The Hartsock Agency » Copywriting

MarketingSherpa best enewsletters

Nettie Hartsock — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:22:54 +0000

Here’s a superb sampling of the best enewsletters and how companies, individuals and non-profits are using them to foster leads, engagement and community.

Resolve to do an e-newsletter this year. It will be a great benefit to you and your prospective customers.

Here are three e-newsletter companies you can use to push your news out:

MadMimi.com

ConstantContact.com

MyEmma.com

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E-newsletters Still Have Value

Nettie Hartsock — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:26:51 +0000

I’m a big fan of a good content-laden e-newsletter. I think e-newsletters are very valuable for reaching out and staying in touch with folks on a monthly or quarterly basis. Even in the constant drone of all the Web 2.0 tools we’re all supposed to be hip, savvy and using endlessly, don’t lose sight of the e-newsletter and its value.

E-newsletters help folks connect with you, and using them enables you to inspire, engage and initiate real connection.

Before I share some of my favorite e-newsletters, I had to share Joe Pulizzi’s fantastic post titled, “10 Content Marketing Tips To Start Now for 2009″ and urge you to go and read it.

Good content builds trust. Good content empowers relationships. Good content engenders community.

Some of my current favorite e-newsletters include:

Junta42′s newsletter

Cincom’s stellar Expert Access e-newsletter

B.L. Ochman’s “What’s Next Online” e-newsletter

Publishers Lunch e-newsletter

All of these offer value to the reader, a unique take on the world at large and inspiring content.

Don’t leave e-newsletters out of your mix.

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The Best Speeches Are All About Content: Tips for Empowering Your “Speechability”

Nettie Hartsock — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:46:48 +0000

I love writing speeches for folks and one of the musts in speeches for business audiences is the ability to both engage and inspire during the speech.

One of the best speeches I’ve seen in the past couple of years was the one that Al Gore delivered at Disney during a business conference I was covering. His opening line was, “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I’m a recovering politician.” With that singular line he held the audience’s rapt attention.

Self-deprecation is a surprisingly good tool in the current economic stratus because we all need a bit of a lift when it comes to surviving these challenging times.

Gore’s past speechwriter and best-selling author, Daniel Pink, noted three important elements in speeches, during an interview with Tim Ferriss who asked, “What are the necessary ingredients of a good speech?”

Pink said, “I’ve said many times that the three essential ingredients in any good speech are brevity, levity, and repetition.”

(To see the full Ferris interview.)

Effective speech giving is being able to naturally and authentically incorporate the real you into the speech. We all long for true connection especially in these days of Web 2.0, 3.0, 80.0 and beyond, we still want to be inspired and genuinely touched.

When I interviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin, I asked, “What is the most rewarding thing about being a historian?” and her response was, “It is a great gift to really get to know people through their letters and speeches because that is often where you will find the real person behind the historical persona.”

One of the best things you can do when you prepare a speech is to be a real person.

A stunning and still inspiring speech was Pierre Omidyar’s keynote speech, in that speech Omidyar says,

“Build a platform – prepare for the unexpected… … And you’ll know you’re successful when the platform you’ve built serves you in unexpected ways. That’s certainly true of the lessons I’ve learned in the process of building eBay. Because in the deepest sense, eBay wasn’t a hobby. And it wasn’t a business. It was – and is – a community: An organic, evolving, self-organizing web of individual relationships, formed around shared interests.”

Reread the last line. Isn’t Omidyar really describing what social media is today? “An organic, evolving, self-organizing web of individual relationships, formed around shared interests.”

Go to this link where 100 of the top speeches are compiled and listen to them for similarities in the speeches.

It’s surprising how many speeches on the top 100 list and others come directly from the heart and search to connect with the audience’s heart. Omidyar’s speech is an example of that, as is Dr. Pausch’s stunning Last Lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”

(Go to this link for the full transcript of Dr. Pausch’s speech.)

One of my favorite quotes from Pausch’s speech is, “Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”

It aptly describes how one must come prepared to inspire the audience. Too often, CEO’s assume that their title or place as the head of a company entitles them to rapt attention and that alone should inspire.

In reality, having a CXO title only means you can demand an audience, but it does not mean you can capture their hearts.

As mentioned previously, Pink notes these three elements: brevity, levity and repetition. (See how I repeated his tips, did so briefly, and with levity?)

