No matter how much we plan, there will be instances where you just simply run out of time. Someone on your staff gets sick. People take vacations. A holiday shuts down the office for a few days. Maybe there’s been a merger or acquisition drawing your attention away. Perhaps you were focusing your resources elsewhere. [...]
A content plan is an invaluable tool. It keeps your team on track. It helps you be more strategic. It’s a great device for communicating with other teams in your organization. And having a plan can save you money. Clearly, I love content plans. I want everyone to have one. (And I want to help [...]
By Stephanie Conner and Allison Thomas Without smart strategic planning, the big wins just don’t happen. Every decent coach (and content marketer) knows it’s true. You don’t make up plays on game day, and you don’t build a content plan while you’re creating content. Now, do some teams attempt this? Of course. But very few [...]
A couple of years ago, I started noticing a trend among my clients and colleagues. Writing requests were coming in at the last minute (even more than usual). Creative briefs were becoming rarer, and when they did exist, were vague. And strategy was taking a back seat to simply putting content out there. The downsides [...]
When you plan your content calendar, it’s important to think about frequency. Maybe you aim to share on social media daily, blog twice weekly, publish an enewsletter monthly and offer an ebook biannually. As I work with clients on content planning — a process I love and believe is essential — the most common [...]
At Active Voice Communications, we have a deep bench to call on when large or quick-turnaround copy projects necessitate a team. I love the writers I work with and am proud to have them on my team. I asked this talented bunch this question: What is one thing you do to improve your own writing [...]
You want to work with writers and designers and photographers who are as strategic as they are creative. We talk a lot about the importance of thinking through strategy when we tackle any creative endeavor. But it’s also important for strategic communicators and project managers to understand the creative process and be able to provide [...]
If you are a person who writes frequently, you might have a writing approach that you regularly rely on. Oftentimes, non-writers are looking for that perfect way to write — that bulletproof way to create great copy. But in my experience, there is no single perfect writing process. Every writer has his or her [...]
No matter how many As you got in English class or how many words you've written over the course of your career, you don't know all the grammar rules, all the style laws or all the words. Great writers still need to look things up — probably every day. The best writers know what [...]
As writers, content creators and marketers, we spend a lot of our time trying to figure out how to cut through the clutter and get our messages in front of the right audiences. That often means we are not spending enough time figuring out if what we have produced is easy to understand and [...]
