تعليم التسويق الالكتروني E-marketing : Your Content Marketing Strategy

الأربعاء، 8 يناير 2014

Your Content Marketing Strategy

Is This the Next Big Thing in Your Content Marketing Strategy?

Most marketers approach the new year with a burst of resolve and a vow to tick off items on their marketing wish lists. But the digital world is evolving so rapidly that many marketers are left wondering which trends and technologies will endure beyond 2014, and which will just be flashes in the pan.

My big prediction for 2014 is that “consumers will become the new content marketers“. We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king” countless times, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that user-generated content is heir to the throne.

The explosion of mobile and mobile-focused networks like Vine and Instagram have made it easier than ever for consumers to create and share video, giving brands the opportunity to aggregate this content into powerful and authentic brand messaging. On Dec. 17 Facebook announced it will begin supporting video advertising for both mobile and desktop social users, further underlining the emergence of video as a powerful tool that crosses the boundaries of advertising, social media and both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing.

Here are four ways that you can empower consumers to become content-producing brand advocates in 2014 when planning your content marketing strategy:

#1. Tie social to traditional advertising

In 2014, bust social out of the silo by weaving a social layer across campaigns to inspire audiences to create and share content.

Include hashtags in your TV ads, print ads, in-store displays, and events to drive more conversation. Get even more participation by offering coupons or prizes.

Digital and social are transforming TV ads too. Recent research from Nielsen found that 88 percent of marketers believe that integrated multi-screen campaigns will become very important in the next three years. To compete, marketers must extend their TV ad campaigns across multiple channels — like real-time video ads and hashtag campaigns on social media. This year, watch for new and compelling ways to engage your consumers across all devices and screens. Brands like Dunkin’ Donuts are already using Vine videos in Monday Night Football television ads to tie together social and television advertising.#2.

#2. Connect the dots between social and email

Email and social are two powerful channels with a symbiotic relationship. In combination, they build, target and convert brand audiences, turning thousands of fans into loyal brand advocates.

According to a recent report from ExactTarget, 70 percent of marketers find product or prize giveaways to be an effective tactic for audience acquisition. These incentives prompt fans to opt into email lists, creating lasting relationships with customers like never before.

For example, Giant Eagle ran a Facebook sweepstakes for free tanks of gas, and included a call-to-action to sign up for their email list. By touting access to “exclusive offers,” they received more than 45,000 email opt-ins.

This year, kick performance up a notch by collecting user preference data to get unique insights about the interests of your consumers, and use them to create lists for targeted content and offers. This will help optimize campaigns and increase revenue.

#3. Embrace social’s role in driving commerce

Still believe social media is just about engagement? That’s so 2013. Companies are now driving sales directly from social channels, and that will only grow in 2014.

One increasingly effective social commerce tactic is mobile couponing. With the explosion of smartphones, Business Insider predicts that 47.1 million consumerswill use mobile coupons in 2014. Offering digital coupons through social channels also adds a viral component. Fans and followers feel compelled to share your deals — an impulse you can stoke with incentives for referrals.

Meanwhile social merchandising — collecting, displaying and curating user-generated content regarding a brand’s products — has blended the capabilities of social marketing with the conversion potential of social commerce. Brands can encourage consumers to submit and share attractive, creative and authentic product information or purchases that link directly to trackable transactions.

Social data gets a lot of buzz. In 2014, we’ll start to see its practical application in driving commerce. Brands will seek user input via social channels to make product and marketing decisions. By building user content and feedback into their business model, they can make a measurable impact.

Online retailer ModCloth has found success in applying user data to inform their inventory decisions. Their “Be the Buyer” program allows consumers to vote for the designs that ModCloth will sell on their site. Items created as a result of the “Be the Buyer” program sell twice as much overall as other inventory.

#4. Increase the frequency of your social campaigns

A few years back, brands ran a single marketing campaign for months on end. But the rise of social has turned brands into publishers, constantly cranking out new content and campaigns. Moreover, social gives brands the freedom to create and launch campaigns on the fly — amplifying everything from product launches to flash sales. To stay competitive, you need to run multiple, frequent campaigns that engage multiple segments of your audience.

