Tag: Writing
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The First Rule of Professional Writing: Don’t Bury the Lede
If you’re a content creator, it’s essential to also be a heavy consumer of content. To write authoritatively and informatively, you need to stay current with what thought leaders, influencers, and industry experts are talking about, and that means consuming content – whether in the form of news articles, industry journals, social media, videos, or…
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Getting The Most Out Of A Client Intake Call
Healthcare marketing and public relations agencies work closely with clients on crafting effective messages designed to gain the attention of (and prompt action from) their potential customers, investors, media outlets, awards organizations, conference organizers, and other target audiences. Clients and agencies routinely rely on email and collaborative platforms such as Slack and Teams to communicate…
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Learn To Speak The Language Of Your Client’s (Many) Target Audiences
Healthcare PR and marketing agency pros work with multiple clients at a time. That’s a lot of technologies, services, business strategies, marketing messages, workflows, timelines, and personalities to understand and manage. It’s easy for us to feel overwhelmed because healthcare technology clients by definition are working on cutting-edge technologies that can be challenging to…
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Writing For Humans And Search Engines Like Google Is Not Mutually Exclusive
When I served as Content Marketing Director for a telehealth startup, I learned a lot. Mostly, I discovered it’s possible to write great content for people’s enjoyment, education, and readability, while also writing for search engines like Google. This was during the pandemic, and telehealth was taking off in a big way as a crucial…
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How To Keep Zombie Sentences From Infecting Your Writing
I’ve previously warned of the dangers of writing with vampire words – those useless words and phrases that latch on to sentences and bleed them dry of meaning and vitality; bloodsuckers like “focus” and “prioritize” and “process.” In sticking with the horror theme, this post is about zombie sentences, those lifeless clumps of words that…
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Hitting The Mark With News Releases
“The first draft is the best, and it’s all downhill from there.” These snarky yet valid words came from a longtime friend, colleague, and mentor. They semi-jokingly referred to much of the writing we produced as the content marketing arm of a Fortune 500 healthcare IT provider. But it was most often muttered when talking…
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You Still Have To Write For Humans (And Not Just Eighth Graders)
Anyone who has been in marketing eventually is advised to “write like an eighth grader.” People who offer this advice may cite legitimate literacy studies showing that the “average American” reads at the level of a seventh- or eighth-grader. If that is true (especially since more than 90% of adult Americans 25 years or older…
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How Vampire Words Suck The Life Out Of Your Business Writing
Imagine your boss issues the following email at the end of the day: “I’m bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.” Yay, bagels! You make a mental note to skip breakfast tomorrow to make room for schmear. Then your boss emails: “I’m going to prioritize bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.” OK, a little less definite, but still…
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5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Began Leading A Company
I’ve always felt like I was born to be an entrepreneur; leading a company is in my blood because both of my parents started their own businesses. I was always a “go-getter.” When I was 18, I took a commission-only summer job selling Cutco knives, and within a month I broke all the sales records…
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The Oxford Comma: Yes, No, Or Who Cares?
The Oxford comma represents the rare example of a debate among grammar nerds that has spilled over into pop culture – at least a little bit. From Vampire Weekend beginning a song with the pressing question of “Who gives a f— about an Oxford comma?” to a court case whose outcome hinged on the lack…