How to Market Your Business With Words - Power Writing for Promotion

The saying goes that "pictures speak louder than words," but in today's competitive business world, that is far from the truth. Whether you are selling a jacket with internet marketing, with an advertisement in the newspaper, or in a physical catalog, if all your potential buyers experience is a beautiful picture, your cash register will remain idle. No matter how crisp the colors or how good the jacket might look on the model, your customers will not only want to read more about it, but will need to read more. Promotional writing incorporated into overall marketing plans can be a demanding challenge to a small or mid-sized business owner struggling to meet day-to-day on-site requirements.

A Recipe for Success
Professional copywriters know and advise their clients that the ingredients in a successful marketing campaign, right down to a specific promotional piece and even website design include:

    pride in the product or service you are selling,
    the special prices you are offering,
    the uniqueness of your business,
    and continuing dedication to customer satisfaction.

Including them in straight forward descriptions, short, punchy copy, and verifying everything with user testimonials can assure success.

The recipe for positive returns will be in the details and how they are presented. Obviously, without words, pictures do not speak at all. And, if you are delving into the world of article marketing to generate even more traffic to your website, the ingredients list gets even longer. Still, the formula for writing to sell remains the same, no matter what you are selling or in what format. If you are intimidated by the idea of sitting down to a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen, the trick is just to begin.

Write the Way You Talk
Pretend you are explaining the product to your best friend. That's the way to say it on paper too. Write for one person and it will translate to captivating copy that will sell online or off.

Break up Your Copy
People do not like to read long, wordy, endless descriptions and they tend to skip and skim. It is said that the average reader spends less than 3 seconds on a headline - so insert lots of paragraph breaks and lots of headlines.

Include Testimonials
Get testimonials and reviews from your own customers or from Yelp, Yahoo or Google Maps. If there are positive things already written about your firm, include them wherever you can. Reviews can be included in most of your marketing strategies, including email marketing campaigns, article marketing, and internet promotion.

Cute is Not Necessarily Good
If you are not confident about your writing, don't try to be too cute or humorous. The results will not be satisfactory.

Read Aloud
When you think you have your piece all put together, sit down and read what you have written out loud. As you read you may be surprised to find some things actually sound awkward. Now is the time to make little changes and to make your words flow. Then read the whole thing out loud once more.

Help is at Hand
Finally, if the idea of writing your own copy is a challenge you would rather forego, there are other options - freelance copywriters or even firms specializing in promotional writing and article marketing are invaluable resources to get you found on internet searches.

Although the power of the written word is sometimes overlooked and under estimated, the savvy business owner knows that to write and to write well is the secret to success.