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The Complete Guide to Writing for Marketing
Welcome to Writing for Marketing!
You have just found a marketing writing resource available for every genre. Whether you are an aspiring or professional writer, this post will give you everything great insights into marketing writing.
Inside this guide, you will find step-by-step instructions on how to write effective marketing copy in various genres such as: email campaigns, headlines, ads and much more. With this knowledge in hand, there is no stopping what you can accomplish!
Introduction: What is marketing writing?
The focus of marketing is to effectively reach your customers and deliver a message or product that will cause them to buy your product.
However, more often than not, companies end up with significant marketing misses. For example, I’m sure you’ve seen adverts for products in the past that looked great but when you buy them they look terrible in reality and don’t live up to their expectations.
The trouble here is that the company spent a lot of money on nice looking adverts but didn’t put in place the right people to translate their message into something that would get the customer to act. In other words, they didn’t have enough writers working for their marketing department.
Video – 5 Tips For Writing \The Best Email Newsletters
What are the elements of email marketing?
Objectives of email communication
Before we begin, it is important that you understand what you are trying to achieve with your email marketing campaign. This will help you to write emails that are going to achieve your objectives and get results for your business.
Simply put, your email’s main goal is to make a sale or drive a conversion of some kind. Remember, the point of writing an email for marketing is to encourage the recipient into action such as signing up for a newsletter or buying a product.
The importance of marketing email subject lines.
Newsletters are marketing tools that you can use to build your brand. They also appeal to the customer, educate them on your products and services and encourage them to come back for more.
If the subject line of your email is compelling enough, people will open it! If you want results, this is where you need to start. Headlines in general have an important job – they capture people’s attention instantly which means a higher open rate.
Internet users are too sophisticated to fall for tricks or gimmicks. They are aware that a lot of companies make the most compelling headlines in the world, but then don’t deliver it.
So what should your headline look like? Here is an example of a headline that can get more clicks than one taken from other industry marketing campaigns:
“What do you need to know about SEO?”
By asking a question, it compels people to learn the answer. The most compelling headlines are the ones that they can answer quickly in their minds. You don’t want something that is too vague or too complex; if people start asking, “Who, what, why,” then you’ve failed already.
Why? Well, your email is being deleted by the recipient without even opening it.
The marketing email body – the meat of it
Moving onto the content, you will need to write an email body (the actual message itself) that is ready to be read. Your objective should be to quickly persuade people into taking action on something.
For example, if you are promoting a product and want to use the ‘scarcity‘ tactic, then you could write this in the email:
“We are running low on stock of X so if you would like one please let us know. If not, please ignore the email and let us know if you have questions in the future.”
Here you are creating a sense of urgency for people to purchase now because there is limited stock. People want to feel like they are getting a deal so they will be compelled to purchase while the opportunity is available.
The important thing is that you keep your message short and clear. The less information your customer has to absorb, the more likely they will be to take action.
What is Call to Action in copywriting for marketing?
The call to action is where you are going to tell your customer what you want them to do. It should be clear and direct, but not too pushy. This is important because after reading your email, your customer might not even realize that there is a call to action.
For example, if you want people to sign up for a newsletter then offer something free that is valuable for them.
In your email, say something like this:
“To get your free report and begin earning now, please sign up to our newsletter by filling out the form below.”
More about Headlines:
Why headlines are the most important part of any marketing copy
Why are headlines so important? The answer lies in psychology. As I mentioned earlier, headlines have an important job to do: they capture people’s attention instantly and get them to read your email.
If you are to write a great headline, it needs to be so good that people are compelled to click on it. This means that it needs a hook or an incentive for the reader, which is why headlines are considered ‘better’ than sub-headlines like underline or bold text.
After all, it’s the headline that makes people either scroll down or click that little “leave” button.
Tips for writing great headlines
A good headline has these three elements:
- 1) It has to be compelling,
- 2) it needs to be effective and
- 3) it should not lie.
