Examples of Creative Copywriting From Serious Businesses

Creative copywriting may not be your style. That's OK. If your culture is a fun one though, then I think some of your copy should reflect that. We all want to laugh. We all want to be entertained. Deep down, it's just a need we all have as humans. One of our partners, Jay Stewart, often quotes Jimmy Buffet who said, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." By the way, I love business partners who can quote scripture one minute and a rock star the next.

If it's the case that laughter can be a strength in your lead generation efforts, then taking advantage of fun, creative copywriting could be a big opportunity for your business. Rather than tell you how to write creative copy, which is totally personal and hard to teach, I'll opt for some great copywriting examples in the real business world.

First up is my favorite that I've written about before, Jimmy Johns. Walking into their stores and ordering off their to go menu couldn't be more fun. Bravo to them for having fun and keeping it simple. Check out some of their copy here.
Second, Vitamin Water. Reading their bottles lets me know these guys have fun. Most bottles seem to have a web of fun copy geared toward making you believe all you're missing in your life is a bottle in your bag or purse. That's the job of the marketing department, to make you believe you need (strikethrough) you have to have their product. Next time you're in the grocery aisle pick up a bottle and read it. You can read more copy on their website. Pardon the wonky flash. Not everyone rolls with inbound marketing principles of homepage design.
Next up is a company called Zico that makes a delicious hydrating drink from coconut water. Here is an excerpt from the side of the bottle: "There was a time not long ago when you had to shimmy up a tree and machete-open a coconut to experience this miracle. Not anymore. We climbed the tree for you."
Last is TeuxDeux. These guys created a cool application that may simplify your life, and they write hilarious web copy. This copy makes me laugh more than all the rest, but I had to list it last because if you go and read this page, you may have skipped the rest of my post. It's that funny to me. Please take five from your day and read the FAQs page.

Now your assignment is to integrate some fun copy onto your website, email marketing, and blog posts. Well, get going.

Need help? Why yes we can.

So you waited until the last minute this year. It's time for the annual halloween dress up party, and you don't have a costume. You're heading to a thrift store today and need some costume ideas. Hopefully we can be of some help. After all, we don't just write about inbound marketing around here. That would be boring.

Today we're going to show you how to use social media and search engines to come up with office costume ideas. Actually, we're just doing the work for you.

Up first is a search for "costume ideas for this halloween" that returned a Pinterest page. I'm partial the the Gilligan's Island crew about half way down in the middle.

Next up I Googled "celebrity costume ideas 2012" and found this entry. I know nothing about the online source, but I liked how they did a slide show actually showing you how to put the digs together. Helpful for your aforementioned trip to the thrift store.

Third up we have a search of "halloween office party costume ideas" targeted just for our tech and marketing audience. This search query pulled the following page result from PC Mag. I dare you to dress up as Steve Ballmer. I dare you.

Last we have a the last stich effort. The late game rally. The hail mary. This time I Googled "office party costume ideas". I liked the printable masks and the office name tag bit stolen from Jim on The Office.

If none of this worked, then I would suggest multiple posts to Twitter and Facebook. Do your own crowdsourcing. Your friends and followers know you well, and they always come up with some great ideas and answers in a pinch.

P.S. Have some fun at your party. If it's all business all the time, you'll get burned out. Trust me.

The old adage in life is that too much of a good thing is... well, too much. Excess even in good things can be bad. Moderation is often a key to life—balance a virtue more of us need. Well, throw that aside when it comes to landing pages. The more the better. HubSpot echoes this mantra in the last paragraph of this blog post from this past April. Don't skip to the bottom. The entire post is chocked full of great landing page content.

So if the average B2B business has one landing page (a really bad Contact Us form), and the majority have less than six landing pages, then if you're slightly sharp, you might see the opportunities. The opportunity to outrank your competitors in Google, and the opportunity to convert far more leads than they do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

So go ahead and create a bunch of landing pages. Each page is an annuity that can pay your lead conversions for years to come. Build it once with some care, and it will pay big dividends over time. This would be an appropriate time to inject a badly-timed quote from Field of Dreams, but I will resist. Heck, if you're short on time, build them quick, and they will convert more than no landing pages at all.

