Honor Clement-Hayes

Writing app notifications is super hard. Let me TELL you – it’s hard.

It’s one of the only places in an app (filled with nice, functional micro copy) that you can get across some tone.

But not at the expense of clicks.

I was once an influencer. Strictly small scale, but I was sent free clothes in return for blog posts by a variety of companies.

This was way back in the early days of retailers using influencers (bloggers, as we were called then) to shill their products.

Back then, we did a bit more than snap a picture and chuck in a hashtag – but I digress.

Much has changed in influencer marketing, and not for the better.

I went through a phase of writing without giving SEO factors much thought. Quality content would surely carry the day!

You know what – it wasn’t a bad strategy. But this ranking lark only gets harder and more competitive and more expensive. In 2018, there are still a few SEO factors that I actively worry about and write to.

Your customers know authenticity. And they know when you’re faking it.

Over the last couple of months, millions of people voiced their opinion about Scarlett Johansson playing a trans character. She quit the film. This week, it’s Jack Whitehall – cast as a gay man when he is, in fact, straight.

Everyone’s timelines are full.

Trying to compete with this noise is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. And – dare I say it – unnecessary.

Your social media strategy should recognise your platforms as customer service first, engagement second and vanity project nowhere.

Web chat is a great way to grab people and get them to where they need to be FAST. Instead of a customer having to search for confirmation that you have what they’re looking for, they can ask.

Another side of it: never underestimate how little your customers want to talk to you. If they can avoid waiting on hold, awkward small talk and ummm ummm ummming while they scrabble for their order number, you bet a lot of people will take that option.

I’m a big fan of cognitive biases – how most humans subconsciously make the same assumptions and errors of judgement. They’re little warnings to check yourself and try to avoid the herd mentality we all imagine we don’t share.

Mostly though, people don’t have the time or inclination to investigate cognitive biases. Which is good, because it means YOU can, and then use them to make your products and marketing more attractive. It’s kinda like manipulation but it can be used for good as well as .evil.

Instagram announced last week that it will be increasing most users’ video length limits from one minute to 10 minutes.

In bigger news, Insta will also be launching a brand-new video platform for longer content called IGTV.

The mission: to steal YouTube’s frantically-popular teen vloggers.

A referral scheme gives you the best chance of getting more customers just like the ones you already have and love the most.

Once you’ve reached someone who liked you enough to buy from you, wouldn’t it be great to then infect all their friends with the same love bug?

Let’s get into referral schemes.

Heal the pain point, win the customer.

In well-established industries, we can forget that there are new people finding out how things work every day.

Yes, people who have taken out a mortgage know how awful the process can be and have accepted it – but first-time buyers don’t and haven’t.

There will always be new people to dismay. Imagine if your business did it differently.

‘Focus groups’ is a phrase that makes people nod wisely and worry about the extra thousands you just added to the budget.

They can be, and often are, a complete box-ticking waste of time.

If done well, they can save you from making an expensive mistake or even form the entire message for selling your product. If done poorly, you just paid a lot of money to sit in a drab conference room with a group of strangers for 90 minutes.

To name your business these days, you have to spend hours trawling through domain names, social media handles and thesauruses.
Because everything is TAKEN.
Nearly.
There are still some gems to be dug up if you’re smart – but finding the brand name you’ll have to live with for years ain’t easy.
5 steps to get your business name sorted:
1. Make a list of words you’d like people to say about your business
That’s the flavour you want your brand name to deliver. Give new customers a little taste o...

We all need a bit of grammar and punctuation.

In a small business, you often end up writing even if you’re not a writer. It doesn’t matter how many times you mutter at the bin, “I’m not a writer, though” – someone’s got to do it.
Good accuracy in writing can mean the difference between a customer trusting you and thinking you look dodgy.

The terms involved with grammar and punctuation don’t matter; you just need to be able to look out for the mistakes they refer to. Then you can look it up.

When I was a little copywriter, I drafted web copy in Word. I saved the documents in a special folder and my boss would go and review them.

Then I would painstakingly code it up with basic HTML tags in our website Content Management System (CMS).

These days, I just don’t have time for that. Do not. Have time. Or a boss, for that matter.

I used to believe quite passionately that the best keyword research was no keyword research.

I’d just seen too much of the wrong KIND of keyword research, so I tarred it all with the same brush: black hat, spammy nonsense.

I’ve seen the light now but only because I developed my own method that I was comfortable with.