If you've heard them once, you've heard them a thousand times: "Back to the drawing board." "Get our ducks in a row." "Do the heavy lifting." "Think outside the box." We're talking clichés, the banal staples of business meetings, conference calls, speeches, and web content. You're tired of them; I'm tired of them. Yet when push comes to shove, when our feet are to the fire, and--especially--at the end of the day, we keep coming back. Like moths to that bright, hot, flickering thing. It's a losing battle, the fight against clichés. But I'm tanned, rested, and ready; I have my game face on; I came to play; I'm good to go! Clichés, prepare to meet your unmaker.

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I logged a lot of years as a journalist before I made the leap into marketing. At first, writing marketing copy instead of filing stories seemed like a big change. But gradually I came to see my journalism training as an invaluable asset in my new career. In fact, I now believe that a journalism education is excellent preparation for writing of any kind.

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To create a good name, you need to create a lot of names. Okay, I'm cribbing a bit. It was the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling who originally said, "To come up with a good idea, you need a lot of ideas." But his observation bears repeating and paraphrasing. In creative endeavors, quantity often begets quality.

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A name is the title of your story.

You may think you're naming your company or your product. But in fact you're putting a title on the story you're telling investors, shareholders, customers, and employees. If you're smart and lucky, the name you choose will be the title of a great story. A saga. A legend. A tale told around the campfire for generations.

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Steve Hall is the force behind Adrants, the opinionated, must-read blog for the advertising industry that dishes up a daily helping of news, trends, research and gossip, all seasoned with a heaping tablespoon of attitude. An industry veteran, Steve has a sharp eye for what works -- and what belly flops. We asked him for his thoughts on copywriting.

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Coudal Partners is a small, super-creative design, ad and interactive studio based in Chicago. A few years ago the firm had, well, a creative idea for its website: Take the marketing out of it. So instead of featuring portfolios, client lists, press releases and awards online, they started publishing an eclectic, interactive magazine about visual design, marketing, advertising and much more. The site buzzes with new thinking, guest editors, contests, even a "museum of online museums." It certainly made an impact: Some 40,000 people now visit Coudal.com each day. Should you consider this take-the-marketing-out-of-it approach for your site, too? Listen to what Coudal's Steve Delahoyde has to say.  Continue reading...

If you have a website -- whether you're a blogger, mom-and-pop or 800-pound orangutan - you think about "user experience." That, of course, is obvious. But ever try to find a phone number on a company's website? How many clicks did it take? Well, maybe not so obvious.

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