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Ever realize some people don’t want your help? It’s true. Some people don’t want to solve their problems, no matter how easy, fast, cheap or effective the solution might be. You might have the perfect advice for them but… No. They won’t take it. In fact, those people are kind of comfy in their misery. Really. You know the type, those people who sigh that if they just had more money, more time, more support, or more skills, more this, more that… THEN they’
This guest post is by Karol K of Online Business Design blog. Blogging is not only about putting together 400-2,000 words of text and publishing them on your WordPress site. As a blogger, you can choose from a much bigger variety of possible blog post types (and content in general). Let me be honest and admit that I’ve wanted to compile this sort of list for a long time.
On October 26, 2010, Shereef Bishay – of BetterMeans and the recently launched ClassParrot – told the HackerNews community about some copywriting work I did for him: “Show HN: I asked an HN member for feedback and she blew my mind” on SlideShare Requests for copywriting help flooded my inbox over the course of the […] The post How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups appeared first on Copywriting for startups and marketers.
Hunter S. Thompson was the creator of Gonzo Journalism – or as he called himself, “the doctor of journalism” – and the writer of the infamous books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga , and The Rum Diary. Thompson was known for his drug frenzy-filled stories, his use of powerful verbs and wild descriptions, and the ability to tell a story like a journalist.
Speaker: Mike Rizzo, Founder & CEO, MarketingOps.com and Darrell Alfonso, Director of Marketing Strategy and Operations, Indeed.com
Though rarely in the spotlight, marketing operations are the backbone of the efficiency, scalability, and alignment that define top-performing marketing teams. In this exclusive webinar led by industry visionaries Mike Rizzo and Darrell Alfonso, we’re giving marketing operations the recognition they deserve! We will dive into the 7 P Model —a powerful framework designed to assess and optimize your marketing operations function.
The worst piece of writing advice I ever heard was to write the way I talk. The next time you have a conversation, listen to yourself. If you wrote the way you talked, your writing would be riddled with space-filler words and phrases such as “like” and “um” and “you know what I mean?”. You’d rely on your inflection to make your meaning clear. Your vocabulary would go right down the toilet.
Busy people are suckers for things that promise to save us time. We assume that our days are so jam-packed that any shortcut will immediately boost our careers to the next level. But you know what? We’re lying to ourselves. Our problem isn’t a lack of time. It’s that most of us use the time we do have badly. That’s why these “time savers&# won’t do much for us at all.
When I came online several years ago, I suffered a bit of culture shock. My normal tone of voice, the one I used in everyday speech that was always well received, was instantly inappropriate online. I wasn’t a jerk. I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t cursing people out. But often, the mood of written conversation with peers, colleagues and clients would change from friendly discussion to prickly defence.
When I came online several years ago, I suffered a bit of culture shock. My normal tone of voice, the one I used in everyday speech that was always well received, was instantly inappropriate online. I wasn’t a jerk. I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t cursing people out. But often, the mood of written conversation with peers, colleagues and clients would change from friendly discussion to prickly defence.
I sat there, my hands edging towards the keyboard… but I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I felt that as soon as I tapped out a few faltering words, any hope of perfection would be gone forever. Your opening won’t be strong enough. Why would anyone read this anyway? How could you think that THIS was worth writing down? Being a writer isn’t just about knowing how to construct a great sentence or how to format a blog post so that readers can engage easily.
As writers, we rely on our unique ability to convey the visual world in words. We conjure images in the minds of readers about lush green fields, grey, decaying buildings, or velvety red berries ripe for picking. But how do you describe green when you’ve never actually seen green? How do you create words that move people when you don’t see the world the same way they do?
I recently found myself thrown into a group situation where several people were quite excited about a new project. Discussion soared, emails flew back and forth, and the brainstorming was supercharged with electricity. They’ll do this! And that! And oooh, THAT! It was a Bright, Shiny Idea. As I watched conversation unfold at lightning speed, I must’ve looked like a stunned idiot.
“I change lives.”. During my recent trip to SXSW , I overheard these three words often. Someone would ask a person what they did for a living and more often than not, the person would brighten, smile and chirp up the answer. “I change lives!”. And I would think to myself, “Well, now. That’s kind of dumb.”. Sorry, but it is. You’re a human being. You change lives all the time, every day.
Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions
Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.
I met Lisa when she hired me for a business consultation about her new copywriting venture. She had a picture of bright red, luscious cherries on her site… and I couldn’t resist liking her from day one. So when she sent me this guest post that outlines some of her learning curve lessons as a new freelancer, I was thrilled – here was someone who’d gone from zero to being a confident writer who could stand up for herself, and for her business.
This quote has been stalking me for weeks now: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” - Jim Rohn. It gets me. It really gets me. And here’s why: In the business books and blogs we all love, there is constant talk of finding our ‘tribe’, our most ideal clients. We create elaborate customer avatars to dig down into the demographics and psychology of our tribe.
It’s not a question anyone really wants to ask themselves – but it is the most necessary question in professional writing. And if the quality of writing around the web is any indication, it’s a question very few writers ask themselves. Most people starting out as professionals will receive the following advice: write. Just write. Keep writing. I know.
If I asked you the question, “What’s the movie Breakfast At Tiffany’s about?&# you’d probably say something like this: “Isn’t Audrey Hepburn in that? And doesn’t she really want to have breakfast at Tiffany’s?”. Yes, she is, and yes, she does, but those things are not, in fact, what Breakfast at Tiffany’s is really about.
Yes - press releases are still relevant in the world of public relations! 🎯 Ever wondered how to write a compelling press release, or what are current best practices for pitching your news to earn media coverage? In this exclusive webinar with Michelle Garrett, PR Consultant, we’ll cover tips and advice to help you get the most out of each piece of news you pitch!
One of the biggest barriers facing a new writer – a blogger, a novelist, a copywriter – is the self-knowledge of just how far away you are from their ideal. When I first started copywriting, I was afraid to show my work to anyone. I was afraid to show first drafts to my colleagues. I was afraid to show fifth drafts to my clients. I was afraid to show my work to my peers, even though they had offered to look at my work and help me figure out how to make my writing better.
A friend of mine once told me, “If who we are today is who we will be tomorrow, then our lives are already wasted.&#. Every day, as writers and as people, we can choose to grow and evolve or we can choose to remain the same. And evolution goes both ways: it can improve you or it can drag you backwards. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, evolution is “the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.&# What does that mean?
Everyone’s heard they need an elevator pitch. This pitch is supposed to be less than ten seconds, but it should be so compelling that your elevator companion immediately goes wide-eyed and captivated, clasps your hand and declares that they’ve never needed anything so much as they need you and your services, right now. In an online world, pretty much no one rides the elevator with a prospective client.
Everyone measures success differently. Some people measure it by their net worth, others define themselves by their job title and career, and still others gauge it by their possessions, such as their house, cars, and jewelry. While these may be outward signs of success that you can point to and show people, they may not be satisfying your deepest desires.
This new, thought-provoking webinar will explore how even incremental efforts and investments in your data can have a tremendous impact on your direct mail and multi-channel marketing campaign results! Industry expert Jesse Simms, VP at Giant Partners, will share real-life case studies and best practices from client direct mail and digital campaigns where data modeling strategies pinpointed audience members, increasing their propensity to respond – and buy.
I met Steve Errey years ago and it was respect at first sight. He was perceptive, smart, gentle and honest – all qualities I like in a person. Oh, and he was confident… enough to proudly flaunt his bold, bright pink website. Fast forward a few months and a shade of blue later, and Steve was still doing awesome stuff I appreciated. When he asked me for an interview on confidence, I stepped right up and poured my heart into it.
Marketing should be fun, engaging and exciting. If you think I’m nuts for suggesting such a thing, you’re probably doing it wrong. Let me tell you a little story about a friend I’ll call Tim. Tim was a software developer who enjoyed chatting with people, but hated selling his business. He didn’t want to be that cheesy guy who you avoided because all he did was try to sell you his services.
I’m going to tell you how not to write like an idiot in pubic. If you read that first sentence twice, you’ve witnessed caught-with-your-pants down copyediting. Naturally, I meant public – but the absence of that all-important l probably had you second-guessing my ability to give you sage advice about copyediting. And that’s even before you start reading the full article.
