COVID-19 has not only changed the world we live in, but it’s also significantly altered what we, as consumers, expect from brands. For content creators, the pandemic has presented a slew of challenges, the most critical being creating consistently compelling content with dwindling marketing budgets. However, in the wake of a worldwide shutdown in 2020 that had brands scrambling to pivot, User Generated Content (UGC) became a lifeline for smart content marketers – and it paid off.

According to recent studies, 90% of consumers reported that UGC influences their decisions to make purchases, which outranked all other forms of marketing. So, if you’re looking to produce high-quality content at scale and on a regular basis, one great way of doing so is to crowdsource. No one knows your readers better than they know themselves, and in this economy, your brand simply can't compete with the collective knowledge of an entire audience, so why not use this to your advantage? Join Wordsmith to find out how brands can successfully leverage User Generated Content (UGC) to empower consumers.

Modern advertising and copywriting takes inclusivity seriously. What is inclusivity, you ask? It is the practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for demographics who might otherwise be excluded or marginalised (e.g. of a certain ethnicity or physical impairment). And in copywriting, it refers to the use language or terminology that embraces people of all backgrounds. Recent trends have shown that there is very little public tolerance for businesses that fail to embrace progressiveness. Join Wordsmith as we explore how to include inclusivity into our writing!

What is the quintessential trait of a top employee? Is it burning ambition and drive? The capacity to learn and lead? While these elements are invaluable to a person’s success, one skill gatekeeps them all – the ability to write clearly. A person can have oodles of talent, but if they can’t communicate their strengths properly through a resume or online profile, it’s unlikely that an employer will bother with the all-important interview. Join Wordsmith as we explore how to write clearly and concisely.

As professional writers, it’s not uncommon to get caught in a loop of writing in the same style over and over again – especially in commercial writing, where clients expect (and pay you) to do just that. Thankfully, the existence of literary devices allow us to escape from monotony… provided we know how to use them of course! From rhetoric and repetition to everything in between, it’s time we dive back into Mark Forsyth’s book The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase for more clever ways to bring eloquence into our writing.

The language of modern politics is unforgiving, especially for those who are unfamiliar with the abundance of lingo… but has it always been this way? After all, politics relates to governance of a country or region and its people, so shouldn’t the everyday person be entitled to understand what is going on without long-winded dribble? George Orwell certainly thought so. With the help of Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”, let us dive into common problems with political speak and see how we can make it more appealing for the masses!

As children, we often hear the saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. While physical bullying can leave bruises and cuts that heal over time, mean words can cause more significant psychological trauma – even long after they’ve been said. School yard insults aside, the advent of the Internet has made ridicule even more prevalent. Through a simple glass screen, the Internet can grant anyone a veil of anonymity which allows you to heckle people around the world should you so choose. While some people say cruel things for the sake of being cruel, it is the misguided who are unable to discern between ridicule and useful criticism. Join Wordsmith as we explore the elements of constructive criticism.

From a traditional marketing standpoint, many believe that while both content marketers and copywriters roles involve the creation of content, they wear completely different hats when it comes to the type of content they create and the result they want to achieve. Content marketing focuses on value-led content that your audience wants to read while copywriting focuses on advertorial content that's designed to compel readers to take action. However, if this were true, it would stand to reason that content marketers solely rule the realm when it comes to creating blog posts, case studies, white papers, e-books and how-to articles, whereas the copywriter’s domain lies strictly in producing pay-per-click (PPC) ad copy, social media ads, landing page copy and call-to-action (CTA) copy. But this simply isn’t the case.

In today’s ever-changing landscape, it would be limiting to categorise either role into opposite content spectrums, because as we know, some of the best content marketers in the business continue to create high-converting sales-led copy in the same way that talented copywriters continue to create spell-binding articles that are designed to evoke emotion. So, where does this leave us? Join Wordsmith to find out.

From SEO guru Neil Patel to Forbes, the Internet is a fantastic place for gathering tips and insights to enhance your marketing and copywriting strategies. However, for every good piece of advice you come across, there are also detrimental ones lurking around. And no, we don’t mean the absolutely ridiculous tips like “you don’t need a content marketing strategy” or “clicks are all that matter” – we mean the “tips and tricks” that may seem useful at first glance, but are worthless in practice. For the unwary, these bad techniques may not have immediately apparent negative effects, but using them can (and often will) weaken the credibility and persuasiveness of your writing!

Prepositions don’t get much attention. Defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “a word that is used before a noun, a noun phrase or a pronoun to connect it to another word”, prepositions are often relegated to the menial job of sentence extenders (like their cousin, the conjunction). While that’s certainly one of their most recognisable purposes, did you know that prepositions can accomplish more than that? Taking note from Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines’ book My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be “Me”?), let’s examine how prepositions can be used to give sentences greater flair!

