marketing | DogCat Marketing

July 26, 2015

The Value Of Exceptional Copywriting

The first question that many people ask when they contact us to discuss a new marketing project isn’t about copywriting: it’s “What will it look like?”

But think of your marketing project as someone you meet online for a date. If they’re attractive you might have coffee with them a few times, maybe even drinks. But if their conversation is entirely about their ex-girlfriend, their monster truck or their recovery from alcoholism, chances are you’re going to call it quits pretty quickly.

In other words, looks aren’t everything.

Your copy is your website’s personality.

Copywriting is what engages your customers in a long-term relationship with you.

At DogCat Marketing in Longmont, developing the message and delivering it through compelling, actionable copy is something of a specialty.

Our founder is a genuinely world-class copywriter. Ex-Creative Director of several large advertising agencies, he has won awards such as the UK Business to Business Ad of the Year, and has been the lead writer on brands such as Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Microsoft in Europe, Pizza Hut, Guinness and Aspen Skiing Company.

Copywriting of that quality doesn’t come cheap. One freelance infomercial from his laptop used to cost his clients upwards of $20,000. Plus a percentage of sales. (Before he realized that writing infomercials made him a soulless monster whose only worth in life was measured in email opens.)

You get his copywriting services included when you work with DogCat Marketing.

That means that your blog posts look as though they’re written for humans… even though every word is chosen to give Google a good reason to index you. It means your home page has a call to action, and a reason to act. It means that your small business gets the same loving wordplay that international banking conglomerates have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to access.

It means that the social media contagious content marketing strategies that we employ reflect your brand and the real people who are behind it. Instead of sounding like a corporate shill, you’ll be able to express yourself as a member of the community – they may be our words, but it’s your philosophy that comes through in our work.

Copywriting is key to the success of a great marketing campaign. Which is why it pays to work with people who have done it for 25 years, and who know that superior writing is persuasive, engaging, and memorable.

Oooh! Oooh! That’s us!

July 3, 2015

#69 In The World: Contagious Content Marketing

We recently ranked in the Top 100 Community Pages in the world on Facebook – less than seven months after launching The Longmont Compass.

We did it in a small community, with relatively few fans, and with a budget of approximately $11 a day.

And we did it all with one singular focus on creating contagious content that truly engaged our community – without a single repost, or ha-ha lifted from someone else’s page, or shocking Upworthy piece of clickbait. Well, with ONE shocking Upworthy piece of clickbait, but that was just an experiment.

Contagious content creates value.

In a marketplace lacking in trust, we’re honest, we treat our audience as adults, and we don’t fear the fact that sometimes we piss people off. We’re ok with that. The fact is, most businesses are so terrified of upsetting a single customer or onlooker, that they forget that the only real victim of honesty is dishonesty. And we’ve always said that dishonesty in marketing is not actually a good thing. And our honesty has caused our fans to share, share, share!

The Longmont Compass has completely changed the media landscape in Longmont. And the only marketing we’ve done has been on the one site where most people spend most time. We’ve gone from zero to 69th in the world just by being good at creating contagious content people want to read.

We can do that for you too, if you ask nicely.

(The contagious content, that is: breaking the top 100 might be tougher…)

June 30, 2015

Let’s Get Real: Social Media Marketing For Beginners

We won’t waste our time trying to convince you that social media marketing is important for a business. If you don’t believe it, we can recommend dozens – maybe hundreds – of articles, studies, and think-pieces that all reach the same conclusion: by and large, businesses need to use social media for marketing and advertising.

If you’re investing in advertising your business, but have been neglecting the major social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest), you should consider spending time and dollars developing a presence there. It’s easy to start, and if you don’t want to pay for a fancy advertising copywriter, you can do it on the cheap by managing it yourself. (Qwerty, the pooch at the top of this article is doing that, but he has no marketing message. Or opposable thumbs. Silly Qwerty… )

Even if you don’t know anything about social media marketing strategy or how to create the kind of contagious content that we’re so good at here at DogCat Marketing, there are really only a couple of things you need to start: a computer, social media accounts, and one simple rule. (Ok, you’ll need to know how to post to different social media platforms, too. If you don’t know how, find the nearest millenial, and give them dubstep music or superhero movies in exchange for some guidance).

The one rule to rule them all: keep it rule— ah, real. Keep it real.

It’s the coolest of salutations from the 90’s (followed closely by “Catch you on the flipside!”), and it’s what we’ll tell any business owner – client or not – to do when they start using social media marketing for their business. When it comes to these social platforms, the best voice that a company – especially small businesses – can have is an authentic and familiar one. It’s the voice of the business owner, the employees, and the business. It’s simple; It’s obvious; It’s easy; It works.

It boils down to what social media sites are used for; it’s not called social media for nothing. As of last January, 74% of U.S. adults use one or more social media sites, with an overwhelming majority (71%) using at least Facebook. It’s this popularity that makes it such an ideal place to advertise – it’s where the people are, and it’s become a major part of socialization in general. Social media offer businesses the ability to advertise and share content with their fans and potential customers in line with updates from those fans’ friends and family. Done correctly, the lines between friends and family and businesses on social media will blur.

It’s this that makes authenticity paramount to social media marketing success. Use your own personality to inform your social marketing. Instead of getting on Facebook and affecting a marketing voice, use the platform to create relationships and connections with fans. People don’t like to know that they’re being sold to; it feels cheap, and they run into enough ads from Coca Cola and Microsoft online, anyway.

Create content they’ll enjoy. Did you get a new product in that you’re excited about? Post a photo to Facebook and tell everyone why you’re excited. Did you see a double rainbow from the front door? Put it on Instagram. Hear a great joke about your business? Tweet it. Let your fans know that you’re a real person with a sense of humor, likes and dislikes, and show them that you know your business.

And whenever you’re posting, just remember the most important rule of social media marketing: keep it real.

If you don’t, somebody else will…

Can’t quite find your voice? Give us a call at (720) 588-2007. We can sit down with you to talk about your current social media efforts and figure out where you need to go from here. If you want to pass the social media responsibility onto someone else, we can manage your profiles for you… And we won’t let Qwerty anywhere near the keyboard.