Conrad Winter Copywriter

No one wants to do business with a computer, or have a relationship with a robot. It’s creepy. 

That’s why it’s important to keep your web copy, content, case studies and email communications personal. 

That’s not an easy task as companies become more digital and virtual. Nevertheless, making your writing personal is my number one tip for providing great customer experience (CX) through words. In doing so, you appeal to the emotional side of prospects, and that’s what creates a customer experience that builds strong bonds to your brand. 

Getting personal means thinking of your readers as people.

When writing for the customer’s experience, the most important things to keep in mind are their needs, problems and concerns. Provide a positive experience by being completely focused on their realities. Here are four ways:

• Write for humans, not for robots—No one ever read a post and exclaimed: “I love the SEO of this piece, it’s so good!”
• Rant for a reason. Yes, railing against fuel prices or unfair public policies can be attention-getting. But it’s better to give readers advice or information they can use like I did in this post for Trimble Transportation (formerly TMW Systems) about a recent court ruling affecting California’s motor carriers. 
• Use your superpowers of cleverness for good—i.e. not just to impress me.
• Keep it fresh. Don’t insult your readers by regurgitating old posts or your boilerplate copy.

So what does “getting personal” mean in practical terms?

It means letting your drivers, dispatchers or software developers author blog posts. It means fearlessly telling your founding story of how your company grew from one milkman to a fleet of truck drivers. It means boldly telling about your company’s quirky location—or that you’re a virtual company without a headquarters. 

People make up the heart and soul of your brand and your company. It stands to reason that prospects what to know those people. 

There are real humans behind your business, no matter how virtual you are. Letting people know who you are does lots of good things:

1. Builds trust—I mean, don’t you trust people more than machines? (Remember Hal from 2001 Space Odyssey?)
2. Differentiates you—the product is the way it is because of the people who made it. How they are, their ethics, their passions and all the rest say everything about the product.
3. Compels prospects to treat you humanely—people don’t treat faceless companies the same as humans. Need proof? When’s the last time you thanked Siri or Alexa? 

CX is PX…Personal Experience.

Being personal means being friendly. Professional, yes. But friendly too. It’s possible to be both. How many people do you know who you can count with your life and who are actually nice, too? See? Keeping a conversational tone in your writing accomplishes that. 

Who doesn’t love a conversational CX?

Writing conversationally often involves letting your company’s guard down. That’s what we do when we converse with people we know. We speak easily. That’s what people like. They also like to be charmed and entertained—never simply sold at. So be a good friend and tell your prospects a story about a challenging load you hauled and the details of how you delivered like heavy-haulers, Bennett IG did in this post I wrote for them. In short – indulge your readers. 

People don’t read anymore, but they do experience.

Writing for CX can be hard when everyone on your team is pontificating about the economy of words and how no one reads or has any time anymore. To those who believe this, I have this message: people will read as much as you can write, as long as it’s entertaining or interesting or both. Storytelling is not fluff; It’s the stuff prospects and customers remember the best – because it’s the part they like the most.

Writing readable, enjoyable, useful copy is a big part of providing great CX today. What sort of experience are you providing your customers?

Use referrals, case studies, and video to demonstrate proof of performance.

Perhaps the greatest takeaway I received at the recent Transportation Sales and Marketing Association conference came during the shipper panel. It was the opportunity to listen to a panel of prominent decision-makers live and unfiltered. The panel members are part of a very elusive and mysterious group. To put it another way: it’s hard to get through to this group—and rare to have the opportunity to hear what they think.

So what was this great takeaway I received? It came from Troy Turner of Unilever who was answering the question, what it takes to become a shipping partner of choice?

He answered that it came down to “ease of doing business.”

In other words, how easy is it to do business with a transportation provider? A consideration that he admitted can only be demonstrated by actually working with the transportation partner in question.

His answer had most of us in the audience scratching our heads. But Turner was kind and didn’t abandon us to chase chicken-and-egg scenarios. He gave a couple of workarounds for demonstrating how easy it is to do business with your company…without actually doing business with your company, that is.

Referrals are the next best thing to proof of performance.

They’re golden to Turner. Get a referral from the right colleague and you’re in.

Referrals are powerful, but there are different ways to leverage this power—some more nuclear than others. An email introduction can open the lines of communication for you, but what if you took it a step further and asked a happy client to call your prospect directly? The extra effort would speak volumes about your client’s esteem for you while making the referral more personal. A voicemail from your client would have a similar personal appeal, and might be an easier ask.

The only thing about referrals…they can be hard to get. Plus they’re a one-time single use tactic. I mean you can’t expect to get a referral for every prospect.

Second best is case studies.

Turner values case studies that demonstrate how companies have addressed challenges and how they’ve worked with other companies. This tracks with what I’m seeing; carriers, logistics companies and NYSHEX are consistently asking me to write case studies that demonstrate how they help clients overcome their challenges and that bring their services to life. They’re also maximizing their use by repurposing them in blog posts, newsletters and white papers. Another nice thing about case studies is their staying power. Post them on your website and they’ll work hard for you for a long time.

So how else could you demonstrate ease of doing business?

Turner’s comments inspired me to consider what other alternatives are available to marketers who want to prove their value to prospects.

