![]() It ain’t a sin if you do it right My, my. What a shocking title for this article. “When to lie.” Goes against everything you were ever taught. And that is precisely the point. Here at Copel Communications, we’re big fans of creative rule-breaking, and this one is an exemplar. We’ve always said that before you go and attempt to break any well-established rule—whether of, say, composition, grammar, or layout—you’d better know it inside-out first. You need to know why it exists in the first place. And you need to know why this particular instance would warrant your breaking it. This one is, paradoxically, easier. You don’t really need to be taught why it’s good to be truthful. It’s been pounded into you since childhood. Incidentally, we alternate these articles between our two core audiences: Consultants, and creatives. This one is aimed squarely at the latter. To put a finer point on it: We’re not talking about bludgeoning well-established norms of business ethics. We’re talking about creative ideation. Lie big Years ago, we attended a workshop led by a prominent local poet. The people in the class were trying to write poetry. They were focusing on images. Rhymes. Structure. The output was decidedly mediocre. The poet leapt to his feet. “Tell me some lies!” he exhorted. (We can’t remember the poet’s name, unfortunately. But he really inspired this article.) Naturally, the workshop attendees looked at him askance. What was he asking them to do? “Tell me some lies,” he repeated. “Don’t say ‘I feel sad.’ Say, ‘My heart is screaming its lungs out in pain!’!” It was an aha moment for the class. The attendees—hardly poet laureates, any of them—were transformed. The output was infinitely better, more creative, more inspired. They were, to use the poet’s word, lying. There are other words for this. Like “exaggeration.” Or “synesthesia.” You know some familiar examples: A “loud color.” A “busy composition.” Literally, they make no sense. But in context, they make more than sense. They convey something that the usual, threadbare descriptors can’t: a dynamic tension, an inner conflict that forces your brain to instantly meld two disparate concepts into a single mental sensation. It’s quite powerful. Knowing this, it opens entire avenues of creative output. Indeed, the more audacious the “lie,” the bigger the effect. Where (and when) to lie (creatively) You won’t be surprised that this technique (if we can call it that) accounts for the underpinnings of many jokes and other types of humor. We recently wrote an ad for a compact wallet, and bragged that it could hold “up to $1.5 million... in large bills.” The client won’t get sued for running the ad; it’s clearly a joke. Years ago, we were tasked with writing a Top Ten-style radio spot for a car dealership, and one of the Top Ten signs you were at a lesser dealership was “After promising to throw in carpeted floor mats, your salesman’s toupée goes mysteriously missing.” It’s a lie. It’s ridiculous. It’s a joke. This type of creative fabrication is hardly limited to copy. Think of just about any classic movie poster, for practically any genre, and you’ll see it at work. (Would James Bond truly survive that?) It can also act as a tension de-fuser in a meeting: We recently told a client who was anxious for a written price quote (for something basic, like a blog or a press release) that it would only be about $7 million, and not the “usual” $9 million. The statement was so absurd that it caught the client off-guard. It also made the price of the actual bid (affordable!) look even better (cheap!) when it arrived on their desk. The important thing about creative “lying” is knowing when to use it... or, more appropriately, not forgetting that you can. It’s an easy tool in your kit, but you must remember that it’s there. When you’re working on a creative assignment, you can always at least try it. If you don’t like the results, then scrap that iteration, and proceed... truthfully. Need help with that next creative assignment? Contact us today. We’ll give you an honest assessment of our ability to lie, creatively, for you. No kidding.
