The Copywriter Underground

I’m a big advocate of pursuing companies you want to work with instead of blindly marketing and accepting whatever comes back. But turning a short, carefully vetted list of prospects into a roster of clients has never been easy.
Enter the Lumpy Mailer
It’s the digital age, I’m online, so my first contact would come via the [...]

Communications giant Verizon just announced a company blog that promises a response to questions within 24 hours.
It’s interesting that a blog offers small and medium-sized businesses a channel where they can clearly out-compete their larger brethren (not that there are any small players left in this market), yet many are failing to embrace this new [...]

The basis of engagement marketing is… engagement (not surprisingly).
So why do so many interactive, “two-way” blogs think their job is finished when their entry is posted?
Talking Back. It’s a Good Thing.
You can’t engage someone if they think you’re not listening. And in today’s Web 2.0 world, feedback (in the form of comments) is critical.
Otherwise - [...]

Your strongest marketing tool? It’s not your SEO strategy, your finely tuned messaging platform, or even your copywriter.
It’s the passion of your customers.
Tap into that, and you’ve created a mobile sales force that can’t wait to sell your product. They’re engaged. They’re credible. And they’re chomping at the bit to spread your message.
Passion-based marketing? It [...]

Blogs are finding their way into the arsenal of corporate marketing departments, and for those willing to try this new marketing channel, the payoffs can be significant.
A marketing blog can build customer loyalty, help recruit new customers, drive revenues, unify fanatic users (who sell your product for you), and help you retain control of your [...]

Until a day ago, Floyd Landis was simply the American cyclist who won the Tour de France after an epic, one-day escape put him in a position to clinch the win.
Now Landis is accused of cheating by using performance-enhancing testosterone, though there are a lot of questions surrounding the testing (and he still has a [...]

So what are you really? Word jockey or success guru? If all you deliver are words, then it’s time to reconsider your role…
It’s not easy for your clients to succeed in today’s fragmented, fast-changing marketing environment, and for a copywriter used to selling success as much as words, writing simply isn’t enough.
A tricky headline won’t [...]

I just finished a Financial Times Q&A session with Michael Caine lookalike Maurice Saatchi, where he suggests the proliferation of fast-switching media channels will be the death of traditional advertising.
The idea? So many messages coming so quickly means companies must clarify their brand to a single thought/word, and then market it so ruthlessly that any [...]

The online world is awash in “content.” Most of it garbage. Not surprisingly, many of the Internet’s hottest sites aren’t content generators as much as content controllers. Search, filtering, rating… it’s all designed to separate the relevant from the irrelevant. And the wheat from the inedible.
For writers, there’s opportunity in all the mayhem. For example, [...]

The first time I uttered the term “Engagement Marketing” was in the middle of a client pitch. I was trying to bring an online weekly column into existence, and came up with the phrase on the spot. I remember feeling pretty pleased.
After all, this was nearly a decade ago - long before “blog” was a [...]