 How to master your content strategy for online successContent writing and content marketing are two essential components of a successful digital marketing strategy. While there are similarities between the two, there are also key differences. And understanding how these elements align is important for any business seeking to maximise their online presence. In a nutshell, content writing focuses on creating compelling and engaging written content, while content marketing involves the strategic distribution and promotion of that content to drive business goals. Let’s look at how you can leverage the power of both forms to boost your brand.
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 Get the most bang for your buck with social media advertisingSocial media ads... love them or hate them, they're still a solid part of any online marketing strategy. But with so many platforms available, it can be overwhelming to work out where to even start, let alone how to create effective ad campaigns. Plus, with only so many hours in a day – and an actual business to run – how do you find the time? And is it even worth it?
The short answers are (a) bring in the professionals and (b) yes, absolutely. For the long answer – how to make them boost your business without wrecking your sanity – read on…  Get ready to make 2023 your most successful year yetAs we prepare to say goodbye to 2022, it’s a great time to look ahead to the new year and take stock of the many ways that digital marketing has evolved over the past twelve months. 2022 has seen the real world continue to re-open, with most businesses and consumers returning to pre-Covid operating practices. That said, the trend towards online shopping (and marketing) continues to grow, and that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future, with spending on digital advertising expected to hit $870 billion by the end of 2026 (it’s sitting at $600+ billion at the time of writing).
So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at three areas to consider as you look towards making 2023 your most profitable year to date.  Careful word choice builds trust among your ideal customersOne of the companies I write for is in the process of rebranding at the moment, and part of that process involves a reworking of the tone of voice principles they apply to customer communication. It’s a large company with an international presence, so this is no small undertaking – and yet an objective observer might conclude that the tone-of-voice change they’re implementing, which involves changing just one adjective in the keywords they use to describe the kind of copy they want us to write, is minimal.
An objective observer might conclude as much, but they’d be wrong. This one tiny tweak represents a seismic shift for the copy I’ll be writing. That’s how important it is to make sure you’ve got your tone of voice principles absolutely on point. Whether you’re considering a TOV re-think, starting from scratch, or worrying that you haven’t given yours enough thought, read on for some key principles that you can apply to help move you in the right direction.  Why your word choice might be costing you salesOne thing you will never find me doing is making blanket statements about the passive voice. In addition to copywriting, I’m a published novelist, and I know perfectly well that the passive voice is a respectable, functional and necessary element of the English language. There are some sentences that simply don’t work as intended in the active voice (“She was elected by over 50% of voters,” for example, transposes inelegantly from the passive), and I have little time for the kind of advice that suggests this particular construction should be avoided (see what I did there?) at all costs.
However. Copywriting is not like novel writing. There are crossover points, for sure – both involve telling a story, both strive to activate the reader’s imagination, and both involve evoking the reader’s senses in the service of an overall goal. But the key difference is that the goal of copywriting is to sell: an item, a service, a company, an idea. That’s where the passive voice makes things more complicated. Here’s why.  Tips and statistics to make sure your mailing list is working for youIt’s often said that a key skill in copywriting is brevity. So, with that in mind, the simple answer is yes. Yes, you do need to send out regular newsletters. You absolutely do.
And I know. Believe me, I know. Whether your target schedule is daily, weekly or monthly communications, newsletter time always comes around sooner than it’s supposed to and you’d very much be forgiven for thinking something along the lines of, “I swear I just sent out the last one! How bad would it be to skip it just this once…?” If that sounds familiar – and I’m prepared to bet that it does – you might well be wondering what’s the worst that could happen if you let things slide on occasion. After all, as lovely as it would be to think so, it’s not actually that likely that your mailing list is frantically scanning their inbox for their weekly missive, feverishly hitting refresh and wondering why you’ve forsaken them. But that still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to let communications go patchy. Here’s why.  Four questions to ask yourself when planning your social media ad campaignSo, you’re running Facebook ads, and maybe your conversion rate is okay: you’re seeing engagement and enough sales to make the campaign cost effective, but you’re not exactly setting the world alight with your revenue bump. And now everyone’s telling you that the advertising marketplace on Facebook is overcrowded – costs are increasing for diminishing returns – and Instagram, a veritable untapped mine of advertising opportunity, is now the place to be. And that’s not not true, as such, but whether or not Instagram ads are going to be a better fit for your business than a Facebook ad campaign is a complicated question. And it comes down to more than just a question of platform population density. Studies like this phenomenal breakdown of costs and CTR on both platforms can give you the figures, but raw data alone is only part of the story. So, if you’re a small business owner or solopreneur and you’re wondering which way to go with your limited advertising budget, you could start by thinking through some of the following questions.
 SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – is huge: both in importance to your online business and in complexity. For a business to find its online market, it’s got to rank highly on a search engine page, but in a crowded marketplace, that’s increasingly difficult. And with the algorithms behind SEO constantly evolving, it can feel like an absolute nightmare for the technically disinclined to keep up with the dos and don’ts of optimization. Fortunately, help is at hand, and it’s plentiful, accessible, and a lot of it is free. So, read on if you’re searching for resources to help you get to grips with the constantly changing world of SEO – there are some absolute blinders out there, and I’m going to list a few of my favourites below.
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