Online marketing that works
Welcome to The Lede.
Every week I’ll be digging up and linking to stories, news, and opinion relevant to online marketing and copywriting.
Email, social media, innovation, SEO, productivity, mobile, conversion, publishing, and everything in between.
No commentary, just a fast, single page of headlines that you can grab, scan, and squeeze for all they may (or may not) be worth.
All right then, on with it …
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Every writer who has ever lived has lusted after ideas.
Where are they, how do I get them, and how do I keep them coming?
If you’ve been writing long enough, you know that — like Solomon — there is nothing new under the sun.
Try as you might to sweat them out of your head or pull them gently from the stars above, there are no new ideas.
So, relax.
But the page is not going to write itself, is it? Where then do we turn for ideas that work, ideas that move, ideas that persuade?
In short, we steal them.
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Imagine you’re having a discussion with a talkative, hyperactive teenager.
The conversation goes something like this …
We went to the mall, and like, there was this fire in the mall. And we went from there to the movies, but we didn’t have any money and anyway the popcorn machine was broken, and so we didn’t really want to go to the movies without popcorn. But right after that we went to have some pizza and there was this creepy guy outside the store. But listen to this — because that’s not the best part. The best part is that Sylvie dumped Josh, and like, they ran into each other in the street …
Annoying right? Then why do we so often write our web copy just like that teenager talks?
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There are plenty of great reasons to write an ebook.
A short, free ebook could be precisely the cookie you need in order for your email list to grow beyond a handful of members.
A big, paid-for ebook could be an important part of your revenue stream — and the first product in your sales funnel.
Being able to say, “I’m an author.” could give your credibility a massive boost.
So what’s stopping you? I think I know …
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Sure, you want comments.
And subscribers, and shares, and likes.
But you don’t really care about any of these things. You want what they will eventually lead to …
Money.
Yes, traffic is good, and so is reader engagement. But if you’re reading this, chances are you’re running a blog with the intention of marketing a business and making some money.
Now, that could be a bit distressing, because most bloggers are broke.
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Well, why not?
They are the problem, right?
Here you are with a blog or a product or a charity you believe will change the world, and yet no matter how excited you are about the possibilities, no matter how much faith you have in yourself, you can’t help being worried:
You don’t know. You can’t know. And it bothers you.
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