And there are four other elements you must try to include in a speech:
• Imagery
• Metaphor
• Humor
• Honesty

If you take the time to listen to or read inspiring speeches, you’ll be amazed at how you can quickly identify and nurture the best practices for your speeches as well.

Over the holidays I while I was working on this article, I was sent this tweet, “

encouragement4u @NettieHartsock N.E.T.T.I.E. means Nurture Every Thought To Inspire Everyone 4:17 PM Nov 24th from web in reply to NettieHartsock

It’s interesting to have received it because I think it sums up what you want to do in speeches as well, “Nurture every thought to inspire everyone.”

Here are three resources to kick-start your “speech-listening” research:

1. Search YouTube for “CEO speeches” you’ll find over 600 available.

2. Check out the Carnegie Mellon’s “Last Lecture” series. This includes Dr. Randy Pausch’s which has a viewing of over 7 million and counting.

3. See all the TED speeches . Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s speech is extraordinary and so is George Smoot’s.

P.S. (Do you remember the speech attributed to Vonnegut’s MIT commencement speech which made the rounds on the Internet and proved to be false? It was actually a column written by Chicago Tribune journalist Mary Schmich titled, “Wear Sunscreen.” Either way it’s a wonderful speech to read and to listen to it you can go here.)

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Keeping Writing A daily Practice

Nettie Hartsock — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:53:54 +0000

This is a superb how-to article in terms of making writing part of your daily practice and using a writer’s notebook to do it.

Keep in mind that writing anything is really about sitting down and actually writing! Talking about writing, dreaming about what you’re going to write, editing one paragraph over and over again until it’s just right (so you can then write the other 200 pages) are all ways of keeping you from writing.

I’ve kept composition books for years and record ideas and short vignettes about things I want to write about. I just read one of the old books last year and there was a funny story idea about Snow White going to therapy after leaving the prince because she realized she liked the dwarfs much better.

I also have one that just says, “Gladwell – metaphor – circus but never a high wire leader” which I think has to do with everyone using Malcolm Gladwell’s advice in business, but no one stopping to ask if he’s ever had the experience of leading a large business. (He hasn’t by the way, but I don’t discount that he’s a good writer.)

Vonnegut wrote his stuff on napkins, paper drink coasters etc., Faulkner wrote his on the back of undelivered mail while he worked nights at the post office. Twain’s scribbles were kept in voluminous journals and notebooks that people still study today for ideas and inspiration.

Don’t throw away anything you come up with – you might need it for the great masterpiece later.

And make it a practice to thank the inspiration muse when it gives you something. Part of writing is definitely magic and to keep the magic coming you have to give thanks for the idea.

By the way, this applies to ideas in general. Imagine if Bill Gates (and maybe he has) kept journals about his experiences growing up and his ideas. There might be entries like this:

1. The other kids keep laughing at me because I won’t play tetherball but I’d rather watch the game and calculate the spin speed it takes to hit Freddy in the nose with the ball.

2. My teacher got frustrated with me today in math because I found an error in her equation. (Note to self: Ix-Nay on the ath-May correcting.)

3. I’m at a new private academy and there are about three or four of us who are now in trouble because we used up all our school’s allotted time on the computer.

4. My teacher in Computer Lab let me lead the class today. I have an idea to write a paper about computers or maybe I will just keep writing all this code because it’s funner than tether ball.

Now go to your notebooks with pen in hand and write.

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Ladies and Gentleman Start Your Acronyms

Nettie Hartsock — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:21:56 +0000

This is a really cool place to find acronyms and their definitions. I’m writing an acronym-based monologue so I’m using a ton of these. Great resource IMHO. (look it up)

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Daily Writing Tips

Nettie Hartsock — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:57:20 +0000

Daily Writing Tips is a great site for getting a daily boost of writing confidence and tips for expanding your writing professionally as well.

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I don’t have time to write!

Nettie Hartsock — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:32:49 +0000

I cannot tell you how many people call me and tell me they want to write a book or even just become a freelance copywriter but they don’t have time to do it.

What????

Time is what you make of it. There is no easy solution to writing a book other than to start at page one and keep writing. There is no easy and quick fix to being a freelance writer or copywriter other than start at a blank page, fill that page and then send it out with a query.

So if any of these excuses are stopping you – get rid of them:

1. I haven’t experienced enough to write well.
2. Everything has been written before, why should I add to that?
3. There’s no room for a new copywriter and how would I get work?
4. I don’t write perfectly.
5. I can’t make a living at it. (True, if you don’t try you can’t make a living at it.)
6. My dog’s going to eat whatever I write.
7. I’m worried about rejection.
8. I need to read more books on “writing”.
9. I’m having writers’ block.
10. I’m too busy revising the two pages I wrote five years ago that still aren’t “quite perfect”.

