How do you get ideas for things to write about? One of the biggest challenges content marketers and producers of other types of information products face is coming up with fresh material. I have found a great way to get ideas is to listen to what people around you are saying when you’re in public [...]
Evaluating a Prospective Ghostwriter or Collaborator What should you look for in a ghostwriter or collaborator? First and most important, you want someone with good writing skills. Yes, there are plenty of people out there who call themselves ghostwriters who can’t write, so ask to see writing samples from the writers who are candidates for [...]
What a Ghostwriter Is – and Isn’t A ghostwriter is just what the title says: a writer who is not visible to the public. Ghostwriters are not editors, literary agents or publishers. Good ghostwriters will ask you about the market for your book, articles or blog so that they can write to the correct audience, [...]
You’ve got a great idea for a book but don’t have the time or the skills to write it yourself You know you should be blogging but you’re too busy to do it regularly and effectively You’d like to produce information products but aren’t able to get them organized and written You know content marketing [...]
If you think direct mail marketing is a dinosaur, you may be right – but it’s a dinosaur that is roaring back to life and proving itself more effective than ever. Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Sarah A. Jolie, president of the Hensley Company, a mail service firm based in Chicago. She shared [...]
You know you need images on your website and blog, as well as to enhance your social media efforts. (If you don’t, here are six reasons why you need images on your website.) Creating your own images solves the challenge of creating those images (also known as digital assets), but what about keeping track of [...]
Every book and article on blogging tells you that you need great content—and I agree: Great content is essential to any blog’s success. The flip side of great content is bad content. Bad blog content virtually guarantees that human readers and search engines will ignore your site. So what is bad blog content? Click here [...]
Email templates are a tremendous productivity tool, but your readers shouldn't be able to tell that you're using a template. Ask any woman who has ever shown up at a party and seen another woman wearing the same outfit how she feels. That's how you ought to feel if someone recognizes your templates because they've seen [...]
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia that was in a marketing email I just received: Did you know that in the original Star Trek series 59 crew members were killed in action and 73% of them were wearing red shirts? Might want to avoid wearing red shirts -- or standing next to someone else who [...]
If you’re going to invest in creating great content, why would you block people from seeing it? This is as much of a rant as it is advice. I get really annoyed when I respond to a content offer and then can’t get to it because it’s blocked by a bunch of pop-ups (either ads [...]
