We all routinely deal with inconveniences and annoyances—so routinely that most aren’t even worth griping about half the time. We’re just that used to poor service, and mediocre treatment, and apathetic reps, and inflexible business policies, and Press 1* to Return to the Main Menu. The bar for impressive customer care is so low, in […]

What’s omnichannel mean, exactly? And what does it have to do with the best pizza outside of Naples? And where does lively writing fit into all this? Andris Lagsdin has a small company outside of Boston called Baking Steel that manufacturers and sells ultra-conductive metal baking sheets. Its flagship product is its namesake Baking Steel, […]

As an exacting writer and a proponent of a slow and strategic marketing, I should be having an aneurysm (Ann-eurysm?) over how a single, sweary, typo-infested LinkedIn post slopped together in 20 minutes sparked a flurry of online engagement and $90K in sales. But I’m not. Because from a marketing and writing point of view, […]

This is part 1 of my 2017 take on the State of Content Marketing and content marketing trends. My 2016 take is here. I originally wrote this post as an open letter to Content Marketing that began: “Congratulations on making it another year…” But that sounds somber and a scooch melodramatic, doesn’t it? Maybe. But […]

This is an occasional series based on actual emails I receive, and my actual responses.  Everybody Writes is just shy of its second birthday. Since its birth, I’ve heard frequently from readers who have highlighted the same few typos in the text. (Sometimes nicely. Sometimes less so.) The “few typos” sounds dismissive. But the truth […]

A messaging app investing in writing is a little baffling and weird, isn’t it? Today Snapchat launches online magazine Real Life, in which a staff of five writers publish long-form essays and narratives about life with technology. It’s headed by social scientist and researcher Nathan Jurgenson, who says Real Life “won’t be a news site with […]

Facebook is predicting the end of the written word on its platform. And perhaps suggesting that words more broadly are doomed. “The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, who leads Facebook’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. […]

What if we thought about Marketing the way this restaurant thinks about dinner? One of the best things about being a marketer is that your work intersects almost everything. (It’s not like being a professional shepherd, say. The disjoint is greater between the work of sheep-herding and the rest of the world.) One of the […]

Content Marketing wakes up one morning in a place it doesn’t recognize, and tries to piece together what happened last night… and all the previous nights, too. (Because, if it’s being honest, last night wasn’t an occasional bender—it had become a lifestyle.) It takes a hard look at itself and wonders with a measure of […]

One of the biggest branding mistakes that companies can make is to not pay enough attention to their tone of voice. “Voice” sounds high-minded, doesn’t it? More suited for the literary world rather than the business world? But tone of voice just refers to how you sound in your writing. In marketing, your tone of […]

This week I debuted a new presentation at Content Marketing World about creating bigger stories, braver marketing, and more buff, ripped marketing writing with bolder tone of voice. (I’m giving this same talk at INBOUND15 tomorrow.) If there were a 12-Step Program for PowerPoint Recovery, I’d be going to meetings thrice weekly. I tend to […]

“Are you going to write about this, Mom?” my daughter Caroline asks me. (She knows I’ve written about her brother.) The question is half tease, half challenge. I can’t tell whether she wants me to write, or not. Maybe she doesn’t know, either. Caroline is 18, and she’s about to begin her freshman year at […]