The way people have interacted with brands has been (and will probably always be) in an ever-changing state of flux. The times, as they say, "are a changin'."

Marketing messages have been showcased via rock carvings and smoke-signals to iPads and iPhones. Not to mention the store aisle displays, newspaper and magazine ads, direct mail, radio, television, banner ads and spam that came somewhere in-between.

Of course, some of the marketing techniques used across these channels proved ineffective over time, and have (thankfully) fallen out of favor. But some “old-school” tactics have stood the test of time, and for good reason…they work. These techniques deserve a closer inspection, and possibly a spot within your inbound marketing efforts. 

1. Create your ideal customer persona.

In her article entitled, “How Creating an Imaginary Friend Can Make You a Better Writer,” Kelly Kautz explains that once you have completed the common practice of collecting traditional demographic information about your ideal client (age, gender, marital status, income, etc.) that you must dig even deeper into what makes this customer tick.

Only then can you truly begin to create messaging that will strike a particular chord with your audience, and begin to strip-away the sometimes hard to shake generic nature many articles and ads exude.

The concept: to create an imaginary person (at least on paper) who looks, sounds, and acts in a similar manner to how you envision your ideal customer actually looks, sounds and acts.

As a starting point, she encourages writing a paragraph on this imaginary person for each of the following topics:

• “Personal information: Describe her as if she was standing in the same room. Write about her goals, her values, her likes and dislikes. Write about her biggest problems, and the things that keep her up at night.

• Needs: What are her needs? What problems does she hope that your writing will solve? How are these problems causing her pain and discomfort? What result does she want, and what result does she really need? Are they the same? 

• Influence: Here’s where you lay out all the factors that go into her decision to take your advice. What influences her decision? How does she find out about your writing, and why does she remember it? What differentiates you, and why is that important to her?”

This can be a powerful exercise, one that you can take as far as your imagination will allow for. One agency went so far as to give their imaginary customer his/her own office.

You may not want to go quite this far (or have the extra office space to do so), but I would suggest that, at the very least, you keep this description handy so that you may refer to it often.

2. Spend the majority of your time on the headline.

The original “mad man” David Ogilvy probably said it best:

“On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headlines sells your product, you have wasted 90 per cent of your money”.

Here are some awesome articles on how to build your readership by focusing on your headlines first:

• Brian Clark (Copyblogger) – How to write headlines that work

• Gregory Ciotti (Sparring Mind) - 4 post headlines that are guaranteed to get readers excited

• Most anything written by John Carlton

3. Truthfully tell customers what to expect and live up to it.

Forgive me for going back to the Ogilvy “well” one more time. You may have come across this little gem elsewhere in your marketing travels, but it bears repeating:

“The customer is not a moron, she is your wife. Don’t lie to her. You would not tell lies to your wife. Don’t tell them to mine.”

The best in advertising simply does not live in the world of deception. It lives in the world of description, of accentuating your products' (or services) traits that uniquely speak to satisfying a need or solving a problem for your ideal customer. This is not the time to take shortcuts, to use trickery or tactics.

Present your product in a positive light, sure. Promise all that it has to offer your customer, go for it. But be prepared for the need to exceed those expectations in order to build lasting relationships.

4. 1 + 1 = 3: Using design to enhance the effectiveness of your copy.

Equal parts “a picture is worth a 1000 words” and “the word is mightier than the sword,” truly great marketing communication understands that when copy is used properly with design the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

In the world of inbound website design, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways that can be put into practical use:

• Testing variations on CTA button color like performable did.

• Focus your homepage design to accomplish a single action like the Weather Channel did. 

• Use images of real people over stock photography.

A good website designer should be able to point you in the right direction for maximizing conversion through the proper use of design, and have a working knowledge of industry best practices. The even better designers will help you test these ideas in order to get to the bottom of what your site visitors respond to the best.