A major cow-tastrophe

I was scrolling through my email, looking for things to delete, when I saw an email from a business friend.
Out of loyalty, I opened it.
The email was full of great, life-changing information.
Sadly, what she wrote in the FIRST LINE guaranteed that almost no one would read it.
What did she do wrong? And how can you avoid it? I’m glad you asked.
I made you a video to explain, so that your emails won’t end up unread and in the trash.
it will also explain why there’s a cow in the title of this…

Behind the scenes: Batch-writing emails

How many emails can you write in a day?”
The question shouldn’t have surprised me.
I’m a creative writer and I help people with email marketing, after all.
But I hadn’t really examined my own email-writing practice.
So I’m doing the experiment now.
How many emails can I write today, on a day I have set aside for batch-writing?
I’ll let you know…​
I know this, though: writing goes much faster when you know what you want to say.
If I’m writing a scene for a novel and I don’t know what I…

AI and cats…and you

A well-used bike rack outside an unassuming red-brick office building in Hanover, Germany is the only clue that the structure is full of students.
Even less obvious is that something strange is going on inside, with Artificial Intelligence…and cats.
The building is Hannover’s University of Veterinary Medicine and they’ve been working with researchers in israel to develop a machine learning algorithm to ‘read’ the cat’s facial expressions and assess their level of pain.
Any good vet will tell…

He’s not afraid to say it

Be a frigging human being. That’s storytelling in a nutshell.”
I had a blast this week interviewing email marketing legend and fast-talking New Yorker, Ryan Lee.
Ryan has spent the past 25 years building (and selling) businesses and through it all he has relied on email to keep his audience close.
We talked about
how Ryan uses storytelling in his email marketing
why he changed his approach recently and how that’s working out
how he ensures his storytelling is relevant and valuable to his…

“Can I Really Do This?”

I’m sitting here listening to the rain from Tropical Storm Ophelia drumming on the leaves of the big maple tree outside my window, and working on my slides for this Thursday’s first Clickable Content Workshop.
I love a rainy day from time to time. How about you?)
Anyhoo…yes, the Clickable Content…

Tumbleweeds not included

A year ago I was in a bar in Phoenix, Arizona, with a friend and…no, it wasn’t actually as glamorous as I made that sound.
It wasn’t a dusty saloon with tumbleweeds rolling by. It was a clinically-white modern hotel lobby, without a single dust bunny, never mind a tumbleweed.
Anyhoo, my point is,…

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The Jimmy Connors of Marketing Emails

Hi Reader,
I’m so happy you’re here to hear more about storytelling for entrepreneurs.
I’m checking the tires and rolling the maps, ready for us to set off on this journey together, but while I do that, I have a little story for you:
Once Upon A Time
It was 1977 and the long summer evenings of…