We did a couple other posts recently about using landing pages. The first one was using landing pages in coordination with your outbound marketing efforts, and the other was what makes a good landing page. They are quick reads, but if you're looking for a meaty resource on your route to creating killer converting landing pages, then this all inclusive HubSpot page is for you. That was a mouthful.

Wanna get a trial run of HubSpot software? Contact us and we'll give you the nickel tour.

Have you created a mission statement for your small business? Do you have your vision down on paper to refer back to periodically? Periodically meaning anytime things get off track. Ideally, this is something you should do before you launch your business, but for those of us who get a little ahead of ourselves, now is as good a time as any. "They say" (my mother's infinite source of universal wisdom) the best time to plant an oak tree was 30 years ago, and the next best time is now.

We realized we needed to get our own mission and vision statement last fall after operating for four years without these two key documents. Well, we didn't just up and realize it. A very wise friend and consultant told us you need these. He said stop what you're doing, get in a room, focus in and hash this out. We respected this advisor a lot and we immediately made plans to nail down our mission and vision statements. Below is a list of what worked for us. Hope it helps.

We booked a room on the outskirts of Louisville for Friday and Saturday nights (we didn't stay Saturday but an early checkout wouldn't do). It was important for us to feel that retreat-type atmosphere, and not be in the office.

We arranged for dinner for our three partners and their wives. This was a great way to kick off the planning retreat. We laughed and ate and learned about each other. Then the wives headed home and the boys to the hotel.

We made sure the room had a bedroom and a suite area with couches, tables and chairs so we could dig into the planning. Make sure the place has wifi. You may say thank you captain obvious, but I don't like to take anything for granted.

We talked about the business and had moments of brainstorming early on Friday night, but wisdom quickly told us to focus in on Saturday. We realized if we accomplished nothing else but crafting the first draft of our mission statement and our vision it would be a huge win.

We didn't skip meals, but we made them and breaks every hour a big part of our Saturday planning. They also provided a time to get away from the task at hand and share all the excitement and ideas we felt about the business.

The resources we used were from three main sources.

The first was a questionnaire from the consultant I mentioned earlier. He has truly been a God send to our business.
The second resource was the book "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits" by Verne Harnish.
The third was the program "Destiny of the 3rd Millenium" by Peter J Daniels. This last one is very comprehensive, but we used it as the framework for our discussions.

The resources we used were great, but don't let a lack of access to these tools stop you and your team from crafting these important documents. I'm sure you can Google around and find something to get you started and guide you home.

Here's ours, by the way.

Our Vision:
Glorify God and advance his kingdom

Our Mission:
Help like-minded businesses reach their growth objectives.
Shine Christ's light in everything we do.
Give to worthy causes, particularly kingdom-building organizations.

Our Goal:
Communicate and amplify our clients' stories, messages, and value propositions in order to empower them to retain and grow their business, as well as their audience and influence in an information-driven economy.

If you'd like to pony up next to our mission, vision or goals, then reach out to us today.

So I love Jimmy John's sandwich shop. If you have them in your area, then you might feel the same way. I could name a lot of reasons why I like them, but I'll list four. These four reasons just happen to be great marketing tips for some businesses. So with everything you see online, take what you like and leave the rest.

1) I have fun when I go there. Everything about Jimmy's John's screams fun. The signs on the wall are hilarious. I can't order a sandwich without chuckling under my breath. The menu even has some quips and snarky comments on it. They are well written, well thought out, and genuinely funny. When a grown man smiles or laughs out loud while buying a sandwich, and I don't care who you are that's funny (hat tip: Larry the Cable Guy).

2) They limit my options. I have so much going on in my life. I have four children, a small business, some health challenges, and lots of other problems to think about. When I want a sandwich, I want to pick a number or say a name. I don't need all the options. Let's roll with this. It's a freakin' sandwich. Want something to go with it? Here's some chips.

3) They set themselves apart by delivering. They make my life easy. It doesn't make economic sense to deliver a $7 sandwich. It can't. But they still offer the service, and we take them up on it. It sets them apart from all the rest. Subway is more popular. Jersey Mikes gives you more goods. Quiznos and Penn Station have the hot alternatives. None of these (in our area) deliver, and none produce my sandwich in seconds. Literally seconds. Then they apologize for the wait.

4) They produce a very quality product. Even with the speed, the fun, the limitations, and the delivery— they still maintain quality. They haven't sacrificed quality in the pursuit of other things.