If you do this correctly, you are well on your way to getting more click-throughs.
How to write a good headline
Keep it short! The more words you use, the less likely people are going to read it. Don’t use any obscure words or phrases in your headline either; they are more difficult to read and understand.
Your headlines should be completely free of grammar or spelling errors too. If there is any error in your headline, then people are going to wonder what has happened and wonder if you can write; this could be a death sentence for your online marketing campaign.
What makes an effective headline?
The best headlines offer to solve a problem or help people get something that they want. Be careful not to make it too general though, otherwise there will not be enough information for people to see what you can offer them.
For example: “Boost Your Blog Traffic Today” is a great headline, but it doesn’t give the reader any information about what you are going to do for them. You might want to try something like:
“5 Actionable Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog”
Does email marketing work?
Research shows that online marketing via email is one of the most effective ways to get people to read your product or service offering and take action. It’s a powerful strategy when done right, and has been around for quite some time.
Email marketing is also a great way to start building your brand, because it lets you reach out to customers that have already given their contact information to you, which means that they are likely to open your emails and respond.
Email marketing is a method by which businesses grow their customer base, raise brand awareness and increase sales. It’s not an easy task to do well but it pays off when done so.
One of the biggest areas of opportunity for marketers today is inbound marketing – with this type of marketing, customers come to you!
Unlike outbound marketing where you’re reaching out to people who may have never heard of your company before, with inbound marketing you provide what your target audience wants and waits for on their terms.
That means blogs, white papers and other helpful articles that answer questions your target audience has are some of the most effective tools in any marketer’s toolkit. But even with this knowledge, email campaigns remain integral to a company’s marketing plan.
Do you need a degree to write for marketing?
Not at all, you just need to learn a few things and apply them well. Some people like to adopt a formal style when they are writing for marketing because it looks more professional and helps the reader understand that this information is coming from someone who knows what they are talking about.
However, if you write in the style that you would normally talk, then your marketing will sound much more genuine and may be read by more people. Just remember to always use correct grammar, spell correctly and make sure your sentences are easy to read.
Where can I learn how to write for marketing?
A mentor is a great idea, but they are expensive. Online courses are cheaper and you can also find tons of free resources online.
The basic outline for a marketing piece is always the same, you should always provide an introduction, hook your reader in (this should be at least a sentence long), a body that explains what makes you different from your competitors, and a call to action.
The introduction should have the goal of getting the reader to continue reading the email. This is the most critical section of the email and in order for it to work, you need to clearly and effectively explain why your reader needs to be reading this.
The hook should keep your reader interested. This is a separate section that can be longer than the introduction as it can take a lot of research to figure out what will attract your target audience.
The body will help you explain how your business is different from competitors and what makes it such a good choice for clients. It should have clear benefits that are targeted at the client.
Finally, you will need to have a call to action. This is the most important part of your email as this is where you tell everyone what you want them to do with your information.
You should try and make it as easy as possible for them, and encourage people to do something whether that means signing up for a newsletter or trying out your product or service.
Offer something free of value instead of asking for money with every email; this will help build a good relationship with readers over time.
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses various mail channels to send commercial or promotional messages to a targeted audience, typically via email.
Unlike other methods of internet advertising, such as search engine marketing or display advertising, email typically targets specific individuals and can produce results more quickly with higher conversion rates.
In other words, it’s a type of marketing that provides data collected in response to an advertisement.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that relies on social networking platforms to build awareness, drive conversations and engage online customers.
Social media marketing drives people to your website, where you will hopefully convert them into leads and customers. It is also common for social media marketers to generate traffic off the back links of their social media efforts.
Social media is here to stay and it is not going away any time soon. The internet was built for people to communicate with each other, so social media is just a natural extension of that.
It’s also important to understand that people use social media for information and research. They skim through their feeds looking for things that catch their attention or seem interesting enough to read more about.
That’s why you should always focus on creating content that will be valuable to your followers.
