Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

“Liz Craig is wicked smart and a wizard with words. Do your brand a favor and hire her.”
— Joleen K David on Jul 28, 2011

When I moved to Omaha in 1985, I worked as an Associate Creative Director for 19 hellish months at Bozell & Jacobs. I won’t go into detail, but let me say I was not the only creative there who was suffering the slings and arrows of an outrageous GM who crumbled and ate writers and art directors for breakfast like Frosted Mini-Wheats. Nearly everyone in the creative department was taking Xanax, seeing shrinks, or nurturing ulcers.

So it was a sweet relief to be let go during a mass layoff. My art director partner and I rolled our stuff out to the parking lot in a mail cart, and we laughed and laughed and laughed at our great good fortune to have been set free from whatever ring of Dante’s Inferno we’d been inhabiting.

I took the next couple of months off enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas, and glory be! in January, I got hired at a local ad agency called Smith Kaplan Allen & Reynolds, aka SKAR. My colleague and head of the writers was the kind of woman some women might hate because they’re jealous. A delightfully smart, funny, gorgeous woman named Joleen. I respected her in every way—for her brains, for her client savvy, for her superb strategic thinking and writing, and most of all, for her wacky sense of humor.

These days, we keep in touch via email, and I’ve been back a couple of times to see her and the agency. As the daughter of Wayne Smith, the Smith in Smith Kaplan, now she’s heading up the agency. Under her guidance, the place has been transformed from what was a rather dowdy cubicle city to a cool, sleek, inviting haven for some of the best creatives in the Midwest. Joleen is a natural leader/innovator, and she follows the David Ogilvy philosophy of trying to hire people who are smarter than she is. Which is nearly impossible. But she finds good people and draws the very best out of them.

So thanks, Joleen, for the great recommendation, so many years since I ended my 10-year stint at SKAR., Sometimes I wish I’d stayed, but Kansas City lured me back home, and 15 years and three agencies later, here I am, happily freelancing and recalling the good people and good times at SKAR.

Joleen, I hope you continue to have fun, make money, and always remember me. I’ll remember you, I promise.

If you’re an independent creative working from home, do you ever feel like a latter-day Jacob Marley, your clanking chains making you the prisoner of your computer? Or like chain-gang member Woody Allen in “Take the Money and Run?” (If you like to laugh, please check it out.) Or have you broken your bonds, like escapee Paul Muni in “I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang?”

The reason I feel compelled to sit at my desk all day is that most jobs come to me via email, and some must be done post-haste. So when I have to go to the grocery store or pharmacy, I feel as if I’m playing hooky, and I high-tail it back home as soon as I can to check my email.

To feel a captive in one’s own office is not good. There’s a whole wide world out there waiting to be explored! So how can I get out there more?

First idea was to get a smartphone, so I could tell when email came in, and whether I needed to tend to it right away. FAIL! Got a paygo plan that offered a free Samsung phone. Now I know why the phone was free! It stinks. Oh, yes, you can check email, but it takes flippin’ (as dear Sarah P. would say) forever. And the batteries hold power like a sieve holds water.

Okay, I know some people who have ditched their landlines and gotten iPhones or other smartphones that let them do everything but clip their toenails with them, but am I ready for that? I have both cell phone and landline, the equivalent of wearing suspenders with a belt. But someone pointed out to me that if you only have a cell phone, when the power to the cell tower goes out, you have no phone. HELP! No phone at all?

Right now isn’t the best time to think about going out on the town, or in the town, actually. I’m preparing to move a certain amount of my stuff from my 4-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom apartment nearby. Right-sizing my lifestyle. Problem is, I’ve inherited a lot of stuff (beautiful dishes, linens, etc.) from two generations before me, that I never use. Like my mother before me, I have kept them in storage in the basement because they’re “too nice to use.” Now, there’s a silly idea. As long as I keep them, I’m chained to this stuff, too.

