As an SEO copywriter and marketing consultant, I look at a lot of Websites. When I'm asked to assess a company's site, the first question that often crosses my mind when I review it is, "Hmmm... what exactly do you do?" Continue reading...

With this column, we introduce the Visual Thesaurus' newest columnists, Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner of Editorial Emergency! Read our recent interview with Simon here.

We brand ourselves. It's what human beings do. Whether we wish to conform to some social or cultural norm (the traditional blue button-down worn by generations of IBM programmers) or stand out as rugged individualists (the prescription bottle in the earlobe hole of a kid I saw on a Los Angeles sidewalk), we are forever distinguishing ourselves.

Continue reading...

Who are you going to call? To answer the cry for copywriting help, husband and wife team Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner set up an agency called, semi-tongue-in-cheek, Editorial Emergency! What kind of emergencies? "Everything from creating content from scratch to putting the polish on it," says Simon. We had a fascinating conversation with him about copywriting and branding-and pitfalls to avoid. Continue reading...

A few weeks ago I received a call from a marketing manager of an event planning company. She was obviously frustrated. Her email promotion of a leadership seminar had failed miserably. Time was running out before the event date. She needed answers fast. So she asked if I would review the piece and get back to her with recommendations. Continue reading...

Here's the latest case study of real-life copywriting in action graciously sent to us by Sarah Williams, the head of Wordsmith in England. Thanks, Sarah! (Check out our interview with her here.)

The project:
Bizlinx International, a business networking organization (though, for reasons that you'll learn below, business networking is really not the term I should use here) was looking to re-brand and re-position itself after four or five years of successful trading in Australia and New Zealand. (They also have a small presence in the UK.) Wordsmith was appointed to write all the new material for web and print, as well as re-write and re-brand all the existing material. We were also tasked to project manage the whole undertaking, liaising with branding specialists, designers and web developers to deliver a finished product to the client.

Continue reading...

"A corporate brand is meant to be an organizing principle and filter for all actions, behavior and product development of an organization," explains author and veteran branding expert Scott Lerman. The former president of Siegel & Gale and CEO of Enterprise IG, Americas, Scott founded the consultancy Lucid Brands in 2005 to help organizations shape and develop their "brand story." We had a fascinating conversation with Scott about his work: Continue reading...

According to David Meerman Scott, author of the bestselling book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, the old rules of PR no longer apply. Thanks to the Internet, marketing and PR professionals shouldn't write press releases for journalists in the hope of getting ink. Continue reading...