What is Enjoyable Content?
Content marketing, as an industry, is obsessed with best practices to ensure effective content, not enjoyable content: Sometimes we think the complexity of content marketing rules exist solely as a way...
Judging the Fit of a Copy Editor
Smart businesses seek out the services of a copy editor because everyone in a company can use a second set of eyes. Yes, you want to avoid embarrassing mistakes, but that’s more the job of a proofreader...
Do you give great client feedback? Here’s how you know.
We build revision cycles into our copywriting quotes because we expect client feedback. We like to think we provide our clients with the best ways to phrase their messages, but they’re certainly not...
Adjectives and adverbs: Objective versus subjective
Mark Twain: “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable.” Here are the Merriam-Webster definitions of an adjective and...
Fun with Translation — Google Style
Translation is a super-growth industry. Data from the US Department of Labour shows a 100 percent increase in the number of people employed in the translation industry over the past seven years, and 24...
7 effective political slogans, and one ineffective but ballsy one.
At the end of the day, all politicians have are their words. Well-designed political slogans can push a so-so candidate over the top if it’s mobilizing, motivating and simple enough to get behind. Let’s...
Don’t trust an AI copywriter
Last month, Chinese mega-publisher Alibaba unveiled their own virtual copywriter. It’s a computer program that they claim can generate 20,000 words of copy per second. Their promise to advertisers is...
The demise of email has been greatly exaggerated
So, about that prediction a while back that email was going to go the way of cassette tape — looks like that was a whole lot of nothing. Email is STILL the most influential source of outward-bound B2B...
Half of copywriting is knowing when to stop writing
Young scribes new to copywriting have a tendency to overwrite. And they do it for different reasons. Some want to show off their vocabularies. Others want to be super-diligent in their explanations. A...
Technical Writing is The Opposite of Writing Technically
When you think of technical writing, do you think of big words and bigger equations, text that could put a person drowning in Red Bull to sleep and a complete lack of anything resembling creativity? If...
Content Writer or Copywriter: Which Do You Need?
The difference between a content writer and a copywriter is the difference between a fast food joint and a Michelin restaurant. Both have their place in the world, but their value depends on the appetite...
Language Legends — Cicero
As copywriters, copyeditors, proofreaders and translators, our heroes are people with a gift for words. In this new regular addition to our blog, we’ll be looking at the men and women whose voices transcend...