I’ve got some lovely pieces of Royal Ruby glassware on Craigslist, and today I’m listing my mother’s milk glass. All of that stuff is beautiful, but I have to think of the 3′ X 4″ storage cage at my new apartment, and exactly how much will go into it. Not much, that’s how much. And my son in Shanghai doesn’t give a chopstick for any of it. Not to mention, it would cost more than the national debt to send it to him.

In an attempt to downsize, I took five U-matic cassettes containing all of the TV commercials I’ve ever written and produced to a fellow nearby who is transferring them to DVD, so I won’t have to lug these obsolete plastic boxes of tape around forever. I also gave a 16mm film my dad had made back in the 50s for Purina to a friend in communication studies, and someday, he says he’ll transfer that to DVD. So I’m at least shrinking my media load.

Remember George Carlin’s terrific riff on “stuff?” It’s all true. And moving stuff is very trying. Moving while trying to get some work done is doubly trying. Oh, AND trying to organize a big garage sale (though you get more for your stuff at an “estate sale,” I’ve heard). Never have I done a garage sale, and this will be a pretty big one. Anybody have folding tables I could borrow?

Anyhow, when I am finally ensconced in the new apartment, I dearly hope I will not feel chained to my desk and stuff. As I recall from living in an apartment before, I tended to go out more. Say, tree leaves are still green, aren’t they?

The unfortunate reality in social media marketing today is this: many clients think “someone on the staff” can handle the company’s social media program “in their spare time.”

“Social media? Not worth wasting time or money on.”
Some clients see social media planning as an afterthought that’s not important to waste money on. They don’t see any need to hire a dedicated social media manager or train someone on staff to conduct the social media program full-time, let alone hire an experienced consultant to create an effective social media marketing strategy.

Who has time for strategy? Why not just go ahead and implement?

To a “naive” social media marketer (meaning someone who is just getting into it), it may not even be obvious that a strategy is necessary. Heck, social media is free, isn’t it? So why bother? Just do it! Tweet, blog, get a FB page, and you’re golden, right? WRONG.

Social media marketing requires a strategy, just like traditional advertising and marketing. And a sound strategy comes about by knowing the answers to some very specific marketing-related questions.

Not every staff member you might pay to tweet or blog for you will know how to ask the right questions to inform a marketing strategy. You don’t jump into even the simplest purchase at Walmart before asking a few questions, do you? So why would your company’s image on the Web be less important than the functionality of the camping stove you asked a hundred questions about? Ask the right questions, or regret it when your social media marketing program either dies or blows up in your face.

What are the right questions?
What is it we want to sell (Often not as simple as “a widget.”)? What’s our unique benefit? What’s our message? Who do we want to hear it? What’s our tone? Where do we need to show up so our audience will hear us? How do we combine social media with traditional media?

Okay. Now I know the right questions. So what?
Answering the questions is only the first step. Companies need expert help in formulating and executing a social media marketing plan based on the answers to those questions, just as companies have needed it in any other communication endeavor. And yes, time and money will need to be spent. It’s a fact of social media life.

Who can help?
The person who puts together your social media strategy can be a stated “expert in social media marketing plans,” a social-media-hip agency, or an independent contractor. But whoever you hire, make sure they know the right questions to ask. Anyone who has spent time as a writer at advertising agencies should have a basic list of questions to ask before suggesting you jump into execution of an ad hoc marketing plan. And some idea of how to proceed from there.

During my couple of decades as a senior ad agency writer, I learned how to develop marketing strategies, then added two other tools that help fine-tune the communication needs of the client and the campaign. Armed with these tools and my experience, I can help any client develop an effectively targeted, well-written and pitch-perfectly voiced marketing plan in traditional and/or social media.

Fact is, I don’t know HTML from STP, and there are lots of people you can get to write code. But when you plan a marketing campaign, whether traditional or social media, you need the ability to think like a successful marketer. You need to ask (and answer) the right questions before you plunge into implementation. And I can help you do that.