But don’t limit your campaigns to Facebook. As Pinterest, Twitter, and other networks build their user base, you’ll need to engage and convert those audiences too. You should have distinctive campaign strategies for each network. Consider cross-network campaigns that pull in entries from multiple networks, like Vine, Instagram and Twitter, via a hashtag.

Guest author: Kevin Bobowski is vice president of marketing at Offerpop, a world-wide social marketing platform that helps brands engage their audiences everywhere with social marketing campaigns.

Want to learn how to make your blog and content a success with social media marketing?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 210,000.

Download and read it now.

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The 10 Big Social Media Marketing Trends in 2014

Written by Jeff Bullas - 16 Comments
Categories: Content Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

The age of innocence is over. Social media is moving from adolescence to post pubescent, facial hair growing adulthood.

In 2008 when I started on Facebook and Twitter it was fun, frivolous and social. Social media was unencumbered by the past, was encouraged by the future and treated as a toy by the big end of town. Automation was frowned upon and yelled down.

Today the legacy players in technology, IBM, Oracle and Adobe amongst others have acquired start-ups, built and are evolving “Enterprise Class” social media marketing platforms and infrastructure. Facebook and Twitter have become public companies and social startups are not just seen as the playthings of geeks.

It’s become serious business.

So what’s this mean to you?

It means many things and will impact at various levels and intensity across business, marketing and publishing. It will affect your planning, how you resource and even your corporate culture.

The game is still changing and you will need to continue or even start to adapt and evolve. The old analog paradigms of print and mass media marketing and publishing are being pushed and pummelled. They are being held more accountable and measurable.

Social media maturity means implementing processes and platforms. Boring at times but efficient.

So what are the emerging social media marketing trends in 2014?

#1. Pay to play

Facebook likes were the start and the finish of Facebook marketing. Obtain 100,000 likes and you could reach a big crowd. Facebook becoming public means the shareholders want a return. That means that free reach is diminishing and paying for it is almost becoming the necessary evil.

Twitter has developed self serve ads like Facebook over the last 12 months in the USA and is now rolling it out into the UK and beyond. Yes, even Pinterest’s first promoted pins andadvertising went live in October 2013.

It is becoming pay to play on social. The free lunch is looking a touch smaller.

#2. Planning becomes a necessary evil

No longer is it enough to say that you do social media marketing because you have a Facebook and Twitter page. The increasing complexity means you need a strategic social media marketing plan. This means defining your goals, audience and allocating a budget and appropriate resources just for starters.

It’s now time to write that social media marketing strategy.

#3. Brands out-publish traditional publishers

Social media has given us the power, platforms and world reaching networks to all become publishers. Innovative and creative brands and businesses are realizing that social media and content publishing are synergistic cousins and cohorts. Create multimedia content and share it on social networks and you start global conversations.

Brands such as Red Bull, General Electric and Lorna Jane are becoming media companies and publishers with powerful results. Red Bull even has its own media company with nearly 150 employees. The humble blog is leaving its training wheels in the shed. Content is now where it’s at. Mass media is starting to struggle to compete with the amplification and viral velocity of social content driven by the crowd. Octoly discovered that 99% of brand conversations on YouTube are created by fans and followers.

Crowd sourced marketing is now becoming the norm rather than an afterthought.

#4.Visual social takes center stage

Visual social content is now a serious contender in social media marketing due to the convergence of a few factors.

The rapid market penetration of smart phones and tablets
The widespread availability of high speed wireless networks
The decreased cost of data that makes high definition uploads cost effective
The emergence of focused visual media social networks such as Pinterest, Vine and Instagram

Add the emergence of visual content marketing platforms such as Shuttlerock and it’s a trend that is helping companies drive brand awareness and sales.

#5. Social mobile is now mandatory

The rise of mobiles and their almost universal acceptance and use means that optimizing your social content for mobile is vital. This runs on a few levels.

