaknesses lie.
I am not an especially organised person. I’m more about creative ideas and enthusiasm than Gantt charts and forecasts. While we should always be developing ourselves, there are times when we need to stay within our ‘zone of genius’ and let others operate in theirs.
Learning to delegate has been one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in business and I’m so pleased to have incredibly talented people in my team who are far better at their role than I would be.
The business equivalent of this philosophy of staying in your zone of genius is strong positioning – check out the amazing work of David C Baker for everything you need to know on that subject.
As a copywriting agency, we could write anything for anyone. But we don’t. We don’t write advertising copy or press releases or leaflets or tenders. Instead, we help expert-led businesses to clarify and communicate their message and establish their expertise through content.
Don’t try to be all things to all people. Understand what you do best and keep getting better at it.
Trust the marketing process
There is so much content out there promising a quick fix for generating leads. But the truth is that there is no rushing business development.
We ramped up our content marketing efforts around the middle of 2019, increasing our blog frequency (from fortnightly to weekly), social media presence (from posting ad hoc to three times a week) and newsletter output (from monthly to fortnightly).
For six months, although engagement was good, we didn’t see much in the way of that translating into leads.
As 2020 started, however, things began to shift. And with the exception of the first couple of months of lockdown, our revenue has increased steadily month on month ever since. In the last financial year turnover was up 55% on the year before, and we’re on track to significantly better that this year.
Overnight successes are rare. Create a solid marketing strategy and then give it time to work. Tweak your tactics, by all means, but don’t chuck the baby out with the bathwater just because you don’t see overnight results.
Don’t be afraid to fire a client
When we were first starting out, I was so grateful to anyone who wanted to use our services that I didn’t stop to think too hard about whether I enjoyed working with them. As a result, I was involved with a fair few projects that caused way more stress than they were worth.
In a creative services business like ours, bad clients usually fall into one of three categories.
There are those who simply don’t value you and who expect you to jump when they say so. There are those who say all the right things but then disregard your advice and insist on doing things their own way.
And then there are the really sweet and lovely clients who are nevertheless so needy that they end up taking far more time than you’d budgeted for – something the authors of Content Fortress refer to as the ‘damsel in distress’ client.
While we’re making an effort to not include any of these in our client base, it is the first group that is an absolute no-no for me. If a client treats anyone in my team with anything other than the respect they deserve, I won’t hesitate to walk away, no matter how much they contribute to my bottom line.
Running a business is hard. Surely one upside should be getting to choose who you work with?
Never stop dreaming
When I started this business, I didn’t have a vision or a mission. Five years later, I have finally articulated both.
VISION To help individuals and organisations achieve their dreams using the power of words.
MISSION To build a market-leading agency that demonstrates the highest business practices, delivers tangible results for our clients, and is a great place to work.
It’s not all that complicated when you look at it like that. But one thing the last five years have taught me is that just because something isn’t complicated, doesn’t make it easy to achieve. These are big dreams.
Luckily, I still have that same bullheaded determination to make it work. And I think maybe that’s another thing to add to the list of things you need in order to succeed in business. A belief in yourself that you can do it.
And you know what? I think you can.
App developers, financial modellers, commercial mathematicians – all examples of clients we’ve worked with. And yet we’re not experts in any of these subjects. So how do we do it? The answer is as much about the nature of blogging as it is about our own skills and experience.
TL:DR
- It all started in a newspaper office
- Why experts don’t usually make great marketers
- The added extras that a copywriter will bring to your blog
- How we create expert-led content for our clients
- A case study: Actual Experience, experts in human experience
It all started in a newspaper office
Our founder, Rin, started her career as a journalist. Cutting her teeth on a daily paper meant having to very quickly get up to speed about all sorts of subjects, doing research and interviewing experts in order to put together a compelling story – all to a tight deadline.
This journalistic approach underpins the way that we write content here at RH&Co. We don’t profess to be experts on embedded banking or leadership development or clinical psychotherapy. But we are experts at drawing out a story. Give us a few hours and access to an expert and we can get ourselves up to speed enough to write a convincing blog post on literally anything.