My budget’s too small to hire an expert.
If you have a small budget, you can’t afford NOT to hire an expert to help you focus your traditional or social media marketing efforts as sharply as possible. If you need your marketing brain sharpened, give me a call at 913.236.7595. Let’s think together— about making your campaign a success to be proud of.

The first time a new client offered me a couple hundred bucks upfront, I was surprised. Of course, I accepted the money (My motto: Never say “no” to money a client offers you, unless it’s to carry out a Mob hit.).

But I still wasn’t convinced it was necessary. After all, if you and the client hit it off, a long-term relationship seems probable, and they seem solid enough to pay you for work done, why bother?

Well, here’s why: It’s a gesture of good faith. It’s also a token of their esteem for you. And, like an engagement ring, it’s a symbol of engagement. You’re together, and you expect to stay together—at least until your fees for work done have exhausted the upfront retainer.

So there’s another question: Is the upfront retainer to be taken in addition to hourly fees or not? I favor the idea that it’s a down payment on work to be done, not a signing bonus. My Midwestern work ethic just won’t let me take money for not doing anything. But it also balks at doing anything for no money.

If a client wants to solidify his/her relationship with me, sure, I’ll take a small retainer upfront. If not, that’s okay, too. I’m easy to work with.

One thing I have been doing, though, is asking a new client to sign an “Engagement Agreement” setting out certain understandings about my fees and what types of activities they cover, billing procedures, payment, late payment fees, and so on. It gets everything on the table, so there are no surprises later.

Getting a written agreement from a client is a good idea (and less heavy than the Contract I tried that caused new clients to have instant panic attacks). But my business manager is telling me I still need to:

(a) ask for retainers upfront without blinking;
(b) turn down “spec” jobs, unless they’re for causes I support; and
(b) raise my fees to their pre-recession levels.

But my business manager is me, and I tend to ignore me. So if you’re thinking of hiring a Kansas City freelance writer, better do it now, while my business manager is in sleep mode.

Advertising was so simple back in the day. Just put together a combo of print ads, TV and radio spots, maybe a sprinkling of direct mail, and you were done. Expensive, and results were hard to judge, unless you had some mechanism to measure direct response (common in direct mail, but not so much in the other media).

Now, it’s simple again. Throw out all the traditional advertising and focus on social media marketing. Get your company on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo. Get yourself a website, mix it all up, and you’re set. Right? Well, not so fast there. You have to have a plan. Yes, the sad news is that you need a social media marketing plan, just as you used to have an advertising or marketing plan. You have to have a strategy and stuff.

And where above, I said it’s simple — well, it’s not. You probably need to incorporate some traditional media in your marketing plan, too. Bummer, huh? Depends on how you look at it.

Lots and lots of people are on social media for business and pleasure alike. So you can reach lots of people there. But to reach the right people, the ones who will buy what you’re selling, social media can either be a shotgun or a laser-guided missile. Not to be too martial, here, but it is a war out there — for your attention, your interest, your dollars.

If you do only social media for business, you’ll be missing a big slice of the pie. Direct mail still works about the same way it always has. If you put together a good deal with an enticing design and copy, you can count on about a 2% response rate, which is good in DM. This is great for businesses cutting a wide swath through a zip code or a target audience.

Figure out who your ideal customer/client is, then choose your print vehicle. Your selection of magazines, newspapers or inserts can home in on a certain demographic or psychographic group you want to do business with.

For example, newspapers tend to attract older readers, so there is an excellent chance your senior-oriented business can get a response from a newspaper ad or advertorial in a special section. Check out the schedules on those with the paper’s rep. A weekly entertainment tabloid like the Pitch or Ink attracts a whole different demographic — younger, more likely to seek out funky new restaurants and new entertainment venues, more likely to be in the market for cool new clothes to wear when they go out.

Radio and TV ads are more expensive, but again, different stations attract different audiences. So if you want classical music listeners (upscale, better incomes, more need for luxury goods or senior products), check the demos of your local classical music station and the cost, and see if you think it’s worth a shot. If your ideal customer is a suburban mom, maybe you want to advertise on a soft rock station.

