A lot has happened since 2018: I left in-house and agency marketing to start my own freelance copywriting business; I found success and satisfaction working directly with clients (and not
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Why I’m calling it quits after 30 years of marketing copywriting
Well, I’m doing it. After nearly 32 years in marketing and copywriting, I am moving on. It’s a strange feeling, leaving a job I’ve done for so long. Interestingly, I
Continue readingIs AI coming to take your job? Yeah, it probably is.
The explosive growth of generative AI (artificial intelligence) programs such as ChatGPT and Midjourney is about to change the world — and put a metric shit-ton of people, including marketing
Continue readingCranky Case File: When management trips balls
The first Cranky Case File recounts a true-life story of management groupthink and how it backfired with hilarious results. Once upon a time, as an in-house copywriter for a public
Continue readingThe best damn freelance rate increase email on the net [FREE template]
Need to raise your freelance rates? Soften the blow for your clients with this free rate increase email template. Last year, one of my dear graphic designer friends contacted me
Continue readingGood, fast, cheap. Pick two.
Creative professionals are talented people. But all too often, we copywriters, graphic designers, animators, videographers, and composers are asked (*cough cough* required) to do the impossible. Worse, we are expected
Continue readingShould you think twice before becoming a copywriter?
A few weeks ago, while researching career stats for a client project, I stumbled across an article at The Balance titled “Think Twice Before Becoming a Copywriter.” The article subhead: “For
Continue readingHow copywriters are like doctors, lawyers, psychics(!) and more
As I started out as a young copywriter in the 1990s, one of my biggest influences was Ivan Levison, a freelance copywriter in California. He published a lead-generation e-newsletter called
Continue readingWriting tips for copywriters and, well, everyone who writes
Writing is hard. Let’s make it easier with helpful tips and a pre-flight checklist. Whether you are new to copywriting, an experienced copywriter, or someone who simply wants to make
Continue readingMarketers, stop letting compliance departments write your sales copy
Compliance departments have an important job to do—but rewriting the company’s marketing copy is not it. Marketing departments dogged by overzealous compliance feedback need to stand their ground—not only for
Continue readingWe are copywriters, not typists or order takers
Back in the days when I worked as someone else’s employee, a manager would occasionally ask why I seemed so resistant to making seemingly minor copy changes requested by other
Continue readingMeet Flint McGlaughlin, mad marketing genius
In a world where every Tom, Dick, and Jane on the Internet is a self-proclaimed marketing expert, it’s refreshing to see someone share no-BS marketing insights derived from rigorous testing
Continue reading54 percent of copywriters feel lack of respect: UK survey
The United Kingdom’s Direct Marketing Association surveyed 433 British copywriters and found . . . a lot of cranky creatives. See why they’re so unhappy. The 2014 survey—the first and
Continue readingHow video games made me a marketing copywriter
Unofficially, my career as a marketing copywriter started in 1980 when I was 10. Then, as now, I loved video games. I loved the technology—cool-looking plastic boxes that pumped colorful
Continue readingThe trouble with (some) freelance copywriters
Why do so many freelance copywriters forget that their job is not to write poetry or win advertising awards, but to sell their clients’ products? Having spent most of my
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