Hands Coffee Marketing Copy

The following is a website copywriting sample for an fictional Korean coffee shop and bakery in Virginia called Hands Coffee.

**Disclaimer: This is a real coffee shop that exists in South Korea, but they currently do not have any branches in the US. This is a sample fictional marketing copy for Hands Coffee if they expanded internationally. Photos are property of Hands Coffee.

HANDS COFFEE

A smooth taste of France in a small cup.

Pull up a chair. Hands Coffee is a place where you can meet old friends and stay awhile, a place to sit and unwind.

 

 

At Hands Coffee you can expect:

• Premium hand-pour coffee
• Specialty Green Tea or Black Tea Cappucino
• Korean pastries, cakes, and breads baked fresh daily
• Shaved ice fruit bingsoo dessert for sharing
• Plenty of tables to start a conversation

WHY HAND-POUR COFFEE?

You may be asking yourself, what is the difference between hand-pour coffee and your average cup of joe?

We brew coffee by hand, the way it should be. Our baristas can control the speed of the pour, which makes a richer and more flavorful brew. Find a local Hands Coffee near you and see for yourself.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM WAFFLE

Come in from the cold and enjoy one of our warm ice cream waffles.

Choose your topping: Strawberry,  Chocolate Raspberry, or Green Tea Mochi.  $6.99

 

HARVEST DONATIONS

Earl Gray Apple Tea or Apple Tea Cappuccino, available hot or iced.  $5.00

For every Autumn’s APPLE drink you purchase, Hands Coffee will donate 100% of the proceeds to Fairfax Meals on Wheels. Click the link to find out how you can make a difference at your local Meals on Wheels program.

 

 

Learning to Write Marketing Copy

I just finished the Lynda.com Learning to Write Marketing Copy course by Ian Lurie. Ian Lurie is the founder and CEO of Portent, a digital marketing agency that practices search, social media, content and analytics for clients like Fox Television and Fender Guitars.

My biggest takeaway from this course is that it is really critical to block off a chunk of time and to just write for a whole hour or 45 minutes with a distraction-free environment.

Some advice from Lurie:

“Now, turn off your instant messaging, silence your cell phone, close email and any other devices, channels, transmitters, distractors that you have that might interrupt your thinking.

Quick aside here, if you’ve watched this course start to finish, you’ve noticed by now that I’m kind of obsessed with avoiding interruptions.

Why is that? Because in my experience a five minute interruption means 25 minutes of time getting back into the flow of your work. I’ve had great ideas ready to write down, only to have a rogue house cat jump into my lap or colleague ask a question, and poof, the idea is gone.”

I just started doing this while being at home. It is incredibly hard, if not impossible, to create a distraction-free environment during the day with a three-month-old daughter who wakes up after a 15-minute nap and starts screaming because of a wet diaper. I’ve learned that the best time to try to get work done is either in the early morning or late evening, when my daughter is the most likely to sleep for a longer stretch of time.

The first step is to freewrite, where you jot everything down that comes to your mind, without interruption and without editing. After that, you go back and edit for clarity, grammar and spelling.

Start to think about who your audience is for the copywriting, what collateral you will use to reach them, what tone of voice is appropriate for the writing. The type of writing you would use for a Facebook or Twitter post is very different in tone from a piece you would write for printed materials.

As with any good writing, simplify as much as possible. Cut out words that are unnecessary, make the writing clear and concise.

Also important is to include a call to action when copywriting. Be direct and tell the consumer why this product matters to them. Why should they care?

An example of a call to action from Lurie: “Want to learn what makes the HH1 bicycle helmet the most advanced, most protective, lightest bicycle helmet on the market? Read on.”

Overall, this was a very good course from Lurie on marketing copywriting and I will be posting a copywriting sample for my writing portfolio soon. If you would like to learn more about the fundamentals of marketing copywriting, check out Ian Lurie’s Lynda.com course here.

The Costs of Taking a Break from the Workforce

I just watched the Skillcrush webinar, The Future is Bright: Why You Need to Invest in Yourself with Ellevest CEO and co-founder Sallie Krawcheck. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Krawcheck was CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, of Smith Barney and of Sanford Bernstein.

It was a little sobering to hear about the costs of leaving the workforce for a few years. I recently left my job to stay at home with our baby after she is born in July and have been planning to work part-time or work from home after getting adjusted to having a newborn.

Krawcheck crunched the numbers, saying if you take a break from working, you’re not just leaving your previous annual pay for the years you take off. You are also setting yourself up for a pay cut when you come back, which means that you will get raises off of the lower level through the course of your career. Also, in the time you’re off, you’re not contributing to a 401K or Social Security, so the financial hit is pretty significant.

“What I tell women is, the kiss of death can be–and it’s not too late, but–the kiss of death can be stepping out–fully out,” said Krawcheck.

“Imagine if you were in the senior marketing world five years ago and you stepped out,” said Krawcheck. “So, you left a world that was all about brand-building and you’re coming back into the world that is about brand-building and multi-touch attribution analysis. That’s an enormous change over what doesn’t seem like an extraordinarily long period of time.”

“What I tell everybody is either take a class, be with [Skillcrush] on the tech classes, go to General Assembly for marketing classes or volunteer [with] some nonprofit who can use your skill set so that you kind of keep your capabilities up or doing a little bit of consulting or do part-time, but something to keep your toe in the water.”

I was already planning on building marketable skills through learning online and volunteering, but her talk was the extra boost I needed. If you’re not keeping up on skills that you will need to get a job in the future, the world will pass you by. Technology and ways of doing business change quickly within a few years, so it’s best to keep reading, keep going to classes, keep learning new things.

It’s important to not become too complacent if you are deciding to become a stay-at-home mom. It’s best to prepare for the crisis scenario, that day that your husband loses his job or finances get really tight. How will you step in?

Honestly, I was pretty scared about this life change. I don’t know how to stay at home and have housework and chores be the main focus of my day. Depression and isolation is a very real threat to new moms because you go from having financial independence and going to a job where you interact with people every day to a situation where you’re at home, cooking/cleaning/taking care of the baby and maybe not seeing a single adult person until your husband comes home at 6 p.m.

The best way to combat this is to keep your mind engaged. Read the news. Listen to NPR. Take a business course online. Do whatever it is you need to do to keep focused.

If you’re interested in watching the full Skillcrush webinar with Sallie Krawcheck, I posted it below.