But that’s only part of the story. Because whether or not someone can blog about a subject they’re not an expert in might not actually be the most important question. Perhaps it’s more important to think, “How can I blog for my business if I’m not an expert at blogging?”
Why experts don’t usually make great marketers
The problem with being an expert is that you’re usually too close to your own subject. You know so much that it’s hard to tease out what your audience might be interested in and what is unnecessary detail that’s just going to distract them from what’s important.
A lot of experts try to cram too much into one blog post, not thinking of content in a holistic way. They don’t think strategically about what details might suit someone who is just thinking about a service versus someone who is getting ready to buy.
Experts often use overly complex language and too much jargon. They don’t always have the right understanding of tone and personality when it comes to writing, falling back on formal or even academic writing.
And on top of all of that, experts are usually very, very busy. Which means blogging falls down the to do list and becomes inconsistent at best. And that, as any marketer will tell you, is not going to deliver real results.
“A good copywriter knows how to get people’s attention in just a few words while also hitting SEO targets.”
The added extras that a copywriter will bring to your blog
As well as helping you to tease out the details of your expertise that will add the most value to a specific blog post, a copywriter will add a bunch of other important marketing elements.
Let’s start with the title, since that’s where – as David Ogilvy once said – you spend “80 cents of your dollar”. If your title isn’t 100% engaging, no one is going to read any further. A good copywriter knows how to get people’s attention in just a few words while also hitting SEO targets.
Then there’s structure. A copywriter knows to use page formatting tools such as subheads, bullet points, pull quotes and more to stop the ‘off-putting wall of text’ phenomenon that so many expert blogs suffer with.
They’ll also be able to craft a call to action that suits the post. Whether that’s a gentle and directional ‘read more posts in this area’ on a top-of-funnel post, or a firmer and clearer ‘get in touch for a quote’ on a sales-driven post.
And that’s all without even mentioning the content strategy that should come well before any briefing or writing even starts. If you’re going to work with a copywriter to create expert-led content, it’s essential that the work is guided by a clear strategy.
How we create expert-led content for our clients
Our blogging projects all start with a discovery stage where we get to know our new client. Who they are, what they do, what makes them special. The core messages they’re hoping to communicate and the goals they have for their content.
We talk about their audience too, of course, looking for the value that our client might be able to add at every stage of the customer or client journey. From this we can create a strategy with a rough editorial calendar that will direct future briefings.
From here, we set out a monthly briefing schedule. In these meetings we interview their experts, drawing out the stories in the data, the emotional connection in the list of facts, stripping out any needless jargon to leave only what supports the core messaging.
Ultimately our job is to take a client’s expertise and make it more succinct, punchy and powerful than it would otherwise be. We don’t need to be experts because that’s your job. Our job is to draw out your expertise and then package it up using precisely the right words to establish that expertise within the minds of your audience.
A case study: Actual Experience, experts in human experience
Actual Experience is a B2B tech business providing human experience management for service providers and their enterprise clients. Their unique analytics capabilities pinpoint the causes of variability and poor experience within the digital ecosystem, enabling digital leaders to prioritise investment in an evidence-based way.
Yes, we were baffled by that at first too. But as we worked with their founder, their marketing manager and their technical lead, we began to build up a solid picture of their expertise.
Marketing Manager Vaq Hussain said: “We’re in a complex and technical industry. With no prior experience of our expertise, Rin and her team quickly took on board what we do and how it helps our customers add value.”
Over the course of the project, we created a number of white papers, supplemented with blog posts and social sharing copy – all of which met the client’s high standards in terms of both expertise and readability.
“The process of developing a white paper with Rin and her team was simple and painless,” Vaq said. “They delivered a really fast turnaround following interviews and research, and the final copy required minimal amends.
“I would say Rin Hamburgh & Co’s strengths are not just in their writing. Rin and her team are excellent listeners. Finding the important details in what we were telling them, understanding the relevance to our audience and converting it to a usable content piece is what impressed me the most.”
Like buying a car or changing offices, commissioning new website copy isn’t something you do every day. It’s more of an every few years sort of thing. Which is why most people – whether business owners or marketing managers – don’t feel completely confident with the process.
