John McGarvey – web copywriter

Don’t they say it’s the little things that count? Well, nothing makes me smile more than spotting some text that someone’s really taken time and care over – despite it being displayed in a seemingly unimportant or innocuous location (ok, actually some things do make me smile more, but bear with me here).

Take these sugar packets I spotted at a cafe in Oxford. Ropey pictures aside, aren’t they delightful?

It’s hard to argue that text on the back of a sachet constitutes a vital part of a company’s branding. And yet it’s equally hard to deny the effect it has: when customers notice their sugar packet says “rattle in background for atmos” on the back,  it helps set that particular cafe apart from the countless others that line Oxford’s touristy streets.

The lesson here? Small things matter too. A piece of well-placed text can make your brand stand out in people’s minds. I know where I’ll head for lunch next time I’m in Oxford.

I’ve been booking a holiday recently and searching lots of sites for deals and discounts. Lonely Planet‘s hotel booking service seems to need a bit of work – it broke more than once while I was using it.

Still, at least when it fell over, it didn’t display a dull generic error message:

Check it out! It’s a picture of a knackered bus – the type you might get in some the far-flung parts of the world that Lonely Planet can help you visit. (Full size here.)

Ok, never mind that in reality you’re probably just looking for a cheap week in Benidorm. This error page is a great example of how a bit of quirkiness can turn a negative (my hotel search not working) into a bit of a positive (making me chuckle).

It certainly put a bit of a smile on my face, and I’m more likely to give the site another chance as a result.

What could your site do differently to surprise its users?

Subway. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t get away from them. Really, you can’t. A quick check reveals eight branches in my home town of Reading alone.

That’s more than one town needs. In fact, it’s probably more than the entire south east of England needs.

Still, while you might not be a fan of their ubiquitous food (or the nasty smell they pump out) they must be doing something right.

This is one franchise that’s expanded like mad over the last couple of year and if there’s a built-up area in Britain without a Subway, well, I doubt it’ll be lacking one for very much longer.

Their marketing isn’t too shabby either. I walk past two(!) most days, and for the last couple of weeks they’ve had a nice bit of copy on a poster in the window. You can probably make it out from my poor photo, but just in case, here’s what it says:

“Morning has broken. Fix it.”

Why do I like this? It’s a reasonable pun. It’s short and snappy and it sticks in your mind. And it’s totally relevant to the product they’re advertising: breakfast.

In fact, I reckon it’s the best poster copy I’ve seen in quite some time. So say what you like about their food, but they’ve obviously got someone in who can put together a decent line for a poster. I’d give them 2/10 for the sandwiches, but 8/10 for the copy. Good work.

It’s always good to meet new people in this business. So when I heard a few enterprising individuals had arranged the inaugural Thames Valley Social Media Cafe, a get-together for media and technology industry-type people in Reading, I decided to head along.

Similar events (sometimes called “tuttles”) are well established in London, Brighton and other parts of the country. With this one happening just down the road, it would’ve been rude not to make the effort.

Workhouse Coffee

Reading’s excellent Workhouse Coffee was the venue, and as I arrived, the cafe’s regular customers were looking confused by the number of extra people who’d shown up. The proprietor took it in his stride though, serving up first class coffee which was some of the best I’ve ever tasted in the UK.

I reckon around 15 people were there altogether. It was good to chat to old friend Matt Brady, as well as meeting lots of new people – some who I’d previously encountered on Twitter, some who I hadn’t.

They included Drew Benvie, Adrian Moss, Andy Piper, Neville Hobson, Ravi Nar, Catherine Warrilow, Nicky Davis and Steve Lamb.

The conversation veered from the state of the coffee (excellent) through to the state of the economy (less than excellent), but – as you’d expect from an event where everyone’s on Twitter – it tended towards the geeky. And that was no bad thing.

I really enjoyed the chat and exchange of ideas, and left nearly two hours later feeling like the morning had been well spent.

Till next time

If you were there on Friday, good to meet you. And if you weren’t, but you’re local, why not pop along to the next one? Nothing’s arranged yet, but hop on over here to register your interest.

More (and better) write-ups here, here, here and here.

I’ve been thinking about website usability lately, and this recent blog post over on Signal vs Noise really struck a chord with me. It’s the first time I’ve seen the idea of usability expressed so succinctly:

“It’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. It’s about looking into the future, foreseeing any potential obstacles, and removing them. And that’s a great way to get people on your side.”

I think when you get down to it, if you’re building a new website, application or physical product, those are the important things. Whatever you’re creating, it needs to be simple to use. Like my iPhone, it should just work.

That applies to copywriting too, of course. It’s why you should should always consider every sentence – every word, in fact – really carefully. First of all, is it necessary at all? Second, assuming it is, have you expressed whatever you’re trying to express clearly and succinctly as possible?

While I’m on the subject, I think Dare Obsanjo makes a good point about introducing new features to your product, service of website:

“If a user can’t find the feature, it might as well not exist”

I agree completely. You can cram your website full of information. You can make your product full of cutting edge features. But if poor usability means people can’t find that information or use those features, then really … what’s the point?

I started using Twitter a few months ago. If you haven’t encountered it yet, it’s a kind of micro-blogging tool which lets you post updates about what you’re doing. Each update takes a similar form to Facebook‘s “John is…” function, and you’re limited to 160 characters, so it’s a bit like sending a text message.

