The major heads-up today is that we have a live workshop next week (Tuesday, April 24 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time) on how to use sophisticated segmentation and automation in your email marketing — even if you have a limited budget and you’re not particularly technical.
This lets you create focused and relevant messages for your audience — without flooding their inboxes. You can sign up for the free workshop here.
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We all know that creating content can be hard work.
One of our goals at Copyblogger is to help you make sure you’re putting your work into the right things, so you get results and not just a fistful of disappointment. This week, we looked at three myths and mistakes that can hold writers back — and how to move forward again.
On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman uncovered a common content error that’s led to the mass of forgettable filler we’re all bumping into today. She explains how to take a bulldozer to the weak and the generic, and find the focus that will let you create the right content for the right people.
On Tuesday, Loryn Thompson confronted one of the great myths of the writing life:
“If I had more time to write, my writing would be 100 times better.”
(And yes, I fervently buy into this myth myself a lot of the time.)
Loryn’s post encourages us to get out and live, and treat our busyness, chaos, and even stress as fodder for better work. Butt-in-chair time is important, but it’s not the only element that makes for strong writing.
And on Wednesday, I addressed a third myth, sometimes called the Field of Dreams delusion — that if we just build enough wonderful content, the audience will come.
That would be fabulous, but … it doesn’t work. It never did, at least not with any reliability.
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You know how sometimes you see some advice that’s completely common sense, but somehow … it’s not at all what you’re doing right now? Yeah, me too.
This week was about getting back to sensible solutions to business and content problems. They’re common sense, but, as my colleague Chris Garrett often says:
“Common sense isn’t always common practice.”
On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman highlighted a fundamental question to ask yourself when you’re writing your content. Is the question simple? Yes. Could it save you a couple of hours the next time you write a blog post, and help you end up with a result that’s particularly sharp and relevant? Yep.
On Tuesday, guest writer Nick Usborne shared some of his least favorite myths around the smartest approach to persuasive copywriting: conversational copy. If you want to get results with content and you don’t enjoy feeling like a sleaze, this one’s for you.
And on Wednesday, I talked about the pitfalls of trying to use apps, platforms, and algorithms to do the writing for you — and why I think real writers will always win the content-quality battle.
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Aww, it warms my heart to see the wave of new students joining our Creative Content Foundations course.
That’s a new class from Copyblogger, designed to give you the essentials that every content marketing “pro” needs — whether you’re creating content for your own business, for freelance clients, or in an organization.
We’ve got a crazypants price on it this week only for our first group of students, and then we’ll restore it to something that makes more business sense. 🙂
Feel free to jump in — you can get the details here:
https://digitalcommerce.com/creative-content-foundations-sales/
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It’s time! The Creative Content Foundations course (known around our virtual offices as “Lucile”) is just about ready for new students.
I designed this class for new and intermediate content creators, to give you the professional skills that will wow your boss, clients, or customers.
This course will be offered at a slightly ridiculously good price when we launch it, so if you’d like to jump in and get what can only be described as a “screaming deal,” go ahead and get on the interest list.
As always, if you get rolling and decide it’s not a great fit, you’ll have a full 30 days to get a full refund.
Our main goal is to get a lot more people feeling confident about their ability to create meaningful, high-quality content, and to use that content to reach all kinds of practical goals.
We all have those times when we’re sort of coasting … gently floating along, letting things happen the way they will.
But that time is not today. 🙂 This week, we’re fired up and ready to help you get (safely, sanely) out of your comfort zone and into some serious progress.
On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman outlined seven occasions when progress isn’t so pretty — and why they can all be great signs that you’re on the right track. Because progress doesn’t need to feel like you’re hanging from a cliff — but it’s not always totally comfortable, either.
On Tuesday, we asked our longtime community member Hashim Warren to share some thoughts with us about how to craft “the offer.” I’ve seen this one really tie otherwise excellent content creators in knots. Hashim has been there, with the scars to prove it — and he’s brought us a super useful post on how to get your loyal audience to actually buy something by giving them a “RUVU” offer. (Plus, there’s a nice downloadable poster to remind you of the elements!)
And on Wednesday, I let myself get … maybe a tiny bit cranky. I’ve seen so many clickbait articles talking about the demise of content marketing, using scare tactics and straw men to make their point. Spoiler alert: Yes, content marketing probably really is getting harder. Additional spoiler alert: That creates great opportunities, for those who will step up.
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