Tag: marketing

Copywriting “Test”

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Had an interview for a Copywriting contract that required a ‘test.’

Here’s the ‘test:’

Create five (5) YouTube Channels that can “go viral,” which, according to this ‘digital marketing agency’ was “20 million views in one week,” with these prompts:

  • Create a “Seek and Find” YouTube channel.
  • Create a “Mouse Maze” YouTube channel.
  • Create a [tween] YouTube channel: “Imagine you are 13 and develop a superpower…”.

I stopped reading the “Test Deliverables” after that because this agency asked for a total of 5 unique YouTube channel ideas, their only instruction to create channels to “go viral, with 20M views weekly.” I hope the absurdity of this request is not lost on you, since about .03% of all YouTube Channels get 1M+ views on any given video.

And remember, this is a Copywriting ‘test,’ not a product development gig, which, seemingly, this marketing agency does not know a BRANDED YouTube channel actually is a product offering, and should be developed and marketed accordingly.

Five, free, viable YouTube channel ideas requiring little copy—this agency did stress an ‘attention-grabbing’ visual—including thumbnail layouts and storyboard drawings. Oh, and they required I sign an NDA saying that whatever I came up with on their ‘test’ was theirs to keep. Five (5). Free Channel ideas. Per applicant.

Their ‘test’ gave no OBJECTIVE for creating these channels—no sales goals for any company, or the channel itself to realize profitability. No reason for asking applicants to create these brain dead types of channels, other than the unmentionable of making the user the PRODUCT by selling their data, then slamming those same users with pay-per-click ads on every webpage visited forward.

The prompts in their ‘test’ were pulled from the latest trending crap on YouTube. The agency asked applicants to pile on more intellectually void baseline garbage to these senseless trending channels, following the Fire, Aim, Ready marketing method of business failure. Clearly this ‘marketing’ agency doesn’t really understand, well, marketing, assuming they were really looking for a copywriter, and not just garnering free content ideas. There are three business MARKETING reasons (not personal, ego-building social sharing) for a YouTube Channel:

  1. As a marketing/branding channel for a business.
  2. As a data collection tool for tightly targeting future marketing campaigns.
  3. Selling collected data to Affliate Marketing brokers.

Applicants for this copywriting gig were not asked to market an offering of value, nor to build a marketing campaign (or YouTube channel) for any specific targets, nor did they instruct applicants to actually create and MARKET (i.e. BRAND) a YouTube channel for any specific business. They are under the delusion if they just get “views,” they’ll get sales, which data shows is a lie (https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-2/), promoted by these very ‘digital marketing’ agencies to get clients. (https://www.ippglobal.org/post/truth-about-data-science)

Of course, after reading their ‘test,’ I turned down the prospect of consulting for them. I felt angry though, that they were not only asking for free, unique IP, but also the IP they were asking for was truly thoughtless, flat out bad marketing, sure to put more ‘digital’ garbage on the ever mounting pile of crap already on YouTube. To quell my anger, with my rejection of consulting for their agency, I included an answer to their first prompt:

Create a “Hide & Seek” YouTube Channel:

A Year of Free Beer for Finding NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER.

AR (augmented reality) game to find the bottle of famous IPA BEER (or any other idiotic thing that’s trending). Everyone 21 or older with mobile can play. AR has NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER bottles in places around each major cities, but also standard beer bottles, and area sports team logos, (even cross-sell with image placements) that ‘lead’ you to the ‘right IPA.’ First to find NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER (in any given round, which may be a week or more per round) to collect all that global data, (which then can be sold to screw us all further), wins the free beer for a year, every month getting new IPA flavors.

The TARGET USERS of this YouTube Channel will be:

  1. Lowest hanging target is the sudo-intellectual, over-educated ivy-league crowd, mostly White men; Christians, Jews, Agnostics—higher education levels; MMORPG, FPS, and MOD gamer; Software, Marketing, Admin, Finance; STEAM; democrats; mid – upper income; 21 – 60.
  2. Lazy, generally fat, FPS gamers, beer and sports-loving men. White mostly. Conservatives. Apatheist, Christians; low – mid income; blue-collar job; pensions; 18 – 65.

New Release: Lean Startup BRANDING

by jcafesin, posted in Entrepreneurship

Lean Startup BRANDING (LSB) Workbook 2, is the first marketing book to unify the marketing/branding process. LSB brings together target marketing methods with graphic design techniques, to produce smart marketing strategies and striking campaigns that uniquely brand your products, services, and company.

Bestselling author, and Stanford Marketing instructor, J. Cafesin, introduces an entirely new Branding paradigm. LSB takes you step-by-step through the branding and marketing of your new venture. Create corporate and product identity packages. Examine the fundamental principles of effective design, and learn to produce multichannel print and digital marketing campaigns that get greater response.

You must continually produce campaigns to create a thriving business. Through text, slides, challenges and projects, LSB Workbook 2 empowers entrepreneurs to CEOs with the knowledge to create and produce professional-quality digital and print marketing, that generate the greatest conversion (clicks; try; buy; subscribe).

● Learn to create a complete Corporate Identity. Establish product and/or company names, then create striking logos that can scale from social media feeds to the side of your building. Establish your startup’s voice with taglines that tout your company’s unique value.

● Study graphic design techniques, such as layout, eye-tracking, responsive grid systems, typography, and how to execute attention-grabbing branding and advertising campaigns.

● Discover the components in imagery that create visual impact, and the myriad of sources to get spectacular visual content, at little to no cost.

● Examine print and digital reproduction. Begin a visual library of high-quality images and video clips to use in your marketing efforts for both print and online campaigns.

● Review SEO (search engine optimization) techniques and best practices.

● Explore online technology, and how to increase engagement with your digital marketing efforts.

● Course projects include developing a complete identity for your offerings and startup, as well as an array of effective print and digital marketing campaigns to introduce your new offerings, and promote your business.

At the completion of LSB Workbook 2: BRANDING, you will have gained the ability to design and inexpensively produced tightly targeted, professional-quality marketing campaigns to turn your startup into a thriving, sustainable business.

https://lnkd.in/gE9h4ej

A True Email Tale

by jcafesin, posted in copywriter, copywriting, email, lean startup, Marketing

This morning I came into my office and there was an email from my husband. It was title, “The terminator is coming…” No joke. That was the exact SUBJECT LINE of his email.

I don’t care that another Terminator movie is coming out. I liked only the first and second Terminator movies, and thought the rest (and Arnold Schwarzenegger) were crap.

I didn’t open his email. I trashed it. I didn’t see the link he had inside it, but even if I did, I wouldn’t have paid attention it with his email subject line.

As I reviewed my emails, I watched the news, as I do every morning. The segment was on Boston Dynamics, a well-known robotics firm. They were showing off the agility their Atlas robot, doing a back flip! I was so blown away, it looked so real, like a person, I sent the video clip to my husband and kids. My subject line: “Totally cool robot moves!”

My husband sent me back an email, “I sent this video to you this morning.”

Hmm…he did? I didn’t see it.

“It was in the email about the terminator coming,” he wrote. “I guess I gave my email a bad title.”

—

No shit.

WORDS MATTER! Marketing/Copywriting must choose the RIGHT WORDS for the right audience to get response.