How do you quantify the value a copywriter delivers to your business? It’s a question I often ponder as I draw up quotes for new projects – I need to know that the outlay you make for my copywriting services will be paid back, and then some.
In trying to find an answer, let’s simplify the problem by looking at one blog entry. You engage a copywriter (me) to write a blog entry for $X. What’s the cost vs benefit?
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I love it when I come across an article that echoes my own thoughts so beautifully. A recent Marketing Mag article did just that, and I simply have to share it.
The author, Victor Navarro, argues that content is king in this multi-channel world, and that SEO is a critical element of content creation. I couldn’t agree more. Content drives the online experience (hand in hand with the information architecture, I’d suggest), and SEO drives people to that content. So …

How much would a typo cost your business? Can you afford the risk to your reputation?
I’ve been pondering this question every morning as I make my coffee. I stand there bleary-eyed, staring at a very glaring typo on the side of a box of big-brand kid’s pain relief that sits on the pantry shelf.
It would have cost a lot to produce this box. Throw in the designer’s time, the marketing team’s efforts, the category manager’s work… not to …

[This is an article I wrote for one of my clients, Bienalto Consulting.]
How many clicks do you hope to get when you send out a digital newsletter? Do you expect your customers to follow the links through to three or four different articles?
From our observations, most users will only click on one link in your newsletter or EDM. Put simply, they’ll read only one article or news item, and then they’re gone.
This …

So, I’ve created a Wordle of my blog.

Ain’t it pretty? All those words I love, like “creative” and “writing” and “web”, jump out at me. It’s pretty easy, by skim-reading this Wordle, to guess what I do, isn’t it? And it’s also easy to see where I need to build on topics, in a bid to drive more traffic from certain keywords.
Web content managers can use the same trick to check whether their content is on target …

I went for a run last night through thick fog. It was quite beautiful to watch the oncoming headlights diffuse through filaments of white; but it was also quite eerie when the light disappeared and I was wrapped in a blanket of nothing.
That’s sometimes how my brain feels when I’m tackling a new piece of creative copywriting. Moments of brilliance; then nothing.
Otherwise known as writer’s block, I guess. So what are my top five tactics for overcoming this …

As a copywriter and communications strategist, I’m often asked to help a business find its voice. It’s a challenging and rewarding task.
The business owner or marketing manager knows how they want to sound, but don’t know how to make that sound. They might say, “We want to sound like Virgin.” Or, “We want to sound cool, clever, and creative.”
But one person’s cool and clever is another person’s condescending and dumb.

Less is best when you write for the web. But it’s not as easy as it looks. Writing for the web is not simply a matter of cutting and pasting your corporate brochure into the relevant pages of your website. Nor is it the place for your marketing department to wax lyrical in a creative stream of consciousness.
So what does writing for the web involve?

Editing is a golden rule of good copy. But how much can be achieved by editing your own work? No matter how fine-toothed your comb, you are bound to neglect some messy grammar here or a stray comma there, simply because you are too close to the job.
Where possible, you should get a fresh set of eyes to review your work. Because when it comes to business communication, you can’t afford to make mistakes.