This includes:

Make sure your blog is viewable on mobile devices by using responsive WordPress templates
Visual content such as images and video needs to be made easy to view on smart phones and tablets

12 months ago it was a nice to have but is now becoming essential.

#6. Social media automation is no longer a dirty word

Automation used to be a dirty word on social but doing “social at scale” means that you have no choice. New emerging startups such as Sprinklr are helping brands do social and digital marketing efficiently. Traditional technology companies such as Adobe, IBM, Oracle and Salesforce are acquiring and integrating Enterprise class social media infrastructure into their product offerings.

This trend is also seeing the maturing of previously free platforms such a Hootsuite to grow up and offer platforms that offer a solution and one portal for your social media marketing.

#7. Wearable social takes big baby steps

“Google Glass” is offering the promise of doing social at the blink of an eye and with the movement of lips. 2014 will see the emergence of wearable technology that takes social out of your hand and onto your wrist and face. Samsung is also in the game with other startups trying to get a position on the starting line. The other vendor to watch here is Apple. Will they or won’t they play?

The two other important questions on this trend are, “what will be the adoption rate?” and “what will be its impact for social media marketers?” Look forward to reviewing the numbers in 2015.

#8. Google+ starts moving content

Facebook’s necessity of monetizing its social network to appease shareholders and become a sustainable business could be creating an interesting tangential sideshow. It could be pushing users into Google’s arms by using Google+. Google plus is not a source of revenue and doesn’t need to make money. It is helping feed the search beast’s golden search goose called “Google Adwords”

With over half a billion users and growing it is now becoming a vital cog in SEO, social media marketing and content moving. My blog has seen an increase of over 300% in content amplification in the last 12 months on Google+.

Google plus needs to be on your social media event horizon.

#9. The increasing authority of online influencers

Klout and Kred were two of the first movers to allocate online influencers some credibility. This was at first seen as imagined rather than true and authentic. As online influencers in their niches have grown tribes and followers on social networks brands are starting to come out to play.

Brands have done this in the past on traditional media and that is why mass media influencers such as Tiger Woods is sponsored by Nike. There is no reason why this should not also occur with social media. This is a trend that is starting to happen.

The question isn’t “should we?” It is more about ”how can we?”

The power of the social micro niche influencer on a global scale is now becoming evident and real. Expect to see this trend become more visible in 2014.

#10. Brands start ignoring mass media in larger numbers

The first inkling of this was seen when Beyonce launched a new album in December last year. She ignored the traditional mass media release of a radio campaign, multiple TV appearances and retail and consumer brand promotions. Instead she announced it on Instagram to her 8 million followers with the word “Surprise” and proceeded to launch the 14 songs and accompanying 17 videos on iTunes.

A success?

The unofficial numbers are said to be 365,000 album downloads on the first day and 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours. Beyonce has her own distribution network and its called “social media”. The power of her fans and crowd sourced marketing is now apparent to all. An interesting question here is “does she need traditional mass media?”

Expect to see to see more of this in 2014.

What about you?

What trends surprise you? Are there anyof these that you are planning to embrace and use in 2014? What other social media trends do you think are going to be big this year?

Look forward to your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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Want to learn how to make your blog and content a success with social media marketing?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 185,000.

Download and read it now.

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5 Top Tips for Content Marketing Success

Written by Jake Parent - 16 Comments
Categories: Content Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

The power of online marketing on a social web has only scratched the surface of its full potential.

This year smart marketers will stop using content as a bullhorn and start using it as a platform for building engaged communities. Customers will no longer be seen simply as a source of revenue, but instead as a near endless stream of research, innovation, and sales.

This transition will mean targeted communities that are smaller and more social than the mass media audiences of the past will succeed like never before. Therefore, content will have to be focused, refined, interactive, shareable, and (most importantly) involve the audience in the creation process.

To get you ready for these important changes, here are five top tips for content marketing success:

#1. Bring the Customers Inside

Customers want businesses to solve their problems and are willing participants in that value creation process… if given the chance. Unfortunately, much of what we call “social” media marketing has hardly lived up to its name.