Everyone knows that the key to copywriting is the headline. It’s the aroma that tempts readers to take a bite of your prose. With their attention at stake, it pays to spend the time and effort to sculpt the perfect headline. However, there are times when the headline simply refuses to be right. If that’s happened to you before, then you’re not alone. Just like writer’s block, headline block can be an equally frustrating impasse. Thankfully, Steve Harrison has some interesting tricks to help us navigate around the jam with his book How to Write Better Copy: Concise Introductions to the Topics that Matter. Join Wordsmith as we examine the key ingredients for savoury headlines!

Although we as copywriters love to make the case for long-form content, we also can’t deny the overarching benefits of creating value-led, shorter, skimmable content.

Every digital customer is looking for instant gratification when it comes to branded content. Faster is always better and with the flow of information accelerating in pace, fewer people take the time to finish reading in-depth, long-form content.

Why do we write? For people like us, writing is a career – we willingly embrace words to earn our bread and keep. For others, it can be a hobby or an escape. However, for people who are on the fence about writing, one common worry is whether anyone would bother reading what they write. If you’re one of these people, hopefully we can convince you to make the leap into world of writing today… because writing doesn’t always have to be for others – it can be for the self.

Job interviews are stressful to deal with. As a prospective applicant, you are putting yourself on display to try and win over your interviewers while also outshining the other applicants. Once the interview is over, we often think to ourselves “hopefully I did well enough… what happens next is out of my control”. Although your credentials and interview performance do play a huge part in determining your success, there is more that you can do to boost your chances – and that is with a simple thank you message to the interviewers. Follow-up messages are not only nice gestures that show gratitude for the interviewer‘s time, but they also demonstrate that you are keen for the job. Of course, it pays to include more than just a simple “thank you”… If you’re interested in finding out how to craft the perfect post-interview follow up note, read on!

Adjectives and descriptions thicken up our stories. Most can be cut out without compromising key points, but their complete absence leaves our sentences empty and bareboned. Although English grammar and writing conventions have placed specific rules that dictate how adjectives and descriptions are to be used, what if we told you that it’s okay to break the rules in the name of eloquence? Join us once again as we venture into Mark Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase to find out how to master writing!

It seems like everyone is upping their email marketing campaigns during the pandemic crisis – and why not? No matter how you feel about spam, email marketing is often seen as one of the most effective ways to maintain communication with current customers and leads alike. Creating targeted personalised content through email marketing not only helps to heighten brand recognition, build credibility and strengthen clients’ relationships, but it also helps to increase traffic to your website and ultimately drives leads and sales.

With so many people now working from the comfort of their own homes, professionals are relying more on their inboxes for up-to-date news, personalised information and entertainment. As a result, we are seeing a surge in company email newsletters. Newsletters have always been seen as a reliable format of communication between a company and their subscribers, but what makes one company’s newsletter stand out from the rest? The answer: consistent, engaging content.

In advertising, a snappy headline is everything. It’s essential for winning over audiences’ attentions and devoting their precious time to what you have to say. In email marketing, however, a headline is only the second-in-command. The true leader is the email subject – the first thing we see when we open up our inbox and the determining factor as to whether or not email is worth opening. With so much riding on the value of an email subject line, it’d make sense to put as much (if not more) effort on polishing the subject line as the headline! How do we go about crafting an email subject line that shines amongst the other bits of dribble that consumers regularly receive and then promptly trash? Read on to find out more…

Death is a touchy subject. Although it is an inevitable fact of life, it is a subject that many of us struggle with – especially when it comes to demonstrating sympathy towards somebody who has lost a loved one. Despite death being so commonplace, how to express condolences is rarely taught (and usually only after someone has already suffered a loss). Instead of taking a gamble, we think it’d be wiser to predetermine precisely what (and what not) to say. This way, we can both show our support and prevent any avoidable mishaps. Join Wordsmith as we figure out how to sympathise and condole with tact.

There’s no shortage of ways to refer to other people or things in English. “That cretin double parked.” “Which sandwich is mine?” “Whoever stole my cookies has five seconds to live.” Whether you’re making a declarative statement, asking a question or intimidating a snack thief, who, which and that are the three most common words used when referring to another subject or object. However, because they all serve a similar function, it can be a little difficult to pick out when and where to use each. With a little help from Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines’ book My Grammar and I (or Should That Be “Me”?), Wordsmith is here to clear up the confusion surrounding relative pronouns!

To say James Joyce is well-known novelist would be an understatement. As a key contributing member of the modernist avant-garde movement, Joyce’s writings challenged writing conventions, social norms and the politics of Ireland in the early 1900s. Ulysses, one of his most renowned works, incorporated many of these themes and was judged to be so “obscene” that it was even banned across a number English-speaking nations during the era. To get a better idea of how Joyce crafts his worlds and grants his characters realistic emotion, let’s examine the first episode from the book!

“I’m sorry” is a phrase that rolls right off the tongue. If you bump into someone on the subway, you instinctively say “I’m sorry”. Accidentally pass gas in a crowded theatre? “I’m sorry.” However, just because you said you’re sorry, it doesn’t necessarily show that you’re sincerely apologising. If you look at a collection of tweets from former US President Donald Trump, he uses the word “sorry” in each one – but does it sound like he’s actually sorry? If you’re trying to step up your apologies genuinely express remorse, then read on!