Don’t forget case studies’ little brother, testimonials.

Quick, scannable, 2^ndperson endorsements can create instant credibility for you. They have powerful name-dropping appeal, and their short format makes them great for home pages, inserting into emails and lots of other things. Always ask a happy client to give you a blurb. (Tip: ask right after you’ve done something great for them.)

Show ‘em in a video.

In the absence of great case studies, it came to me that another way you could demonstrate ease of doing business would be to capture the experience in moving pictures. Show your people working on a real problem. Demonstrate your processes. Provide visual proof of your standards. And introduce viewers to your culture. A lot of times these things are better shown than said anyway.

Aim for a case study on every project.

When you complete an engagement, ask your client if you can feature them. Better yet, during the project, plant the seed of a case study by mentioning that your client has a great story to tell and a lot of people would benefit from hearing it. Sometimes it takes a while for clients to give you the go-ahead, so ask early and pitch the idea in an appealing way, In other words, tell them how innovative, daring and agile it will make them look.

Need help keeping the case studies flowing?

I know the ropes from conducting successful interviews to creating a unique case study style for your brand—as well as the many ways you can promote and repurpose your great stories. Let’s talk. Email me to arrange a short call, or click here to see some samples.

(Part 2 of my 3-part guide to writing genuinely customer-focused website copy.)

Are you talking to yourself? 

I feel like I should interrupt, but I don’t want to be rude. It’s an easy trap to fall into when it comes to the copy on your website. We spend so much time defining a mission and identifying the ideal niche. All that strategic stuff, the inwardly-focused stuff, takes time and effort. Once it’s time to move to the actual pages of your site, you want to use it. I get it.

But you’ve got to put it aside and get customer-focused on every single page. Otherwise, you could end up with a website that suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder. Welcome to Part 2 of my 3-part guide to writing genuinely customer-focused website copy. Read on to learn how to bring visitor-centricity to the web pages that matter most.

Home Page: Wemember the weader.

The success of your home page hinges on how well you express the 3Ws (what you do, for whom and why you’re different). Be clear, as in stick to your key message and the big benefit it brings. Be creative, as in not strategic-sounding. And be empathetic, as in address your customers’ pain points and help them to envision themselves using your product or service.

(Insider tip: To ensure every word you write is relevant to your readers, tape your buyer persona to the wall right in front of you. Look at it before, during and after you write. (And if you haven’t done a buyer persona, just visualize your ideal customer, and write to them.)

The About Page: Make it all about them.

There are many ways to spin the story of your company. The best is the one that imparts the biggest benefit to visitors. Yes, accentuate your positives, tell a personal story (not just a timeline) and find an interesting angle—but most importantly, make your “about us” actually “about them.”

Services Page: It’s better to lose them than confuse them.

Your website plays an important role in bringing you qualified leads—ones who know what you’re selling and are interested in buying. So be clear in explaining what you offer, even if it means alienating the visitors who aren’t a good match—it will save you the expense of following up on unqualified leads. You can’t be all things to all visitors, so be the best candidate for your ideal customers.

Direct visitors to the information they need in a quick scan or in the least number of clicks possible. But remember: being clear doesn’t mean being generic. Your job isn’t to make yourself dismissible; it’s to make sure the value of your unique features comes through loud and clear. So market to your visitors. If you feel the need to expand on points or offer substantiation (e.g. testimonials, case studies or research) provide a link.

Why Me Page: Don’t be afraid to sell.

There are times when prospects need (nay, want!) to be sold; they need you to tell them your service rocks, that it will most definitely work for them and no other option they’re looking out will deliver the results you can. Your Why Me Page provides you the opportunity to inspire confidence and excitement.

But be careful not to let narcissism grab the wheel and turn visitors off. All of the information you provide should address prospects’ hot points – just telling them you’re an award-winning service provider isn’t enough. For everything about you that’s great, tell them why it matters to them.

Careers Page: Let them in.

People pick jobs for a lot of reasons other than the compensation package and company’s prestige. Think of the best job you ever landed. What was it that made you fall in love with the company in the first place? If you’re like most people, it was some personal connection you made, whether it was with a person you gelled with, a workplace feature that felt like home or the opportunity you saw to make a difference. In short, the clincher is often something that you connected with. It wasn’t, “This place is so vanilla. I know I’ll love it here.”

No, somewhere in the recruitment process, the organization let you in by letting its guard down. Whether it was some character that you met, some kooky tradition you learned about or that peanut butter machine they put in the breakroom. So be bold and let your company’s credentials shine, but also let them see your company’s humanity.

Other pages: show how well you know them.

Visitors want to know you “get” them. With the myriad other options out there, they won’t have it any other way. Know your market and write to them at the risk of losing people who aren’t in your market. Seth Godin refers to it as reaching the weird outliers who make super fans and brand advocates. Those are the people you want. Talk to them.

Want more pointers for sharpening the customer focus of your website copy? Read Part 1 of my series for general tips, or read Part 3 to see how to write CTAs, navigation terms and more with genuine persona-appeal.

Want to talk website copy? I’m all ears.

Contact me to set up a webside chat. We’ll talk about your goals and see if I can help. Just reach out and I’ll suggest some times.