How To Sell Without Selling

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If you want a simple way to make your emails more profitable, without any hard pitching or looking even remotely “salesy”, then give me a few minutes here, and let me show you how to do it in this article.

Here’s the story …

One problem a lot of people have with writing effective emails is they think they’re writing a sales letter. And because they think their emails are like sales letters, they pack them with benefits and use all the usual copywriting tricks — out of context — and selling “choke holds.”

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Why Content Marketing is Not Branding

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It would appear that our buzzword du jour is “content marketing.”

You might have noticed that they talk about it a lot here on Copyblogger.

(If you haven’t noticed that, you’re either new or you don’t pay attention very well.)

At a gathering in Boston recently, I threw out this one: “Content marketing is weaponized storytelling.”

It got a lot of retweets. And now, weeks later, I don’t really know if I even agree with that.

But I do believe that content marketing is a lot more like sales than it is that dubious (and yet somewhat important) word “branding.”

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The Best of Copyblogger in 2012

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For a mere blog, Copyblogger has been around for quite awhile now. And we’ve developed a few traditions.

One of them is that every year, just around the time when you wondered if your relatives were ever going home, we slip in a “Best of Copyblogger” post right before New Year’s.

It’s a chance for you to catch up on something you might have missed.

And it lets us revisit content we are particularly proud of.

These are some of our votes for the best Copyblogger articles from 2012, based both on your enthusiasm and our own.

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If It Doesn’t Sell …

Advertising legend David Ogilvy hated the word “creative” in the context of the work his firm did for clients. In Confessions of an Advertising Man he wrote, “I tell new recruits that I will not allow them to use the word creative to describe the functions they are to perform in the agency.”

The job of advertising, Ogilvy rightly maintained, was to sell the product or service. If it didn’t do that, the advertisement was a failure, no matter how “creative” any of its other attributes.

Madison Avenue has continually failed to heed Ogilvy’s advice. Will you?

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Traditional Advertising is Truly Dead

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Warning: If you’re addicted to spending ungodly amounts of money in an effort to interrupt enough people into becoming “aware” of your product, service, or idea … skip this. You ain’t gonna like it.

Mad Men. The Walking Dead. The Killing. AMC has created some of the best television of the last two decades. So, when I saw the trailer for their latest — The Pitch — I was pre-sold.

Two nights ago, I took the dog for a walk, grabbed a drink, and then settled in on my beloved blue couch to see if AMC could do it to me again.

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The 5 Types of Prospects You Meet Online, and How to Sell to Each of Them

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If you’re producing content to promote your services, physical products, or digital offerings, obviously you want a return on investment for the time and effort you put in.

On the other hand, you’ve probably noticed that if you spend all your time relentlessly selling, you’ll alienate a good portion of your prospective audience.

The tricky problem for content producers is that various readers are at different awareness levels, depending on how long they’ve been reading and how much exposure you’ve provided to your offer.

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