Smell that? That’s the scent of 52,776 sweaty, desperate content marketers trying to grab a tiny slice of your attention. Okay, I made that number up. The real number is higher. And the reason you’re smelling those content marketers, instead of eating up what they’re dishing out, is because we’re all experiencing “content fatigue”. Our content […]

What can you do to make a headline more compelling? It’s been building to this point for the last 5 years… I saw it coming. I was powerless to stop it… What is it? Shock. Your audience is in shock. Content shock. They’re overwhelmed with the content that lands in their inboxes and social media feeds every minute […]

Basecamp moved their popular blog to Medium. Paul Jarvis moved his… but then moved back. It seems that every marketing team is talking about where the best place is to publish all that hard-won, painstakingly written content. So, should you publish on Medium? This post discusses the pros vs cons, complete with insights from Medium stars.

Most people wanna write short content because it’s, well, easier. But you’re supposed to feel all guilty for taking the easy way out. So, what’s the deal? – is long content really better than short? Read this post to see what the data says.

You’ve heard you’re supposed to have a content strategy. But what exactly is a content strategy, and is it worth creating one for your business? This ultimate guide to content strategies will teach you everything you need to know. Plus, download a 14-tab worksheet… because starting from scratch sucks.

The Lane Bryant #ImNoAngel campaign is the most recent of many comparative advertising campaigns that call out competitors directly. We’ve found that the benefits of writing copy that picks a fight with your competitors far outweighs the challenges. In this post, see the studies and examples that will help you decide: should your copy pick a fight?

The greatest, most prolific copywriters on the planet don’t start from scratch. Join the ranks of top copywriters – even if you aren’t a copywriter – by using copywriting formulas to write and optimize your words. We’ve got every single copywriting formula we could find in this one post.

Includes 8 core takeaways! In this guest post by Kaleigh Moore, dive deep into the subject of mirror neurons. What do they have to do with our marketing? How can you engage the mirror system in the brain to move people to act?

“Want to sell more books?” vs “Hi, I’m Tim Grahl” – these two headlines were split-test against one another on a pop-up. In this post, you’ll see which one outperformed the other and, importantly, why that might have been.

You’ve heard the saying, “The client turns on the lights.” That old idea makes your work feel less than valuable. As much as our clients make it possible for us to have a thriving business, we too make it possible for their businesses to thrive. Read this post to see how you can make yourself more desirable to prospective clients – so the convo isn’t about who’s helping whom more… but rather how they can hire you to work for them STAT.

Mad Men has now ended, and the copywriters of the world wail in sadness. How will anyone ever understand us again? How will we live without Peggy Olson to look up to and commiserate with? To make us feel better, we put together this infographic featuring top copy lessons from Don Draper, Peggy Olson, Freddy Rumsen, Michael Ginsberg and others.

You use opt-in boxes and pop-ups to grow your list. But are you missing out on converting more visitors to subscribers by focusing entirely on the opt-in? Have you considered testing pop-ups featuring opt-out buttons as well? If not, read this to see why every lead-capture pop-up box needs an opt-in and opt-out button.

You want to measure the success – or failure – of your copy. But how the hell do you know how to measure it? Do you call all the copy on a page “bad” if the page isn’t converting? Or is only one element of your copy to blame? In this post, we’ll introduce you to the You Had One Job rule of conversion copywriting.

Your About page is one of the most visited pages on your site. But is it a dead end? Do you have a clue what visitors go there to do… or why… or how you can help them do that? Check out this post by copywriter Henneke Duistermaat to see the 7 sins of About pages.

Trying to get backed on Kickstarter? You’ll need a pitch page – and a damn good one at that. But where do you even start? And how long does it need to be? And what’s your story? And should you demonstrate your product? And what if your product doesn’t lend itself well to demonstration?!!?! There are tons of questions that Kickstarter’s handbook doesn’t help with. So we analyzed top-performing Kickstarter pitches, which we present to you today. (Beware: it’s a meaty post.)

You’re busy. Your business is doing pretty well. So why should you care enough about SEO to spend time on it? The main reason is that you probably already see around 30-60% of your website traffic come from the search engines. That might make you think that you don’t need to bother, because you’re already doing so well. But you’re almost certainly wrong. Read this to get the whole picture…

Reciprocity is the persuasion principle at play in most of our content marketing efforts and when we give out free trials. We’re banking on the idea that, if we do something generous for someone – such as giving them a free whitepaper, letting them try our software without entering their CC or writing super-helpful posts (ahem) – they will give back to us in kind. But if reciprocity is so powerful, why don’t more trial users convert? Why don’t more leads open our emails? And why don’t more readers comment on our posts?

Decent copy takes time & skill. Consistently high-converting copy takes time, skill, research, and statistical validation. If you’re outsourcing the job, this will cost you money — often quite a bit more than you might expect for what appear to be, you know, just words. So what should you expect to pay for stellar web or email copy? Use these calculations to find out.

You can make yourself comfortable at home. When you’re trying to grow your business, you’ve gotta make yourself uncomfortable. That’s what we’re challenging ourselves to do in 2015, as effing painful as it sounds. Check out how – and why – we’re going to make ourselves uncomfortable by clicking to read this.

We watch enough Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den to know that a ton of products just aren’t meant to be. The timing isn’t right. Or the audience isn’t there. Or the product is just a product, not a solution – not a painkiller, vitamin or addictive drug. In this challenge, we do the extremely difficult… and ask you to think about what in your life needs to go but hasn’t yet.