Over the years I’ve become more and more uncomfortable with the “copywriter” name tag. It’s an awkward tag to wear because it’s too small and doesn’t fit very well. Take this morning’s call as a case in point. I will eventually end up writing the copy and content for the website in question. But everything we talked about this morning had to do with editorial decisions, not writing.

I felt very much like an editor planning the next edition of a publication. Organizing the front page. Sorting my way through the existing content, deciding what’s worth keeping and what isn’t — and what needs translating. Identifying what needs rewriting, what can be used as is. Providing input on the style and choice of photos to be used. Gently trying to persuade the client as to what is worthy of a place on the home page and what isn’t. Trying to prevent stakeholder politics from getting the way of effective communications. All the things that editors find themselves confronted with on a daily basis, or so I imagine.

In the article, Pepi Ronalds writes: “…we tend to first think ‘copywriter’ when trying to get our content sorted, whereas very often an editor is the person we should be engaging.”

That’s when it struck me. I often feel like an editor because I am an editor — in addition to being a writer. So now I’ve gotten myself a bigger name tag — writer/editor — and it fits me very well.

My reaction is to say that they’re part of the product — that the very idea that one starts when the other stops is nothing but an artifice.

This artifice is created by the corporate org chart. Frequently, the team in charge of the service isn’t the same one that’s in charge of the product. This happens because many companies organize their teams by functional roles rather than customer interaction. There’s overlap.

What can happen is that the product team will talk about the service first — they’ve got to get the packaging printed in China and in the container in time for the launch — without checking with the service team, who’ve been working away in their corner preparing the messaging for their program. Worse, maybe the service team hasn’t even started on the messaging because they’ve been waiting for the product team to finalize the product. Sound familiar?

The upshot is that the two messages end up not matching. Customers see one version when they buy the product and another when they sign up for the service. Confusion reigns. Enrollments undershoots forecasts. The service is declared a failure. It is held up as “proof” that all customers care about is features and prices, not services.

How can this be avoided? By starting from the customer’s experience, not the company’s org chart. Start with the customer and map the touchpoints upstream and downstream from the moment of sale. With this map in hand we can create consistent messaging throughout the lifetime of the offer. And consistency is a key ingredient to strong branding. Don’t just take my word for it; take a look at this wonderful illustration done by David Armano over at Logic + Emotion.

The more I think about, the more I believe that many brand communication problems are caused by the artificial barriers and silos created by org charts.

As I writer I’ve always been seduced by the idea of generating compelling content for vibrant two-way conversations rather than monotonous bullet points. But I’ve always been a tad skeptical too, since many of my marketing contacts seem very removed from their customer.

Case in point. A couple days ago I was in a meeting about new collateral with a client when we got to talking about contact with customers. I was trying to get them to identify the true benefits of the features of the new products. After a while they confessed that they didn’t really know what their customers wanted, hence their problem with naming the benefits. Customer contact was the realm of sales and support staff, not marketing.

For the client in question, we supposed to be leading the company’s transition to value-based selling by writing collateral that reflects the company’s keen understanding of its customer’s needs. In fact, to be honest, we have no idea what the customer want — only what the salesforce tells us they want (which suspiciously is always datasheets and catalogs). We can guess. We can surmise. but until sales lets marketing get closer to the customer, the only real conversation will be between buyer and seller during sales negotiation — and that’s too late.

Many companies aren’t ready to move into conversational marketing because their marketing departments are too far away from the front line.

Logic+Emotion: Brand Interactions Are the Future: But Are Interaction Designers Part of Your Agency?

The New Economics of Brands – Harvard Business Online’s Umair Haque

The Problem With The Trends (Business) on PSFK

Bezos On Innovation

Buzz Marketing techniques to become illegal in UK? | VisInsights