PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE THE TOILET BY FLUSHING ANYTHING THAT SHOULD NOT BE FLUSHED HERE
Set aside that violate for a moment (a word that feels unnecessarily charged… time-sharing as it does half its letters with violent).
Unclog Your Copy With This Easy Four-Step Framework Read More »
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. * * * Three years ago this week—in January 2018—I decided to start a newsletter. Why? I wanted connection—not one-to-many social media connection, but me-to-you direct connection. Three years ago, I also realized a fundamental truth: The most important part of the newsletter is the letter, not the news. There were other, secondary reasons I thought of later—some much later. I wanted the joy of making something that was 100% mine. I wanted to understand how to build momentum with an email list (and truly understand, from the inside-out, what works). I wanted to experiment, to play, to have fun. I wanted to feel a little more alive. Does that feel like a ridiculously tall order for an email ferpetesake? Especially
What I Learned in 3 Years of Writing a Newsletter Read More »
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. * * * Pop quiz time: You run Marketing at a B2B company that sells industrial floor-cleaning equipment. You want to amp up awareness and demand with your audience of commercial and municipal facilities managers. But it’s… well, industrial, floor, and cleaning. What would you do as a tactic in your 2020 content strategy? Pick one: Point a camera at your CEO in a regular fireside chat to demonstrate how the brand is there for you in these trying times Hire an Instagram influencer and their family to literally eat off a scrubbed, sparkling, Covid-free floor Launch an old-school, year-long essay contest to find stories about janitors If you’re Tennant Company… you go all-in on #3. And I love it. It speaks
How This Marketing Program Cleaned Up: A Case Study in B2B Storytelling Read More »
A version of this story on the Power of Copywriting 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. * * * How do you sell two used couches upholstered in the exact, unfortunate color of the poop emoji? 💩 That had been my challenge since last weekend, when I swapped out the two brown couches in our Maine cottage for a smart, gray, sofa-and-loveseat duo with a mid-century modern vibe. Maybe it was my imagination… but they seemed a little cocksure, that trim mid-century pair, sliding efficiently into spots once occupied by their dumpy, dung-colored cousins. (The old brown couches ended up against the far wall, looking… I don’t know… forlorn? I would say they reminded me of two old dogs watching their family welcome a new pup… but that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t
Pumpkin Spice Couches: A Case Study in the Power of Copywriting Read More »
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 gross little guys. First, I need to have you read it, too. And then let’s break it down, okay? (via When Twenty-Six Thousand Stink Bugs Invade Your Home) Making Boring Writing Fun Again Those of us who write about the unremarkable B2B products, mundane “solutions,” or complicated, boring anythings can learn a lot from this passage. Let’s break it down: “Its head is unusually small, even for an insect, which gives it an appropriately thuggish look. Its six legs prop its shield-shaped body up in the air, as if they were pallbearers at the
Making Boring Writing Fun Again: What We Can Learn from Stink Bugs. (Yes, Seriously.) Read More »
For all the stories of gutted newsrooms and struggling newspapers, there’s still an awful lot of innovation coming out of journalism. Staffed as they are with storytellers, writers, and illustrators, newsrooms can offer marketers and content creators a lot of storytelling inspiration. Here are two of my recent favorites. I The Boston Globe‘s Metro section published Finding Home, a story about a stray Yorkie on the lam in Milton, Massachusetts. The tiny beast was slippery: He repeatedly evaded authorities (ducking through a tiny hole in a fence, impossibly scaling a wall). The antagonist is the animal-control officer, “Ms. Bersani.” Already, you can see how this thing just wrote itself… A Globe editor had heard about the dog on Facebook, and over three weeks reporter Dugan Arnett and illustrator Yan Wu collaborated to fashion a scrolling story (using a platform called Scrollytelling), creating a watercolor map of the pup’s travels. Here’s
