Marketing Writing Resources for Creative Copywriters

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Capturing the experiences of your most successful customers not only boosts your credibility but also educates buyers and shows them the payoff of your solutions. Here are 25 ways to use customer success stories in your sales and marketing to increase buyers' trust.

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A great-looking email template is important for establishing credibility and brand recognition with readers; but, as the old saying goes, never judge a book by its cover. The same mentality should always be applied to email campaigns. A nice-looking template means nothing if subscribers aren't engaged and interested in what you have to say. The content of your email or newsletter is vital to the success of your campaign. Whether creating awareness, generating sales, or building customer loyalty, it's important to remember what keeps customers coming back for more.

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A good landing page should tell a story. But filling the page with fluff isn't going to sell your product or service. There is a method to the madness behind the creation of a great splash or jump page. And it's a pretty systematic, organized, and detailed method, at that.

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Email marketing is likely your most effective tool for improving customer relationships, building brand awareness, and generating sales. It is also the most abused one. Practitioners of knee-jerk planning rely on emails to bolster a sagging month or fill in the holes left when other marketing techniques miss their mark. Even though it works (which is why it is abused), there is a price to be paid. Customers become disenchanted when they receive numerous emails promoting one sale after another or one product over and over. Everyone's threshold is different. Some may opt out after a week, others a month, and still others a year or more. (Note: there tends to be a jump in opt outs at the start of the New Year. People want to start fresh, so they do some housekeeping. If you saw a jump in opt outs in January, then you desperately need to review your email strategy.) The best way to avoid a mass exodus from your subscriber list is to have an email strategy that works with the rest of your marketing.

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Marketing events with paid search campaigns can be a great source for additional traffic and, with these tips, can also be an efficient promotion channel.

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Many companies already recognize the value of translations for reaching that vast worldwide audience. They've been having product information, press releases, and marketing and advertising copy converted into the languages of their current and potential customers for years. But smart companies realize that to strike a chord with more buyers, they'll have to "localize" their messages so that audiences will feel that everything about an electronic or printed communication has been produced by someone just like them. Not only is the text in their language (with proper idioms and slang), but the graphics, navigation buttons and user interface are familiar. In short, nothing hinders the flow of information—or elicits a chuckle.

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When the going gets tough, the tough get... cheap. Today, a good marketing idea has to be as inexpensive as it is clever. In this first of a two-part series are five inexpensive suggestions that can lead to productive results.

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Perhaps your spending has spiraled out of control and your conversions haven't budged. Or, like many of us, maybe your performance is fine but your budgets have been slashed, forcing you to produce the same results with less spend. Before you scrap everything and start from scratch, pull out this trusty first-aid kit for PPC campaigns.

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Dear CEO: Welcome to the blogoshere! So, umm, how do you really start? How do you get started blogging, and do it well? Let's avoid the technical requirements. (You've got people who can figure that stuff out!) Instead, let's focus on creating the right mindset.

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Finding the balance between search engine optimization (SEO) and a successful user experience can be a challenge. The two strategies can conflict, and companies may mistakenly favor one over the other.

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The author recently had lunch with a good friend, a restaurateur. The food was delicious, but the lessons shared were even better. It seems the fragile nature of the restaurant business has more than a few things in common with the fragile nature of doing business on the Web.

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When we are given the opportunity to stand out from our competitors, we must be memorable! What will standout so that people who are there will tweet positively about your company, your presentation, your product? What will they remember? What will they say about you?

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Would your prospects be more likely to buy if they knew how others have benefited from your services? If so, maybe it's time to tell them. Better yet, let your current clients do the talking. But make it easy for them to share their experiences with a wide audience. Launch a customer case study program.

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Gems of 2008: You need an e-newsletter and you know it. But before rolling up your sleeves, please review the following six bromides from a recent how-to article phoned in by a reigning email-marketing magnate. After each, I'll explain how to do the exact opposite so that you can avoid polluting the e-cosystem with mediocre e-newsletters.

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This focus on "The What" is exacerbated by some search engine optimization techniques intended to drive traffic rather than to brand product, sell services, or convert traffic into customers. Traffic is important, but converting that traffic into paying customers is more important. Even the best and brightest search engine optimizers will tell you that their job is to deliver traffic, not orders—closing the deal is your job, and anybody who tells you that closing can be done by means of some automatic never-touched-by-human-hands method is just plain nuts.

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A good opt-in procedure lays the foundation for a strong email program. But a well-thought-out series of welcome emails will help turn your newcomer into a long-term subscriber.

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This is the second part of an article that discusses the importance of good Web site design and the process of streamlining the creation of Web sites.

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Can asking a question in an ad increase sales? Some will argue vehemently that the use of a question is a non-starter, a pre-ordained copywriting disaster. Craig Huey, founder and president of the award-winning Creative Direct Marketing Group, froths at the idea of a question in sales copy. Nevertheless, a question is a tool. And as with any tool, any copywriting strategy or tactic, if a question is not formulated and handled with proper caution it could indeed do immeasurably more harm than good. Well, let me correct that: If you're a direct marketer who tests, you can measure precisely how much harm a poorly phrased question will do... or how well a good one will convert.