The key will be to move beyond the mass marketing mentality of “us vs. them.”

By empowering your customers to become part of your business processes you’ll get a great low-cost source of research & innovation.

There’s also no greater sales force in the world than a satisfied customer. And while this was once an added bonus for marketers, it’s quickly becoming a necessity. Customers increasingly vet their purchasing decisions through social networks before even considering a company’s traditional marketing.

Some things to try:

Ask for customer input on new projects you’re working on.

Allow customers to tell their own stories through co-created content (see below).

Create incentives (social and financial) for customers to become evangelists of your business.

Make sure to show that you are actually using the feedback you receive.

#2. Focus, Focus, Focus

In the mass marketing era, half of the advertising was wasted but we just don’t know which half.

The Internet has created an ultra-segmented marketplace, which allows smart marketers to create specialized content that solves specific problems.

To be successful, your content has to be focused on a well-defined niche audience. Take the time to map out exactly who you are targeting by developing a detailed profile of your audience, including demographics, psychographics, and a thorough understanding of how they negotiate their social space.

#3. Get Organized

Most people classify content by format (blog, video, Tweet, etc.), often leading to repetitiveness and a sense by your audience that you’re shouting at them (rather than talking with them).

Why don’t you try a different framework, one that will give you a much clearer look at the role each piece of content plays in driving interaction within your community.

When you are planning out your editorial calendar, separate content into one of three categories, defined by how that piece of content was created:

Original content – This is material created directly by you. It should address a specific customer need – be that information, instruction, humor, motivation, etc. Use it as a way to highlight your expertise, make yourself useful, and build trust with your audience.

Co-created content – Created together with others. In particular, you should target influencers within the niche who can help build your authority. Examples of this are guest posts like this one, a webinar highlighting the successes of your top customers, or a podcast with someone who has expertise that complements your own.

Curated content – Created by others but useful in some way to your audience. This includes stuff like retweets or emailing your list with a useful report that was created by another organization.

Reframing your thinking in this way will force you to always keep in mind the business purpose behind everything you create and share.

#4. Get Emotional

In his awesome book Contagious, Wharton professor Jonah Berger showed us that one of the key reasons people share content online is because it arouses a person’s emotion.

Content has to go beyond just being useful; it has to be unforgettable. Rather than trying to churn out quantity, take the time to figure out what kind of emotions move your audience.

In doing so, it’s important to remember that not all emotion is created equal. In his research, Berger identifies that certain kinds of emotions – those that get people “aroused” like awe, passion, and anger – are much more likely to drive shares than those that make people feel toned down – like sadness, relaxation, or contentment.

Ultimately, don’t be afraid to rock the boat a bit, because what gets one person excited might turn another one away. As long as you are exciting the right people (and treating everyone well in the process), it’s ok to let some people go.

#5. Respect the Numbers but Don’t be a Machine

There are so many tools out there that allow you to use data to paint a picture of your social landscape. So many in fact that it can turn into a hindrance if you’re not careful.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely crucial to analyze and optimize, but all the data in the world won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t understand people.

And one of the most important things to understand about people is that they change. Often. Data can be an important tool for measuring these changes – it can help you test assumptions and sometimes provide a needed reality check. But it’s no replacement for digging in and becoming part of your customer community.

So, make the effort to really get to know your customers. Instead of just mass emailings and webinars, take time to have individual conversations. Understand what people are struggling with and you’ll have a near endless stream of ideas for new content to create.

The Big Picture

The world of marketing is changing, and I would argue it’s for the better. By harnessing the power of community, businesses are ending the awful competition between buyer and seller, replacing it with a much healthier process of mutual value creation.

In 2014 the kind of guesswork that has long been the way marketers figure out what their audience wants will be replaced by actually getting to know the customers themselves. By talking with them instead of at them, we can start to create a new way of doing business, one that helps bring people together to solve the problems of our day.

You now have the framework to get started. Use it to go out and build yourself a dynamic, engaged, and profitable community in 2014.

