Copywriting

The marketing mix, often referred to as the 4 Ps, is almost as old as marketing itself. (Quick review: Product, Price, Place, Promotion.) It's the bare bones, and optimizing how these essential ingredients work together is what marketing is all about.

Well crafted copywriting relies on a targeted version of the 4 Ps, too. Lately, though, I've noticed several marketing pieces that completely miss the boat on one of these four critical ingredients. How to make sure it doesn't happen to you?

Use this checklist the next time you're writing copy:

Has the economy got you down? If the folks I’ve been talking to are any indication, there’s no across-the-board answer to this question. No doubt about it, some businesses are feeling the pinch. But others are surprisingly robust. And everyone, it seems is looking straight ahead, positioning themselves for the eventual uptick.

This is not a political post. But I've been closely watching this election season. And it's clear that, although we Americans like to insist that we're not influenced by the "marketing" of our candidates, there's little evidence to support our claims.

The brand matters.

I was interested this week to participate in a B-2-B webinar with David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of PR & Marketing. And, as usual, David said something interesting.

This time, it was the idea that an e-book is essentially a glorified white paper. 

Have you ever bought something because of a mission statement?

Recently, an older post on The Essential Message blog caught my attention. In it, Michel Neray points out that no one has ever bought anything because of a mission statement. And as someone who has massaged and crafted mission statements, messages and taglines (and who has sat through more visioning meetings than I care to remember), I relate to what he's saying.

Article marketing may be a hot topic among Internet marketers, but it's really just an old idea. One of the best ways to showcase your expertise in an authentic way is to write articles and place them where your clients and your peers are likely to read them.

This is one area where everything old is new again.

Seth Godin, one of my favorite writers on business topics, writes today about money and motivation. And he really gets to the heart of the matter on messaging and marketing.

He writes:

I was talking with a friend the other day about a topic that's important to him personally. At one point in our discussion -- in the middle of a sentence -- he suddenly stopped and switched gears.

"What I'm really trying to say is,..." And then he made a clear, eloquent statement. Immediately, I understood. Somehow, though, it had taken us 30 minutes to get to this point.

Now, let's admit it. We all do this on occasion. Sometimes important personal matters can be hard to articulate.

I was talking to a client the other day about something we both feel strongly about. Something that has a huge impact on the effectiveness of your copy, your overall message strategy and even your brand. Something we're all born with and yet we often hide when it comes to business.

Emotion.

Creating marketing messages that have personality, that communicate authentically who we are usually requires us to step out of the box of traditional marketing communications speak. After all, marketing your business is about having a conversation. And what do people do in conversations? They tell stories.

Here are five ideas to get your juices flowing in finding and telling your own stories. Start by thinking about something that you want to communicate to your audience. Something you might be a little stuck with is good. Or something that feels dull. Then, let's play.