We, on the other hand, write website copy on a pretty much weekly basis. We’ve worked with clients from sole traders to multinational businesses and private sector organisations on both brand new sites and sites that are evolving. So we have a really clear idea of what needs to happen and when, in order to make the process as pain free as possible.
Whether you’re a first timer or you’ve been down this road several times before, this guide will tell you everything you need to know about what we do and how we do it.
TL:DR
- Before it all starts – taking a bespoke approach
- The briefing session – getting to know you and your audience
- The copywriting bit – where the magic happens
- Added extras – FAQs, case studies and hidden copy
- When should you get a copywriter get involved in a website project?
Before it all starts – taking a bespoke approach
Clients come to us in all sorts of positions so it doesn’t make sense to treat them all the same.
- Some are creating a website from scratch, others are evolving or overhauling a site that already exists.
- Some know exactly what they want to communicate, others need a hand articulating their value proposition.
- Some have a wireframes already designed, others want to get their copy sorted first before design work starts.
We take all of this into consideration when creating a proposal for a website copywriting project and build in the support that the individual client needs.
For example, if you need support with clarifying your message we can offer this as an initial piece of consultancy work. We’ll deliver the messaging copy first – get feedback and do amends – before building that into full website copy.
Likewise, you might need guidance around structuring the copy on the page, if you haven’t got a wireframe. In that case we might work on the outline first and ask you to approve it before we start on the copy itself.
“If social proof is important to your audience, make sure you’re leveraging the good work you do with case studies.”
The briefing session – getting to know you and your audience
Your website briefing session will be tailored to your individual circumstance and can usually be booked in within a week or two of confirming that you’d like to work with us. A standard briefing is around one hour but it might be more, especially if you need support with messaging.
If you’re creating a brand new website, we’ll need to know everything from what your product or service is about to who your audience is to what your overall goals are for the site. We’ll need to understand your brand personality and tone too, so that we can write in a way that reflects who you are as a business.
On the other hand, if you’re evolving your website copy we’ll need to discuss what’s not working with the old copy and how much the factual content of the site needs updating. We’ll still need to ask about your audience, your goals and so on, because the more we understand about your business, the more likely the copy is to deliver results.
Before we even get to the briefing though, we’ll ask you to send across any supporting documents, from tone of voice guidelines to audience personas to client testimonials, so we have everything we need to get started.
The copywriting bit – where the magic happens
If you need support with messaging, we’ll begin our work here, sketching out messaging pillars and key phrases for your approval before any website copywriting begins. Next – and this will happen even if you don’t need messaging support – we’ll do a couple of test pages, to get your feedback on language, tone and structure.
This iterative approach means that when we do deliver the first draft of the whole site, you’re likely to have far fewer amends.
How long the copywriting stage takes depends, of course, on how big the site is. Whatever the case, we’ll have created a timeline at the beginning of the project, detailing not only what we’ll do and when, but the the timings you need to hit in order to keep things on track.
We’ll deliver your draft copy via Google Docs, giving you and your team a live document in which to make comments. Once we’ve had all your feedback through, we’ll work on your amends. If there are any more changes needed after the second draft, we’ll keep going until it’s right – though it’s rare anyone needs more than two amends stages at the outside.
At this point your website designer or developer will upload the copy to the site – and you might find it needs a few tweaks. We’re very happy to do that, and to give the whole lot a final proofread to make sure no errors have crept in during the design process.
Added extras – FAQs, case studies and hidden copy
As well as your standard set of website pages, you might want to add extras such as an FAQs page, case studies or even ‘hidden’ copy like meta descriptions and the 404 Error pages.
FAQs: These are super useful for your audience and great for SEO too, as you can use lots of keywords in the H2 subheadings in a very natural way. Linking FAQs answers through to blog posts will keep readers on your site longer and reduce your bounce rate too.
Case studies: If social proof is important to your audience, make sure you’re leveraging the good work you do with case studies. We can create simple case studies based on a briefing with you, or go one step further to interview your customers or clients and create really compelling and valuable case study content.
Hidden copy: From cementing your brand voice and personality on a 404 Error page to driving better SEO results through clever meta titles and descriptions, hidden copy might be a useful addition to your website project.
When should you get a copywriter get involved in a website project?