Guest author: Jake Parent has been building communities for more than a decade. His siteLearn To Be Heard teaches marketers and entrepreneurs how to use blogging and other social media to transform an audience of static listeners into a dynamic group of engaged participants.

Want to learn how to make your blog and content a success with social media marketing?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 185,000.

Download and read it now.

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The Worst Social Media Marketing Advice You Will Ever Hear

Written by Sharon Michaels - 17 Comments
Categories: Social Media, Social Media Marketing

If you’ve ever been to an amusement park, you’d know about that one ride almost everyone is hankering to try out. It’s hugely popular and can be immediately identified by the long line of people waiting in anticipation to get on it. Those who’ve had their turn will either love it or think it was okay, but not worth the hype it’s been generating. Very few will really hate it. They will generally put it down as a worthwhile experience, one that was educative, even if it didn’t pan out the way they’d imagined it.

Social media marketing enjoys similar attention these days. It’s impossible to talk about SEO or the online industry (or for that matter anything else) without this topic making a sneaky appearance. You may love it, you may hate it, but there’s no ignoring it. Sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest have become the byword in the marketing industry and few other things have excited online businessmen like the social media phenomena.

True to human nature, those who’ve tried social media marketing are always willing to part with valuable advice on what to do and what not to do. How much of what they say is based on sound logic is questionable, but when people gather these ‘pearls of wisdom’ and string together a social media marketing strategy that isn’t very productive, we have trouble on our hands.

In this article, I make the attempt to go over a few common practices that may appear harmless but have the potential of sabotaging your social media campaign in the long run. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? If you don’t want that happening to you, stay hooked all the way to the end of the article. It promises to be educational.

#1. Establish a Presence Everywhere

On. Every. Single. Social. Network. That advice sounds bizarre from the word go, but the number of people who take it seriously makes me believe that there seems to be a serious shortage of common sense in the world.

I mean, come on! Do you have any idea how many social network sites there are out there. Let’s take stock of them, shall we? And, for the sake of convenience, we’ll start with the more popular ones.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google+
Pinterest
MySpace
Tumblr
Flickr
Instagram

You still with me? Good, let’s continue …

Live Journal
Meetup
CafeMom
DevianArt
Tagged
VK
Friendster
Bebo
Hi5
Flixster
MyLife
SkyRock
Zorp ……

Let me know when you want me stop …

Sonico
Ibibo
Xing
Tuenti
Netlog
Yelp
Badoo
Four Square
QZone
Vimeo …

… Okay, I am running out of steam, but not names!

The point I am trying to make here is that there are countless social networks for the taking. If you’re hoping to be active on all of them, or even the top 10-15 ones, you’re going to end up dedicating many, many (exhausting) hours just managing your profiles – time that you could spend doing something more constructive like, for instance, furthering the interest of your business.

The saner thing to do would be to take stock of your market, resources, and objectives, choose 3-4 social platforms that your audience is most active on, and use them dedicatedly. For instance, if your business deals with travel, interior designing, landscaping, or fashion, Pinterest would be a lot more useful as compared to LinkedIn. However, the latter makes for an invaluable resource if you are offering products and services for business professionals.

Spread yourself out thin over numerous platforms and you’re in danger of burning out really fast. To conserve time and energy, be selective about the medium you are using and you’ll be just fine. Trust me.

#2. Keep Posting Updates Tirelessly!

Social media gurus will have you believe that inundating your hapless audience with a gazillion updates throughout the day is good marketing strategy. Yes, I can see how they’d arrive at that conclusion. After all, there are few things in life more pleasant than bumping into an ad every single minute or sorting through a hoard of irrelevant mailers with nothing but gibberish scrawled over them. Ah, the joy of logging into your email account and seeing 2671 spam messages or the thrill of finding your Facebook feed populated with nonsense from all quarters of the world! Who would want to miss out on such simple joys, right?

WRONG.

In case you are unable to detect the thick vein of sarcasm running through my tirade above, let me spell it out for you loud and clear – posting 10,000 updates is not the same as high engagement. Flood social networks with inane banter and the only result you are going to see is your followers bailing out you, attempting to put as much distance as they possibly can between you and their profiles.

