Copywriting Blog
Digital Portsmouth Recap + Those Branding Questions I Mentioned
/in Branding, Hired Pens, Social Media/by Anna GoldsmithLast night I was honored to be a speaker — along with Quiana Agbai and Crystal Paradis — at Digital Portsmouth‘s event, “The Art of Copywriting.” Now if you regularly give talks to large crowds, speaking in front of 100+ of your peers is probably no big deal. But what I regularly do is sit […]
Why the World Needs a Grammar Czar
/in Grammar Cop, The Writing Life/by Dan O'SullivanSometimes it’s good to have a benevolent dictator calling the shots. If you’ve ever been part of a committee or task force trying to resolve a seemingly inconsequential issue, you know where I’m coming from. Our friends at Wikipedia define a benevolent dictator as “an authoritarian leader [who] exercises absolute political power … but is […]
Happy Holidays from The Hired Pens
/in Uncategorized/by Dan O'SullivanIn case you’re looking for us … The Hired Pens will be closed for business from Dec. 24 through Jan. 3. But we’ll be bright, bushy-tailed and ready to go on Monday, Jan. 4. See you then.
Did You ‘Leak Guard’ Your Company?
/in Branding, Catalogs/by Anna GoldsmithLike all three-year-olds, mine wants to do everything “by hisself.” Among other things, this means getting ready for bedtime. Alex mastered taking his clothes off a long time ago and has just recently managed to pull on his top and bottoms (provided there are no snaps, zippers or buttons to contend with). But the night […]
The Grumpy Old Copywriter: Let’s Cut Back on All This ‘Curated’ Nonsense
/in Grumpy Old Copywriter, Kvetching/by Thaddeus Van HaltrenBack in the day — dare I say, the good old days — only two things were curated: museum exhibits and ham. Oh, how times have changed. One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting with my family around the dinner table, as Dad carved away and placed a generous serving of curated ham on […]
Pardon Me, but Your Manspreading Is Infringing on My Personal Space
/in Media, The Writing Life, Uncategorized/by Anna GoldsmithAs I write this post, 150 new words are making their debut on Dictionary.com. This seems like a shockingly high number, but it’s actually a pretty discriminating list compared to the 1,000 going into the Oxford English Dictionary and the whopping 1,700 Merriam-Webster said “kk” to. (Which you’d know means “okay” if you got an […]
Ten Tips for Coming Up with Great Blog Ideas
/in Blogs, Writing Tips/by Dan O'SullivanThe toughest thing about blogging? For many of us, it’s coming up with worthwhile blog ideas. Once you have the right topic, it’s all downhill from there. (At least, that’s how it usually goes for me.) But, yeah, it’s the ideas that can be a killer. A good starting point is to put yourself in […]
How Great Customer Service Can Keep You Out Of Court
/in Other, Social Media/by Anna GoldsmithI had just sent my husband a text reading, “This place in incredible,” when I heard my son, Leo, crying. Not just the whiny cry of a six-year-old who wants Cheerios instead of scrambled eggs, but a real, something-is-seriously-wrong cry. Like most accidents, it all happened so fast: One minute, he was jumping happily on […]
Soup for Summer? The Power of Effective Signage.
/in Uncategorized/by Anna GoldsmithRemember how hot it was this August? Crazy hot, right? So hot you went around saying things like, “Man is it crazy hot or what?” So hot you’d rather go hungry than do something as crazy as … eat soup. So what do you do if you’re The Soupery? Just walking by their sign made […]
Inbound Marketing & My Struggles with Content Anxiety
/in Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing/by Dan O'SullivanI love the concept of inbound marketing. It’s good for consumers (a central tenet is to give people content that’s helpful for them). And it’s certainly good for copywriters like me (more and more companies are hiring us to write content for their inbound marketing campaigns). But since we’ve been HubSpot customers for about a year, I also […]
