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How to boost the persona-appeal of your high-value web pages.

(Part 2 of my 3-part guide to writing genuinely customer-focused website copy.) Are you talking to yourself?  I feel like I should interrupt, but I don’t want to be rude. It’s an easy trap to fall into when it comes to the copy on your website. We spend so much time defining a mission and […]

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So how does your buyer persona feel about your website?

Part 1 of my guide for ensuring your website content is genuinely customer-focused. There’s an anecdote in How to Win Friends and Influence People, where author, Dale Carnegie recounts the story of meeting someone at a party who talked nonstop about themselves. Carnegie hardly said a word, but after the party the person recounted to […]

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Add peanut butter to your website’s career page copy.

  One of the best things about freelancing at this one company was the copious snack collection offered free to all workers. Granola bars, fruit, juice, chips, artisan coffee—and yes, fresh peanut butter right from the machine. So when it fell upon me to write a career page that portrayed the company’s outstanding opportunities as […]

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12 takeaways from renowned ad journalist Stuart Elliott

  (Former NYT ad journalist Stuart Elliott shared sage advice for United and YouTube advertisers during The NJ Ad Club’s recent town hall.) During my formative years in advertising, there were these three guys I looked to for “the way.” Three uncles, each one distinctly different. One was the omnipresent advertising gossip columnist: George Lazarus […]

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WANTED: Non-weird, Non-hermity Copywriter

  I remember my first official freelance assignment like a dream that never was. I was working from my kitchen table. Framing my computer screen was a pretty view of the apartment cluster’s courtyard. The smell of coffee mixed nicely with the scent of salt air from the beach a block away. I remember sighing […]

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A cross-pollination of insights from NJ Ad Club’s 2017 State of the Advertising Industry Panel – featuring R/GA, Dunkin’, Nickelodeon and VaynerMedia.

  You really couldn’t ask for a better panel for a 2017 outlook discussion. The NJ Ad Club’s panel was lively and their views were all over the place. The candid descriptions of the ways their outfits are operating and the projects and mindsets driving them were pure gold. Bunch of people at the top […]

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Snowplow races and why paying a project fee beats hourly every time.

  My house backs up to a cemetery and fronts up to a small but busy cul-de-sac maintained and plowed by our town. During a snowstorm, the cemetery side is where all the action is. Without exception, the guy who plows their roads has theirs cleared and salted hours, sometimes days, before the city sends […]

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Peace, love and seeing through stereotypes.

  On the morning of November 9th, I found myself searching the faces of my neighbors as they drove by. “Friend or foe?” I worried. I wondered if my sprinkler contractor was going to show up—or anyone was going to show up to work for that matter. People who rode the morning train into Manhattan […]

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You need a roadmap the most when you’re in a hurry.

  I woke up in a panic a few Sundays ago. My daughter had a travel soccer game and we’d way overslept. The maps app said it would take 50 minutes but we only had 45. I reassured myself that those estimates only applied to little old ladies and snow plows. If I was driving, […]

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In life and branding, I think it’s best to just be yourself.

  Why I killed backpocket copywriter. Back when I became backpocket copywriter 15 years ago, it seemed like a natural fit for my clients’ needs. I was doing a lot more 1-off projects. Things were much more wham-bam thank you, adman. Clients appreciated my creativity and quickness. The name, backpocket copywriter fit this arrangement nicely. […]

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