There is a better way to get into the heads of our target market and it's surprisingly easy. Approach it as a search engine specialist would approach starting a new search engine optimization (SEO) campaign -- by using keyword research and trending tools.
Keyword research tools like Wordtracker, Google Trends, and the Google Keyword Tool provide a wealth of insight into the voice of our audience. Using search data and trends can give excellent clues to the words people use to describe things. Talking to your audience, using the same words they search for themselves, puts you at a major advantage over competition. For example, the other day I was crafting an email to promote a new webcast. Problem was, some people were calling it a webcast and others were calling it a webinar – which was it? What would more people respond to; a webcast offer or a webinar offer? I decided to use Google Trends to compare the search volume of both words. I figured the term that is searched more often will also be the term used more commonly in conversation. This term should also spark a higher interest if used in my email. So I quickly pulled up Google Trends and here is what I found.
This obviously made my decision easy. Split testing my email offers confirmed that using “webcast” got the better response.
Now, this is just search-driven copywriting in its simplest form. If you want to take this further, you can use the Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker almost like you would a Thesaurus. For example, maybe you are promoting a “golf strategies” guide. If you plopped this keyword into the Google Keyword Tool, it would offer you numerous suggestions for related terms people are searching for. In this example (shown below) maybe you would be better off promoting it as a “golf tips” guide since that term is searched more frequently.
Hopefully by now, you are starting to get the idea. This stuff really works – I have personally seen higher conversion rates on landing pages and emails by using this strategy. If you are interested in reading more about similar ideas, Aaron Wall has a very interesting article on keyword research that is definitely worth a read.
Walls Article
8 comments:
Hi Scott,
My name is Theresa and I am a Grad student here at Texas State as well in the Mass Comm department. I like this post a lot because my undergraduate and work experience is in Advertising and Advertising research.
I am also a TA for Intro to ADV and when I grade or comment on papers or ads that my students turn in, I find myself preaching this same type of argument. Most students are trying to hard to sound smart or be complicated when they don't realize they have to appeal to a mass audience. It's ALL about your audience! Using common and simple words that the majority of people understand greatly increases the likelihood of success for your advertisement. I think search works the same way - people tend to type in simple terms rather than complicated words.
When I was in undergrad, our professors taught us the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid). I am definitely going to direct my students to Google Trends when looking for commonly used words over more complex ones with the same meaning.
Cheers!
Scott - You raise an excellent point that many marketers miss. Putting your messaging in the true voice of your customer seems to be obvious, but we often forget that when developing "flashy" copy. Thanks for reminding us all about this valuble insight and giving us a tool to help get into the voice of the customer and boost those converstion rates. great stuff.
Hey Scott,
I'm a Tech Comm grad student at Texas State. I think this presents a great first step in finding the proper rhetoric for an audience, but stopping at the trending worries me a bit. It has the ring of parents listening into high school lingo and just laying slang over words they appear to substitute for without watching the context.
Don't we need to evaluate a wider context before we jump out of our comfort zone and start throwing around other groups constructed terms? I'm also curious on how many trends need to be searched to provide a decent sample. Certainly knowing rad is better than hip helps, but it doesn't put me that close to speaking in modern slang.
Ex: How many searches would be needed to get from coppers to po po in the right context for referring to police?
I don't want to sound down on the idea, but as a proposal writer, journalist, and fiction writer I find myself very sensitive to loss of cred with an audience. Thus, while I see the value, it seems more pointing toward words I should further research rather than an actual answer.
Maybe it also depends on how specific your audience constructs its identity.
-Michael
Evening, Scott,
I really like your analogy about how tools for metrics-based copywriting are like an internet thesaurus. It never occurred to me that something like that even existed!
I'm also a grad student in Mass Comm at Texas State, but I work in advertising for a newspaper. My job function is not typical for the newspaper industry, though. I'm a business analyst, so the writing I do most is for business analyses of what sells and what doesn’t.
New media and online newspaper products are the areas of my job that I know least. These are areas I want to explore thoroughly so I can be more effective in my position. I’m definitely going to look into these tools. Thank you for pointing them out!
