Posts Tagged ‘marketing communications’

Serial Commas in Marketing Communications Provide Clarity, Without Contortions

In today’s post, the serial comma—also known as the Oxford comma. For those of us who may become rather focused on such things, the debate about “serial comma, yes or no?” can be serious business. Commas are wonderful tools. They convey changes of direction, clarify sentences, indicate pauses, and flag upcoming dialogue. In marketing communications, [...]

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Be Strategic: Tips for Marketers on the Job Hunt

It’s spring, the season of new beginnings. And with the economy and employment picture also exhibiting signs of renewal, many marketers’ thoughts are now turning to finding a new job or upgrading their current position. If you’re among them, and haven’t run the job search gauntlet for a while, keep the following tips in mind before shooting [...]

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Check Your Jargon—Please.

Your Highness: I’m clued in enough to laugh at those parodies of over-the-top business jargon that periodically make the rounds… but I’m also quite aware of the need to keep my job fit in by embracing the specialized language of my professional peers. What’s an English major turned midlevel marketing manager to do? My dear [...]

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Case Study Approvals—Without the Hassle

You’ve started a customer reference program, and found the perfect customer to feature. The draft has been through all your organization’s approval layers. After the customer approves the draft, it’s ready for publication. Approval should be a breeze. A day or two seems reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, the customer did agree to participate. Actually, [...]

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Lessons Learned from Obama’s Fundraising Emails

Email marketing campaigns live or die based on their ability to lure recipients into reading beyond the subject line—instead of hitting the delete key. In the wake of the election, President Obama’s digital analytics and email fundraising teams have revealed the tactics they used to convince fatigued campaign supporters not only to open emails, but [...]

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Content Bureau Credits: to Share, or Not to Share?

Surprise! You’ve just received an email saying that you have a credit with the Content Bureau. It’s a nice problem to have, n’est-ce pas? Except that you are now wracked by guilt. When you opened the PO for that project that went under budget, and for which you now have a credit, you were in [...]

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Pictures Worth More Than a Thousand Words: Using Animated Video in Online Marketing Campaigns

Today’s online marketing campaigns are often forced into the small smartphone viewing area, where everything that can be “above the fold” must be “above the fold.” The name of the game is still the same, however: Getting consumers’ attention and holding it long enough to create an impression that leads to action. Animated videos can [...]

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No Words Required: When Iconography Works Better

When is the last time you encountered a road sign with the words “Curvy Road Ahead”? More than likely, you saw a sign like this instead: This sign is highly effective. It’s clear the road ahead has twists and turns—and the squiggly arrow requires no translation. In the business world, iconography can be just as [...]

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The Art of Blurbing

They’re everywhere. Book jackets, of course, and ads for movies—but also, unlikely places, such as cereal boxes and sides of buses. Twitter is essentially built on them. Yes, we are surrounded by blurbs—short (usually), glowing reviews or micro-stories lauding this, that, or the other. When flooded with this many “inputs,” as a tech-y friend of [...]

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Managing a Massive, Multi-Asset Marcom Project? Be a Partner to Your Copywriting Agency for the Best Results

When clients hire the Content Bureau to manage their massive, multi-asset marcom projects, it’s their ongoing engagement that plays a key role in the project’s success. In this post, one of the Content Bureau’s beloved clients, Kerry Anne Rothe, Senior Manager of Communications at PayPal, shares tips for how clients should partner with their copywriting [...]

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