If you haven’t yet kicked off your website project and you’re thinking you’ll give it a while before you get a copywriter involved, you might want to reconsider.
Words are fundamental to the success of your website. They need to be able to tick the right boxes for Google and engage even the most time-poor skim readers with clever headlines, answer key queries quickly and drive action through effective CTAs.
A good copywriter or agency will be able to support you with all of this and more, so the earlier you get them involved the better.
Do you have any other questions about our website copywriting services? Get in touch with one of the team for a chat.
Search Engine Optimisation. We all know it’s important. But for many of us, it remains something we have only a vague grasp of at best. If that’s you, then read on. Because this blog post requires no technical ability whatsoever. It does, however, contain some very practical ways you can improve your dwell time.
TL:DR
- What is dwell time?
- Break down that wall of text
- Make it visually appealing
- Use internal (and external) links
- Using dwell time as a benchmark
What is dwell time?
Simply put, it is the amount of time that a user spends on your website from the moment they click through from a search page to the moment they click back to the search results.
Dwell time is often talked about in parallel with bounce rate. If a visitor arrives on your website and clicks away from it without visiting another page, that’s considered a bounce. Ideally, you want to increase your dwell time and reduce your bounce rate.
Of course, this is a very simplistic view. After all, if you’re looking for a company’s phone number then you’re likely to land on their contact page, get the number and very quickly leave without going anywhere else. That’s not a bad result, it’s a logical one.
However, let’s assume we’re talking about a blog post. In this case, we don’t want people staying on the page for just a few seconds because this shows that the article wasn’t very helpful. This is where increasing dwell time is important. So how do you do it?
1) Break down that wall of text
There’s nothing more off-putting than a screen full of text with no variation. It feels impenetrable, like it’s going to take a lot of effort to get the information you want. This can easily cause a significant percentage of your visitors to click away without bothering.
What you want to do is to give them entry points into the page that will draw their attention and get them to read more. Subheads are great for this, setting out your main points and giving an easy-to-access overview of what the reader can look forward to if they commit to reading the body copy.
Another advantage of subheads is that, because they are highlighted with H2 tags, they are weighted more highly for SEO and are therefore a great place to insert keywords.
Other ways to visually break up your text include bullet points, and pull quotes – like the one below. A pull quote should be taken from a little later in the post and is used to ‘tease’ the reader with what’s coming up.
“In every blog post you write, make sure you include at least one link to another part of your website.”
2) Make it visually appealing
As well as subheads, consider using imagery to break up your text even further and add an element of visual appeal. The nicer something is to look at, the longer your visitor is likely to stick around.
The type of imagery you use will depend on your brand and your audience, of course. For example, if you’re a travel agent then it’s nice and easy – simply weave in a handful of aspirational destination shots through your blog and you’re sorted.
For a B2B services brand, you might wonder how you can use imagery but there are actually plenty of options. For example, you could include graphs or tables to illustrate key points. Or look at the way we create ‘further reading’ panels using our brand imagery, colours and fonts below.
3) Use internal (and external) links
In every blog post you write, make sure you include at least one link to another part of your website. After all, the more pages your visitor reads, the longer they’re on your site. Plus it will help get your bounce rate down.
Linking to another blog post relevant to the subject you’re writing about is always a good option, as it’s pure value add. But you can also link to a product or services page, or your About page, or anything else you feel your reader would genuinely be interested in.
Our visual ‘read more’ panel below is a good example, but add links in the main body of text too. Make sure the phrase that you add the link to contains words that match with the destination content. For example, we wouldn’t want to ask you to click on ‘this link’ because that doesn’t mean anything, but we might suggest you check out our Small Business Resources.
And don’t forget about external links too. It might seem counterintuitive to send people away from your site but consider Google’s main goal: to connect people to the most useful information possible. If we link this post from Moz on the ‘5 SEO recommendations that matter’ – which you’re likely to find useful, since you’re reading this blog – then that signals more value adding and will encourage Google to rank us more highly.
TOP TIP: When linking to an external site, make sure you set the link as ‘open in a new tab’ so that your reader doesn’t get distracted.
Using dwell time as a benchmark
Dwell time is only one factor that contributes to a good SEO strategy. But it’s important because it acts as a good indicator of how valuable and engaging your content is. It’s a tangible metric that you can measure against.
