Marketing Writing Resources for Creative Copywriters

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As a marketing professional, do you proclaim your offerings to be real or authentic? If so, you may find your customers calling them (and you) fake. So stop it: Don't just say you're real; be real.

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Most marketers have email addresses for less than half their customers and prospects. If this is the case for your company, it might make sense to explore email appending. Let's first look at the process, and then we'll examine how one publisher implemented its communication plan.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Just as city planners utilize master plans to promote healthy municipal growth, a "Customer Community Master Plan" enables marketing executives to determine an overall customer interaction plan that will allow your company and its relationships to thrive and prosper. In other words, such a master plan avoids pitfalls.

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Email can be a great call to action for multichannel customers, particularly in retail but also in B2B marketing. We all know that email can play a powerful role in turning Web researchers and site browsers into buyers. In fact, more and more of our retailer clients are building a specific segment of in-store buyers—and getting results that blow away store managers. Lessons learned in these B2C experiences can also be applied to B2B, especially with the advance of more strategic account management approaches that cross business and geographic boundaries.

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Naming. Doesn't matter what you're naming—your product, your business, your Web site or heck, even your child, your choice is important. Here are a flock of—actually, 18—ideas, strategies, and tools to make your name discovery a little easier.

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If you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead; any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. Here are several actionable ideas.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Learn some tips for writing provocative and compelling copy, get some insight into how to best use online calendaring services and how they differ from each other, and make New Year's resolutions that are both important and achievable.

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If you've ever heard George Carlin's famous "Seven Dirty Words" you can't say on TV, you can safely avoid using all seven in your subject lines. They will definitely get you blocked. Here is a list of 100 more that you should avoid using as well.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

What will happen when ideas become commodities just like everything else? Some people certainly buy ads from advertising agencies on the strength of the agency's own brand name, but is the value of those brands under threat?

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Online surveys are an increasingly common way to solicit feedback, but response rates are often quite low due to poor survey design, lengthy surveys, requests for personal information, or a lack of incentives for survey completion. So how do you ensure that people respond to your survey? Follow these seven simple rules of engagement.

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The advent of new media poses some challenges for even the best PR professional.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Press kits are like business cards. If you don't have one, you have no way to make an introduction and no way to provide valuable information to people with whom you want to do business. A press kit is a collection of a few vital pieces of information that makes it easier for the media to tell your story accurately and with full details. By putting the power of your press kit to work, your company can enjoy more accurate media coverage, more exposure for story ideas, and more complete information through press coverage.

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What is advertising's most important word? The simple, innocuous word "like": a nondescript word that carries with it all the conceptualization power you need to create a business identity, to form a brand personality, and to position your product or service in the mind of your audience.

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There's no silver bullet for search engine optimization. You need to do the right things over and over, over extended periods of time. Key among these are generating relevant content, gaining inbound links, and designing and coding for search friendliness. Perform these 10 exercises to start your program of search engine fitness.

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In this MarketingProfs Classic, originally published in April of 2003, Suzan St. Maur highlights 10 online writing concepts that also kick offline. "After all the agonies we suffered some years ago when some tried to make offline text work online, we've finally turned the tables," she writes. "Now we can borrow back a number of online writing concepts and use them to sharpen up our paper-based marketing communications."

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Out of 18 choices, why does one piece of content get 49% of the vote while another gets 0%?

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Advertising is dead. Consumers have been over-advertised to and over-sold. So what's a marketer to do?

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...television without sound, romance without kisses, the rumba without rhythm, a joke without a punch line. If your Web site disappointments, you need something that provides the eureka factor.

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In this MP Classic, originally published in 2002, Nick Usborne debunks the notion that the secret to good copy is using certain words or phrases. Saying as much suggests "that if I had access to the *exact* set of brushes and paints used by Picasso, I could become a great painter," Nick writes. However, there are some simple steps you can take that, when taken in the right sequence, really can improve your copy.

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These 18 concepts will give you an edge on your competition—or an edge, period. So if the same old left-brain thinking that everybody else is using just doesn't get you where you want to be, try these creative concepts on for size.