#37: What You Need to Make Your Website Work

Hey everybody, it's Dr. J.J. peterson. And before we start today's episode, I want to tell you about another amazing show that's part of the HubSpot podcast family, ABM Conversations, hosted by Yag Ganesh. Looking to stray away from fluff metrics and vanity marketing, ABM Conversations helps B2B marketers and sales professionals explore strategies and tactics and real experiments to drive revenue, customer engagement and retention. Some of the recent episodes that I've really been loving are doing product marketing the right way with Yoni Solomon. And there was an episode on implementing customer growth that explored the entire step by step process. And you know me, I love a good step by step process. If you are needing a weekly deep dive that deconstructs marketing tactics and strategies used by world class performers, that works for your content marketing strategy, online advertising knowledge panels, product marketing list goes on and on and on. You need to listen to ABM Conversations and you can find that wherever you get your podcasts.

Today we're talking about design and copywriting. Design on its own is wonderful and yes, copywriting is amazing on its own as well. But you'd need a little bit of design to pack that extra punch. So coming alongside and pairing with the design designer allows you to make that copy compelling in a way that elevates it. If you can get that right, start there. That dynamic duo in your marketing is going to take you to the next level.

Hello, hero makers. Welcome to the Marketing Made simple podcast, powered by StoryBrand and brought to you by the HubSpot Network, where we believe your marketing should be easy and it should work. I AM your host, Dr. J.J. peterson, and I am joined by my co host, April Sunshine Hawkins. Hi, April.

Hey, jj. Hey, hero makers.

April. We are, I think some would say, some would say we are a dynamic duo.

You think people would say that about us?

That's what I've written on the Internet.

I love that. I'll second that motion.

Because there's power in the duo, right?

It really is.

I mean, it's dynamic for a reason. Yeah, right. Like the reason they call it a dynamic duo is because it really is dynamic.

Yeah.

When the duo comes together. Who are some of your on screen favorite dynamic duos?

Oh my goodness. Amy Poehler and everybody. Finish it with me, Tina Fey. That's right. Oh my goodness. The two of them, when they get together, they're a power powerhouse.

Yes.

I mean, on their own they're wonderful. We know on their own they're wonderful. But when they hosted the Golden Globes, I mean, they Take it to another level. On their own, they're great, but you bring them together and dynamic.

Let'S say it, together, dynamic.

Yes. You. You elevate my game, April. So that's why. That's why I would say, like, I am comfortable. I am comfortable with humility calling us. I mean, we're not. Again, we're not in the same vein as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but.

Man, something to aspire to.

I know we can aspire to be like them, but we don't need to be them. But the thing is, is that when you take two things that are really amazing on their own and put them together, like even not just like dynamic duos on screen, but like peanut butter and jelly, right? Both are elevated by that. And today, what we're going to be talking about is another incredible dynamic duo of design and copywriting. And that's so important because obviously design on its own is wonderful, but if you don't have good words that go with the design, you're not gonna sell things. And in turn, I would say copywriting is amazing on its own as well. But you need a little bit of design. Like, you need to know how to elevate a headline in your copy, right? Like how to make something bold and stand out or how to create white space on a page so people are not overwhelmed by the words. If you just hand somebody five PA pages of words, they can be great words, but people are going to stop reading because they don't have time or want to take the time to engage all of that information. So coming alongside and pairing with a designer allows you to make that copy digestible in a way that elevates it, right? It points out what's important. It points out what you should be paying attention to and gets the message across even more clearly.

There's a reason why Google Docs or a Word document is not what you put out on your website, right? I mean, the words are key, but like you're saying, design can really help draw your eye to what you want your customer to do. It can help you tumble into the words so that, you know, whenever they are the right size or the right color or the right, you know, have that right pop, it will really enhance that clear and compelling message that you've created with the story brand framework.

