
You have six seconds to read this…
Advertising Copywriting SkillsWhen I first work with my clients, I give them a very special gift. A billboard on the Eden’s Expressway, just as you join the Kennedy into Chicago. It’s a beautiful piece of all white, real estate space where one can inform the…

3 Tips to Increase Your Email Marketing Open & Click Through Rates
Copywriting SkillsNo one would deny that it’s more challenging than ever to get your recipients to even notice your emails - far less open, read, and click on the links you so carefully embedded in them. Competition for your prospect’s attention has never…

What a Professional Copywriter Knows About Turning Browsers into Buyers That Your English Teacher Would Slap You Silly for Doing
Content & Strategy Copywriting SkillsWhen writing web copy or web content, you have just eight seconds to rivet your visitors into place. Here’s how to put your web visitors on a slippery slope that carries them along to the destination you want them to reach and the decision…

Staying True to Your Brand Message Globally
Branding TranscreationMost large brands go to a lot of time and effort to get to the right messaging to properly tell their story. This involves a lot of soul-searching, creativity, rewriting, brainstorming and approvals – taking up time from a wide range of people.…

The “R” Effect
BrandingWhen naming a company or brand, people like to be clever. In many ways... this can be fun and cool for the public. However, we all know that if people continuously copy a trend, eventually that trend loses its power. The "R" Effect... Today…

Why you need to think first and write later – especially for business
Content & Strategy“If you don’t know what you think, you can’t write it down,” said my longtime colleague and book co-author John Butman some years ago. Yet how many of us take on a business writing exercise – email, blog post, even web page…

How to Create a Company Slogan that Will Get You Noticed
Branding Copywriting SkillsI'm not a fan of typical corporate buzzword-infested slogans. It's preferable to have no slogan at all than one which is entirely meaningless. You know the kind I mean. Sometimes masquerading as a mission statement, or a vision statement,…

Bad Date Syndrome
BrandingWhen I do branding seminars I have one slide that leaves the room silent. It's a picture of an over-bearing man with a bored looking woman. A title over the top says: Are you a bad date? I usually invite the audience to raise their hands in…

Design and copy: dance partners not petulant divas
Copywriting SkillsImagery and words need always to go hand-in-hand to create truly compelling content. But there are times you see examples of them being created separately and then forced together. Stories are now built up from a multitude of creative assets,…

What Does the Word Copywriter Mean in 2018?
Copywriting SkillsCopywriter [noun]: A person who writes copy for the purpose of advertising or marketing. Today, the role of a copywriter has many nuances that are often left out of its basic definition. Meanwhile, in less nuanced terms, we’ve seen…

The Top 5 Smart Drugs for Writers
Copywriting SkillsHave you ever sat down to work on a job only to find yourself one hour later still pondering over where to begin? Do you have difficulty in understanding why some days you can churn out the work, where 5 hours feels more like 5 minutes, while…

DIY advertisers: why titles don’t work, and headlines do
AdvertisingWhen you advertise your business, do you give the advert a title – or a headline? Ads (a.k.a. “adverts”) with a title often are also “upside down adverts” which you need to avoid if you’re going to get the maximum number of leads…