WRITE!!!!!

You can do this! Make the time, and you will see success.

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Bob Bly’s Beating the Control Copy

Nettie Hartsock — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:10:55 +0000

I’m a giant and devoted fan of Bob Bly and anything he writes about “writing.” This is a particularly great article in DM News this month on copywriting and how to best meet the challenges in writing great copy where Bob relates a ton of other expert copywriter tips.

Honestly this article alone should be printed and excerpted and passed around to anyone who is responsible for generating sales copy. Fantastic.

And leave it to Bly to find a superb ending quote from copywriter Milt Pierce,”A good swipe file is better than a college education.”

If you don’t know what a swipe file is, find out and start building one. Here’s a good article on swipe files beyond what Bly has in his article.

In PR you can do the same thing with really stunning press releases. Read them, collect them and glean eye-catching nutgraphs from them that you can then apply to your own releases.

A nutgraph by the way is a journalist’s term for the core paragraph of any story. If you don’t know the nutgraph of what you’re pitching – how the heck will the journalist possibly understand it?

Now go and swipe!

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Freelance Writers In Austin – Shamelessly Persistent!

Nettie Hartsock — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:41:00 +0000

I had the great pleasure today to present to a really savvy group of freelance writers and editors and PR folks in Austin. One of the things this reminded me of was how hard freelance writers work to keep generating work! I still write and I know it’s tough to keep your spirits high sometimes.

So for all you writers out there I wanted to put this link to an article I wrote for Nick Usborne’s publication titled, “Be Shamelessly Persistent and Unyielding in Your Pursuit to Be A Freelancer.” I hope you get some encouragement from it!

And write and tell me how you’re being shamelessly persistent!

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Nettie Hartsock — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 02:23:54 +0000

When I’m asked about how I’ve stayed “mostly employed” as a writer and covered so many genres, I always reply, “I know how to pitch and swerve.” For me that’s what this long journey of writing is really about. It’s about racing toward your dream and not giving up, taking the dents and scary curves along the way and using them to improve your journey and empower your writing.

It also means you have to be willing to pitch and swerve to garner possible jobs. Becoming a master copywriter is a never-ending proposition and lifetime journey.

Becoming a good solid copywriter well-versed in many arenas is a good solid way to increase the potential for writing jobs. I call that, “pitch and swerve” and the way I apply it is to always increase my copywriting abilities so if one pitch does not work, I can readily swerve to another pitch in different arena.

Being a copywriter is like being the turtle in the race between the turtle and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. My own race has lasted nearly fifteen years and it hasn’t been until the last five years that I’ve made it to the stage of full-time freelance writer.

The great news in the race to write is that there are always new opportunities. The race for content continues to grow and the demand for good copywriters will continue to grow as well.

When I started out nearly fifteen years ago, I was a full-time mom with a twelve week old daughter and wanted to stay at home with her. I wrote mostly in the middle of the night between “mommy naps” and feedings. I had been a published fiction essayist and short story writer, but I knew that wasn’t going to pay the bills. With only a BA in English from Goddard College, I turned to copywriting to subsidize my staying at home with my child.

I committed myself to writing every single day. If you want to be a virtuoso you have to practice the scales. In writing, you have to apprentice to the craft of writing and practice it daily in order to push your skill set to the next level. You cannot be a brilliant writer unless you are willing to write, rewrite, write and rewrite again.

I started out writing for our church newsletter, then pitched free stories to an Austin celebrity magazine, which eventually led to me being the Managing Editor for the magazine for three years. When it went under as they often do, I utilized my best interview clips and applied for a job online to do interviews with CEOs. (Many of these interviews were done with my three year old daughter on the floor playing with Legos and eating banana slices, while I sat at my desk and interviewed tech leaders.)

In my interviews with online folks I always worked hard to engage them and this helped in later years, because many of those CEOs impressed by my research skills, and the interviews I did with them, hired me for copywriting work. As a writer, you’re always auditioning your work. So don’t be lazy and do your legwork. Build your network one job at a time.

The other very important thing you can do during this slow race is to be an apprentice to the copywriting craft. Be willing to listen and learn from the masters like Bob Bly, Peter Bowerman and Nick Usborne.

