Marketing Writing Resources for Creative Copywriters

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We've all read about Web 2.0 and the impact it will have on businesses. Some find the principles life-altering, others say it's pure hype. Whichever camp you are in, you can't ignore the fact that business is changing—especially online. Here are five categories that managers need to consider now to keep in step with Web 2.0 changes.

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Blogging is one of the hottest trends on the Web. Whether yours is an individual blog, a group blog, a character blog, or a CEO blog, there's no doubt that, done right, a blog can position you as a thought leader, bring your Web presence to life, and help you engage with your customers. But with over 75,000 new blogs created every single day, and tens of millions of blogs already in the blogosphere, it's not a given that you'll get found by your target audience and develop a loyal following of readers. What can you do to pull in the crowds and to rise in the rankings? Here Stephan shares his secrets.

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Relationships. Trust. Delivery of superb value. These are core ingredients of a successful service firm. Talk to 100 service firm marketers and leaders, and they'll all tell you (and most of them believe it) that their firm is at the top of their industry in each of these categories. Why, then, do service firms typically do such a poor job of bringing relationships, trust, and value into their marketing mixes?

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Companies sometimes have two names: the company name and the brand name. This week: How do you find a dream name for a company or product?

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Who doesn't have a business blog these days? Maybe you? Fret no more. Here are the necessary steps to planning and implementing a corporate blog. This first article examines the key decisions on subject, mission, audience targeting, market survey, blogger selection, securing of a corporate champion, and the "go" decision.

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We hear of freelance writers, freelance editors and freelance designers, but rarely do we hear of freelance "marketers." But that is beginning to change. Now that telecommuting is commonplace and workers are more mobile, freelance marketers are starting to sprout up all over the place. This week: Where can you find a good one?

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Old news: Green products don't work, and consumers won't pay a premium for them. New news: Investment in environmentally preferable products and technologies can lead to a potent new source of innovation and competitive advantage.

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Writing for business-to-business lead generation is a balancing act: On the one hand, you want as great a response rate as possible; on the other, you don't want to clog the sales pipeline with useless leads—people who don't have the authority, interest, or money to buy what you're selling. Here are five pragmatic ways for you to increase your success rate with the prospects who matter.

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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is not just the marketing flavor of the week. It is a very profitable way to get prospects to Web sites for a long time to come. It is direct marketing at its purest. To succeed with PPC, you need to apply all the rules for media, offers, copy, and testing. Here are 10 sure-fire tips.

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The aggressive drive to be the number-one search result in Google continues to change the nature of communication. No one is feeling that more than today's copywriters. In less than a decade, many copywriters have fundamentally changed, or felt pressured to change, their approach to the craft. They have learned that some traditional communications tactics don't register well with a greasy machine named Googlebot.

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The Web has changed the rules for press releases. The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don't know it yet.

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Not all site traffic is good. Like automobile traffic, sometimes traffic is just... congestion, and just gets in the way of those who you really want to come your way. How can marketers target the *right* sort of traffic?

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Writing an effective questionnaire is not a task for novices. At the very least it requires an understanding of four basic issues.

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As a relatively new player in the increasingly competitive comparison-shopping and online retail arena, pricefish.com needed a comprehensive and creative marketing campaign and strategy to re-launch the pricefish.com brand and generate consumer awareness for the site, among other things. Here's how they did it. Get the full story.

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Most of the direct mail sent uses one of two copywriting techniques. In the author's view, neither works. The truth is there are only four ways of writing a direct mail ad that will raise your response rate.

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With Google AdWords, it is now possible to target prospects at the very moment they are thinking about buying your products or services. Here's how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.

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Imagine if half the people that called your sales team hung up within 10 seconds. There are not prospects they were cold-calling either, but interested people calling them. Heads would roll. At the very least, you'd want to know why so many people were disengaging. Well, chances are it's happening to you right now, every day. Your sales team isn't the problem; the real problem is your most visible and active company representative—the Web site.

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If ever a winner-take-all match took place among the marketing heavyweights—direct mail, telemarketing, and the Web—our money would be on direct mail, without doubt. Simply put, the best pound-for-pound method for targeting a large audience and gathering data is direct mail. Armed with the right data, message, and creative, direct mail can be a lean, mean, marketing power puncher that can hit your target like a ton of bricks and deliver a substantial return on investment. But to be effective, direct mail requires the careful combination of three key ingredients.

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Here's a pop quiz: Name a form of marketing communications that can take as little as five seconds to complete, can be accomplished by a nine-year-old child or an adult, and is of absolutely no importance whatsoever. Oh, and it also happens to be the most difficult and frustrating form of marketing communications, by far. The answer is naming consulting, the often-arcane art of creating and applying names to products, services and companies.

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You've carefully selected your list. You've labored long and hard over your letter—every word, sentence and paragraph. It's a powerhouse of persuasion with every key element firmly in place, including compelling benefits, powerful testimonials, a superb P.S. and an impossible-to-resist offer. But all your hard work, your hours of craftsmanship and painstaking attention to every little detail will go for naught, unless your prospect opens the envelope. Here are two distinctly different ways to go about that.