In this post we’ve mainly focused on blogs but the same sorts of things would apply if you were talking about a product or services page, for example. Don’t have too much text all in one block. Make sure the page is visually appealing. And create links where it’s appropriate.
Have a look at what the dwell time on your website is now and then implement some of the suggestions above. Keep an eye on your numbers and see what effect the changes are having. Experiment, test, measure and keep tweaking so that you squeeze every last drop of value out of your content.
And if you’ve got a copywriter or copywriting agency involved in writing content for you, then make sure you’re reporting back or giving them access to your stats so that they can help move the dial in the right direction.
The simple answer is yes, no and sort of. Presuming the question is “Can I learn to write for my business?” not “Can I become the next Virginia Woolf?” then we can at least get some of the way there.
TL:DR
What can be taught
In his book On Writing, Stephen King outlines the basics of a writer’s toolbox. This involves understanding grammar (even if you choose to ignore it), avoiding the passive voice and eliminating unnecessary adverbs.
These are fairly easy fixes. Tweaks that can be applied to your existing writing to make it more readable. They are the kind of principles that can be learned – that you can even teach yourself.
King says you cannot teach a good writer to be a great one. And you cannot teach a bad writer to be a good one. But you can teach a competent writer to be a better one. Read any of our ‘how to’ blogs and you will find ways to take your writing up a notch.
“The gift of a good editor is what hones a writer from a free-spirited creative into a focused force.”
What takes time
There are ways to improve your writing. But the amount of time you can invest in writing is an important factor. Think of it like learning the piano. With a little practice you can learn to play Coldplay’s Clocks. But it takes a lot longer to learn how to play Shostakovich. Like, years.
If you have the time to invest, spend it reading and writing. And reading. And writing some more. Much about good writing is learning to recognise the rhythm in a paragraph, the subtleties in sentence structure. This kind of pattern recognition is the product of a seasoned professional. It takes work, but it can be done.
If you’re talking about copywriting, you also need to add in a bunch of stuff that fits around the writing. Like consumer psychology. Brand personality. Customer journeys. General marketing strategy. Copywriting, as we’ve said before, is not just any old writing.
Learning from others
Almost as important as the time you invest is the feedback you receive. The gift of a good editor is what hones a writer from a free-spirited creative into a focused force. Every writer has their blind spots and every new writer has many.
A good mentor stops you from second-guessing your good writing and they can tell you straight when a paragraph is a load of waffle. They can help you grow in confidence and inspire you to take your writing beyond the perimeters of your own thinking.
If you don’t have an obvious mentor to hand, bounce ideas off your friends and colleagues. What does that word make you feel? Does this sentence make sense or is it confusing? Would you be interested enough to read to the end of that paragraph if I didn’t tell you to?
Other people’s feedback can begin to build an awareness in you of what your writing is actually communicating.
What can’t be taught
No one can be taught to enjoy writing. If you hate it, if it bores you, you’d be better investing your time elsewhere. In this case, delegation could be your new best friend. Check for writing talent hiding in your staff team or hire a copywriter to make sure your writing is as good as it can be (yes, that was a subtle sales pitch!).
Finally, for some people writing might be something they really want to do, but each and every time they sit at the keyboard their head fills with fuzz. This is a greater creative block than the kind you solve with a few new writing principles.
If that describes you, don’t give up on a desire to write – but writing for your business probably isn’t the kind of pressure you need right now. Take a step back and take some creative risks in a less hazardous arena. Have a go at poetry, a short story, a comic sketch – there’s more than one kind of writer. Mix it up and maybe that creative fuzz will fade and something new will take its place.
It’s not the sexiest page on any given website, which means it can often be overlooked. But the humble FAQs page is actually an extremely important one, which every single business should prioritise. Here’s why.
TL:DR
- It’s useful for your audience
- It stops you from repeating yourself
- It qualifies your leads
- It’s good for getting keywords in
- And there are other SEO benefits too
- In support of the humble FAQs page
1) It’s useful for your audience
This is the first and most important factor to take into consideration, because – as with all of your marketing – your audience needs to come first. A good FAQs page will provide real value to your website visitors, answering many of the questions they have and ideally helping them move along the buyer journey towards working with you.
