I’ve commented in the past about the importance of traffic for any business and observed how some businesses are very vulnerable to changes outside of their control. I mentioned the impact on my local Starbucks and a small bakery shop of the relocation of a big corporate headquarters away from the area.
Fortunately, business seems to have recovered and the bakery shop has even moved to new and larger premises. And the local Starbucks had a little boost over the last week because of the “World Youth Day” event here in Sydney.
(The whole thing lasted about a week, so I’m not sure why it’s called “World Youth Day” but let’s leave that.)
The event attracted several hundred thousand Roman Catholic pilgrims from overseas and more from within Australia. Needless to say, there was a fair bit of organization required and considerable disruption to Sydney’s usual schedule.
So Sydney attracted quite a lot of extra “traffic” over the last week. And when the event was being originally pitched, one of the benefits touted was the boost to tourism and local business.
Unfortunately, the geniuses sponsoring the event forgot one thing. Yes, there were a lot of extra visitors. But in the main, they were not visitors with money to spend.
Not surprising really. Most of the visiting pilgrims were young people on a shoestring budget. Plus, again no surprise, the pilgrims were more focused on spiritual matters rather than wanting to indulge in a frenzy of hedonistic spending!
Gee, who would have thought?
The result has been something of a disaster for business. Locals avoided the City because of the crowds and disruption, so normal retail traffic was subdued. And hotel bookings were poor (many of the pilgrims stayed with local people and at accommodation arranged by the Church).
So the moral is that not all traffic is beneficial. It has to be relevant and qualified.
Which leads me to my next point about copywriting.
Now it’s true that if you have no traffic, then it doesn’t matter how good the copywriting is.
However, once you’ve got some traffic it is absolutely essential that you have effective copy that converts (whether that’s to sign-ups or actual sales).
Now, I know I’m probably preaching to the converted here but many business owners seem to overlook this point. I can tell because over the last week or so I’ve had occasion to look at a number of websites where the copy absolutely sucks.
And it’s even worse because many of the sites are in competitive markets. The copy is bland and full of generalities (see my recent post “Scientific Advertising In The 21st Century” – Part 7 “Being Specific” for more about why this is a big blunder).
Look, I know sometimes it might seem as if copywriters are “talking their book” when they expound on the importance of copy. But the figures don’t lie and the real pros in Direct Response Marketing like the major mailers have no doubts about the value of effective copy.
So, if you ever wonder if good copywriting is expensive, ask yourself how expensive is poor copy?