But let’s look at what businesses are actually doing today. A lot of companies are starting with just a website and wondering, now that I have a Web presence, what do I do to get found on the Internet? Well, you can carefully construct your messages to appeal to your most likely buyers. And you can get to the top, or close to the top, of the Google page rankings when users go there to find a business or service. How? By blogging on your website.

Blogging for business is THE best way to get higher Google page rankings. If you’re at the top of page 1, you have an excellent chance of snagging the user’s attention. The farther down the page, or the farther away from the first page you are, the less your chances. So don’t you want to be at the top? Sure.

Blogging for business is rather odd. It’s not like you can just sit down and dash off random thoughts off the top of your head, like, “What I had for lunch today, and how it tasted.” You have to deliver compelling, useful information, change it regularly, and also incorporate keywords that a user might Google in order to find you.

What would YOU Google to find you? Make a list of those keywords and use a tool like Google Analytics to find out how common and popular those terms are. Choose only words that directly pertain to your business, that people would commonly use to find you. The name of your blog is terrifically important, too. Don’t make it “Rooster Tales” if your business is die-making, for instance. The title should contain keywords, too.

Blogging for business is information, yes, and it’s also a mechanical process of utilizing keywords to get page rankings. If they don’t see you, they can’t find you, and then they can’t buy from you, can they?

Blogging for business is something most company owners either don’t have the time or desire to do. So typically, they will either hire a freelance writer to write their blog posts, or they’ll rope some junior employee into doing it when they have time. Which turns out to be virtually never, since everybody these days is already doing two jobs to save the company money. Or they might hire a blogging company that offers package deals. But beware. Some of them employ foreigners who speak English, but not colloquial English. So when they do your blogging for business, it tends to feel stilted and repetitive. Probably not worth the money, even though the package is pretty cheap.

So if you think blogging for business is the way to go, hire a professional to do a bang-up job for you. Land on the first page of Google, where potential clients/customers will find you, and supplement your blogging efforts with other traditional advertising ingredients mentioned above as needed. Hire someone who can figure out the right mix for your business. Like an experienced freelance writer who knows how to do traditional advertising and social media for business. That’s the way to reach the most potential customers where they are looking for you, whether it’s in print, broadcast or on the Web.

There’s no one answer to that question. Depends who you are.

To a Twitter user, it’s a place to post brief comments and see what other people are talking about.

To a Facebook user, it’s where you share what you’re up to, post photos, and keep in touch with family and friends.

To a LinkedIn user, it’s the place to show their professional qualifications to potential employers and find people they want to link with to find a job or a helpful connection.

To a blogger, it’s a way to establish expertise in a particular field and get to the top of search engine pages.

To a marketer, the whole idea of social media may be confusing: “I know everybody’s talking about social media marketing,” but I don’t really know how to use it to sell my products and services.”

Well, you can’t exactly sell stuff via social media. Social media is social, obviously. And your experience at a social event could be ruined by people who come to the party just to sell you something. You back away when you feel “sold to.”

Social media is not a sales floor. It’s a backyard barbecue.

Social media is about engaging you in a relationship of mutual trust and sharing with a brand. A company offers you useful information, coupons, tips, a chance to participate in fun events online or otherwise. In exchange, you offer them your positive tweets, links on Facebook, and perhaps, because you like the brand, a purchase.

It’s like this: you don’t go to a cocktail party or barbecue, press your business card into a stranger’s hand, and start reciting selling points.

Just imagine meeting Billy Mays, the late, high-volume pitchman, cornering you at a casual cookout and screaming “Oxy-Clean!” in your face. Yikes.

On the other hand, if you meet someone at a party, and you find they share your interests or is interested in your product or service, you have the green light to get better acquainted. Depending on the price of your product, you’ll have to invest more or less time establishing enough trust to do business with your new friend. TRUST is vital. And sincerity.