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![]() A simple guide to creating a website for your business Websites are so ubiquitous these days, it seems safe to assume that everyone already has one. But a lot of businesses—think of solopreneurs and boutique/budding consultancies—don’t. You might feel embarrassed to ask such a basic question as “How do I create a website for my business?” But you shouldn’t be. Everyone, and every site, started somewhere. And it’s never too late to have one for yourself. “How to create a website” is a big topic, but this article is purposely a quick read. We’re not going to get into things like HTML code or even metatags; we’re going to take a much broader, higher-level view of the challenge, and really focus on ensuring that your website does one thing: Drive new business. How to build your business website Step 1: Audience identification For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that you’re making a site for your own consulting business. It’s a good starting point, and it’s also easy for you to extrapolate how your own site would be the same, or different, depending upon your goals. The first order of business is not a lot of things that you might think it is. It’s not choosing a web-hosting vendor. It’s not picking colors or fonts or even templates. It’s understanding who you want to reach. This may seem like more of a “marketing” challenge than a website-building challenge, but it’s an unavoidable prerequisite. The more you know about your target audience, the better your site will be. Bonus: The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to accomplish all the other site-building steps in the process. Let’s say your primary target is C-suite leaders in mid-size enterprises. Drill down from there: Which titles? Which verticals? Knowing these prospects as you do, what types of personalities are drawn to these roles? These questions may seem like they’re out in left field, but they’re actually anything but. To jump ahead for just a moment, consider:
How to build your business website Step 2: Narrative path We’re going to assume, here, that you know what it is you want to sell to your target audience. In our “consultancy” example, that would be professional services. Now think about some recent engagements you’ve won. What was the sales process like? What did those then-prospects want to learn about you, and your business, first? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did they want to learn about your credentials? Did they want to see proof of impressive engagements you’d completed, or milestones you’d helped other clients achieve? At what point in the conversation did they inquire about your range of services, what you do, and don’t, do? When did they ask about your extended team and vendor relationships? When did they ask about pricing—and what did you tell them? The more accurately you can recall this information, the better you can structure what’s called the wireframe of your website. This is just a fancy word for “outline.” The important thing here is to understand what that prospect wants to learn about you from your website, in what order, and what order of importance. This, quite simply, dictates what goes on the home page, and what other pages your site will have, as well as what will populate them. Creating the wireframe is a vital step, but don’t let it intimidate you. If you’re making a small-scale site, you’ll make a small-scale wireframe. Far too many consultancies try to out-Amazon Amazon in their sites’ scale and scope, and that’s a huge mistake, not to mention a tremendous waste of time and resources. (We’ve got a great article on that exact topic, entitled “Your Website Is Too Big,” which we think you’ll enjoy.) While the various pages/topics on your site will vary according to your situation, bear in mind that the market, by this point of the internet’s maturity, is conditioned to expect certain things. Here are some examples of pages that most likely will be on your site, beyond its home page:
That last one—Contact Us—is the most important. You’ll want a prominent link to it on every single page. You’ll want copy and visuals that drive visitors to it; this is what’s known as the call-to-action, or CTA, in ad-speak. How to build your business website Step 3: Create your elements Now that you have your wireframe, it’s time to create the content you’ll use to populate the different pages. Basically, this means “writing” and “choosing pictures.” Sure, it can get more complicated than that, but this is still your main challenge. You’ll want to write compelling copy (“copy” is simply ad-speak for “text”) that presents you and your business in the best light, while respecting the visitor’s time. This is a real case of “less is more.” How much time do you really think that that prospect is going to spend on your website? It’s only a few minutes. So make them count. And cut, cut, cut. Keep it terse. For visuals, there are lots of options. There are tons of stock libraries, and hosting providers usually have their own sources included. (We’ll talk more about them in a minute.) For this stage of your website’s creation, we recommend that you work in good ol’ Microsoft Word. Just write text. No fancy fonts. Save the selecting of the pictures for afterward. The words themselves should be strong; it’s easier to judge them, distraction-free, in a blank Word doc. How to build your business website Step 4: Populate the site This is the step that many newcomers mistakenly think is the first. But it’s actually the last. Think about it. If you’ve done the previous steps well, this one not only logically falls last, but it’s also straightforward and easy. That’s because:
The next step is just nuts and bolts. You’ll need to choose a provider you’ll pay to host the site—anyone from Squarespace to Weebly to GoDaddy, you name it—and use their tools to do the actual building. That part is surprisingly easy. In the old days, this required tons of Deep Geek knowledge and coding expertise. Today, it’s a matter of picking your favorite template, and then pasting in the text and pictures you’ve already created. You click the “Publish” button, and your site goes live. If you want to make changes or update it, you simply go back into that WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) site-editing tool, tweak what you want, and then click the “Publish” button again. As you can see, this last step is not rocket science. But you can also see, now, just how important all the steps leading up to it are. Need help with any of the steps above? From customer-needs discovery to wireframe development to copywriting, we can help you, just as we’ve helped countless others. Contact us today to learn more. |
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