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Allow me to start with the obvious. A copywriter needs to write well.
Don’t let the simplicity of this skill deceive you. To be a good writer means mastery of a lot of different things like grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
These features are important but only get your foot in the door. I would say that those skills, crucial as they are, aren’t as important as these advanced skills:
Writing powerful headlines is a craft unto its own. Since the dawn of modern marketing, consumers and marketers both have realized how powerful these bits of copy are.
Remember, “Five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.” A wasted headline was a waste of 90% of the marketing budget.
3. Awareness of user experienceCopywriting is way more than putting words onto a screen.
Those words show up somewhere – on a mobile device, within a blog template, on Facebook, in Twitter, etc. All that copy has to fit within its cognitive and digital context.
That context and situation that influence the copy is called user experience. Let me explain.
Some people insist that copywriters have to know all about SEO, conversion rate optimization, web design, and UX testing. Those are great skills to have, but if we require writers to possess all those skills, then we wouldn’t find very many qualified writers.
Instead of setting the bar so high on technical requirements, I would suggest that writers be aware of user experience.
I define user experience as “how someone interacts with, feels about, and uses your website. It describes the overall interaction between human and website.” User experience has a lot of ramifications. It impacts content, design, conversions, search, and everything in between.
4. SpecializationGone are the days when you could simply hire a freelance writer from Craigslist and expect stellar results. Granted, some writers can learn quickly about an industry and produce expert-level content.
Increasingly, however, the task of content creation is only possible from someone who has deep experience within the niche.
Let’s take a random example. For a SaaS sales and marketing blog, can you hire a generalist writer to produce in-depth, detailed articles on advanced topics? Probably not. Unless the writer has experience with average MRR churn rates, LTV calculations, or expected CACs within a niche, producing a great piece of content is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Writers need experience and specialization.
5. Marketing awarenessThe writer always should be aware that he or she is in the marketing industry. The idea of a T-shaped marketer holds true for writers as well as other marketing specializations.
Writers, for example, have deep experience in content, but they should have a passing familiarity with other features of marketing.
When the writer realizes that her role fits neatly within the broader realm of content, digital marketing, and marketing as a whole, it helps her produce more compelling and strategic content.
Most of the companies teaches, trains, and assists organizations with their content marketing efforts, the more I realize that nothing great ever seems to occur unless there is a super star behind the wheel within the organization. And in most cases, this person is referred to as a Content Marketing Manager (CMM) or possibly a Chief Content Officer, but ultimately, the name isn’t what matters.
Instead, what matters is that they(the organization) have one in the first place.
And once they do have one, they need to be good.
But what defines “good” in this case? What skill-sets should you be looking for, especially if you’re at the point where you’re seeking to fill this position within your company? Here are what I have found to be the 10 essential qualities of every successful content marketing manager, a list we use every time my team is tasked with hiring a CMM for an organization.
Ten essential Qualities of Great Content Marketing Managers, train your team based on these concepts and you make them better
1. They love to write: This one goes without saying, but it’s a BIG deal. And remember, “writing” online isn’t just about fancy words. It’s about clean communication—done in a way so that just about any reader can understand what’s being said. As I always say, great writers and communicators don’t try to sound smart, which is never the goal of content marketing. Rather, they seek “communion,” and it’s this quality that makes them great.
2. They are skilled at editing: When companies leverage their existing employees to produce textual and video content (insourcing), the initial product can at times be “rough” But great content managers can take what is a “5” in terms of quality and make it a “9” or “10”—doing their best to make the original source as clear and concise as possible for the reader.
3. They have excellent interview skills: This is HUGE. Because insourcing is such a big deal these days, subject matter experts are spread out all over companies, big and small. A great content marketing manager understands how to sit down with these people (and vendors as well) and ask the right questions to stimulate content that teaches, helps, and informs readers.
4. They embrace social media and “get it:” It goes without saying that social media is here to stay. Furthermore, it goes without saying those people that “don’t like” social media tend not to do incredible things when trying to build traffic, leads and sales through said media
5. They have solid video editing skills: Video just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Heck, for a bunch of our clients at TSL, video is way more important than text when it comes to producing a heavy amount of content while attempting to utilize employees—especially those persons in the sales department.
6. They are extremely likeable: You may have heard me talk about the massive success of Krista Kotrla before, Chief Content Officer of Block Imaging. Well, amongst the many reasons Krista is wildly successful has to do with her likeability factor. Her company’s employees love her. She brightens up their day, she has their respect, and because of this they are quick to help with content marketing.
When it comes down to it, unlikeable people make AWFUL content marketing managers.
7. They understand what makes people tick: Again, when it comes to using employees as sources of content, knowing how to get said employees motivated and inspired is critical. This is exactly why the best CCOs know how to push the right buttons and get their employees the needed “boost” to contribute to the company’s marketing and sales goals.
8. They are organized and goal oriented: Content marketing, especially when done in businesses of any size, needs to haveorder. This starts with a main editorial calendar and continues with newsletters, trainings, interviews, etc.
9. They love analytics, numbers, and measurement: As I’ve worked so closely to so many business owners and marketers on the content marketing over the last few years, I keep seeing a simple trend:
Those persons that pay attention to the numbers get WAY more results.
This is also why a content marketing manager eventually needs to be skilled with not just Google Analytics, but also other tools, like a HubSpot, Infusionsoft, etc.
10. They are constantly thinking outside the box: Look around at the greatest content marketing examples and I’ll show you creativity and unique thinking every time. Fact is, the best ones in this industry aren’t looking for a set of “rules” or a “road map” that tells them exactly what they need to do next.