Start by thinking about the questions you’re asked regularly. What about the objections you meet during sales calls? Are there any mistakes people make when doing business with you that you can preempt with a clever FAQ?
2) It stops you from repeating yourself
Answering questions you often get asked will save you time too. Next time you get an inquiry about one of the issues that is included in your FAQs page, simply direct your correspondent with a link or copy and paste the answer into the email.
You can repeat FAQs in different places too. For example, you might include a few relevant ones on each of your product or services pages. We also share ours on social media, giving us extra content for our content calendar.
3) It qualifies your leads
Once you’ve covered the questions that your audience already has, think about how you’d like to educate them. This is a great way to avoid awkward conversations with people who just aren’t a good fit for you.
For example, on our FAQs page we have a question about whether people can get a discount if they provide us with some draft copy. The answer, in a nutshell, is no. But we’ve used the FAQs page to set out the reason why in a friendly way.
The fact that it’s there for everyone to read means no one will feel like we’re saying no just to them. It’s not personal, it’s policy.
4) It’s good for getting keywords in
Having a well written FAQs page is good for SEO in a number of ways. First, it is a page which by default has a lot of H2 subheads, in which it is quite natural to find a large number of keywords.
For example, our FAQs page includes questions such as:
- What does a copywriter do?
- Copywriter vs content writer – what’s the difference?
- How can a copywriter add value to my business?
All are genuinely questions people have and want answered, but they all contain important keywords that will give us a boost on Google.
The fact that they’re phrased as questions is a bonus, as many people are now searching this way thanks to the advent of voice-activated search.
5) And there are other SEO benefits too
If you’re clever, you can use your FAQs page to create internal links to other content. For example, we have a question about how to prepare for a copywriting briefing. We also have a blog post on the subject, which the FAQ links to.
If someone reads the FAQ and then clicks through for more information, we reduce our bounce rate (the frequency with which someone arrives on a page and leaves without clicking through to another) and increase our dwell time (the length of time someone stays on the website).
In support of the humble FAQs page
From both a human perspective and an SEO one, from your perspective and your customer or client’s, an FAQs page is a useful tool. It’s also super easy to write, as the formatting is naturally simple and formulaic.
You can get that little bit more creative and group your FAQs by subject type or category if the page is getting crowded. If space is an issue you can also hide the answers so they only appear in a pop up box when someone clicks on a question. It may be helpful to have a search box or a form where people can submit their own unanswered questions.
But ultimately if you’ve not got anything yet then just start somewhere and let the page grow as your business does. It might not be the most exciting page but it’s all adding to the effectiveness of your site as a whole.
Every business owner and marketing manager knows that content marketing is a powerful way to build brand awareness, establish credibility, reach potential customers and clients, and ultimately increase leads and sales. What they frequently don’t know is how often they should be creating and sharing content in order to get results.
In a sense, the answer is easy: as often as possible. After all, the more times you can appear on someone’s radar, the more chances you have of convincing them that you’re worth doing business with.
Not everyone will be ready to buy your product or service the moment they first have contact with you. Even once they enquire, statistics show that 63% will still take at least 3 months to make a purchase. So creating regular, strategic content keeps them moving along the buyer journey and helps you stay front of mind so that when the time comes, it’s you they turn to.
But since “as much as possible” is not an especially helpful answer, we’ve broken down some of the elements you need to consider when setting your own particular content goals. By the end of this post you should be more confident in creating a content schedule that will work for you.
TL:DR
- What do you have capacity for?
- Don’t prioritise quantity over quality
- There’s a difference between “create” and “share”
- Rocks, gravel, sand – an analogy
- Prioritise original content that will last
What do you have capacity for?
Are you a sole business owner wearing all the hats? A lone marketing manager juggling all the channels for an SME? Or part of a team of 30 content creators? The answer will have a big impact on how much content you can realistically produce.
Quality original content takes time and effort to create. It’s likely to take you several hours to write a well researched, high value blog post, for example, not to mention the time it takes to source images, upload it to your website and so on.