What makes matters worse is when you refuse to customize your posts according to the social network you are using. In case you haven’t noticed, every platform attracts a very specific fan following that sets the culture and tone of conversation. You cannot get away with having the same kind of content everywhere.

For instance, did you know that Tweeters prefer text based updates whereas ‘Facebook-ers’ are more engaged by image based posts. Then again, the kind of content you might see on MySpace would be inappropriate for a professional platform like LinkedIn.

What I am trying to say is that the cookie cutter approach doesn’t work here. It’s extremely important to tailor your posts according to your audience. They are focus of your business and this is probably the very least you can do for them.

#3. Dealing with Negativity

When it comes to handling negative comments on social media, the advice varies from the comical to the baffling to the downright bizarre. When reading through them, I can’t help but question the motives of these so called experts who are ladling out wisdom to one and all so generously. If they are dead serious, we need to send them back to social media schools for some basic lessons. If they aren’t, I can only dismiss them as pranksters who revel in mischief and mayhem.

Here are some generic bits of advice you can follow … strictly at your own risk!

1. Don’t respond to negative comments: If you are planning on playing the ostrich and burying your head in the sand until the negativity dies out … well, good luck! Your audience might be able to forgive a genuine mistake but they’ll have a hard time forgetting that you didn’t even care enough to address the concern they raised. This would be brand management suicide at its apathetic worst.

2. Respond to every last negative comment you receive: … and you’ll be doing little else all day long! As a businessman, it’s important to differentiate between people who are raising genuine concerns and trolls who are out to cause trouble or capitalize on your visibility. Choose your battles and fight the ones that are the most meaningful.

3. Deleted post means problem fixed: Banking on the ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ adage, are we? You think deleting a post or a comment will get you out of the hot water you are stewing in? Sorry to burst your bubble, but what has been read cannot be unread and what is seen cannot be unseen. Besides, contrary to what people may think, the audience doesn’t always have a short memory span. Their ability to remember and hold a grudge will surprise you. Test it at your own risk.

4. Disable commenting altogether: Of all the ludicrous things I’ve heard, this one definitely takes the cake … and the icing and the cherry on top. Disabling comments is not going to stop people from saying what they have to about you. They will just do so on their own blogs or social media profiles where it will be a lot harder for you to mediate the discussion. Oh, and it also makes you look like a grumpy kid unwilling to deal with reality.

There is no one-size-fits-all policy I can recommend for handling negative comments, except one – Keep it genuine. Remember, one comment is all it takes to make friends out of foes and supporters out of detractors. While I wouldn’t ask you to chase down every unflattering thing ever said about you, there’s no harm in admitting to the mistakes you’ve made and taking appropriate steps to rectify them. You come across as someone who values feedback from a customer and cares enough to do something about it.

And the end result … ?

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

So what is the worst social media marketing advice you have ever heard?

Author Bio: Sharon Michaels is a design specialist. A graduate from the National Institute of Design, Sharon currently works as a Subject Matter Expert, UX and Content for Addictive Media . In her spare time, she also turns her attention towards writing and photography.

Want to learn how to make your blog a success with social media marketing?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 185,000.

Download and read it now.

17 Comments

50 Attributes of a Great Copywriter

Written by Brad Shorr - 23 Comments
Categories: Content Marketing, Headline Writing, Inbound Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Suppose you’re in the market to hire a great copywriter. Suppose you’re in the market tobecome a great copywriter. What are the attributes of success? After spending many decades writing, editing and hiring/managing writers, here are 50 attributes of a great copywriter that stand out to me.

What can you add to the list?

1. Curiosity. Writers are like six–year-olds; they always want to know why. Curiosity is the gateway to clarity. As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.“

2. Clarity. The difference between a writer and someone who writes is that the former enlightens the reader while the latter confuses the reader.

3. Passion. Further down, I’m putting words like “boring” and “trivial” in quotations because to great copywriters, nothing is boring or trivial if that’s what they’re writing about.