Instead, they just get stuff done, however they possibly can, and often with some serious creativity acting as the catalyst to success.
Allow me to start with the obvious. A copywriter needs to write well.
Don’t let the simplicity of this skill deceive you. To be a good writer means mastery of a lot of different things like grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
These features are important but only get your foot in the door. I would say that those skills, crucial as they are, aren’t as important as these advanced skills:
A writer doesn’t need to be a grammar tyrant to be skillful. After all, that’s why we see benefits from spell-checkers and copy editors.
2. Headline creationWriting powerful headlines is a craft unto its own. Since the dawn of modern marketing, consumers and marketers both have realized how powerful these bits of copy are.
David Ogilvy (1911-1999) wrote, “Five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.” He believed that a wasted headline was a waste of 90% of the marketing budget.
Contemporary research has confirmed Ogilvy’s conjectures. According to studies, 80% of viewers read the headline but not the body copy. Heat maps typically indicate that people pay attention to pictures and headlines.
Some types of headlines have become predictably clickable. Number-driven headlines are popular on sites like BuzzFeed for good reason. They work.
Formulas for writing headlines don’t make the job any simpler. Headlines should be unique because people don’t want to read the same thing again. Headlines also need to be short. Most search results won’t show more than 65 characters of a headline.
Article headlines appear in a variety of places. A Facebook audience may not respond to a given headline in the same way that a Twitter audience might respond. Headlines may have to be customized according to where they will be distributed.
If writers can’t create great headlines, then it almost doesn’t matter how good they are. Nobody is going to read the content unless the headline is compelling.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU:Increase Content Marketing Success With Helpful Headline Tips & Tools 3. Awareness of user experienceCopywriting is way more than putting words onto a screen.
Those words show up somewhere – on a mobile device, within a blog template, on Facebook, in Twitter, etc. All that copy has to fit within its cognitive and digital context.
That context and situation that influence the copy is called user experience. Let me explain.
Some people insist that copywriters have to know all about SEO, conversion rate optimization, web design, and UX testing. Those are great skills to have, but if we require writers to possess all those skills, then we wouldn’t find very many qualified writers.
Instead of setting the bar so high on technical requirements, I would suggest that writers be aware of user experience.
I define user experience as “how someone interacts with, feels about, and uses your website. It describes the overall interaction between human and website.” User experience has a lot of ramifications. It impacts content, design, conversions, search, and everything in between.
Instead of telling writers to know all about SEO, I would advise them to focus on the user. Use the words (keywords) that make sense based on the user, the topic, the focus of the blog, and all the other relevant features of the context.
Does the writer need to know about keyword density, semantic relevance, content silos, structured data markup, internal linking structure, and anchor text dilution? Maybe. And it sure wouldn’t hurt. But are these requirements? No.
If the writer focuses on the user, then many of the SEO issues will start to take care of themselves.
What about conversion optimization? Even in this case, focusing on the user naturally enhances the process of improving the conversion rate. The same holds true for elements of web design.
The essential skills of the copywriter don’t have to include SEO, CRO, and UXD. The writer simply needs to have a laser-like focus on creating the best content for the user.
4. SpecializationGone are the days when you could simply hire a freelance writer from Craigslist and expect stellar results. Granted, some writers can learn quickly about an industry and produce expert-level content.
Increasingly, however, the task of content creation is only possible from someone who has deep experience within the niche.
Let’s take a random example. For a SaaS sales and marketing blog, can you hire a generalist writer to produce in-depth, detailed articles on advanced topics? Probably not. Unless the writer has experience with average MRR churn rates, LTV calculations, or expected CACs within a niche, producing a great piece of content is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Writers need experience and specialization.
5. Marketing awarenessThe writer always should be aware that he or she is in the marketing industry. The idea of a T-shaped marketer holds true for writers as well as other marketing specializations.
Writers, for example, have deep experience in content, but they should have a passing familiarity with other features of marketing.
I agree with the detailed answers from my colleagues, and I might add some brief comment.
Make sure they know the product they are selling very well and by that you will ensure they will write a very good information about the product, that combined with some training on how the potential buyers thing it will make them have better targeting ability to what would be a good buyer.
1)Practical training by encouraging them to processing and review the responses and the use of who is the highest experience when difficult for them to anything, or when they do not know the answer and the correct information T-awaited client
2)Spelling and grammatical errors are no longer a major concern, there are many programs that help them to correct the mistakes
3)Continuous training to raise the personal skill level in the dialogue and earn the other party and to calm him down if angry and very important that the rear they have a sense of positive criticism aimed at learning from others or errors even from their mistakes are, it does not make mistakes do not learn because he did not have originally audacity to run for any learning experience for the experience The new skill
4)Deal calmly and gentle with any one makes mistakes and don't to embarrass him in front of his colleagues or reprimand him in public because this will kill the spirit of communication and make him delay the response and hesitation and looking for the safest for him to avoid the punishment, you need him to look for how to communicate and for the best reputation of the company and the satisfaction or desire of the customer
by orientation and training them
make focus with them to develop themselves then marketing and social media
By first making them aware about the product or service the content is based on (and by aware I mean giving them complete knowledge of the benefits, shortcomings and features of the product/service).
Once that is done, better writing can be achieved through:
1. Not interfering in the creatitivity and offering full degree of freedom to content writers.
2.Periodic review of contents from competitors, then finding if those can be topped.
Provide the content and information where they can learn from. Make sure they understand the subject well. Devote your time to teach them.
By personalizing training! Make them better by utilizing skills they already have. Taking interest in your own employees is never a bad thing!
Thanks,
ampronix.com
