Content marketing tools and training.
What is marketing?
Is it a process of gathering as much money as you can, throwing it to the “creative” winds, and hoping something will come back?
Is it a practice of interrupting as many people as possible with a message they don’t care about, and never asked to receive?
Is it a performance you frantically stage around your product, service, or idea, in the final moments before launching it into the world?
Or is it something else entirely? And if it is, how and when do we employ it?
Google’s been pissing people off lately. Panda, Penguin, Parakeet (okay, I made that last one up), who knows what’s next …
Then there are the social networking evangelists whose entire fortunes are deep in Zuckerberg’s asset.
And finally, the faithful content producers, who labor slowly and quietly to build their businesses one thousand words at a time.
It can all seem a bit much to keep up with. SEO isn’t bad. Social networking sites aren’t evil. Content marketing isn’t impossible. But it can feel like it sometimes.
Where do great business ideas come from?
What about products — how can you know (or at least make a highly educated guess about) whether your idea will actually fly in the market?
In his must-read book Breakthrough Advertising, master copywriter Eugene Schwartz wrote:
“This is the copywriter’s task: not to create mass desire — but to channel and direct it.”
Chris Brogan is everywhere.
From the outside, it seems that in just a few short years, he’s created an independent publishing and speaking empire with nothing more than his personality and a laptop.
The truth of his story is a lot more compelling.
He spent 10 years writing into the void. He flew to conferences around the country broke, eating leftover granola bars. He struggled to pay the mortgage, to pay the electric bill. After eight years of work, he had an audience of just 100 subscribers.
Think having a huge Twitter following is enough to drive your marketing?
Is big media attention (social or otherwise) enough to drive the sales you need and want?
Those certainly help, but the future of a successful marketing campaign lies — in part — in becoming a “Youtility,” finding creative ways to to be unforgettably useful to your interested propects.
John Carlton is a professional copywriter who charges $2,500.00 for his one-on-one consulting calls.
In this 30+ minute interview, he decided to lay out some of his best advice for carving out a career in the writing trade. And he decided to give it up at no charge.
Part 1 of this interview went over well last week. Make sure you don’t miss it.
If you write persuasive copy (and content) as a freelancer, or for your own business, do not miss Part 2 below for some of the most valuable tips and trade philosophies you’ll find online …
