So, I was about to fly home to the UK last year. I had to leave for the airport in a matter of hours. I still hadn’t packed. I was just about to close the lid on my laptop, and then I realised I hadn’t set my out-of-office automated thingy. I hurriedly typed something for my Gmail auto-responder.
As it turned out, the 71 words I typed helped secure a lucrative SEO copywriting project. A biggie.
A few smiles and some good news.
There were a few people who received the auto-responder who, when I returned, said that it made them smile. And that’s nice.
But the fact that one silly, off-the-cuff out-of-office message helped us win a competitive pitch (the client said it made them think ‘That’s the sort of person we want to work with’) is pretty bloody brilliant.
And it reinforces a few things:
The words you choose matter, wherever they are.
Sometimes, revealing a soupcon of humour and personality goes a long way, even (or especially) in B2B marketing.
It’s probably worth spending a bit more time thinking about my next auto-responder.
What was the out-of-office reply?
It’s not Shakespeare. It’s not Woody Allen. It may not be your sort of thing. In fact, it may have put another client off (but then, would we be a good fit for each other?). Anyhow, here it is:
If you’d like help finding the right words for your website, your ads, your marketing collateral or even your out-of-office reply, find out more about what our copywriters do (it’s pretty much everything) or get in touch.