I’ve got a very simple philosophy about writing anything: start from the end user and work back. Always. Tell me what the audience wants, help me figure out what you want to tell them and give me some time to come up with the words.

This is such a fundamental law to me that I’ve never seen a need to take marketing classes or the like to help determine how to write things. My view is not meant to be arrogant or to imply that I’m the world’s best copywriter, but I never felt compelled to give my processes names.

Like I mentioned, I’ve never taken a marketing class. I’ve taken precious few writing classes, with the exception of three or so journalism courses and an ongoing creative writing workshop at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Although my simple philosophy about writing suits me well when I’m sitting here by myself with a blank computer screen, I keep revealing my lack of formal education when my clients throw out marketing and writing terms I should have learned along the way.

• Email Nurture/Drip Campaign: I ran across this about a month after I started my own business when a prospect wrote me to ask for a quote on a series of emails for their new nurture campaign. Uh… well. I searched madly before I wrote back. A company will send a number of emails or other communications to leads to engage them over a period of time, thus nurturing a relationship. The drip part of it comes with the regular correspondence — one newsletter every month with little tips every week, that kind of thing.
• Creative Brief: I’ve had two clients come to me about creative briefs. The first one sent me a creative brief before we figured out the deliverables. The second client asked me to write one with her before we got started. I’m still confused about what they are, but it looks like they are written analyses of the purpose, goals, structure and markets for any type of ad/PR campaign. I think. Here’s more…
• SEO: Sure, I know what this stands for: Search Engine Optimization. But that doesn’t mean I know anything about what it means. I still don’t understand how this search engine differs from that one or how I can get Google to rank an article I wrote for a client. But I do know that if I write something for a client that’s not worth reading, no matter how many people find the document through great search engine optimization, the content is going to suck and the people are not going to find value.
• Site stickiness: I first heard this term about a month ago when I started trying to get more hits to my own little blog. Site stickiness refers to the enticing look, feel, info, etc. that people will encourage visitors to your site to stay a while. My site is not sticky. People pop in for one article or another and pop out. But I don’t spend any time trying to make my site sticky because I’m busy trying to help my clients create content that will make their sites sticky.
• Benefits vs. Features: I’m really embarrassed that I never knew this, but again, I come at it from a different perspective. From an email marketing dictionary: “Benefits address a prospect’s emotional needs and communicate how the product or service will improve his/her quality of life or make him/her feel better. Features address the attributes of the product or service. Benefits are more effective in driving action.” I have a conversation about benefits vs. features at least once a week these days.