And I think if you ignore one, then you lose the dynamic duo element, right? So if you have great, great design, like beautiful imagery and all this stuff, but the words aren't there, you're not going to sell. And if you just Throw a whole bunch of words at people that is not thought through about how it is designed and looks to the eye when people are reading it. You're also not gonna sell, right? You people don't want just like 500 pages of white paper. They're not gonna digest that. So pairing the two. And we find this a lot when we work with companies, it's like they almost elevate one over the other. And I would say. I mean, you and I would probably both say focus in the copy. Like, you know, that's right. You need to focus. Like, the words are what sells. Like, so start there. Because most people ignore that. So start there. Make your message clear, and then elevate it with design. Right? That's how you get that. Dynamic duo is taking the clear message. That. And you know, and we teach that the way you create a clear message is through the story brand framework. Right? And the story brand framework is the framework that powers all of your marketing and messaging and shows you how to invite customers into a beautiful story, that you identify their problems, position yourself as a guide, call them to action to buy your products or service, and then clearly show them how you help them avoid failure and achieve success, transforming them into the hero of their own story. If you can get that right. Start there. Right? Be clear before you're creative. We would usually say, you know, do not do creativity at the expense of clarity, but start with clarity and then elevate with creativity. And when you can do that, that dynamic duo in your marketing is going to take you to the next level.

We wanted to talk to one of our dynamic duos in our story brand certified guide community. There are so many people that they find each other through this certification on Slack or at an event. So Jenna Gribble and Page Worthy, they came together to form this incredible, powerful team for their clients. And so when somebody's working with Paige, they're going to also be working with Jenna. Paige is the copywriter, and Jenna is the designer. So we had to bring on this dynamic duo so that you could hear how copywriting and design can come together to create compelling messaging that works.

I am so excited that you are both here today.

Thanks for having us, April.

Thanks for having us.

Tell me how you guys decided to start working together. Whenever you don't live in the same city, you. You have this certification. You found each other on Slack.

But.

But how did. How did it come together?

Okay, so Jenna and I discovered that we had both worked in some way with a. Oh, Jenna, what. What do we call it? I have a, I have a bad name for it. We both discovered. We, we discovered that we had a direct sales company. We, we discovered that we had both worked in some way with a direct sales company. So I, when I realized that after somehow ending up on her website, I sent her a DM and said, yo, what a small world, let's talk. And then, and so we talked and we, I think we just discovered that we had a lot in common in our approach to marketing work and that we were sort of kindred spirits, we were fast friends. And when the opportunity arose for one of my very first Story brand derived clients to, you know, work on his messaging and build up his website from scratch, I, I brought Jenna in.

And Jenna, you are a story brand certified guide as well, and you are a designer. I am so curious, you know, how does Paige as a copywriter set you up for success whenever it comes to, yeah, it's time to implement this and actually put it in, incorporate it into the design. What does Paige do really well for you?

You know, I think the best thing about working with Paige is the fact that she is not just a copywriter. She's. I would consider her a strategic partner. What I really need from a copywriter is obviously to be set up with the words that I'm going to make look beautiful on the page, but somebody who can actually guide my clients and help me problem solve because I'm an expert at what I do, but I don't know everything right. Like I'm not going to always have every single answer. And she's got this whole skill set. I know, I wish I did. The doors that would open for me if I knew everything right. But, but she's got this amazing skill set where she just knows how to like unwind things and problem solve. And the copy that she writes is amazing. It's. She can write to any voice and she really just brings this additional strategy level to. Because we're both very strategic in the way that we approach marketing with our clients. Like I'm making things look beautiful. But it isn't just about making things look beautiful. It's about a little bit more than that. You really need to look at it from a holistic lens and Paige really understands that part of the branding.

And Paige, whenever you are handing your very amazing, crafted, beautiful words over to Jenna, what is it that Jenna does? Obviously you guys strategize together, but what is it about the design that she really helps pull out from your work and just elevate it to the next level?

A Lot of the time, I am able to hand to Jenna not only, you know, a brand script and the copy that I've written, but also some guidelines around voice and tone that as a branding professional. Now, as Jenna said, she's not just a designer who puts things up on a screen and makes them look pretty. She also has a lot of deep experience in the. The branding iceberg that goes deep below the water. And so she can take a brand script and some voice and tone guidelines and find a way to express that visually, where it really brings the copy to life authentically and in the way that. That I intended it. Like, she. She's got a spidey sense for just what a client needs, even if the client doesn't know exactly what they need. Design to me is wizardry. I can write until I'm blue in the face, blue in the fingers, whatever. And Jenna just makes design look so easy. And, man, she makes me look good, too. When I get to turn in something gorgeous that she's written or sorry that she's designed, it's. It just elevates the product so much.

So let's talk specifically about a few clients or a client. Let's start with one client that you've worked with just so that our hero makers, our listeners out there, can really have some tactical practicals on how you two work together and what makes a project just sing. So, Jenna, tell us about a client that the two of you have worked with. And, like, what. What were the success factors for this client?

