Want your website to sound open, uncontrived, and authentic? Keep reading! In our previous compendiums on copywriting advice, most of the links to Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memos never made it into the post due to some kind of technical glitch. So to fix that, I started compiling most of my all-time favorite MMM’s that dealt specifically with writing.

Yet as I was compiling these links and re-reading the Memos, a central theme seemed to emerged: many of the Roy’s memos dealt with “The Feel of Real” and how to capture that in your copy - what many of us might call Web 2.0-style copy. With this in mind, I began sorting and grouping those Monday Morning Memos to further highlight this theme.

Read through this collection of Memos and you’ll come away with a sounder idea of the voice of “new marketing” than 95% of the folks hyping that term. And if you want the executive summary, just read the first 2 links in each category - and then let yourself get drawn into the other titles as they spark your interest. Either way, enjoy…

Framing and Understanding the problem:

The Death of Hype

2008 Year of Transition

Hello and Goodbye from John and Jane Doe

Your Customer and You

Tomorrow Has Come

Pricing Value, and Saleability

The Solution – How To’s

Targeting Through Ad Copy

How to Make Your Ads Sparkle

Ready Angle Frame

Actions Speak Louder Than

Facts vs. Value-based statements

Counter-Branding

The Solution – Advanced Techniques & Examples

The Future of Ad Writing

Revealing the vivid unexpected

Refer to an Unseen Action

The Language of Shadow and Silence

Magic WordsCan You Make It Talk?

Mental Images, Emotions, and Word Associations

The Magnetic Power of the Mental Image

Visual Images vs. Mental Images

Magic Words

Are you Normal?

Peter Pan and Superman

Why We Buy

Persona-based Copy

The New Targeting

Choosing Your Magic Words

I hope this bit of reading has left you with a strong sense of what authentic, respectful copy sounds and reads like. Better yet, I hope you came away with some great techniques for producing this style of copy. Please feel free to add your own experiences, comments, and links via the comments section.