Category Archives: Communication

Marketing copy is only as strong as the foundation on which it’s built. Persuasive emails, sales letters, and landing pages don’t manifest from thin air, overcoming an inherent lack of substance with “power” words or important-sounding but meaningless jargon.

To be truly persuasive, marketing copy needs to do much more than simply present logical reasons to buy. The most effective campaigns tap into our unconscious motivators, pushing the buttons that create automatic responses and triggering the hidden drivers that move us to action. In “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” Robert Cialdini details the unconsciousContinue reading “How to Apply the 7 Principles of Influence to Your Marketing”

Small text may be costing you money. The smaller the text on your website, the harder it is to read, and the fewer visitors you’ll convert into customers.

Do you have more than one person writing copy for your website, social media channels, and content marketing? While a mix of unique styles can help make your content more interesting, minor differences in tone, usage, punctuation, and formatting can add up over time and create distracting inconsistencies. A simple writing style guide can solveContinue reading “Why You May Need a Content Marketing Style Guide”

The fatal flaw of most B2B marketing strategies is the incorrect assumption that all business purchasing decisions are made purely by logic. No emotions allowed. So, based on this erroneous point of view, B2B marketers cut out anything resembling a personality or purpose from their websites, white papers and webinars. In its place, they dumpContinue reading “Boring is Not a Strategy”

Your free content isn’t actually free at all. It costs your audience something much more valuable than a little money. Their Time It isn’t easy to commit 45 minutes for a webinar that may or may not be any good. Their Attention Right now their phone is ringing, their VM light is lit, their emails areContinue reading “Why Your Free Content Still Costs Too Much”

Trying to sound really smart is really, really dumb. You see it every day. Puffed up blog posts, white papers, webinars and website copy full of important sounding jargon. So serious, so authoritative. The less of it you understand, the more important it must be. Corporate-speak is a relic of the days before Google andContinue reading “Yes, Even CEOs Speak Human”

If your lead generation offer is only about your firm being “best-in-class” and “results-focused,” you’re probably going to lose out to competitors creating content that people actually care about. Their own dramas, problems, challenges and selfish interests. Them, not you. In other words, your company details are the last piece of the information puzzle, not theContinue reading “Great Lead Generation Offers Are About Their Problem, Not Your Commitment To Excellence”

You know you’re really, really into marketing when seeing cheesy stock photography on a company website actually angers you. Is it just the laziness of it? Or that the company in question is blowing a chance at actually differentiating themselves as opposed to looking like yet another clip art clone? Is it that the decisionContinue reading “How Silly Do Stock Photos Look on Your Website? This Silly…”

Your brand is not a logo, image or “differentiation statement.” Your brand is simply this: The specific problem that you solve and the specific people/companies that you solve it for. Your logo and image help reinforce your brand, but by themselves are meaningless. If you want your marketing to have impact, to resonate, to meanContinue reading “Branded”