Marketing Tips

Copywriting with Heart –
A New Approach to 21st Century Marketing

You’ve probably noticed a number of changes in this month’s Chamber View – and this column is only one of them. The Chamber’s leadership transition has brought a new outreach initiative, with an exciting plan to expand member services, support, and promotional opportunities.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m “The Tree-Huggin’ Copywriter,” owner of Your Words’ Worth, a Catonsville-based marketing consultancy supporting green business. As part of the new Communications committee, I’ll be offering a column on copywriting, marketing, and online promotion, along with a green business tip, each month in the Chamber View.

I’ll also be writing a Featured Member profile for the lucky winner of the drawing at each month’s networking mixer. This profile will be printed in the Chamber View and featured on the website, http://www.catonsville.org.

Great free advertising with the profile, you may be thinking, but….why is the View offering a column on marketing?

Let’s face it – no matter whether your business is acupuncture or xerographic digital printing, all of us are in marketing. Whether we use a Yellow Pages ad or a state-of-the-art e-commerce site, whether we network with the Professional Business Builders or national trade shows, we all want to get our name and services in front of the people who need them. And we need to do it in a way that brings a return on our marketing investment.

That’s where I can help. Copywriting can cover a wide range of creative services (none of which deal with copyrights, trademarks or patents, by the way – those are handled by attorneys). Here at Your Words’ Worth, I develop marketing materials including brochures, press releases, and web content; online specialties such as special reports and e-books; and “social marketing” tools such as blogs and marketing articles.

I’ll be writing about the benefits of all of these tools in future columns – how they can benefit you, which one you should use for which purpose, and more.

So what’s the deal with the tree-hugging and green business?

Well, people fall in love with sustainability in all sorts of ways. For me, it all began in a graveyard: the old Friends’ Burial Ground in Clifton Park, where my husband and I spent seven years as sextons. It was my first experience of green living…gardening organically, living simply, learning and practicing the Friendly values of environmental and social responsibility, meeting people who were already running green businesses.

Years later, when I left a 20-year corporate career as journalist and tech writer to start Your Words’ Worth, those lessons in sustainability became my inspiration: that it was possible to “do well” in the business world, while also “doing good” for the earth. Green business was a fast-growing trend, I saw; businesses needed copywriters – and voila, I had a niche!

So let’s fast-forward Your Words’ Worth through three years of intensive training with online marketing gurus such as Joe Vitale, Perry Marshall, and the pioneering Web 2.0 marketers Ed Dale and Dan Raines. Fast-forward through setting up a wind-powered office and signing onto the Co-op America’s green business network and the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance.

Today, my client list includes businesses and organizations such as the D.C.-based American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, EclipseSpa in Danville, CA, and the Berkshire Investment Group in Montreal, Canada, as well as McCoy Media Group in Frederick, the Baltimore Bioneers, and Catonsville’s own Loverde Family Community Fund.

Along the way I’ve discovered that there is one core quality that unites the evolving world of copywriting and “infopreneuring” with the equally dynamic world of sustainable business. That quality, in a word, is – heart. In 1996, The Cluetrain Manifesto prophesied the Web 2.0 marketing revolution with the three words: Markets are Conversations. Forget canned corporatespeak: in a world of data overload, consumers want to sense humanity, authenticity, passion…they want copywriting that connects with their hopes, wants, and needs.
While this is especially true for green businesses balancing revenues with environmental and social responsibility, it is also true for any business, online or offline.

As a Catonsville resident and business owner, I have seen the passion and enthusiasm that Chamber members bring to their businesses. I’ve seen the excitement our green business members bring to the community as they offer new options in eco-friendly living. This is a Chamber whose members are rich in both heart and vision. Please join me as I share tools and techniques to give those visions voice in the dynamic marketplace of the 21st century.Phila Hoopes
The Tree-Huggin’ Copywriter
Giving Your Vision Your Voice
http://www.your-words-worth.com

Phila Hoopes
The Tree-Huggin’ Copywriter
Giving Your Vision Your Voice
http://www.your-words-worth.com

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