Writing is one of many jobs marketers must effortlessly perform. These four powerful writing lessons, hard-won over nearly a decade of painstaking experience, are essential enhancements for a marketer's daily writing responsibilities.

1. The Four Most
Powerful Writing
Lessons I Learned
On The Job
By Mark Sherbin
“My ambition is handicapped by
laziness.” - Charles Bukowski

2. Bukowski couldn’t hold down a job for most of his
adult life. But he was one hell of a wordsmith.
He’d be the first to tell you that becoming
a career writer is a trial by fire.

3. Higher education just doesn’t prepare you to
sell ideas, products, people and brands with
words alone.

4. Marketers tend to acquire writing experience
slowly because they’re also expected to be...
DesignersStatisticians Technologists
Salespeople Branding Experts

5. You wear a lot of hats.
You know much about the discipline of marketing.
But becoming a strong writer takes more than
crafting the occasional brochure, press release,
or weekly blog post.

6. I had no idea what I was doing when I started
writing. A small public relations firm threw me
overboard into a deluge of writing projects.
Man, did I hate that job. But I sure feel lucky to have had it.
The high-pressure environment taught me some tough
lessons. Without them, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today.

7. Here are four of those
lessons.

8. Lesson 1: Shorter
sentences hit harder.

9. Painstakingly long sentences won’t win you any
friends. They slow down your reader. It’s hard
to find the crux of the idea.
Keep your sentences simple and sweet. Every
thought will have more impact. Every
paragraph will fly by.

10. Lesson 2: Show, don’t
tell.

11. Showing is more powerful than telling.
People don’t want to be told what to do.
They want to learn from experiences.
Don’t tell someone to buy something.
Show them why they need it.

12. Lesson 3: “I” should
mostly be about
“you”.

13. There are only a few reasons to use the
personal pronoun “I”—to establish credibility,
show something through a personal story, or
create empathy or an emotional connection.
Writing should always be about the reader.
Writers must become invisible.

14. Lesson 4: Clear is
better than clever.

15. Clever writing is fun to read. But if you’re clever
at the expense of being clear, what’s the point?
Above all, your writing should always mean
what it says.

16. Mark Sherbin is a freelance
writer living in San Francisco.
Contact him via one of the
channels listed below.
@MarkSherbin
www.linkedin.com/in/marksherbin/
msherbin@gmail.com
Thanks for
reading!
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