The Copywriter Underground

I was asked to write a monthly column for Chief Marketer about blogging and engagement marketing, and my second effort just hit the newsstands (the virtual, online newsstand).
It focuses on The Britannica Blog — a stunning new blog effort from one of the oldest brands in the knowledge business. Until I’m back from vacation (my [...]

It’s not exactly “Copywriters Gone Wild,” but for the next two weeks, this copywriter will be blogging from a remote camp on East Grand Lake, Maine.

When you’re selling a corporate product that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, you need to reach executive buyers (Directors and VPs).
The bad news? There’s no shortage of gatekeepers and roadblocks between you and your quarry, and you’ve got to put your sales rep in the office of a qualified executive, and do it quickly.
So [...]

Copywriters boil away all that isn’t essential, leaving behind the essence of a product. Which is why felt strangely at home when I stumbled across a creative writing site dedicated to telling a story in a single sentence. (Consider One Sentence the forerunner of twitter, but with meaning.)

One Sentence is about telling your story, briefly. [...]

I just wrote an online marketing plan for a client. Five years ago, half of the plan’s elements didn’t exist in any real marketing sense. And not only have the media channels changed, my client’s goals have too.
With consumers facing a constant barrage of marketing messages — and marketers struggling to make even a wisp [...]

Many, many years ago, I was the sole copywriter for an ad/PR agency that touted its “synergistic” approach to marketing (not my word for it). In fact, we repeatedly pitched ourselves as “print, broadcast, PR, events and direct mail experts.”
Which was fine… except we weren’t.
Direct mail? I was the agency “expert” and what I knew [...]