content creation
6 questions to ask when you’re writing marketing communications
9th September 2022 | Posted in Marketing communications
Whether you’re putting together a website, email campaign, brochure, newsletter or any other piece of marketing collateral, starting with these questions can help all the stakeholders focus on what you need to achieve and how. What do we need to create? Maybe it’s a brochure, but what sort of brochure? My current project is a […]
How do you achieve authentic copywriting?
9th August 2021 | Posted in copywriting
Without some empathy for your readership, the words you share will really struggle to achieve your goals. So how to you find the right way to deliver your message to your intended audience? Understand the audience Defining the target audience is a first priority. A good way to do this is to create profiles of […]
What’s the shelf life of a blog?
24th June 2020 | Posted in Blogging, Content creation
Current times have thrown up a whole new set of search terms for blogs. This time last year, who had heard of ‘coronavirus’, ‘Covid-19’, ‘lockdown’, or even ‘Joe Wickes’? The temptation in writing blogs for today is to throw today’s popular pandemic terms into the content with abandon. That’s certainly not wrong, especially if you […]
Getting the grumps out of the way – and then starting again
| Posted in Blogging
I spent ages writing a blog yesterday that I’m not going to publish. Why? Because it broke umpteen of my rules of good marketing communications: It was grouchy It was very long It meandered It was all about me Now, I believe I have very good grounds for getting frustrated with a certain sector of […]
Writing articles from conferences, seminars and panel discussions
15th May 2019 | Posted in Articles, Blogging, Content creation
Conferences are a rich source of content. You actually have in front of you experts from across a company and beyond, gathered in one place, to share their knowledge. It’s a wonderful opportunity to gather in-depth expertise into an article, and drop in a few industry-leading names at the same time. As they say, what’s […]
Checking facts for credible writing
16th April 2019 | Posted in Blogging, Content creation, Journalism, Marketing communications
Once upon a time I was berated in a journalism training class. I’m not often told off for anything, being almost a perfect rule abider and non-risk taker. There was that time in a Body Balance class when I stretched further than was wise, and I vaguely remember my mother not being that impressed […]
Timeless content
20th March 2019 | Posted in Blogging, Content creation, Web content
I wrote this Loneliness Guide for the When They Get Older blog five years ago, and it’s still one of the most popular pieces on the site. It’s collected some impressive backlinks along the way, which helps enormously with the profile of the site. Why has it lasted so well? Partly because the subject matter […]
Are our calls to action too demanding?
23rd June 2016 | Posted in Content creation
Yesterday we took the day off and drove down to the coast. By the time we got there I was fighting an impulse to pull over, knock on various strangers’ doors and complain that their attitude was patronising, over-bearing and downright out of order. I totally admit that would have been a complete over-reaction. But […]
My blogs are misbehaving
17th June 2016 | Posted in Blogging
It’s not like I don’t have a content plan. It’s not like I haven’t thought through the topic. And remembered all about the audience persona that I am addressing. And yet my blogs constantly misbehave. Instead of telling a single story, they wander around a number of (very interesting) points and finish far away from […]
Why modesty makes it hard for smaller businesses to write their own words
15th March 2016 | Posted in Small business
You may say this is a sweeping claim – but most people who are selling their own services struggle to write their own promotional copy. Or, quite often, they can write it, but they can’t publish it. Why? I’ve been copywriting for businesses of all sizes for well over 20 years and I’ve seen patterns emerging. […]
