The Copywriter Underground

New selling technology can deliver a tailored shopping experience online, and these highly “relevant” sales tools are dramatically boosting conversion rates.
Are copywriters keeping up? Is your copy as “relevant” as the overall online shopping environment?
When this post about relevant selling systems from Kim Proctor at How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences popped up on Google […]

Airgun writer Tom Gaylord dominates the airgunning editorial niche, getting paid to write the industry’s most successful blog, numerous paid articles, podcasts and even video. The secret of his success doesn’t revolve around choosing the right adjectives…

Writing billboards is tough. You’re delivering a sales message at freeway speeds, and you absolutely, positively must cut through the barrage of information coming at your reader — who’s trying to keep a ton of steel nicely centered between the lines.
Billboards: An Example of KISS
New copywriters are barraged with formulas for writing great copy, […]

Someone once said screenwriters were “only the first drafts of human beings.” That’s funny, but it underscores the problems faced by Hollywood screenwriters, who aren’t getting their fair share of the emerging digital market.
Still, why should you — a copywriter — even care about the Hollywood writer’s strike?
Simple.
Hollywood’s writers face many of the same issues […]

It’s not exactly a surprise to the copywriting world, but traditional “interrupt” marketing techniques are losing ground to “softer” engagement marketing techniques, and the switch is picking up steam.
Proof can be found in an excellent New York Times article, which outlines the extent to which marketing giant Nike is already channeling its marketing budget into engagement marketing:

Last year, […]

Selling anything to anyone is an apt description of the modern copywriter’s job — but it won’t happen unless the writer keeps current with the latest digital media channels. Here’s how to do that.

Matthew Stibbe’s “Ten free marketing tactics” post offers invaluable advice to copywriters — the kind of hard-earned, real-world tips and tricks that go way, way beyond the obvious. Always worth a read.

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 […]

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 […]