Compared to advertising, social media is almost Buddhist in its focus on being in the moment and not being attached to results. Try Zen sitting meditation sometime, and you’ll know what I mean. (Actually, don’t try it unless you enjoy mental and physical torture.)

Sure, you can give a stranger your “elevator speech” at a business networking event, aka “card exchange.” But whoever you meet will remember and like you better if you express an interest in their interests and see if there’s some way you can help them — maybe not even in a way that’s related to your business. Find someone a good dog groomer or personal trainer, or a great caterer for their daughter’s wedding, and they’ll remember you fondly. If you do enough good for enough people, “What goes around comes around,” right?

Now, what are your thoughts? How have you used social media effectively — or otherwise? What social media campaigns do you admire? The Burger King Facebook De-Friend for a Whopper thing? How do you judge if social media has been effective?

If you’re like me, you get dozens of e-mails, newsletters and notices in your Inbox every day. You’re on every social media vehicle, from LinkedIn to Plaxo to Twitter and Facebook. I have at least three e-mail accounts, and I write three blogs. Does it ever get to you? I mean, all the “keeping up with” you have to do?

Well, it gets to me.

You can’t not be on these things, but dang, they’re time-suckers. A person has to have time to do paying work, not just check the Inbox every 20 minutes to delete messages to avoid being buried in e-mail. And these are messages I WANTED. Like the NY Times twice-daily news update. Twitter messages (If Guy Kawasaki doesn’t quit tweeting, I’m dropping him.). Minutes from a meeting. Stuff I need to pay attention to.

But as I was saying, if you’re like me, you may be fed up with social media. I’m a Boomer, so I figure there must be millions of other Boomers who are fed up, too.

Here’s my prediction for 2011: Enough people will be fed up with social media that they’ll start meeting face-to-face with friends, family and clients. Yes. It will come to that.

Remember that old out-of-fashion thing called “conversation?” Not tweets or e-mails or Facebook blurbs? but an ongoing exchange of verbal messages, accompanied by real facial expressions instead of emoticons, conducted while the parties thereto are in the same room?

I have hundreds of “friends” on all these social media, but how often do I do friend things with them? Almost never. Unless I go to a Meetup, another social media-driven thing. I joined a Board Games Meetup, and if I ever go, it should be real person-to-person fun.

In 2011, when social media dies and F2F becomes the new thing, remember you heard it here first.

Imagine a gaily colored pinata swinging over the head of a blindfolded birthday girl or boy. Excited kids are ringed around the child who’s swinging a stick to break it open, giggling in anticipation of a cascade of delicious sweets. But what if the pinata turns out to be empty? Que lastima! Party over.

So imagine the same disappointment over an advertising campaign that cost a lot of money and time but didn’t work. The effort was all por nada. Why? Because even though the advertising looked appealing, it wasn’t based on a well-thought-out strategy. Like the empty pinata, it promised something but didn’t deliver. So I say –

Creativity without strategy is an empty pinata.

A creative execution without a sound strategy behind it won’t earn the best results for a client. It might win the creative team an ad show award, but if that’s the goal, is the advertising doing what the client needs? Or is it only designed to break through an out-of-town Associate Creative Director’s early-morning stupor on judging day, so s/he will notice a clever, cute, or outrageous piece?

There’s nothing wrong with awards, of course. I’m proud of the handsome Omni Best of Show award (bookend) on my office shelf. But I’m much prouder of the great results I’ve gotten for clients with strategic marketing and advertising. Like the following:

• A manufacturing company client whose multi-media campaign earned them a 1400% return on their investment

• An insurance company client whose three-part direct mail campaign went 400% over goal — after the first mailing

• A full-page newspaper ad that drew 150 applications for 12 positions with a KC company opening a new office in Jefferson City, MO

I can help you achieve your business goals — via the strategic application of creativity.

Call me now, and let’s get started. ‘Cause nobody wants an empty pinata.

Phone: 913-236-7595
Email: liz@lizcraigwriter.com