Writing website content: First, forget everything you know about your company.

Why would you bother hiring an Atlanta copywriter to refresh your small business website? After all, what does that person know about your firm initially? Nothing. Surprisingly, that’s a good thing. Because that’s the exact perspective your website visitors bring with them when they first land on your site.

On the other hand, company employees know a lot. Unfortunately, that’s a problem.

» Read more..

Share

What if sellers looked at their marketing communications through buyers’ eyes?

Okay, your recent email or ad said what you wanted to say, and when you showed the layout around the office, everyone signed off on it. So, um, why aren’t buyers lined up at the door? Didn’t they see it? Well…yes and no.

Let’s approach this from another angle.

Have you ever ‘observed’ yourself looking through the mail? Looking through a magazine? Looking through a website?

» Read more..

Share

Logic or emotion: which one really makes us buy what we buy?

I’ve heard it said that we choose with our hearts, and then justify with our heads.

Except for engineers, maybe, who I’m sure do have hearts, but, well, I won’t get into that. The point is, we’re rarely aware of the bubbling brew of internal and external forces that act on us, from the ding-dong recognition of a need, to the final slap of the credit card hitting the sales counter.

» Read more..

Share

What are the most common ways of throwing away a marketing budget?

Why would any company sabotage their own marketing efforts?

Man, over the years, I’ve seen lots of good reasons. Well, they weren’t good reasons in the end. But when managers consistently put their internal considerations before customers’ buying considerations, then marketing pieces end up being targeted to managers…rather than customers. I know, I know, I tried to tell them.

» Read more..

Share

How can print and web together open fresh new frontiers?

If I were an Army strategist, I’d figure that the surest way to capture my target is to approach them from all angles.

So that, well, there’s less chance of their escape, and my looking foolish. Although our country is probably lucky that I’m not in charge of defending its shores, I keep hearing that this very approach is offering all kinds of new marketing possibilities these days.

» Read more..

Share

Why do some marketing projects go smoothly, and others go on the rocks?

Oh yes, I’ve seen marketing initiatives dissolve into tedious, gut-wrenching, time-sucking exercises for all involved.

There are all kinds of factors that might send a new project down that rocky path. But I’ve spent decades watching company behavior from an agency perspective. And if for some reason I were forcibly compelled to pick some indicators of sweat-free marketing, here are some of the things I would blurt out.

» Read more..

Share