4. Vocabulary. More than just knowing a lot of words, writers must know the nuances of meaning that distinguish, say, notorious from famous.

5. Precision … The devil is in the details of grammar, punctuation and style. From sloppy copywriting, readers infer a sloppy author (i.e., your company).

6. … Without perfectionism. If a writer never says, “Done!” nothing ever gets published.

7. Diligence. Professionals are expected to work efficiently and meet deadlines. This applies to copywriters and other creative talent.

8. Ability to multitask. How nice it would be if copywriters could handle one assignment at a time. Unfortunately, in the real world they have to juggle jobs just like everyone else.

9. Focus. To multitask effectively, copywriters need the ability to stay in the moment, focusing entirely on the job at hand. Distractibility diminishes quality.

10. Self-motivation. The manager who motivates a writer to write by screaming, “WRITE!” has yet to be born.

11. Self-editing. Arrogance undermines quality. Great copywriters know when their own ideas stink and treat them accordingly.

12. Versatility of form. Business writing is so much more than articles and web pages; I once described 18 types of odd copywriting jobs. The more of these assignments a writer can handle, the more valuable he or she is to any business or agency or client.

13. Versatility of voice. Some writers master the conversational style; others master the technical or formal (boardroom) style. Those who can move gracefully from one style to another are rare treasures indeed.

14. Versatility of purpose. Some writers are uncomfortable with the concept of a hard sales pitch; other writers are uncomfortable with “boring” assignments. Great writers are uncomfortable with not writing.

15. Consistency of quality. Great copywriters consistently turn in work of high quality, rather than just being great when they feel like it or by chance.

16. Is quick on the uptake. Because of deadlines, copywriters often have to learn on the job and on their own – and quickly.

17. Knows when to stop learning. Being quick on the uptake also means knowing when you know enough to get the job done. Writers who feel the need to know everything before hitting the keyboard never get started.

18. Knows when to ask for help. A writer has two choices: struggle endlessly with a vexing problem or get help from a subject matter expert. The latter option improves speed and accuracy.

19. Knows whom to ask for help. A writer is only as good as the brain trust that surrounds him or her. Choose collaborators wisely. There may be no such thing as a foolish question, but without a doubt, there is such a thing as a foolish answer.

20. Handles criticism professionally. Clients, internal personnel and editors always criticize draft copy. If these people feel they must walk on eggshells when dealing with the writer about edits, morale and productivity suffer mightily.

21. Defends the work. Great writers not only accept and even welcome constructive criticism, they also turn the tables and make a persuasive case for their work. Clients, managers and editors are not always right; an overly compliant writer contributes to mediocre content.

22. Has perspective. On the other hand, great writers don’t make mountains out of molehills. Writers who continually get hung up on small matters of style or approach infuriate coworkers and bosses.

23. Knows the rules. When it comes to punctuation, grammar and style, writers can’t make it up as they go along. Because both correctness and consistency are important, good writers are familiar with the rules (e.g., AP style) that govern their type of writing.

24. Knows when to violate the rules. Selectively breaking rules is a sophisticated technique for capturing attention. Apple’s “Think Different” campaign succeeded in part by departing from the boring and pedestrian phrase, think differently.

25. Uses plain English. Knowing a lot of words is good, but using obscure words is bad. As Stephen King said, “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.” This is as true for fiction as it is for business copy.

26. Is a master of brevity. Any writer can spew out 1,000 words on a given topic. A great writer condenses the topic down to 300 powerful ones.

27. Knows how to go long. Brevity in business writing, while generally advantageous, is not always so. Certain types of content, such as landing pages for complex products, demand long copy. Again, any writer can spew out 1,000 words of drivel, but it’s the great writer who can compose 1,000 words of irresistible persuasion.

28. Understands the business world. Writers write well about what they know. Thus, a first-rate copywriter understands the business process, customer behavior and basic business concepts such as features and benefits.

29. Anticipates reader questions and concerns. Because great writers understand the business world, they are able to identify probable reactions from the target audience – and address them in the copy. In addition, this knowledge enables them to discard messaging points that are not pertinent. An ounce of anticipation is worth a pound of verbosity.