If you’re using a professional to help you create that content then you will be limited by your budget. But don’t forget that your time has an associated cost too, not just in terms of what you’re paid but the value you could be adding elsewhere in the business if you weren’t creating content.
Don’t prioritise quantity over quality
Some people get so fixated on quantity that they lose their focus on quality. There’s no point doing a Facebook Live every single day if you haven’t really got anything to say. Far better to do one once a week and really add value for your audience.
Likewise, don’t spread yourself too thin when it comes to content types and channels. If you’re trying to write articles for LinkedIn, take photos for Instagram, prepare talks for Clubhouse and think of witty soundbites for Snapchat all at the same time, you’re going to burn out quickly.
Plus, does your audience really need all of that? And are they really on all of those channels? Choose one or two content types or channels to focus on, experiment to see where you get the best results and keep iterating so that you direct your attention to the most successful ones.
There’s a difference between “create” and “share”
We use the phrase “create and share” a lot but it really should be “create or share”. Because not all content that you share needs to be created by you. Think about when you read an interesting article in the news or watch a great TED talk and then share the link on your social channels. That’s you getting your brand out there without having to create anything from scratch, except for a few words to caption the post.
These low effort content wins are actually incredibly powerful because they help develop a rounded image of your brand. Rather than constantly pushing your own agenda, by sharing news and views from other businesses and people (ideally tagging them when you do), you’re both adding value and showing you’re connected with your industry or your city.
You can do this from a company page as much as from an individual one. The main thing is to think about what your audience will find valuable, and then go and source it. Does your audience enjoy humorous memes or inspirational quote cards? Would they appreciate being updated on the latest industry research? Go find it for them!
Rocks, gravel, sand – an analogy
Now let’s bring that all together. Think about your capacity as a vase. Work out how many rocks you can fit in there. The rocks are what we at RH&Co like to call foundation content. This might be your blog, for example, or a YouTube channel, or a newsletter, or a podcast. You’ll put the greatest effort into making sure whatever you choose is super high quality and packed with original thought.
Next, you want to start adding gravel. This gravel is the repurposed content that can be chipped off the rocks you created. Snippets and quotes and top tips, which can be produced without a huge amount of extra effort. One ‘10 top tips’ blog post can easily generate 10 individual social media posts, for example. Or you might draw out an interesting quote or statistic from a video and share it as a visual.
And then you can add the sand to fill the gaps. This might be low-effort original content such as a micro post on Facebook or a quick Instagram reel. Or it might be that curated content that you can share without having to input much of your own beyond a couple of introductory lines.
Prioritise original content that will last
Creating content is a great way of getting in front of your audience, adding value, developing your brand reputation and showcasing your expertise. The more you can do, the better – but be realistic about what your capacity is.
Prioritise a manageable amount of foundational content and make sure it’s exceptional quality. As a sole business owner you may only be able to do this once a fortnight – any less and you’re just not to get momentum. Once a week is better, if you can, and if you have the budget or in-house resources then you might consider more.
Then repurpose as much as you can, add low-effort original content and curated content from other sources. It shouldn’t be hard to get 3-5 posts out each week this way. Remember to keep it regular, and don’t give up too easily. It can take six to 18 months to get a content marketing strategy delivering consistent high results. But the results will come.
Should you write your own website copy? It’s a question many founders ask themselves, especially when their business is still relatively new or small.
The answer isn’t black and white. There’s inevitably a cost associated with getting a professional copywriter involved, and it may be that your budget simply won’t stretch to it. But there could be costs if you do the writing yourself too.
Too many people are quite happy to pay for a graphic designer, photographer or web developer to ensure that their website has the right look, but when it comes to the copy they shrug and say, “Oh that’s ok, I can write it myself.”
Unfortunately, being able to write an articulate email or even a blog post isn’t the same as writing effective website copy. So before you get started, it’s worth asking yourself a few questions to make sure that you’re not going to inadvertently let your website down at this hurdle.
TL:DR
- Have I got a structure in place?
- Have I worked out my core message?
- Do I know how to balance benefits and features?
- Can I see from my client or customer’s perspective?
- Do I know how – and when – to move people to action?
- Can I really write?
- Have you got the time?
- Whatever you decide…
1) Have I got a structure in place?
