MarCom Professional

In earlier chapters you identified how to appeal to your target audience and compiled a list of your product’s benefits.

Now you need to plan how to structure your writing so it leads your reader along a logical path of thought towards taking action.

Just like how a seasoned debater or lawyer prepares to argue their case, you need to assess how to communicate your points so they resonate with the reader and seduce them into agreeing to your proposition.

Remember that people make buying decisions based on logic and emotion, so your writing needs to trigger both if you’re going to persuade the reader to pull out their credit card. More...

Now the holidays are behind us, I hope you’re as ready as I am to get stuck into 2009 and to take advantage of every opportunity offered by the net for marketing and growing your business.

It’s certainly going to be a tough year for many people; I’ve started hearing the ‘d’ word mentioned in reference to the economic plight both sides of the pond.

However, I’m going to leave doom ridden talk to the journalists, and instead concentrate on the opportunities available to SMEs who’re able to promote themselves more responsively and flexibly than their monolithic corporate competitors. More...

I’d imagine you’re too excited about the holidays to concentrate on a persuasive writing lesson this week. So instead I’m going to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to seeing you all with your pens ready in a week or so.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with this informative video (link via Michael Stelzner’s blog), which tells you everything you need to know about becoming an internet millionaire, but without having to waste your time writing copy:)

Happy holidays!

 

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“In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope.” - Charles Revson

Whenever someone reads your website’s landing page or sales letter they’re not thinking about how clever the wordplay is but ‘what’s in it for me?’

They want to know how your product can solve their problem and benefit them personally, not how great your company is or how many speed settings your widget has.

If you’ve provided them with the right triggers, their imagination will also be picturing what life would be like if they took advantage of your offer. More...

“The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.” - David Ogilvy

As any lawyer knows, it’s not the strength of your words but the strength of your arguments that wins.

The same rule applies to persuasive writing.

Dazzling the reader with your use of a thesaurus or adopting a pushy tone isn’t the best way of convincing them to respond the way you want.

Persuasive writing is thinking on paper and salesmanship in print, rather than clever wordsmithing.

The aim isn’t to impress the reader with stylish prose, but to present your case as clearly and logically as possible. More...

"Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon." - David Ogilvy

 

Words are an undervalued asset in the business world.

Whether clouded in technical jargon, marketing buzz words or hype filled corporate claptrap, writing fails to communicate when it’s trying too hard to sound clever or impressive.

This misguided approach is further crippled by the popular use of vacuous phrases, such as ‘product evangelists’, ‘360 degree thinking’ and ‘paradigm shifts’, which merely sound like a replacement for genuine thought and fail to convey any real meaning. More...

Just a quick post this week to let you know I havent abandoned you and will be back blogging soon. Currently I’m working on an eBook on persuasive writing which I’ll be serialising on the blog before giving it away for free in a couple of weeks.

It won’t contain any groundbreaking info most writers don’t know already, but I’m hoping it will be useful for casual visitors looking for some advice on how to write clearly, with brevity and without some of the corporate speak and gobbledygook used by government councils and the like, which confuses rather than communicates. More...

Last week I offered some advice on why businesses of all kinds (whether you’re a one man band or continent spanning corp) should consider starting a content marketing campaign. People are constantly searching the web for answers, so if you can provide useful information in a way that promotes your expertise then you can increase the chance of turning a prospect into a customer.

So how do you go about it?

Get Wordpress

Unless your web developers were prudent enough to equip your website with a content management system, you’ll need somewhere to post your articles to. My entire website is built using Wordpress, so obviously I’m a big fan. More...

Matthew Stibbe of bad language fame recently blogged about the difficulty of defining what he does at dinner parties. Should he say he’s a writer (and risk disappointing the dinner table when admitting he’s not the creative kind), a marketing copywriter (when people hear ‘copyright’ and yawn) or a modern day ‘Mad Man’? Well, if you’re a business writer defining what you do is getting complicated, and it’s all thanks to the internet.

A copywriter can be defined as ‘a person employed to write advertising or publicity copy’. More...

So as promised, please find below my tips for writing email marketing campaigns which build rapport, relationships and responses from readers:

Getting emails past the spam blockers

With spam about as desirable as raw sewage, junk filters are getting ever more zealous in blocking suspicious messages. This means the tactics used by spammers to get their emails noticed and read are constantly being added to the blacklist of unacceptable email marketing behaviour.

So you need to avoid using a spammer’s language if you want to pass the gatekeeper; don’t use words and phrases such as FREE, amazing, buy now, congratulations, dear friend, great offer, investment, special promotion or winner. More...