I’ve now received emails from every brand I’ve interacted with over the past 20 years, telling me how very much they care about me in these “unprecedented” times. If they’re smart, your prospects are going to start filtering on that word soon. So here are some creative alternatives in a downloadable scatter chart…we selected words…
You know that repurposing your content lets you squeeze more value out of your existing content assets—and that even in the best of times, recycling content is a budget-friendly way to reach more prospects. But what few marketing pros know is that there are more ways to repurpose content beyond chunking down a long piece…
You’re a plumbing, pest control or other field service company. Or maybe you’re a business that provides software and supplies to companies like these. You’ve heard that providing helpful content is one of the best ways to attract prospects, nurture customers, and build loyalty. And it’s true: Content marketing gets three times more leads per…
When we think of written content, we think about what is there: the copy itself. But what’s not there in your content—in other words, the white space that breaks it up—also has a huge impact on meaning, readability, SEO, and results. Here are a journalist’s best practices for creating just the right breaks in your…
Got a case study on your to-do list? To create a case study that converts, it’s crucial that you ask your customer the right questions—otherwise you’ll end up with 1,000 words of sales talk and unconvincing fluff. (“Company X is great! Rah rah rah!”) My team of content marketing writers and I recently created a…
Good content marketing writers know that there’s more to captivating an audience than coming up with a killer content topic. Anyone can come up with an idea, but it’s what you do with that idea once you have it that makes all the difference. Ready to earn more attention with your content? These elements have…
Before I launched Hero’s Journey Content this year, I spent 22 years writing magazine articles, books, and content on a freelance basis. Now I’m in the editor’s seat, testing out writers to make sure we onboard the very best talent. We typically give a writer one or two small assignments to see how they fare before adding…
In content marketing writing, we’re always wanting more, more, more. More content. More clicks. More engagement. More subscribers. But trying to max out on every content metric can hurt your business. Self magazine cut the amount of content it publishes on its website in half, starting with eliminating “social news writing aimed solely at generating…
You’ve probably read that you should curate interesting content from others on social instead of having all your posts be about “me, me, me.” Well, I’m not one to believe everything I hear online—especially since there are so many self-styled “content gurus” out there who don’t know what they’re talking about—so I tested this advice…
If you want to get the most out of your content, you need to know your KPIs from your CTAs. FUNNEL You cram a lot of people into the top of the funnel, and only a few come out the bottom to become customers. Somehow this is considered a good thing. CUSTOMER JOURNEY A romanticization…
In today’s climate of clickbait and fake news, your audience is craving reliable, credible content. When I started out, freelancing mostly on the journalism side, every article I turned in would be thoroughly checked by an in-house fact checker. That person would call my sources to verify their quotes, validate the stats and facts against…
Is your brand not landing the kind of coverage you’d like? It could be because you’re not looking at your PR pitches through a journalist’s eyes. Sign up for HARO, then check out these tips from a content marketing writer who’s been on both sides of the table.