Angela opened her eyes and saw the glow of the computer screen out in the office. She looked over at the clock: 2:30AM. She sighed, crawled out of bed, put on her robe, and joined her husband in the office.
“It’s late, come to bed,” she said.
John shook his head and answered, “I wish I could, but I have to get this done.” On the screen there were two blank documents open and the company ledger.
“What are you working on?” she asked, even though she already knew.
John shook his head, looking exhausted. “Our sales are down. I’m wracking my brain for blog and newsletter ideas to get more customers. And then we have our monthly promotion. I’m just out of ideas and my brain hurts. I’m tired, and I don’t know what else to do.
“We were told in that business seminar to put up a website, have a weekly blog, send out newsletters at least once a month. Have monthly promotions. Give coupons or free stuff to attract customers. But none of it seems to be working.
“I’m just wiped. I feel like I’m spiraling down, and I just don’t know what to do. Maybe we should just close up the business and forget the whole thing.”
He sagged back into the chair. Angela hugged her defeated husband. “It’ll be okay John, let’s talk.
“I know that seminar told us all these things we needed to do on social media and print to advertise our business and get and keep customers. And they made it sound like it’s ‘easy’. But I’ve done some research, it isn’t as easy as they said.”
“But we did so well on our grand opening flyers! We got a ton of customers; stuff was flying off the shelves!” John cried.
“Yes. But now we have inventory sitting on the shelves, food expiring, and we can’t order more until we move some of this stuff. Customers are coming for the promotions, but not staying.”
“We did really great on our grand opening. But since then, things have been up and down, mostly down. I’ve tried imitating promotions from others, but that doesn’t work. And I guess I don’t have as good an imagination as I thought I did.
“It’s not your fault, no one taught us this stuff. Like I said, I’ve been researching. The stuff that we are trying to do, advertising, blogs, etc., is called ‘copy’, like ‘advertising copy’. There are professional writers out there who specialize in just this stuff. They are called, believe it or not, ‘copywriters’.”
“Oh, come on, seriously? What does this have to do with protecting our stuff legally?”
“No, not copyright like lawyers. Writing ‘copy.’ Like writing a story, story writers are authors. So, these people are copywriters.”
“OK, that’s weird, someone must have got too lazy to think up a nice title.” John laughed.
“I know, right? Anyway, these copywriters help with both print and online stuff, including positioning our website to show up higher when someone searches for us.”
“Yeah, I noticed we don’t show up in a Google search for several pages. And we don’t show up in a search for ‘pet stores in upstate Michigan’ at all.”
“I think that’s that SEO they mentioned in the seminar. I have no clue how to fix that.
“I also found that copywriters come up with blog and newsletter ideas and write promotions and articles to entice people to come check us out. So we could leave all that thinking to them.”
“Sounds like a lot of stuff. Bet they cost a lot of money.” John sighed.
“Look, we hired George to do our accounting and taxes, when I got scared that I wasn’t doing them right and we might get audited.
“And we hired Margie to do our legal work when that distributor gave us that contract that had so much gobbledygook in it that even Google couldn’t help us understand what the terms were.
“So maybe we should hire one of those copywriters to help us with this copy stuff. I bet they could help us get our customers back! And we could get our nights back and get some sleep for a change!”
John thought about it for a few moments, then nodded his head. He kissed Angela and said, “You know, you’re right. I don’t want to do this writing stuff anymore, I’m not that good at it obviously. And I’d really like to go back to testing new products for our customers and helping them find the right stuff for their pets.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Angela agreed. “Now let’s go back to bed and get some sleep before that danged alarm goes off soon!”
John and Angela soon found a copywriter who “got” their business and goals and took the burden of coming up with ideas for blogs, newsletters, and promotions off their backs. They could go back to doing what they loved, and the business thrived with happy, engaged customers.
Does this sound like you? Would you like to get the burden of ‘copy’ off your back too? Contact Farm and Pet Copywriter to come up with a plan!