Where old skool meets new skool – how to integrate content marketing into your sales machine
I woke up the Saturday after PCN2013 prey to a mixture of emotions, one of which I can only describe as a hubris hangover. Did I really say all those things about content marketing? Without qualifying my opinions? I must have come …
The Copywriter’s Prayer
Oh Word, Let me compose sentences providing both meaning and pleasure. Guide me towards clarity, simplicity and truthfulness, And away from the seductive path of waffle, and the words whereof the weasel availeth himself. Teach me to care about punctuation without sharing …
Maslen on Marketing June 2013: Why double-amputees can make great copywriters
Many laypeople (and not a few copywriters) imagine the job of a copywriter involves sitting at a computer and typing. Well, that’s true as far as it goes. It does involve typing. But in much the same way as the job of …
No sex please, we’re copywriters
Recently, scholars have unearthed a long-forgotten text advising copywriters on how to live harmoniously with their clients through the practice of certain sexual positions. Here, we reprint the first 10 positions. 1 When the client comes to the copywriter and asks her …
The marketing director, the air stewardess and the copywriter: a cautionary tale.
Here is the next installment in my thrilling series: How my repeated cock-ups nearly cost me my clients, my reputation and my business. She was the blonde-tressed European marketing director of our most important client. Behind the velvet headband was a marketing …
The “Childish” Sales Technique Your Clients Will Actually Thank You For Using
What is that for? Why? How did I get here? When is it my birthday? Are we there yet? Children have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge (or maybe just for answers). If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of an interrogation …
Five people who make you look bad (3 of them are copywriters)
Lurk on a copywriters’ forum for long enough (about three seconds) and you will come across a post complaining that, “clients don’t respect me”. The copywriter has slaved over a keyboard for hours, days or weeks to produce something they feel …
Why you should make an exhibition of yourself
Let me ask you a question. What can you do at exhibitions that you can’t do with any of your other marketing channels? Put your hand up if you said “meet your customers”. Now help yourself to a chocolate from the box …
Better renewals copywriting (Please read this article now. Put it aside and you may forget.)
We all know the theory of effective renewals copywriting. But what does it mean in practice? Here, subscriptions copywriter Andy Maslen provides a few real-world examples. There’s been a lot written about renewals, much in this magazine, and it’s all good stuff. …
“Darling, you seem different somehow”
Husbands and wives get used to each other’s voice. Your subscribers feel the same way about you, says Andy Maslen, which is why it pays to use appropriate language. Selling subscriptions is a long game. And to play the long game well, …
The customer’s not a statistic, she’s your wife
At the end of this month’s MoM I’ve got a great little story about the ultimate bit of customer service. But first, let me ask you something. How do you get your knowledge of your customers? Here are some channels many marketers …
What Freud and the Bible taught me about copywriting
Did you know that men think about sex every six seconds? That means if you write a letter that takes four minutes to read, your carefully crafted sales pitch gets interrupted 40 times.Actually, I have no idea a) where that statistic came …
Customers or cannon fodder?
I have been e-banking with a certain high street bank for a couple of years. I log on to my personal home page and see details of my account. When we moved to Salisbury, we took out our mortgage with the same …
Love the sinner…then sell to them
A lot of copywriters and marketers turn to psychology in an effort to understand and get closer to their customers. But how about dusting down your theology? Peel away the business suits, the carefully constructed personae, the intellectual chitin with which most …
Let’s play 20 questions
I was in a meeting with a potential client the other day, discussing a new piece of marketing literature. The aim was to produce a sales tool for their distributors’ telemarketing staff. We started discussing possible content and the potential client said, …
There once was an ugly duckling…
What would you say was the most important piece of copywriting in a direct marketing campaign? The envelope teaser? Could be. After all, if people don’t even open the pack, you’ve failed at the first hurdle. How about the headline? Why not? …
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