You can see my latest update in the right column of this blog, or see my stream of tweets (that’s what the little updates are called) over on my Twitter homepage. Once you’re a member, you can follow other Twitter members. When you follow someone, all their tweets appear in your Twitter stream.

Frankly, it’s not immediately obvious what Twitter is for. As a copywriter, I joined without a good idea of why I was joining it or what I’d use it for. I mainly just wanted to work out what the hell it was all about: it’s not the easiest of things to get your head around, and the best way to work it out is to try it.

But since I started using it, it’s become clear there’s a lot more to Twitter than meets the eye. It’s not just a way to let your mates know you’re just back from the shops or down the pub. It’s a seriously useful tool that can help you in all kinds of ways.

I’d definitely recommend you get over to Twitter and sign up for an account now. But if you need some persuading, here are six things I’ve found it useful for:

Finding useful contacts. It can be a networking tool, basically. Whether you’re a web copywriter, like me, or in a completely different line of work, you can make some great connections on Twitter. One of the best ways is to take a look at the people you follow, and see who they follow. If anyone looks interesting, follow them too. Because most tweets are public, it’s fine to follow whoever you like.

Keeping in touch with your mates. I’ve all but given up on Facebook. I never entirely got the hang of it, and these days I find if I log in I just get overwhelmed with information. The most interesting bit is following friends’ status updates. And Twitter lets me do that, without all the other spurious stuff that’s part of Facebook. Of course, you’ll need to persuade your mates to join too.

Getting answers fast. If you have enough followers, Twitter becomes a bit like one of those services where you can text any question and receive an almost instant response. For instance, before a recent trip to Berlin, I tweeted asking for recommendations. Within a few minutes, I’d discovered that one of my followers had edited a guidebook of the city. Result!

Connecting with celebrities. When I discovered national institution Stephen Fry was on Twitter, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Because it’s so obviously him tweeting, you get a direct connection to someone you only usually see on TV. Not sure how he deals with the massive number of direct messages he must get though. Apparently Britney’s on Twitter too, though it looks like a rather sanitised, PR-driven effort rather than Britney tapping away at a keyboard for herself.

Keeping up with the news. I’m not going to claim that Twitter is a useful tool for in-depth journalism and analysis of current affairs. But it’s great for getting eyewitness snapshots of events as they unfold. For example, there was an explosion on Slough Trading Estate the other week. I used to work there, so was interested in what was going on. Local news sites weren’t reporting anything, but by searching Twitter I found someone who was there as it happened. And just yesterday, one guy tweeted from a plane crash. Yes, really.

Venting your frustrations. I’m not sure how much my followers appreciate it, but I’ve vented at the terrible train service offered by First Great Western more than once. With Twitterific on my iPhone I can tweet from anywhere, and it makes me feel a little less helpless when I find myself awaiting a delayed train yet again. Try it sometime. It really does make you feel better.

There are plenty of other ways to use Twitter, and plenty of other reasons to use it. So if you haven’t given it a go yet, hop on over and sign up. You can tweet directly from the website, or use one of the many web-based and mobile phone clients to make it easier.

And if you don’t mind the occasional train-related rant, do add me once you’ve signed up. I’ll be sure to return the favour.

Innocent Drinks have embarked upon quite the nicest promotion I’ve seen in a long time. If you pop into Sainsbury’s you’ll see that all the Innocent smoothies have acquired little hats. It really makes you look twice – especially as they all seem to be different.

A quick dig around the campaign’s excellent website filled me in on the background, which is basically as follows:

1. Innocent get people all over the country to knit hats and send them in
2. Each hat gets put on the top of a bottle and sent to a Sainsbury’s
3. For every smoothie sold with a hat, Innocent and Sainsbury’s donate 50p to Age Concern

It’s a brilliant campaign – no matter which angle I look at it from, I can’t see a downside. It works so well because it’s easy to get involved – on lots of different levels.

At the most basic level, you can buy a smoothie and see some of your money go to charity. Or you can just walk into a store and see all the smoothies wearing their hats. If it doesn’t make you smile then you must’ve had a really bad day.

If you buy a smoothie, you can stick the hat on a soft toy or similar and upload photos to the Flickr group – and browse other people’s submissions too.

Or if you want to get really involved, you can knit the things. If you make a really cool hat, you might get a mention on the campaign’s blog, ‘knitter-natter‘. You can download instructions and knitting patterns to get going, leave comments and submit your own so other people can make similar hats.

Finally, the choice of knitting is inspired. It’s something that appeals to older people as much as it does to anyone else. As the whole thing’s about supporting older people in winter, it would be a bit ridiculous if it wasn’t easy for them to get involved. And, of course, quirky knitted hats fit well with Innocent’s slightly eccentric image.

Everyone benefits – your average shopper in Sainsbury’s gets a smile. Age Concern get lots of donations (50p a bottle is about 25% of the retail price – not too shabby at all). The people who knitted the hats get a feeling of being involved with something really cool. And of course Innocent’s already excellent image just gets better.

Much as I try, I’m finding it really hard to be cynical about this. Yes; it’s without doubt a great way of marketing Innocent smoothies and I’m sure their sales in Sainsbury’s will go through the roof. But there are benefits all-round, and there’s a really good feeling about it. The whole thing seems completely genuine. It’s brilliant – good luck to them.

(According to their website, the Big Knit has been going since 2003 – how come I haven’t noticed this before?)