I just got a copy of Persuasive Online Copywriting, written by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, and Lisa Davis. Bryan is the CPO (Chief Persuasion Officer) of Future Now, Inc., and publisher of Future Now’s newsletter GrokDotCom. He's the author of the weekly ClickZ column “ROI Marketing". He recently caught my attention with his article "Six Sigma Web Marketing," something I've been writing a bit about lately.
I'm about a third of the way through it, and I think it's great! It's a quick read, and it already has caused me to re-think the way I write. I'm going to strongly encourage everyone on my team to learn all they can from the book.
So far, it has some solid advice about writing for the web. I think anyone blogging would agree that writing online is significantly different than writing for brochures or advertisements. The book points out clearly that writing online is inserting yourself into a conversation. The goal is to speak persuasively to one person, rather than "the masses."
I particularly liked the thought that marketing is about meeting a customer want or need. To get a dog to salivate, you speak in terms a dog wants to hear. To the heart of the dog, meat reigns supreme, don't try to entice a dog with vegetables, no matter how fancy you make them look. That's what you have to do -- identify the "bottom-line-food-truth" -- stuff about your business that's going to perform the equivalent of getting your customers to salivate.
I was struck with this thought. What is it about every sentence of every page on the web sites my team creates that strikes a cord with our website visitors? Even our Intranet site? What is it about that content on that page that helps solve a need of our co-workers? I think this thought transfers well even in other writing, including email, PowerPoint presentations, and even things like marketing plans. What is it that my audience craves? What about my management? What is my marketing plan doing to get them to salivate?
Good stuff so far!
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