Another year has gone by, and not much has changed on your blog. You post articles, week in and week out. But nobody shares them. Nobody likes them on social media. And nobody talks about them. You’re going through the motions, and it’s starting to show.

It’s time to shake things up.

I’m willing to bet that, within reason, you could start pushing the boundaries on your blog to attract some attention.

Here are some things you can do to set a different tone, and have some fun in the process: Continue reading “I Dare You to Take These Risks on Your Blog”

I recently spoke with a saleswoman from Boston who was dismayed about her email marketing strategy. She was sending email after email to customers, trying to get them to register for an upcoming event. But she wasn’t getting any responses.

I asked to see the messages she was sending. Each one listed the name of the event and pointed out the main features. But the words “register today” were weightless, because the email was impersonal.

This wasn’t an email. It was spam.

Continue reading “The Biggest Mistake People Make When Writing Persuasive Copy”

While this year’s Kafkaesque presidential election cycle may have revealed, exacerbated and brought political divisiveness to a new level in 2016, there is one major issue that nearly anyone, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum, can agree on: at least the campaigns are over. We can now reflect back on how we came to this point and ponder the important business of what comes next.

I, for one, have been paying close attention to the frenzied election cycle. Viewed through a marketer’s lens, it is clear to see that presidential campaigns are no different from a business’ campaign to sell a product or service: to the best marketing department go the spoils!

Continue reading “Semi-Presidential Content Marketing Lessons from Election ‘16”

Just recently, I was poking around on the website of a global technology provider when I came across several glaring translation errors.

These were not just spelling or grammatical mistakes. There were many sentences that made absolutely no sense. Some were comical, but it was mostly just painful to read.

It got me thinking… Continue reading “Are We Speaking The Same Language?”

Are your marketing campaigns falling on deaf ears? Do your organization’s social media accounts leave you feeling like a wallflower? Are your leads going cold? Is your content stale and gathering digital dust?

Do you ever get the sense that maybe your marketing department is cursed?

Continue reading “Is Your Marketing Department Cursed?”

People often ask me why marketing departments hire third party content vendors to write business articles for their websites, blogs and social channels. Why not just keep the process in-house?

As I explained in a recent blog post, many marketers hate writing. Plain and simple. And even if you do love to write, it can be a huge hassle — especially when you have to do it week in and week out.

Here are five common reasons marketers outsource content:  Continue reading “Five Reasons Why Marketers Outsource Content Production”

When we moved into our new home, my wife and I knew that there was ample work to be done. While the house was structurally sound there were enough bullet points on the inspection report that I could reasonably argue it qualified as a fixer-upper.

But many of the aesthetic touch-ups we wanted to tackle had to be put on hold when we discovered that both our showers were leaking water into the first floor. Having just moved in, we didn’t know how long the problem had persisted, and we wouldn’t know the extent of the damage until we cut into our sheetrock to diagnose the problem.

Continue reading “Leaky Pipes, Trust and Content Marketing”