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Ann Handley

Writer. Speaker. Marketer.

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Content

Brave Enough to Suck at Something New

a white brick wall with a written mural in black all-caps type "Be brave enough to suck at something new."

A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it. * * * “Be brave enough to suck at something new.” The quote is attributed to business book author Jon Acuff, the great Greek god Pinterest, […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Annecdote, Art, Writing Tagged With: bigger braver bolder, try something new

Brilliant Creative on a Tiny Budget: 5 Examples from an Unlikely Source

a two-dimensional sketch figure grips a telescope and stands on the page of an open book. They peer out the telescope into the sky at something off-camera.

A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it. * * Has the pandemic made us more creative? I’ve been wondering this lately… Have the uncertainty and randomness of the past 18 months made us […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Content, Social Media Tagged With: creativity, library marketing, public library marketing

Should You Ungate Your Content?

screenshot of a website homepage with 5 different popup notifications obscuring the content on the screen

An excerpt from Everybody Writes 2: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Ridiculously Good Content. Get a copy; you’ll love it. * * * Last week I walked by a storefront. From the outside, I liked the vibe of the place. The products on the shelves looked… promising. As I stepped just inside the […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Annecdote, Business, Content, Ideas you can steal Tagged With: b2b content marketing, content marketing trends, trust, ungating content

Why We Need Smaller Stories in Content Marketing

Why We Need Smaller Stories

 Image source: Gratisography I talk a lot about thinking BIGGER in your marketing: sharing a bigger story to put your company in the larger context of what people care about. But today, I’m focusing not on big… but on small. I’m focusing on the need to tell the smallest story possible. Small stories are specific. […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, best writing advice, Content Tagged With: content marketing, content writing, ira glass, norbord, norbord industries, storytelling, thank a framer, Writing

Making Boring Writing Fun Again: What We Can Learn from Stink Bugs. (Yes, Seriously.)

  Here’s the best writing I read all week. It’s 170 words tucked into a belly of a 7,000-word article. And yes… it’s about stink bugs. Stay with me. Because those of us writers who write about B2B “solutions” or other boring or complex things can learn a lot from the vivid description of these […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, best writing advice, Content, storytelling

The Story of This Guy Who Grew Up in a Library Made Me Realize I Did, Too (Kind Of)

Ronald Clark’s father worked as a custodian of a New York Public Library branch in an era when library caretakers and their families lived on site. A few of these apartments are still around, although now there are no people living in them. Ronald’s dad kept the NYPL Washington Heights branch clean and tended the […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Content, Writing Tagged With: library, library marketing, NYPL, public library, public library marketing, Ronald Clark

The 2 Most Important Stats from the Latest Content Marketing Research Report, in 1 Glorious Chart

In marketing, I value three things: quality over quantity, great writing, building an audience over stuffing a pipeline until it bursts at its seams with so-called leads. I value other things, too. But those three things are top of mind for me this morning, because we just released a brand-spankin’-new research report, B2B Content Marketing: […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Business, Content Tagged With: b2b content marketing, marketing leadership, marketingprofs

You Had Me at Pizza: How Omnichannel Marketing Matters

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, […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Annecdote, Business, Content, Food Tagged With: andris lagsdin, baking steel, brand marketing, omnichannel, tone of voice, Writing

I Should Hate This LinkedIn Post, but It’s Actually the Greatest

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, […]

Filed Under: Annarchy, Content, Writing Tagged With: Cara Mackay, Gillies and Mackay, LinkedIn, LinkedIn post

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