Relevance in Copywriting – Relevance is the most important principle in marketing. We live in the most aggressively solicited society in history. Human attention is practically an economic currency. If you want to see what I mean, do some paid advertising online. Most platforms will tell you how much money you paid for just a few seconds …
Curiosity in Copywriting – If relevance is how you connect with your reader, curiosity is how you turn that connection into interest. Think of curiosity as the psychological glue that keeps your reader’s eyeballs stuck to the page or keeps them tuned in to your video or audio message. This is why curiosity is the …
Curiosity in Copywriting – If relevance is how you connect with your reader, and curiosity is how you turn that connection into interest, hope is how you turn your reader’s interest into a burning desire. Think of hope as the fuel that turns up the volume on that interest until they can literally feel it …
Rapport in Copywriting – If relevance is how you connect with your reader, and curiosity is how you turn that connection into interest, and hope is how you turn that interest into desire, rapport is how you turn that desire into motivation. Before I reveal the secret to building rapport in copywriting, you should know …
Storytelling in Copywriting – There are two ways to use storytelling in copywriting, the right way, and the wrong way. In the first four articles of this series, we talked about turning attention into interest, interest into desire, and desire into urgency. The final two techniques will focus on turning urgency into action. Technique #5: …
Hypnotic Copywriting – While I did not coin the term hypnotic copywriting, the practice of hypnotic storytelling has been around for a long time—possibly thousands of years or more. Since this is my series, I’ll give you my definition of hypnotic copywriting, which is synonymous with my definition of trance in copywriting: “Creating a synthetic …
Emotional Copywriting – Emotional copywriting is based on two central rules. The first rule is that your prospect’s interest in your offer is usually based on an internal conflict between their drive to meet a need and the pain of not having that need met. The second rule is that emotional copywriting contrasts the pain …
Suspense in Copywriting – The dictionary defines suspense as “uncertainty, worry, or excitement in wondering about the result of something.” The better job you do at creating this uncertainty, worry, or excitement in your reader, the more likely they are to stay with your message until the end. I’m going to put this definition into …
What is Positioning in Copywriting? It’s based on one of the most misunderstood ideas in modern marketing, which I’ll introduce in a moment. First, let me clarify something about positioning in general. Positioning only applies to prospects in Stage #3 of the Buyer’s Journey. If you’re positioning your brand, product, or service for Stage #1 …
There are two ways to create Urgency in Copywriting: external pressure, and internal pressure. External pressure is simple. All it takes is an irresistible limited-time offer. Internal pressure is more complicated, but also more powerful. In fact, if you create enough internal pressure, your limited-time offers will become much, much more effective. Creating internal pressure …
Dog Whistle Marketing – Most copywriters have a thesaurus or two or three handy, maybe one on their computer. A lot of copywriters have the “Words That Sell” thesaurus compiled by Richard Bayan. My shelf also includes Roget’s Descriptive Word Finder, and Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary, and, of course, a basic Webster’s Dictionary. Dan S. …
5 Benefits of a Content Marketing Strategy. What if you could attract a steady stream of inbound leads, and have more time to serve your clients and develop new products and services? According to a 2017 CMI Report, content marketing generates three times as many leads as outbound marketing and is 62% less expensive. Inbound …
A Content Marketing Strategy is a type of marketing plan focused on creating and distributing relevant, valuable information with the goal of attracting a clearly-defined audience and engaging them to take a specific action. This article introduces our eight-step content marketing blueprint. I started designing this system in the early 2000s while working as a …
Any successful Content Marketing Strategy starts with knowing How to Create a Buyer Persona. In my experience, content marketing efforts based on a well-defined buyer persona are much more likely to succeed. This is why the second step of your content marketing strategy is to thoroughly define your buyer persona. How to Create a Buyer …
Buyer’s Journey vs Customer Journey – this article defines both these content marketing terms, explains the five stages of the buyer’s journey and the five stages of the customer journey, and gives you a blueprint for implementing both in your. The buyer’s journey comes into play after you’ve completed the first two steps of your …
A Content Distribution Strategy is a plan for publishing and promoting your content to a clearly-defined buyer persona using multiple media formats distributed through various channels. This article explains how to build and implement a Content Distribution Strategy, starting with three types of content distribution channels. We’ll cover three rules for picking the best channels …
A Content Creation Plan is a strategy for defining and managing all projects related to planning, researching, creating, editing, and publishing the content defined in your content distribution strategy. The three-step content creation plan in this article should help you decide which approach is best for you. Step 1) Planning Your Content, Step 2) Drafting …
Welcome to your step-by-step guide on How to Build a Content Marketing Team. We’ll start with an overview of your content marketing team members, followed by a detailed description of each role and how they work with one another. We’ll also discuss how these team members will work together to implement your Content Distribution Strategy …
Content Marketing Goals and KPIs – Your content marketing goals should be: 1) Specific Enough to Be Measurable. 2) Given a Definite Deadline for Review. Tracking your Content Marketing Goals and KPIs will help you quickly discover what’s working, and what isn’t. This gives you the clarity to do more of what’s working and less …
How to Track Content Marketing ROI – Content Marketing ROI is a percentage that shows how much revenue you gained from content marketing in comparison to what you spent. Knowing How to Track Content Marketing ROI will help you quickly discover what’s working, and what isn’t. This way, you can do more of what’s working, …
We all know what the “problem of the age” is because it’s bearing down on us right now. It’s the arrogant belief that we should submit to the “rules” of those who THINK they know what is “best” for the rest of us. It’s the belief that anyone who doesn’t embrace these “rules” is a horrible person who must be silenced. Let me remind you that this has been tried many times in history, and in many countries…