Friends and neighbors, AI is upon us. End of the world, marketing copywriting is dead, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria, yadda yadda yadda.
I’m not worried, y’all. Neither should you be.
Continue readingSo, about that AI chat mojo…
Author: Editrix Steph
So, y’all want to see the greatest thing ever?
I am prone to hyperbole. What can I say? It makes me giggle. So if you want to accuse me of exaggerating, well, guilty as charged.
But this? This made me go full 2009 Kanye. Imma let you finish, but this is the greatest marketing image of all time. Of all time!
So, how about that Roanoke Writer’s Conference?
Y’all, the Roanoke Writers’ Conference was so great. This was their fourth year, and I can only imagine the total global domination they’re heading for. Get in there next year so you can be all hipster and say, “Yeah, I was going there way back in 2019 before it blew up and sold out.”
I met some fantastic people, reconnected with others, and got asked some very clever questions by folks looking to up their marketing game. As promised, here’s a link to the deck and my notes for their reading pleasure. But first, a couple of the resources I mentioned. Continue reading
So, what’s the difference between branding and marketing?
If you’re already neck-deep in digital and/or other marketing goodness, this seems like an insultingly obvious distinction. But for folks on the outside of the profession, it can all seem like a big casserole of confusion. So many ingredients! So much measuring! What to do?
So, how’s your proofreading?
Check your copy before you wreck your copy.
If you’ve followed my #HireACopywriter tagging on Twitter, you know I have Strong Feelings™ about getting content right. The various steps involved — research, concepting, writing, editing — are all important. But your content can be bangin’ and still bite it hard if it is riddled with typos.
Enter the magic of proofreading!
So, do you know your niche?
Y’know what I dig? Museums. You know what else I dig? Nerdery. What, that’s a word. Look, English is a living language. Let’s move on.
I recently checked out the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, TX, and it was more fun than unlimited waffles. Aside from the lack of shooting game Area 51 in the arcade, it was practically flawless.
But the icing on the cake was a piece of print collateral so nerdily and perfectly suited to this museum’s audience I can overlook the rough copy. Behold!
So, Steph, what are you digging now? #2
If you’ll forgive me, I’m going to diverge from strictly marketing-related mojo and share just a little bit of the independent artistic greatness around DFW. Why? Well, I have a theory.
Seems to me that if you want to write well, you have to feel your soul as well as your brain. Data is crucial to successful marketing! You’ll never hear me say otherwise. But that’s a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. There’s more to marketing than data. There’s inspiration. There’s lateral thinking. There’s making connections between unrelated ideas in order to create something new.
So, want to wake up those synapses? Get you some art in you.
So, you should write video scripts.
Companies and marketers are spending more on online video. Which makes sense. Motion attracts attention. Part of our lizard hindbrain perks up and says, “Hey. That thing. It’s moving. Can it eat me? Oh! Can I eat it?” Instincts like that make for receptivity, if only at first.
The key is “at first.” Even with that advantage, you have to keep viewers engaged. And let’s be honest, y’all — a lot of videos suck.
So, who even does this?
I keep an eye on clever things people do to market their products or businesses. And because not everyone is clever, or indeed smart enough to dress themselves without diagrams or YouTube tutorials, I sometimes see the unclever things people do to market their products or businesses.
Here’s a winner, y’all.
Call it “You Did What? A Saga Wherein Food and Customer Service Collide and Nobody Wins (But Someone Could Have Caught a Case), or Please Never Do This Ever in This or Any Other Universe.”
Continue reading
So, it’s been entirely too long.
You know the old saying. The cobbler’s children are always barefoot. No, I don’t make shoes — but I do make content. Lots and lots of content. I’m deeply fortunate that I get to make a living as a writer, but that does mean that sometimes my own projects take a back seat. Like this blog.
But y’all, I saw this, and I was slapped upside the head with the huge, shiny halibut of inspiration.
Continue reading
Storytelling for Success 