Telling your backstory can have a profound impact on your relationship with your customers, readers, partners and staff. In the first two parts of this series, we discussed why a backstory is so important and the seven questions to ask to develop a backstory. Now you need to tell your story. Make it go viral or get press Read More
7 Questions That Help You Develop an Exceptional Backstory (Backstory Series – Part 2)
Right now the 2012 Olympics are captivating the world whether you’re a sports fan or not. Our deepest connection to the games often isn’t which country won or lost. What we are most drawn to are the gripping, inspiring stories of the athletes themselves and how they got to London. Backstories can be incredibly compelling Read More
Warning: Your readers don’t trust you (Backstory Series – Part 1)
Why You Need a Backstory for Truly Amazing Content Interesting background information in the form of a backstory is almost never included in most content. If your audience rarely gets to see or understand the origin or context of what you are promoting, they're may not fully trust you. Too bad. A backstory can be the Read More
9 Better Ways to Influence People to Take Action
Influence is the ability to affect or persuade someone. Or as I like to think, influence can more effectively drive people to take action. That’s what most marketing campaigns want to do – drive action, right? Here are 9 powerful ways you can influence your audience to take action. Note that what makes these tips so Read More
Write Better Content Using Fewer Words, More Meaning
The growth of the web and social media has led to two segments of content that your readers like to consume. You have to master at least one, if not both, forms to write better content today. First, the traditional big content covers big subjects thoroughly. This content comes in longer formats like white papers, ebooks, Read More
5 Situations You Need a Creative Brief But Often Don’t Use One
We are busy marketing professionals. We need to save time whenever possible. One of the most common shortcuts that marketers take is skipping the creative brief at the beginning of some projects. Unfortunately, we think we are saving time, but we are likely paying for it later with more time spent during production. Or Read More
Innovate or Die: Writing Content That Solves Problems
One common long-term thread of any successful venture is innovation. Not just any willy nilly idea will do though. Great results are most frequently achieved when the innovation is worthwhile. It’s useful. It solves problems. It solves problems in a way that currently is not being done elsewhere. The same thing applies Read More