9 Things I learned at Marketing Prof U’s Marketing Writing Bootcamp

9 Things I learned at Marketing Prof U’s Marketing Writing Bootcamp

During June I attended Marketing Prof University’s Marketing Writing Bootcamp, an online conference lasting two weeks.

I decided to do this because:

  • I wanted a better handle on what problems marketers face since they are my target customer.
  • I wanted to brush up on my marketing knowledge since most of my knowledge comes from practice, observation, and one or two marketing classes in college – and that was eons ago.

Many of the points made about marketing writing were similar to what I already  know and do due to my journalism training: 

  • Keep things simple
  • Use active verbs
  • Write for your reader
  • Be very specific
  • Tell stories
  • Write great headlines and
  • Write in short, bite-sized chunks

These familiar tools are already in my writing toolkit.

Because of the varied corporate work I do writing case studies, articles, white papers, and other online and public relations content, I knew a lot about the different subjects being covered.

However, I did pick up nuggets that will make my work even better.

Here are 9 nuggets I learned from the MPU bootcamp experts:  

1)  Everyone wants to be happier, smarter, healthier, richer, safer, more secure, more attractive and more successful, and you need to include at least one in your marketing copy.  A good reminder from Bill Schley.

2) If you operate in a commodity-like service area, get yourself a dominant selling idea. Bill Schley. 

3) Get buyoff on the outline of a white paper, which speeds the time it takes to create a first draft. Get several people to look at the outline to get additional feedback.  From Stephanie Tilton.

4) When creating content, think of the frequently unasked questions and answer those. From Ann Handley.

5) Infographics are great ways to mix things up. But I haven’t had time to find any good tools.

Anne Handley gave us five tools or sites to check out, and Marketing Prof’s Veronica Maria Jarski created a cool infodoodle of Ann’s ideas, shown at left.  

The info-graphics sites are:

6) What does great content looks like? Anne Handley and others gave me a good list of companies they think are creating great content.

 I hope to check out and review some of these sites, and do another post. Here are a few: Marketo, ExactTarget, Open View Ventures, Daxko and Solany.

7) Find yourself a content buddy. Friends and colleagues can point out content ideas you miss because you are too close to a situation, concept or story. Regular conversations can spark great ideas.

I’ve actually done this with Carol Tice, my writing buddy. Simple conversations have turned in to blog post ideas for both of us. From Mark Levy.

8 ) Free writing can help you see fuzzy things clearly and helps you see options you may have missed, or content you could create, says Mark Levy.

9) Take a look at things you normally dismiss, examine them and ask “Who loves this and Why do they love it?” Your answers can reveal hidden content ideas, says Mark Levy.

I haven’t listened or read all the sessions, and I’ll share additional nuggets as I find them.

Are any of these nuggets new to you? What’s one marketing writing lesson you learned recently, or rediscovered? I’d love to hear from you.

 Infographic: Veronica Maria Jarski, Marketing Profs

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