Websites, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds. Television, video games, texting. Does anyone still reads books? I’m about to find out—and perhaps face the biggest marketing challenge of my career.
Broadway Books will be publishing my novel, STASH, in July 2010. This is how they describe it in promotional material:
Set in an affluent suburb in upstate New [...]
Dear Dave:
Every time I write something for my company, I end up resorting to jargon: words and phrases like synergy, leverage, spot on, scalable, best of breed, etc. Is this okay? Or is there a better way to write?
Signed,
Stuck in a Cliche
Dear Stuck:
The reason people use business jargon in their speaking and writing is [...]
Back in 1965, the rock band the Animals recorded the song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”— way before email existed. But email and the hit song by the Animals share a bond when Eric Burden sings:
“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”
As email writers, we [...]
And it’s ethical … but only if you’re plagiarizing your company’s own content. Here’s what I mean: if you create good content, re-use it.
Split a white paper into a number of blog entries
Re-purpose a brochure as a web page
Take a video of a company executive speaking at an industry event and put it on your [...]
Tags: Marketing Opinions · Writing
What is your company doing to prepare for the economic recovery? Klein Marketing recently worked with GlobalSpec, an engineering search engine and media company, to develop a white paper encouraging its customers and prospects to take action now. Waiting too long can put you behind competitors.
From the white paper …
The important question during a downturn [...]
Tags: Marketing Strategy · Writing
On Web sites, “Content is King.” Fresh, relevant and up-to-date content will help your site perform better in search engine rankings and will keep customers and prospects engaged and coming back to your Web site.
The challenge is coming up with all this fresh content. Busy marketers don’t always have time to write or update copy, [...]
I am an ambivalent owner of a GM vehicle, a SAAB. That made me eligible to receive a letter from GM that contained this sentence:
“As you may know, GM is using an expedited, court-supervised process to accelerate the reinvention of our company.”
No, I didn’t know that. I only knew what the entire world knew: GM [...]
Tags: Writing
This isn’t about politics or marketing. It’s about the consequences of language choices. The media recently reported that the Obama administration has stopped using the phrase “global war on terror” — which has its roots in the Bush administration — and has substituted “overseas contingency operations.” Here’s the story from the Washington Post.
“War on terror” as a [...]
Everyone has heard the expression “Content is King.” Good content helps improve search engine optimization, educate prospects, generate qualified leads, position your company as experts and more. So what type of content actually is kingly, or king-like, or just king?
At the top of my list are white papers based on surveys. One of my clients, [...]
Tags: Lead Generation · Writing
Dear Dave:
My colleague at work says you’re only supposed to put one space at the end of a sentence before starting another sentence, but I learned you should put two spaces and that’s how I write documents. He’s always changing them. Who’s right?
Signed,
Two Spaces are Better
Dear Two Spaces are Better:
You call this marketing? What are [...]