Being Persuasive with Your Pen

MarketingProfs is always a great resource for information, education and networking.  I also subscribe to their email newsletters, which are uniformly terrific.  In this morning’s email marketing newsletter, they point to a blog post in CopyBlogger by Brian Clark called “Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques” that I thought would be helpful to Web marketers everywhere.

He points out that all marketers — from novices to pros — are interested in attracting the attention of their target audiences, drawing them in and convincing them to buy a product or service.  There are a number of ways to do this, of course, including strong graphics, use of video and the like, but compelling copy is almost always at the core of any good marketing strategy.  Check out Brian’s blog post for his detailed advice, but here are his high-level tips for writing effective copy:

Repetition

Reasons Why

Consistency

Social Proof

Comparisons

Agitate and Solve

Prognosticate

Go Tribal

Address Objections

Story Telling

I’ve been a marketer for more than 20 years and have used all of these techniques, so I know them to be effective.  Use one or more of these when writing copy for your newsletter, PPC ads, landing pages or other marketing devices and you’ll see better success.