Every year ProCopywriters, the alliance of commercial writers, conducts a survey of copywriters. The results for 2018 have just been published. I always enjoy completing the survey because it’s a useful opportunity to reflect on my work. I always find the results a really interesting read because I get so much information I can’t get […].. Read More
Is it just me or is it just a bit grumpy and passive aggressive? There’s something about the ‘our’ vs the highlighted ‘your’ that rankles. I find it reminiscent of a parent hectoring a child who hasn’t looked after something properly – ‘I spend good money on those shoes and that’s the way you treat them?’ Also, strictly […].. Read More
You may remember that a few weeks’ ago I gave a talk to a group of University of Gloucestershire students on being a copywriter and running my own business. I found it an interesting talk to put together. I’m very bad at taking time to reflect on decisions I’ve made / paths I’ve taken so […].. Read More
In a recent edition of my monthly email newsletter (The Pips – sign up here if you’d like to receive it), I asked people to let me know if they had any copywriting questions they’d like me to answer in future blog posts. One lovely subscriber came back and asked: “What is the difference between […].. Read More
Is this a situation that’s familiar to you? It’s 9am. You’ve just sat down at your desk. You’ve got 30 minutes before your first meeting of the day and decide to quickly deal with your emails. You open the first message. It’s from a colleague and your heart sinks. It rambles, it witters, it’s incoherent […].. Read More
The ability to write words that persuade, sell, encourage, inform, inspire or whatever else it is you need them to do. The ability to get to the heart of what you want to achieve and come up with the message that will help you achieve it. The ability to bring creativity and ingenuity when it’s […].. Read More
I love words It’s quite hard to get over how much I love words and how much I need them in my environment. I can quite happily spend several hours in an art gallery reading the captions to the paintings before realising that I haven’t actually looked at any of the paintings. I’m always looking […].. Read More
As part of the talk I’ve been preparing for the University of Gloucestershire’s Creating Futures event, I’ve been thinking about the skills I think you need to have if you’re going to make a success of running your own business. As part of this, I’ve been thinking about pricing and how to price your work […].. Read More
On Wednesday 21 March I’ll be speaking at Ledbury’s Women in Rural Enterprise March meeting and sharing five tips on writing more effective marketing materials. If you’d like to come along (sorry, it’s women only!), you can book a place on Eventbrite... Read More
According to Aristotle, if you want someone to be persuaded by your argument, logic is less important than whether they like and trust you. I’d love to say I learned this reading Aristotle but in fact it was from listening to an interview on the Today programme last week with Jay Heinrichs. He was promoting […].. Read More