Here are some other good tips to follow for long-term race success:

1. Formulate copy before you have a job to write copy. What that means is practice makes perfect. Even if you don’t have published clips to send to a prospective client, come up with some good solid writing samples of ready copy that you can send as samples of your work.

2. Join a professional writers group in your area. You’ll be amazed at how the networking aspect will kick in if you put yourself out in the network!

3. Think locally and build regionally. Pitch a couple of articles to your local newspaper, even if they don’t pay for contributors. If they run your article, you’ve got your first published clip.

4. Be willing to “kill your little darlings.” The hardest thing early on as a writer is to understand you’re not writing for you…you’re writing for them. So while you might love everything you write, you must be willing and able to adjust your style to what the company needs. They’re your customer and the product you’re selling is content.

5. Be your own best salesperson. Writing jobs don’t come to you, you have to search them out. Join freelance job listing sites and respond to those listings.

6. Don’t get discouraged. If you truly want to succeed as a copywriter, you cannot take rejection personally. You cannot let fear of “not being good enough” keep you from doing anything at all.

As aspiring writers you have to be willing to let go of “scarcity” and only deal in “abundance.” Stay hopeful and persistent and do not come to the career from a place of fear, because if you are afraid you cannot do it, you most certainly will not be able to do it.

Win your race one writing clip at a time. Be abundant in your writing, and don’t measure the value of it early on by whether you have earned top dollar for the work. The money will come if you’re willing to spend many hours laboring to build a solid framework of clips, potential clients and fellow peers.

Here are some ways you can tell you are a writer who can win the race:

1. You obsessively make suggestions and edits on menus in your neighborhood restaurants.

2. You are a voracious reader.

3. You love books and new knowledge.

4. You spend hours writing copy for your neighborhood newsletter. (By the way those volunteer newsletters can serve as great sample clips.)

5. You are a news-hound and you have opinions you want to share.

For myself, I’ve traveled the world of writing for entertainment magazines, health and bio-tech news writing, playwriting, tech and e-business writing, white papers, case studies, and blog writing. At night, after all is said and done, I turn on my writing engine one more time and fine tune my one-woman show. And don’t even get me started on the two novels I’m trying to sell!

You can do the same! Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

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Tom Chandler’s Negotiating Tips

Nettie Hartsock — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:29:59 +0000

Tom Chandler has one of the best posts I’ve read on negotiating on writing gigs. And this is an excellent writing blog to read. Now for a polite southern gal the title seemed a bit racey, but after one Mint Julip all was good! Go and read it!

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Writing – Feast or Famine

Nettie Hartsock — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:27:57 +0000

I’m a little tired of writers out there who are perpetuating fear of other writers taking away their opportunities. I’m an e-card carrying member of the Internet Press Guild and the Online News Association and in both cases, on both lists there is nothing but support for everyone’s endeavors and tons of good "feasting" on new job opportunities.

Why is it that some folks in the writing biz tend to push the perspective that our jobs will some day dry up in the face of competition from sites like guru.com or elance.com? Let me be bold and state your writing jobs will not dry up unless you decide to literally stop writing!

Writing is for many of us a career and a great one, but the first rule of "Write Club" as I like to call it is that we all talk about "Write Club" and we all help one another expand our reach as writers and in our profession.

Sure it’s not as fun as beating down other writers, making the writing opportunities seem scarcer than they really are, or being afraid that the next job will be your last. But be honest, is it all that fun to constantly write in fear?

My advice is to write with gusto. Network with gusto, always look ahead and not behind. Don’t worry about what "other" writers are doing out there, don’t wish their ink wells would dry up and don’t disparage other writers simply trying to break in the market. If you do good work, you’ll have more work. If you’re a crummy writer, you won’t have work.

Did you know that many times Kurt Vonnegut turned his amazing works of fiction over to his editor on tiny bar napkins scribbled with sections of his novels? He wrote because he could not but write.

That’s a true writer. You be a true writer too. If you’re like me, no matter what the type of writing job, there’s something so fulfilling and exhilirating when that first key is struck and a letter appears on the screen that all the other junk fades away.

So don’t worry about what other writers are doing, or if your writing gigs will go away because some "young’un" offers cheaper rates.

Stay in the flow of writing and you will be rewarded. Fear doesn’t bring a reward, it just makes you get stuck.

Just keep writing, responding to opportunities and wishing other writers well and you’ll be fine. The pen always "writes" itself as my Gramps used to say.

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