30. Recognizes gaps and weaknesses in the information or ideas being presented.Business savvy enables great writers to spot flaws in the case they are being tasked to make; their input can be enormously valuable to a firm’s sales and marketing leadership.

31. Plays nice with designers. Business copy is more than just cranked out text. It is an important component of a brochure, web page, slide presentation or some other form heavily influenced by design. Writers and designers must be flexible and patient when working together to hammer out the finished product.

32. Knows SEO. Copywriters need not be SEO experts, but they do need to know the basics of keywords, anchor text structure and a few other details. SEO comes into play in such things as text, headlines, subheads, Meta titles and Meta descriptions.

33. Muscles through writer’s block. Writing when inspiration is lacking is agonizing – in fact, it’s every writer’s nightmare. Great business writers have the ability to crank it out even when ideas are harder to come by than five-sided snowflakes.

34. Tells stories. Today’s content strategies have circled back to perhaps the oldest technique of all, storytelling. The ability to spin yarns is essential for case studies, landing pages, slide presentations, videos and a multitude of other forms.

35. Is observant. Writing without seeing the details is like playing solitaire with a 49-card deck. You can’t win.

36. Listens. Most great writers I know are better at listening than talking – maybe because writers are often introverts by nature. Listening is crucial to many aspects of business, including content creation, because it is the surest way to understand the needs of a company’s leadership and its customers.

37. Takes notes. Relying on memory alone, a writer forgets or misremembers most of what he or shehears and observes.

38. Thinks logically. Most business writing is aimed at influencing action – influencing prospects to buy, customers to stay, investors to invest, etc. Since business decisions are made in part based on compelling arguments, copywriters must be able to lay them out.

39. Writes with emotion. Because business decisions are also based on feelings, writers must be able to provoke an emotional response in many of their assignments. Warm prospects freeze when exposed to cold writing.

40. Reads enthusiastically. Great writers are great readers. Reading is to writers what exercise is to athletes.

41. Reads widely. Versatile and authoritative writers read all sorts of things – newspapers, novels, history, comics, or even washing instruction labels if nothing else is available.

42. Reads deeply. Great writers enjoy mastering a subject. The combination of depth and breadth of reading facilitates the versatility in form and style mentioned above.

43. Isn’t a desk jockey. Great copywriters aren’t just about reading and writing. Instead, they go out into the real world and talk to employees, customers and even competitors. Without this, they lose their feel – or never acquire it.

44. Borrows well. Creative copywriting is often an exercise in recognizing effective content and adapting it to the job at hand. Great writers are discriminating judges of talent.

45. Borrows professionally. Crediting a source in the form of a mention, a link and/or a formal citation is a necessary element of credible and creditable writing.

46. Has a mentor. Exceptional writers almost always speak highly of a teacher, an editor or a writer who inspired and taught them.

47. Is not blunt. Many writers tell it too much like it is. Great writers control this tendency.

48. Is not temperamental. Many writers have mood swings; perhaps this goes with the creative territory. Great copywriters manage this tendency to prevent it from interfering with their work.

49. Is imaginative. Although in some business situations, imagination may be seen as a negative, employers should not come down too hard on copywriters who appear to be daydreaming or throw out lots of ideas.

50. Possesses a sense of humor. Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allan Poe were brilliant writers, but neither would be particularly effective or happy writing an infomercial script for miracle meat slicers. A lighthearted spirit helps writers plow through “boring” and “trivial” assignments, connect with readers and work well collaboratively.

Over to You

This is quite a long list, but I feel as though I’ve left things out. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I’ve really captured the essence of a great copywriter in any sense at all. So here are a few questions.

What can you add to this list?
Are there items here you would remove?
What makes you a great writer?
What do you look for when hiring a writer?

Listen to this as a Podcast

Guest author: Brad Shorr is Director of B2B Marketing for Straight North, an Internet marketing agency headquartered in Chicago. He is an experienced content strategist, respected blogger, and SEO copywriter. Connect with him on Twitter @bradshorr.