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Kiera Abbamonte on March 26, 2021 (last modified on May 6, 2021) • 6 minute read
Recently, John Bonini talked with Tyler Pigott of Lone Fir Creative for an episode of the Metrics & Chill podcast.
A 15-person remote team launched in 2015, Lone Fir is a digital and inbound marketing agency focused on driving conversions through copy. As founder, Tyler let John in on how the words-first agency turns brand messaging into higher conversions.
Read on for more details, or listen to the full episode here:
The metric that Tyler and Lone Fir Creative focus on is conversions and conversion rate â not unusual for a digital marketing agency. The difference is the lens through which they look at conversions. A self-declared words-first agency, Tyler and team are specifically interested in how they can manipulate and improve conversions using copy.
In their view, copy is what gets people to buy. Not graphics, not traffic for trafficâs sakeâcopy. And clarity of message that derives from a deep understanding of a companyâs core audience is what turns that copy into a mechanism for conversion.
How does Tyler identify opportunities to improve potential clientsâ conversion through copy? âIf I look at the copy and think âI donât really know what I do.ââ
The agency is built on the concept that copy is what captures attention, what educates prospects, and what drives people to buy. So if someone whoâs spent a lot of time reading websites doesnât get it immediately, thereâs an opportunity there to drive more business by solidifying the message.
When potential clients raise objections to that litmus test, Tyler asks a simple question: Do you want more business?
âOftentimes, the follow-up is âDo you want more business?â What if someone walks in off the street or they stumble upon an article you wrote or you did a paid ad, are they gonna get it?â
For Tyler, much communicating the opportunity of conversion-focused copy is about convincing clients to step out of their bubble a bit. âLetâs put ourselves in your prospectâs shoes for a second,â Tyler said, âversus you whoâs been drinking your own Kool-Aid for the last years running your business and knowing everything that you do like the back of your hand.â
âOftentimes, these Aha! moments come up because people in production never talk to sales. Now theyâre all going, âWell, that question comes up all the time,â Youâre right! Maybe if we did this, this, or this⌠Thereâs a lot more value that comes out of that workshop than just us figuring out how to create that filter for them to communicate.â
Every project with Lone Fir Creative starts with a multi-hour workshop that includes a handful of key players from the clientâs team, including founders, executive team members, sales people, and marketing, among others. The goal is to get a well-rounded look at what the company offers, who its customers are, and how they can better speak to both.
âAnytime weâre writing copy for clients, we take them through a message filtering process,â Tyler explained. âWeâre building out their brand script, trying to identify what makes them unique. Whatâs the single problem they solve? Then we really try to understand why people should buy from them.â
Here are the workshop questions Tyler asks his clients via email:
Tyler hammered home the importance of this process as the key first step to building a messaging strategy and writing copy that will actually make a difference for conversions.
âItâs really a step-by-step process to understand how people buy from you,â Tyler said. âWe try to really understand how people are purchasingâso that we can manage the expectations from the get-go and so people understand whatâs the next step if they actually want to move forward.â
From there, the team can zero in on the benefits that need to be communicated, the internal and external justifications customers need to hear, and the objections that need to be addressed in the copy.
The last piece of the puzzle is the CTA. âThereâs lots of websites out there where Iâm not sure what Iâm supposed to do once I get there,â Tyler highlighted, giving an example of a cash register and a brick-and-mortar store. You shouldnât find yourself in a grocery store with a basket full of items you want to buy and no clear next step. You go to the cash register and the store gets your money.
But that isnât how many companies approach their websites. âThatâs super confusingâwhy do we all do that with landing pages or home pages or marketing campaigns?â Tyler wondered. âYou need to solidify that main thing you want people to do once they come in the door of your website.â
By the end of the workshop, Tyler and team are armed with all the details they need to build out a messaging filter. Then all the copy going forward goes through that filter to ensure itâs saying and doing what it needs to do.
âAs far as results go, weâll measure that on conversions. Some clients, itâll take 3 months to get a conversion because they donât have a ton of website traffic. Thereâs other clients weâll launch a Black Friday deal for and theyâll have 50 paying customers, on a $5,000 package, 3 days later,â Tyler explained.
So, like any agency that works with myriad clients, the Lone Fir team has seen a lot of variation in results and timelines. According to Tyler, much of the results hinge on where the companyâs copy starts out and how much traffic a page gets.
âA lot of it is just that creativity around how you position what you do in a tangible form thatâs gonna fix peopleâs problems,â Tyler said. âBecause thatâs what theyâre gonna actually buy. If a client is really far from that, then making that simple change has a drastic impact.â
Tyler also shared a recent example of one clientâs results that the team was particularly proud of. It was a client they were already working with and Lone Fir took over a Black Friday/Cyber Monday email campaign. âThey met their financial goals this year, and theyâre in an industry that was struggling. That was really cool and satisfying for us.â
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