Marketing

Write what you know. Write how you talk. Show, don’t tell. All these rules of thumb about good writing are true (even if they’re a bit overused) but most of us were probably first taught them when we were writing essays or short stories in school. By the time you started writing email messages —

Brands need to communicate in ways that are professional, polite, and personalized to customers. In other words, it’s important to show good etiquette. This is not to be confused with “Reddiquette” — otherwise known as the art of having conversations on Reddit. Given the prominence of social media

Don’t let the sea of photographs and videos filling your feed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even LinkedIn fool you: the written word is alive and well. Companies that want to take advantage of social media services as a marketing channel have recognized that these services have become

If the clickbait titles we see online today have an ancestor, it’s probably the headlines that are still featured on the covers of most printed tabloid magazines. Almost every week you’re likely to see a story about a celebrity giving birth with a headline like, “HER MIRACLE BABY,” for instance,

When a sales rep is on the phone, making a series of cold calls, it’s easy for managers to conclude they’re being productive. Same goes for spotting them creating a pitch deck for a prospect, or writing a follow-up email after a recent customer meeting. Watching them scrolling through or “liking”

You see it all the time — on digital ads, on billboards or even on business cards: “Visit us online at XYZCorp.com." It looks like a complete sentence, but it’s not. On some level, customers need to see the website URL in that sentence followed by the word “because,” along with a reason to

Although some content marketers can be as productive as a team of factory workers, it’s important to remember that you’re not creating widgets. The assets content marketing teams produce — whether it’s white papers and eBooks, blog posts or videos — always need to ladder back to a business

One team pitches editors and reporters. The other posts directly to accounts. One tries to encourage third parties to tell their story. The other tells stories through text, images and videos and reshares the best of what’s created by third parties. These make public relations (PR) and social

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.” — Don Draper, an advertising executive on

Before you walk through the door, check behind you to see if you should be holding it open for the next person. When you haven’t received a response to your email message, your followup should begin with a gentle “just following up.” If you need to reach out to a brand new customer or prospect,