This is an intriguing topic for study. I'm working with MTV Choose or Lose and one of the biggest challenges we have faced is getting our multimedia out to the public for people to see. Search words and tags are a major part of that. No single word is ever able to describe a visual element on a site, so it is particular importance that we include as many tags as possible for our videos, podcasts, photos and blogs. When I started the job, we had a training session with a marketer for MTV and they discussed how young people search for things on the MTV site. He used the example of Jay-Z. He said someone they used in a focus group attempted to search the rapper by only typing in "J Z" and was perplexed as to why his profile would not show up.
I feel we are allowing people to use bad spelling or shortened words to search, which encourages these errors, and I don't think that is good. Making sure the best term is used to ensure something gets more hits is fine, but when it is used as a crutch by those who don't bother to spell something out.
One thing is for sure, I'm going to use Google Trends a little more now for better search results on some of the videos I post. But I don't know about using J Z to refer to Jay-Z.
Michael,
Thanks for the comment. You make a very good point. You should never just blindly take data and use it without understanding what is behind it. The Google Trends method is just one of many ways to get started in keyword research - I agree that it is more of a research step - not a definitive answer.
I understand that in your field there is a major risk of losing credibility by trying to sound 'with the times' and getting it wrong.
In my field (Enterprise Software) it really all comes down to testing to see what works best. Google Adwords is one of the best testing tools out there in my opinion. I always test using Adwords before suggesting any changes to our website. I use it to split-test different ads with slighlty different messaging against one another and within hours I can know which ad is getting the best response from searchers. This is a way I can quickly see which messaging is resignating better with audiences. It's like having a huge focus group to test ideas. Actually, I might write my next article about how I do this.
I know I am getting way off subject here, but one way I could see you using this method would be to run some ads for one of your upcoming fiction books. You could run 2 or 3 different ads with the only thing different being the title of the book. If you ran the ads evenly you would know pretty quickly which title is the most catchy to searchers based on which one received the most clicks and could consider using this one. When people clicked your ad they could be directed to a page that had a brief overview of the book and a field for them to enter their email to be notified when it becomes available. Just a thought.
Thanks again and keep the questions and great comments coming.
Scott,
I may have hidden my more relevant thoughts by bringing up fiction. Most of my concerns more stem from my time as a propsoal writer and outreach volunteer for nonprofits.
My example had a bit of flair, but in hindsight might have distracted from the more b2b or b2g issues.
As a proposal writer working for a business that primarily sold to local and state governments (election and record management dveices and software), speaking with cred remained a key focus. Too be honest, any speaker/writer/rhetor needs to know as much as possible about why a word is key to an audience. My concern is that latching onto words outside of context can enforce the speaker as an outsider more than assist. We define ourselves in languange and misuse of a keyword is often worse than not knowing it all.
Though, when you acknowledge the use of trend tracking as a first step in further research, I am somewhat relieved at the admission. I simply would hate for anyone to start thinking this was a quick answer to more detailed research. Finding the right word is important, understanding that word's context is vital.
This hold for business, political, or social interaction.
Watching what a term like 'security' or 'closed-system' meant to an electronic voting machine producer, a county election officer, and an average voter during HAVA implementation shows how context of similar words vary by audience even in related matters.
A recent find for me is the Russian writer Bahktin and his theories on Dialogic communication. Well worth the read.
-Michael
Scott,
I am also a Grad Student here at TXState. I found this post to be very informative and valuable.
I have been reading your dialogue with Michael, and (no offense Michael) side with you. I can see both of your points. Personally, I have experience as a writer and as a copywriter (though very limited).
My area of expertise is popular music; mainly of the "independent" nature. When I am covering a band or reviewing a record I, like Michael, am very sensitive with the language I choose to describe things. When writing for Web pages with comments, I have experienced fan-cred-backlash for misusing the lingo (especially when writing to a very specific niche audience).
But as a copywriter, I agree with you. I believe we should approach the content with the same sensitivity toward language. In this case not so much for credibility, but for accuracy. I think it all comes down to, as you said, knowing your audience. If your content is aimed toward a large generic audience, such as one looking for "golf tips" I agree that the method you proposed is the best.
But, (and this is probably what Michael is talking about with the HAVA example) if you are creating content for a niche audience, this method might not be the best.
So I guess, I am saying that I agree with both of you.
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