So we're actually in the middle of a process right now with a really amazing client called the Mail Works. They are a direct mail company out of New York. This is a big project, by the way. This was. I. I knew that I needed a partner that could absolutely understand the intricacies and the ins and outs of this industry. So she was the one who I brought in for that. And one of the things that they came to the table with right away was we have dug deeper underneath the surface here, and we know more about our brand than just like, you know, we're bringing direct mail to our customers. And Paige kind of took that and ran with it and created a whole voice around it, and I was able to really bring the brand to life in a new way.

All right, this has been so great. What I think we need to do now is we need to pull back the digital curtain, and I want people to be able to see we're going to actually show Paige your wireframe that you put together and gave to Jenna. So that then she could actually use that to create the design. And then we're going to look at the design and of course to all of our heroes, hero makers listening, we will be describing how everything looks. But you can also see what this looks like and access a video of this conversation@storybrand.com design and that link is also included in the episode description. So, Paige, I'm going to pull up wireframe and why don't you just kind of explain what a wireframe is for our listeners and then kind of walk us through, through how you created it.

So, graphic designer, I am not right. My job is to write really great copy. So when I present a wireframe to a client and I do present them, particularly with the homepage, because I want us all to be able to go through section by section and talk through, hey, here's why this one is coming after this section. Here's where it fits into, you know, the presentation of the brand script. So that's really important to me to be able to go through that, live with clients and make changes on the fly. But what they see is essentially raw text. And I do that because especially when I'm working with Jenna, I don't want to plant any preconceived visual notions in their head. I want them to be maniacally focused on the text so that by the time Jenna gets this wireframe, they're so thrilled with the text that all they're going to be looking at when she sends them the design mock up is the design because they're already comfortable with the words. So in the story brand framework, when we write a wireframe, there's a pretty specific order that we tend to put things in. So we really start with the, the actual problem that we're solving, the aspirational identity of our customer, the hero. So that as soon as they view that homepage, you know, when they're, they're doing that grunt test, they know exactly what they're going to get. And this is just the beginning.

Yeah.

Paige, thank you so much for walking us through this. And again, if you're listening, you can watch the video of Paige and Jenna going to step by step through their wireframe and website design@storybrand.com design. The link is also in our episode description. Now, one of the things that you said that was so key is this process allows the client to be laser focused on the words first, not get distracted by do I like the look and feel of this? And it allows them to say to themselves, is this who we are? And Is this who we are marketing to? Is this our customer? Are these the problems that they're experiencing?

Yeah, I mean, we just can't assume that, you know, we want to make it easy. We want to make it as easy as possible for someone to raise their hand and say, hey, you guys are for me. I want to have a conversation with you.

Hey hero makers. April Sunshine here every week on Marketing Made Simple. JJ and I love sharing tips and tools to help make your marketing easy and make it work. So whether you're a captain of one or commanding an Entire Crew, a HubSpot CRM platform is a powerful tool for keeping your business running in ship shape. Other CRMs can feel cobbled together, but HubSpot is carefully crafted in house for businesses like yours. Its suite of marketing tools work together seamlessly so you and your team can focus on what really matters. Your customers, of course, or as we like to call them, your heroes. You can also save and reuse your best performing emails and share them with your team for a faster and more consistent way to communicate with prospects. Use social media tools to schedule and publish updates, monitor terms, and even analyze analyze performance. Learn how to grow better by connecting your people, your customers and your business@HubSpot.com.

Hero Makers. You know that we certify the best marketers in the world to become story brand guides. But did you know that we also certify full suite marketing agencies? That's right. If you own a marketing agency and you need your entire team to understand the StoryBrand framework, apply to become a certified agency at storybrand.com agency. Most agency owners we talk to feel like they're carrying the burden of creating great marketing all by themselves and it's really costing them because they're burning themselves out. They're becoming a bottleneck for their team and they're wasting time trying to train new team members or their current team members instead of focusing on growing their business. So when you become a story brand certified agency, you get on site training on the story brand framework for your entire team. We actually send somebody to you or virtually to do the training for you. You get an exclusive license for your team to use the story brand framework with all of your clients so that everybody can use the same proof framework to get results for your clients. You also get access to our amazing, unbelievable community of guides and other certified agencies and so much more. As a story brand certified agency, you'll feel confident that your entire team knows how to create marketing that works. Apply today@storybrand.com agency.

And now Back to the show.

So now, Jenna, Paige sets you up for success with a really great wireframe. Now it's your time to do the design. So I'm going to pull up your design, and I would love for you to walk us through how you take Paige's wireframe and then translate it over into the actual design pieces.

