Note: It’s ironic in a sad way that this post on Red Hot Copywriting tips is being published in Southern California on a weekend of horrific wildfires whipped by winds. The air is full of ash.

People in East San Diego county have been forced to evacuate their homes. The winds haven’t died down and fires are spreading rapidly in the direction of the Wild Animal Park. Many residents have fled with their horses, and of course other pets.

Here in my home office, my desk and papers are covered with soot. We put the air conditioning on to close up the house. My nose is running and sneezing. But for the 21,000 500,000 people who have to flee their homes, it’s much worse. The fires are spreading. The morning TV news is not good.

Red Hot Copywriting Workshop Notes

It’s hard for me to concentrate with the view outside of red skies and smoke. Here’s what I wrote before the fires broke out…

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I’ll admit that the concept of Content Marketing makes sense to me. It ties together all the different kinds of content you need to publish for business online and off.

So I was thrilled to find Joe Pulizzi and his blog, Junta42. He’s a Content Marketing guru. In fact, he’s written a book called Get Content, Get Customers (being published with co-author Newt Barrett  in 2008). I just downloaded a digital excerpt and can’t wait to read it.

Here’s his definition from his blog post 5 Pillars of Content Marketing:

Content Marketing is:

1. Editorial-based (or long-form) content. It must tell a relevant, valuable story. Must be informative, educational or entertaining.
2. Marketing-backed. The content has underlying marketing and sales objectives that a corporation, association or institution is trying to accomplish.
3. Behavior-driven. Seeks out to maintain or alter the recipient’s behavior.
4. Multi-platform (print, digital, audio, video, events). It can be, does not have to be, integrated.
5. Targeted toward a specific audience. If you can’t name the audience, it’s not content marketing.

When you think about it, everything you write for your business should include these elements:  interesting content, with an underlying marketing objective, appealing to universal human behaviors, delivered in an attractive easy-to-read-hear-see message, and specifically targeted to an identified group of people.

Joe makes a big point that the reason content is so important is that traditional marketing isn’t working. You can no longer blast a message in people’s faces.  Maybe you never really could.

Anyway, there are more reasons to learn to write better, or to hire someone who does it for you and your business.