Thanks for that Ray. I’m a sponge for resources like that right now. As the marketing/communication officer for our corporate university model I’m trying to develop a community manager role for heightened employee interaction. Mike’s blog looks intriguing.

Keep listening and improving the mousetrap. People want to be understood and have their needs served. Gotta know them to do that. Gotta do research and have conversations to do that!

This works the other way, too: many so-called “Web 2.0″ companies have failed because they emulated the successful TACTICS of FaceBook, etc. — but failed to grok the marketing principles that lay behind the design standards and “look & feel” of Web 2.0.

Not only do I NOT want to argue the point - I think I’m going to add a link to this podcast
to my new client packet - and make it required listening before they send me my deposit.
(I’m only partly kidding.)

But I do have a real issue about this very topic - and while I hope I’m not going to start a big controversy by bringing it up, but I’d really like to hear how other people feel about it:

Was I Just Spoiled By Getting Good Clients in the Beginning - or are (Some) Copywriters to
Blame for this (STUPID) Mindset?

As you just eloquently explained on the podcast, knowing your target market is absolutely necessary. And doing it right does take time, and effort and work.

Now personally, I tend to do a lot of research every time I start a new project - (again for
the exact reasons you get into on the podcast).

Sometimes though, I don’t have to do the research. I’ve got some clients - (real “gurus” in the best
sense of that word), who “get” what you were talking about.

And they just automatically send me all the information I need when I’m starting a new project for them - whether it’s emails, a special report or a sales copy. (And I mean all of it - about their Website, their sales process, the target market, the competition, and any additional background stuff so I can get into the head
of the prospect.)

Sometimes it’s put together in a nice neat package and sometimes it’s not.

The point is, these are the clients I love working with, because they understand why I need the
info, and they know that in the end, their sales will skyrocket because of it.

But then there are other clients who just want me to “write the words that are going to make people
buy my product.” And they think I’m wasting their time or they say they’re “too busy” to have to stop and give me the background information so I can “enter the conversation the client is having already having.”

I even had one client who told me “stop trying to learn everything about the membership” and just
focus on writing about the vision.”

To me - being able to follow those three simple rules you talked about - which ultimately results in writing sales copy that hits it out of the ballpark - means having to do the real “work” of copywriting - which is, as you said, getting inside the mind of the prospect.

The problem is - and I see this especially in the Internet Marketing field - we’re constantly telling prospects that they can build a successful business overnight - with no effort. That they can get traffic, build Websites and sell hundreds, thousands - even millions of dollars of products - quickly,and easily.

There are even products that supposedly do our work - writing sales letters, website copy and emails - “quickly, easily - and - cheaply”.

So my question is, is that why marketers are failing and MySpace and Flickr and other 2.0 Websites are “winning”?

Are we doing our job “too well”? Have we gotten to the point where we’ve conditioned people to believe that “instant everything” is how things are supposed to work?

Including us?