Yeah. So one of the things that Paige does in her copydoc is she does actually give me some visual cues without completely laying out the design for me. And where the. The client doesn't have, like, a preconceived notion of how this is actually going to show up in the design, but she does, like, give me a good idea of what is important and what the visual hierarchy is in the document and what we want, you know, to stand off the page so I get a better sense of, okay, this is the. This is the important stuff. Right? This is what we actually need to punch up and make sure that people don't miss. One of the things that designers, we can do sometimes is we can get super creative, and then the copy just gets completely lost. And we don't want that to happen with this amazing story. Branded messaging. We want to make sure that the client or the potential client is going to come here and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, like, this is. The visuals are amazing. The vibe is great. And, like, I want. I want to move forward, right? So with EmailWorks, if you're looking at the screen right now, one of my favorite things to do as the designer is to marry what the client wants in their branding. So in this situation, they wanted to be bold. They wanted to bring their full self to this version of this reinvention of themselves. So hot pink, we're bringing that in. We did jumbo headlines. So if you were to look at this at full size, that headline is gigantic. It's really going to step off the page. So the headline direct mail that actually delivers is really big on the screen. Actually delivers is in bright pink letters, bold. And it jumps out at you as, like, the most important thing that we're trying to accomplish and let them know, like, hey, we got your back. We're going to follow through on this. We were able to synergistically work with them to get their marketing pieces within the color scheme of their new brand. So it all flows together and then, you know, taking. One of my favorite things to do is to take the words on the page and do a creative storytelling so it doesn't have to be a centered headline on a page with Centered text. It doesn't have to be boring. You can really change up the layout of where you put the headline, where you put the icon. So in this situation for the listeners, we have our big headline. We have a beautiful image of the direct mail that they actually create and send out to the client's customers. And then we have these five circles that are their industry. So hearing health with a little icon that would symbolize that industry. Real estate, dental, automotive and custom campaigns. And then those are each their punched up color scheme. Right. So we're bringing in the vibrance and the personality of the client's brand into we're infusing that into the design here.

Well, Jenna and Paige, thank you both so much for being trusted partners in our storybrand certified guide community. We love having you and your amazing, fun, incredible talents and we are excited for what's next for this direct mail client and of course all of your clients. And not only that, our hero makers. We cannot wait to hear what you all do with these tips that Jenna and Paige shared today. Thank you both for being here.

Thank you, April.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Jen and Paige, for showing us how copy and design can work together to elevate all of your marketing. They really are a dynamic duo. And if you are stuck trying to figure out how to marry design and copywriting in your marketing so that it elevates everything, you can hire a story brand certified guy guide like Paige and Jenna. Just go to marketingmadesimple.com to hire a guide that will show you how to clarify your message. Marry design and copywriting and create marketing that works well. Hero makers, it's time to apply everything you learned with this week's actionable step. A practical step from today's conversation you can immediately use to shape your marketing and clarify your message. As you are getting ready to create your next piece of marketing, here's what I want you to do. I want you to start with the words. Make sure you have a clear message that identifies your customer's problems and how you solve them. Start there. Don't get distracted by images or colors or fonts. Start with the words. And you can make sure you are using the right words by creating a brand script. Your brand script is the tool that you will use to create a clear message and it is the single place all of your marketing lives access and complete your digital brand script for free@mystorybrand.com then once you have that message, clear the clear story that you are inviting a customer into, then I want you to think about design. Start with the copy, then move to design. And if you don't have the skills to design a PDF or a website, or if you are unhappy with the way that you're designed looks, I want you to hire a designer. It will be worth your investment. Because when you marry copy and design together, it really does elevate everything in your marketing. You have to think of them as a dynamic duo. They can't be separate. You can't think of design on its own and just words on their own. You have to marry them together. So if you don't have the design skills, which I'll be honest, I do not have design skills. I do not have a design eye. So it is okay for you to invest in a designer that will take your copy, take your story and elevate it in a way that makes both better. When you marry design and copy, you will create marketing that works. So start with the words and then add design and your marketing will be dynamic as well. That's all for this week's episode of Marketing Made Simple. Thank you so much for listening and believing, like us, that your marketing should be easy and it should work. Follow Marketing Made simple wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review the show, letting us know how these tips are clarifying your message and growing your business. We'll see you next week.

And you cannot stop me. You cannot stop me. Go.