Before you start writing, you need to think about both your sitemap and the structure of the page content itself. It’s not just about deciding which words to use but which ones will go where and in what sort of hierarchy. This is both a design and a copy decision.
You’ll need to understand user experience (UX) and the journey people will take from arriving on the site to taking some sort of action. And you’ll need to support both those visitors who are willing to read every word of copy on the page and those who will be doing no more than scanning the homepage.
2) Have I worked out my core message?
Speaking of scanning, if someone does spend just 30 seconds on your site, what is the one thing you want them to know, think or feel about your business? Have you ensured that your top level copy communicates this quickly and easily?
As well as your core message, you’ll want to think about your supporting messages and how the copy serves these to the right visitors in the right places. People only read an average of 20% of the copy on any given web page, so you need to make sure they get what they need as quickly as possible.
3) Do I know how to balance benefits and features?
You may have heard marketers talking about how copy should highlight benefits over features. What this means is that you need to sell the outcome of doing business with you, rather than the actual facts of your product or service. As someone clever once said, “No one wants a 2 inch drill bit, they want a 2 inch hole.”
But there’s a balance. If you keep going on about how your customer or client’s life or business will be transformed, without telling them how, they’re going to get frustrated quickly. A good website will balance emotive and factual copy, and a good copywriter will know where to prioritise each one.
4) Can I see from my client or customer’s perspective?
One of the benefits of having an external copywriter creating your website copy is that they will bring an outside perspective. Too often as business owners – and even marketing managers – we are too close to the subject.
We are so knowledgeable about what we do or sell that we forget what it’s like to be new to our business. We think as people supplying a product or service, rather than people looking to buy these things. And we use the word ‘we’ too often, forgetting that good website copy should always be about the reader first.
5) Do I know how – and when – to move people to action?
It’s no good just getting people to read your website copy. The copy needs to encourage them to do something. This is where calls to action (CTAs) come in. In some cases you might want a visitor to click through to another page to get more information. Will you ask them to ‘read more’, ‘meet the team’, ‘discover the latest features’?
At some point you’ll also want to ask them to buy, or get in touch, or download something, or sign up for something. Again, wording your CTA is crucial if you’re going to turn their interest into an actual sale or lead.
6) Can I really write?
Ooh, now this is a tough question. Because you’re likely in one of three camps. You either know you can’t write nearly well enough to do your website justice (probably not, otherwise why would you be reading this?). Or you believe you can write well and you’re correct in your assumption (in which case, fantastic).
Or you believe you can write well but the truth is that you can’t (ouch). If you’re not certain, get feedback (more on this later). Don’t ask people who will flatter you. Ask those that care enough to tell you the truth. Tough love doesn’t feel nice, but neither does not getting any leads through your website.
7) Have you got the time?
This is a purely practical point that is nevertheless worth considering. After all, if you run a business then you’re bound to have a lot on your to do list. Think about how long it’s likely to take you to write your own website copy, and then think about what else you could be doing with your time.
What would you be charging a client if you spent those hours delivering your service? Is it as much as you would have to pay a copywriter to write your copy? Or perhaps you could spend the time writing a business plan that gets you funding, or a presentation that will win you a huge new contract. What use of your time is going to add the most value to your business?
Whatever you decide…
Even the best writers need a good editor. If you’re going to write your own copy, make sure you get feedback before you press the ‘go live’ button. Feedback, as we’ve already said, from people you can trust to tell you the truth. That might be people in your industry, clients or any professional writers offering a feedback service like our Website Health Check.
First ask them to scan the copy quickly, and report back on what their first impressions were. What do they think you do? Who do they think you work with? What do they think makes your business different to others in your field?
Then get them to read more deeply. What impression do they get of your brand? Are there any words or phrases that stand out as being ‘not quite right’? Is any of it confusing? Do they know where to go to get the information they need.
All of this feedback will help you work and rework your website copy until it becomes something that not only reads well but will actually deliver results for your business. Then give it to one last person to proofread it for typos.
If, in the end, you decide you need professional help, don’t be disappointed. Even professional writers don’t automatically make good website copywriters. There’s so much more to it than being able to craft an articulate sentence. Deciding to work with an experienced website copywriter could be the best decision you ever made!