5 ways a copywriter can help grow your small business

 

Website copy

Businesses that have a website have a huge advantage over those that don’t. I’ve come across loads of small businesses that rely only on a Facebook Page or Instagram account, and it always makes me cringe a little bit inside. Sure, they seem to be managing…ok. But in my view, not having a proper online presence makes the brand feel cheap. It gives the impression that you don’t care about being professional, and kind of feels shoddy.

I’m not saying this to shame anybody – but having a simple website can be pretty cheap. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Even a simple sales page and a blog can work effectively enough.

Even if you do opt for the DIY website option, though, I’d recommend getting some help with the content. It’s really not that expensive, and you get so much value from it. Because a copywriter is well-versed not only in what to write, but is also an expert on things like SEO, keyword placement, internal and external linking, etc. All the stuff that will help your site to rank, in other words.

Blog posts

Ooh, I could wax lyrical for ages about blogging! I LOVE it! Let me tell you why…

In order for a website to be successful (i.e., liked by Google), you need to have fresh content. If left to its own devices, and with static pages that are never updated, Google will stop noticing it. As far as the bots know, your business is no longer in operation. Perhaps you haven’t updated it because you’ve gone out of business. So it stops ranking it, favouring those sites that have updated their pages more recently.

What’s this got to do with blogging? Well, if you can post to your blog frequently, Google sees that the site is active and scans it to see if it’s relevant, before deciding where to rank it. Google likes it when you freshen things up regularly, and so you'll find that the first page of Google is more than likely adorned with consistently fresh content, usually via a blog page.

Blogging is hands down the most valuable thing you can do for your marketing – and it’s not just about the Google rankings, but it makes the rest of your content creation so much simpler, too.

If you think about your blog posts as the core, or the backbone of your content plan, everything else you choose to do is made really easy. You can use your blog posts to create all of your other content, by taking snippets for social media posts, as a script for a video, to make a podcast, and as the subject for your email newsletters. And it takes very little effort to do that – you can even get AI to assist, as long as you know how to prompt it correctly.

A good copywriter will be able to not only write regular blog posts for you, but also help you to create a content plan, do all the SEO work, and come up with ideas that will work for your business and drive traffic to your website.

Newsletters/emails

Email newsletters are effective for two reasons:

Every person on your email list has opted to be there. That means that they already have some knowledge of who you are and what you do, and they are ‘warm’ as far as leads go. The people on your email list are happy to receive mail from you, and are more likely to buy from you.

While marketing through social media is free, simple, and accessible to everyone, you don’t own any of the content on it, and your followers are less likely to be loyal to you. Yeah, it’s kind of important to have some kind of social presence, but it’s more about driving traffic to your website or getting people onto your email list, rather than selling directly from the platforms.

At any point, you could face losing your following, or indeed your account, which makes having solely a social media marketing plan very risky.

In contrast, no one can ever take your email list away from you. It belongs to you, and for the reasons stated earlier, is the best way to connect with people who are loyal to you.

I’d recommend that any business start building an email list and set up regular email newsletters. It’s really not as scary as it sounds!

Social media posts

Ah! Social media! Where would we be without it?

It’s true that when we think of online marketing, the first place we’re likely to invest our time and effort is in social media presence. It’s simple, it’s convenient, it’s free, and we know that most of the planet is absolutely addicted to it. So it follows that if we post on social, it’s likely that the people that want to buy from us will be there.

OK, so it’s not quite that simple - if it were, we’d all be filthy rich. A copywriter can help you to post regularly, even if it’s one day a week. And because we do this day in and day out, we can help you to plan out a proper schedule that works for you.

eBooks

While this might not be for everyone, writing an eBook can be an amazing marketing tool. I’m not talking about a 1000-page novel here, but even a shortform 8-pager can serve as a fantastic lead magnet, whether you want to offer that as a free resource or as something that earns you a bit of cash.

If you’ve got a book in you, maybe a copywriter can help you to bring it into existence!