Zen Marketing: Passive Dimensions of Creating Positive Impressions

Do something amazing, requiring a ridiculous amount of time and devotion. Then make no effort to promote it. Later, do the same thing again. It’s an exercise in discipline, craft, and generosity; and an investment—however elusive or indirect—in future returns.

Cultivate a reflexive hesitation to grandstand, employing your reserves of humility, personal experience, and understanding that “pride goeth before the fall.” (This is not the same thing as  reluctance to promote yourself, but rather a way to infuse your promotion with subtlety and grace.)

Never show your ego to the client; your own self-worth and confidence should be taken for granted. Hone your ability to inflate your accomplishments to oversize proportions, but practice the technique of holding back and deploy hype surgically. Be like the quiet karate master—capable of overkill and supremely confident, thus exuding strength and avoiding conflict altogether. 

Creating a buzz is essentially a metaphysical idea. (Has anyone ever seen or actually felt this “buzz?”) Yet the process comprises distinct, concrete steps.  Make all of these steps meaningful and organic—that is, integrated with previous and pending steps—so that they reflect both the object of the buzz and your life’s work as a whole. 

Everything you do—even random, seemingly meaningless gestures and actions—influences your future, in ways both obvious and unexpected. Pursue each opportunity or exchange mindful that it may lead to more significant ones. 

To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your distinction, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Good Writing Is Good Marketing

Good writing is good marketing. Good writing is not interchangeable with bad or adequate writing. There’s a real difference, not only in the writing per se, but in its effect.

Some people think that the product or service they sell really speaks for itself. They look at copywriting, social media, and other communications as something they need just to fill a space or satisfy some marketing convention (like producing a brochure because everyone else has one). When seeking a writer, their sole criterion is price.

This attitude ensures that they’ll have a harder time standing out from their competitors. Assuming they have the absolute best product in the field, if they cannot communicate this fact convincingly, their superiority may not translate into higher sales/business success.

It’s also a mistake to think that effective SEO writing is equivalent to good writing. Improved search ranking and site traffic is just an opening; you also need to close. Good SEO writing that cannot make a persuasive case for your product or service is ultimately not good writing. It’s a well paved road that leads to a derelict shack.

What about “content” and social media marketing? The writing in these areas cannot come across as overt marketing. In blogs, Twitter, and other vehicles, you have to actually add value (not just appear to), by providing services/information that complement what you sell.

As marketing gets more subtle, more sophisticated, more UBIQUITOUS, consumers or “targets” get more sophisticated, too. People are more wary than ever of being marketing to. That’s why the content you provide, even if it has an ulterior motive, must contain some kernel of meaningfulness.

Good writing is more than just words on a page or screen. Good writing is a vehicle for ideas, which takes it beyond the space it fills and creates another dimension. This is no abstraction, especially in marketing, where words must drive action and produce concrete results. A typical copywriter will likely produce typical results, while a writer with genuine passion can make his excitement for a subject contagious . . . In order to make your products/services speak for themselves, you need a writer who can give voice to them.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

The Case Study: A Timeless and Versatile Form

The case study or “success story” is a mainstay of marketing. Most people whose work has even a cursory relationship to marketing communications are at least familiar with the basic format:

* Problem [Client situation/Industry background]
* Solution [How the customer used a product/service]
* Benefits [. . . and they lived happily ever after]

The very ubiquity and simplicity of case studies means that often they’re taken for granted. Many people in marketing, or those who hire people in marketing, see case studies as peripheral or supplemental to their primary vehicles—a Website, collateral, etc.

The case study is an essential marketing vehicle, or at least it should be. It can go where other vehicles cannot, to deliver a measure of credibility and complexity that is unmatched.


Beyond Explanation: Identification > Association > Extrapolation

While other marketing copy tells you about a product or service, a case study shows you how it works.

Case studies eschew the “salesy” language so many people have been conditioned to view with skepticism (no matter how true it is). As in social media marketing, the attributes of the company whose product/service is featured in the case study are implied, never stated directly.

A well written case study is a story that is engaging and triggers empathy. It enables the reader to identify with the challenges faced by the customer in the story, because he/she faces similar challenges.

Also, when the problem addressed is a familiar one, the case study can serve as a model for prospects/existing customers who may have never thought of using the product or service in the fashion illustrated by the story. Without spelling out every minute benefit—usually impossible anyhow—the case study allows readers to imagine how they might benefit in their own situation. That is the ultimate purpose of any case study.

* * *

Not only is the case study a mainstay of marketing, it’s also a mainstay of those who venture to instruct others on marketing. (A Google search of "How to Write a Case Study" returned 5 million hits.)

(Here’s an example of the format this post describes, written by me.)

To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Mega-media (It’s Mark Zuckerberg’s World—We Just Live in it)

These days, all it takes is ten minutes and a few mouse clicks for any individual or enterprise to gain a worldwide platform with round-the-clock access. But then what? The effortless quality of social media is deceptive. Building a strong online presence is hard work (which many Internet boosters fail to mention).

The sea change wrought by mega-media is that more people than ever—way more—now have the capacity to broadcast themselves far and wide. Capacity, though, is only a vehicle of possibility, like a car without fuel.

Lots of people are starting to use these powerful tools, owing to social and commercial pressures that make self-promotion imperative at all levels. But many lack the time and/or the temperament (to say nothing of basic communication skills) to use them in any way that could possibly advance their goals.

Adding to this plight are the legions of would-be gurus and “expert strategists,” the credible ones indistinguishable from the frauds. For those finding our Brave New World exceedingly alien, all the tips and advice can only go so far.

Mega-media is here to stay. That means you have to connect with your customers/prospects (i.e., your audience) more than ever. It means you have to create new content relentlessly—tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts, etc. And your content has to be strong: engaging, relevant, something beyond what you’re doing on your Website.

You also have to manage excess—that debilitating force. You must be a soldier in the ongoing war for attention/productivity and face endless conflicts on multiple fronts: man vs. machine, man vs. man (and his/her respective feed, page, etc.), but mostly man vs. himself.


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.

Less Hype, More Intrigue

Hype is the junk food of marketing. It’s empty, it lacks substance. Hype is saying louder, more insistently than anyone else: Look at me, I’m so great; Listen to me.

It’s not enough just to tell people how great you are—you have to show them . . . Specificity—exploration of detail—is the essence of understanding; specificity is integral to texture.

Case studies are a good way to present concrete examples of what you offer and why it works. A case study puts your product/enterprise in a real-life context and illustrates specifically how/why it works. (More on case studies.) 

Another approach is to focus on process—offer an inside look. The most functional things, whether objects or entire realms of commerce, can have a peculiar allure . . . The bonds of tradition and individual dedication, found everywhere in some degree, ensure there are people who have stories to tell.

Craftsmanship, the minutiae of specialized fields—these are linchpins of civilization, whether understood as such, or even mentioned beyond the confines of their particular fields. Revealing the beauty in the commonplace or making some basic though critical process come alive in prose are hallmarks of potent communications.

There are no dull subjects only dull writers, said H. L. Mencken . . . Good writing is good marketing (I said that).


To learn more about writing and strategic communications that can amplify your voice, contact me at ajeisenstat[at]gmail[dot]com, or visit my portfolio, AdamEisenstat.com and LinkedIn profile.