When publishers let down their guard and let Scott climb up on his soapbox, their readers get some insight into the way he thinks and works. So can you.
Working with Writers and Others
- Friendly advice from the other side of the portfolio
- Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
- A sound strategy for selecting the right supplier
- When people don’t read, you really need a writer
- Talk to a writer before you start writing
- All opinions are not created equal
Writing Advice
- Being homophonobic is a healthy thing
- Communicating at C-level
- Repeating repetition isn’t necessarily a bad thing
- Writing to impress rarely makes a good impression
- Using yesterday’s words to communicate with today’s consumers?
- Exorcising your grammar demons
- Grants aren’t research papers
- Heard what’s wrong with your phone messages and scripts?
- Your mother was right
- Why it’s okay for English teachers to despise your ads and brochures
- Grants demand both sides of the brain
- Listening to your marketing materials
- Letters still work, if they’re personal
- Meaningful is More Powerful than Powerful
- Are questions inherently bad?
- Are you talking to yourself?
- Seven simple ways to improve your writing
- Kidney thieves, toilet spiders and short copy
- Tell me what I don’t know!
- Cover letters that connect
- There’s No Need to Fear Grammar Nazis
- Creating Marketing Copy for the Tablet Era
- To Write Better, Start in the Middle
- The single most powerful word in marketing
- Bullet points are just starting points
- How long is long enough?
- You don’t talk like your customers
- Should you dumb it down
- To cut through the clutter, get to the point
- Fox paws aren’t a mute point in a doggie-dog world
- Seven steps to overcome your fear of writing
- P.S. I Love You
Case Studies & White Papers
Publications and Publicity
- The humble (but powerful) press release
- Maybe you need a ghost
- The Mystery of the One-Issue Newsletter
- Seven Strategies for Dealing with the Media
- Before You Start a Publication
Graphic Design
Marketing Tips
- Your website is incomplete
- Keep your guarantees simple
- The social media success secret
- It’s not just the facts, ma’am
- Don’t toss your trusted tools
- How not to support your local sheriff, schools, and charities
- Talking about talking points
- You may fool search engines, but not people
- Just do it? Uh, maybe not.
- Special opportunities are often bad decisions
- Things you say without realizing it
- Learning from Janet in the shower
- Seven good ways to deliver bad news
- No longer either/or decisions
- Learning to share pays dividends
- Brilliant marketing insight lurks inside stupid questions
- Reflect your environment to market more effectively
- For marketing success, fish where the fish Are
- How to clone your customers
- Two Secrets For Better Speeches
- Cherry tomatoes and marketing materials
- Neglecting the most important part of your website?
- Time for a new marketing approach?
- How costly is “free” social media?
- There’s no holy grail in advertising
- Are you communicating with archaic expressions?
- Does your website look incomplete?
- Deceit is a Lousy Way to Start Relationships
- The art of the apology
- Survey says: now I hate your company
- An old marketing tool with new power
- Pissed-off people shouldn’t drive your marketing
- Stories simply sell better
- Are the wrong people sharing your story?
Marketing Commentary
- Aspirational doesn’t mean dishonest
- When does copying cross the line?
- Benign neglect isn’t very romantic
- Right Hand, meet Left Hand
- Marketing is a lot like dieting
- Reach out to connect more effectively
- Be more effective by being yourself
- If you don’t believe it, don’t say it
- Experience and nonsense
- Thabyu Perchopping Wibbis Income Ginsu
- The human on the other end
- Keep your marketing out of the ER
- Look in the mirror
- Mission: Unintelligible
- Don’t be so sensitive
- Is there a translator in the house?
- What’s important to you really isn’t important
- Real creativity happens inside the box
- Customer relations “machines” mangle customer relations
- Advertising copycats are unfunny … and counterproductive
- Simple ways to bring ex-customers back
- The simple reason customers don’t understand you
- The word of mouth myth
- Have you missed your marketing message?
- Stupid stuff employees say to customers
- Loose lips (and posts) sink ships
- Fulfilling promises is powerful marketing
- The dangers of worst-case marketing
- See yourself through their eyes
- Disagreeing isn’t inherently disagreeable
- Two rules to prevent PR disasters
- Making numbers work harder for you
- Kvetching employees kill reputations
- The curse of education
- Should your business get political?
- Marketing wisdom outlasts fashions
- The dangers of lazy data analysis
- It’s about people, not products
- Better ways to prufrede
- Copyright doesn’t mean a right to copy
- Fight-or-flight and your website
- Everything is a marketing piece
- You want people to feel, not think
- Nobody Cares About Your Mission Statement
- “Well, here’s what I think …”
- There’s no reason to be crass