You gotta love Aslan. I mean, come on – there’s nothing more impressive than the kingly Narnian to capture attention. Which is exactly how Marcus Sheridan caught mine. He caught it twice when he sent me this guest post. At first, I was too busy for the video… but then I watched. Then I read the post. And now I’m sharing it with you. Although there are certainly many metaphors that could describe the life of a blogger, I personally would relate it to the most famous test of human endu
Speaker: Corey Daugherty, Head of Business Development at Flowcode & Georgette Malitsis, Senior Customer Success Manager, Enterprise at Flowcode
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Upcoming posts will focus on better writing skills, in honor of Damn Fine Words ‘s launch. It’s the only online writing course that teaches you how to improve your writing skills AND get business results. Registration is open right now, and with a juicy discount too. Don’t miss it! You know that writers need to read to improve their writing skills.
Too often, we writers fob reviews off as easy content. After all, someone else has done the creative work – it’s simply our job to judge it. And being loud, opinionated writers, we’re quite fond of judging. But writing a good review – a review that engages interest and causes action – is more than just giving a product rating and pointing your readers to the Amazon link.
“You’re nobody ‘til somebody loves you,” sings sexy crooner Michael Bublé. He ain’t wrong. You’re nobody in the blogosphere until you’ve been shown a little love by the influential sites that serious bloggers read, Tweet and flock to. You know the ones – they boast six-digit subscribers, have a cult following on Twitter, and bring celebrity and name recognition by association.
Call me shallow, but I judge a book by its cover – and I judge who I buy from the same way. When I’m thinking of giving a business my money, I pay attention to first impressions. Do they have a nice website? Do they have a “real” business or operate out of their bedroom? What does their About page photo look like? Is their name well known? Do they have staff or is it a one-man show?
Speaker: Neal Boornazian, President and Nancy Harhut, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer - HBT Marketing
Direct mail has consistently remained a powerful tool in the marketer's arsenal, but in an age of digital dominance, its effectiveness hinges on the strategic integration of behavioral science. 💡 When you incorporate powerful behavioral science principles into your direct mail marketing strategies, you can prompt the hardwired decision-making shortcuts your audience relies on — and that automatically unlocks new avenues for engagement, conversion, and brand loyalty.
We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover… but unfortunately, we do. All the time, every day. Hardwired for survival, we look at what’s around and make snap judgments. Is this safe? Will it hurt me? Can I trust it? In a split second, our brains hand back the answer. Yes. Or no. It’s as simple as that. While we like to think we’re more evolved than primal survival mode, the truth is quite different.
I’ve been called many things in my life. Patient is not one of them. So when I received strong interest for my fourth book from traditional publishers and was told they’d put it out in spring of 2012…. Well. Like I said, I’ve never been called patient. I decided to take control of my own destiny and circumvent traditional publishers – and I’m going to tell you exactly how I raised money, planned my coupe and sped up publication of my fourth book by one full year, so that you can do the sam
“YOU write it,&# I told Adam, nearly shoving the awkward task of writing an unveiling announcement for the Men with Pens/SXSW Meetup Event into his lap over Twitter DMs. “I can’t. I just can’t. And you know me well enough as a person. YOU do it.&#. “ME?!&# Adam was stunned. “But I… wha-… I… ME?!&# (He didn’t quite use those words, but the sentiment was close.). “You.
Remember kindergarten? For every goal you reached, like writing your name or finally spelling C-A-T, you got a gold star or a new pencil. In grade school, there were Principal Awards and End of Year Prizes. In college, you earned certificates of merit, achievement prizes, and academic scholarships. Even in the nine-to-five grind, it’s still possible to earn Employee of the Month or some token of esteem for 10 years of service.
Speaker: Jeff Tarran, COO, Gunderson Direct & Margaret Pepe, Executive Director of Product Management, U.S. Postal Service
Learn the secrets to direct mail success for growth marketers! Industry veterans Jeff Tarran and Margaret Pepe are here to delve into how direct mail has completely evolved in recent years, and has rightfully earned a seat at the table alongside the email and digital marketing plans of SMBs, enterprise companies, and agencies as they look into strategy for 2024 and beyond.
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