Why Investing in Creativity Drives Marketing Success

The Age of Creativity

Erik Deckers owns Pro Blog Service, a company that writes blogs as well as other content for B2B companies. Erik has been a published writer for more than 27 years through his work as a blogger, newspaper humor columnist, author, and award-winning playwright. He has written four books relating to branding and marketing success and is currently at work on his fifth.
Erik joins the podcast to discuss the importance of writing and creativity in today’s marketing world. He stresses the fact that even though everyone is churning out lots of marketing content, very few are focusing on doing it well.
He insists that content writing is a primary marketing requirement, making it all the more important to invest in trained creatives: writers and visual artists.
As a creative writer himself, Erik offers advice on how to improve writing skills and creative content, how to draw more leads into the funnel through your writing, and the foolproof test for staying relatable.

In This Episode

• The difference between a good writer and creative artist
• Tips on becoming a better writer
• The importance of being relatable
• The mom exercise for writers
• Where to find great content ideas
• Becoming an authority by asking questions

Quotes From This Episode

“Write every day. That’s going to make you better. Read every day. And not blogs—you don’t want to read the kind of work that you’re writing. You want to read something better. Read published books by excellent authors and steal from them. Learn from people who are much better than you by reading their stuff constantly.” —@edeckers

“This is the time for companies to start investing in the artists. Hire creative writers to be your content writers, hire visual artists to do graphic arts and design. After all, this is a primary marketing channel now and you don’t want stuff that’s just mediocre. You want stuff that’s excellent, and the best way you’re going to get excellent work is to get people who are trained in doing this kind of work.” —@edeckers

“What I’ve found over the years is that most people want that top of funnel information. They’re coming to the topic for the first time, even to the point where you should talk about things that you think, ‘Oh, everybody knows what that is. Everybody understands that.'” —@edeckers
“How do you become the recognized authority in your field? You just have conversations with people and help them achieve their goals. I’m going to answer your questions. I’m going to tell you how to fix this problem.” —@edeckers

Resources

• Erik Deckers’ Pro Blog Service
• “Everybody Writes” by Ann Handley
• Erik Deckers’ Twitter
• Erik Deckers’ Weekly Newspaper Humor Column

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Erik dreamt of many different paths including detective, firefighter, and professional baseball player. Upon realizing he may not have the skills necessary to be a professional athlete, he thought, “It always seemed to revolve around books, so it was going to be writer or publisher or librarian. I loved to read when I was a kid, so I always had to do something that would let me do that.” Sounds like Erik is right in his wheelhouse.