Show Your Business Some Love: Update Your Website!
Your relationship with your website is not unlike your relationship with your spouse or significant other. Sometimes we think everything is perfect, just the way it is. Sometimes we feel like something’s missing. Or things just aren’t going as well [...]
Ten Reasons to Hire a Content Writer
If you are launching a business or want to grow yours, there will probably come a time when you think, “Do I need to hire a content writer? After all, there's ChatGPT..." While it's true that AI will scrape the [...]
The Best Action Words for Press Release Headlines
Recently, Cision released its 2021 State of the Press Release report. It’s a comprehensive analysis of more than 10,000 press releases that the company distributed this year. Within its inviting pages of colorful infographics, we find a summary of the [...]
You and Your Target Market: Why Everyone is NOT Your Customer
The first job of any good entrepreneur is to determine their target market. In other words, discovering who their customer is. But it’s equally important to understand who your customer IS NOT. As a marketing communications expert, always attempting to [...]
Ten Ways to Tweak Your B2B Marketing for Awesome Results
Whenever I receive a call for B2B marketing help, there is an answer to a question that inevitably makes its way into our conversation: why are you changing your marketing NOW? Sometimes, the customer is enlightened and can speak specifically [...]
The Key to Writing a Blog Post with Intention—Your Blog Box
Writing a blog post is one of the many, regular duties a marketing department or entrepreneur performs to serve their product or brand. As a content writer, I regularly help clients with writing their blogs, and when I present them [...]
Editing Guidelines: BIW’s 10 Commandments for Editors
People call me to write and/or edit everything from brief biographies to full-length, published books, and I love it all. There’s just something incredibly satisfying about transforming a piece of writing that’s good (or even not so good) into something [...]
The Pros Speak Out on Building a Website Using WordPress
As a content writer, I would never claim to be an expert on how to build a website using WordPress. My first experience with WordPress was doing a blog, long before I started my business. Since then, I’ve done some [...]
Is Outbound Marketing Dead?
Once upon a time, there was a loud, disruptive, and often annoying type of advertising that was part of what we now call outbound marketing. It interrupted our favorite TV and radio programs. It filled our mailbox with colorful, aggressive [...]
The Secret to Staying Young: The Making of The Nine Lives of Curious Edith
As an editor for Fig Factor Media, I’ve worked with hundreds of authors on autobiographical chapters and full manuscripts. But when I took on the assignment to help a local woman named Edith Vosefski edit her autobiography, I became increasingly [...]
How do you Add Value for Your Clients?
If you’re a service provider of any sort, you may be familiar with the idea of “adding value” for your clients. What does that mean? To me, and to the many organizations and/or entrepreneur/CEO-type leaders I have worked with over [...]
10 Things to Do After Writing a Blog
For many companies, writing a blog is a lot like shoveling the driveway. You finish it, and you’re on to the sidewalk or the porch steps, never looking back. In other words, companies publish their blogs, check the box, and [...]
Connecting With LinkedIn and the NCG Factor in Pandemic Times
Remember networking in 2019? I do. There were fun networking events held any time you wanted-—breakfasts, lunches, or after hours. I remember chatting up new acquaintances over a steaming cup of coffee, sans mask, and sitting at linen-covered round tables [...]
Creating a Brochure from a Website: Questions to Ask
Some of the most common requests I get from businesses is to help them create a brochure from their website. Everyone needs a website, but not everyone thinks of creating brochures nowadays, even they offer intangible benefits. Sometimes there’s just [...]
Lessons From an Anthology Series
Last year, I had the good fortune of being able to edit the first book in the anthology series, Today’s Inspired Leader from Fig Factor Media. As the twelve stories came in, I was in charge of reviewing and editing [...]
Song, Dance… and Marketing Communication
Let me take you way back. Kinda like the picture. Before I knew what marketing communication was. When I was growing up in Hales Corners, Wisconsin and my two older brothers were playing every sport imaginable, all I wanted to [...]
Taking Digital Content to the Trade Show
Taking Digital Content to the Trade Show Recently a client of mine was attending a trade show for a selected group who could use his services. It was not an audience that was his “bread and [...]
The Head Vs. The Heart: A Freelance Advertising Copywriter’s Take on Features and Benefits
The Head Vs. The Heart: A Freelance Advertising Copywriter’s Take on Features and Benefits If you’re a business owner, your product or service has both features and benefits. Both are important in the advertising and marketing [...]
How to Create a Brochure from Your Web Content
How to Create a Brochure from Your Web Content As a freelance copywriter, I am often retained by agencies to serve clients looking for an integrated marketing strategy. In short, this means they want to develop a brand [...]
The 5 W’s of Writing a Business Blog (Including 10 Why’s)
The 5 W’s of Writing a Business Blog (Including 10 Why’s) © Luis Alvarenga | Dreamstime.com When reporters write a story, they use the “5 W’s” (Who, What, Where, When and Why) to make sure they [...]
Ten Ways to Promote Your Business After You’ve Won an Award
Ten Ways to Promote Your Business After You’ve Won an Award So you’ve won a business award. Congratulations! After you’re done with the awards ceremony, the handshakes, the acceptance speech, the photo op and the positioning [...]
What Do I Put on my Business Facebook Page?
What Do I Put on my Business Facebook Page? It’s the age old question of businesses everywhere: What do I put on my business Facebook page? The personal is easy, right? Funny selfies, birthday and anniversary [...]
Why Content Writers Create Great Marketing Strategy
I was speaking recently with the owner of an agency who helps companies with the creation and implementation of corporate marketing plans. We were discussing the possibilities of using my services to manage some of his marketing projects, when he [...]