I have written and edited countless numbers of articles, advertisements, and product descriptions since beginning my work here at Portent. In that time period, I have come across dozens of mistakes that I realize are far too common in this industry. So, a few weeks back, I wrote a short e-book on some of the [...]

Before I became a writer, I spent eight years in sales. It was a fantastic way to fit work in between classes and afforded me to upgrade my college cuisine to include more than spaghetti noodles. I thought I was just paying for textbooks, but the experience I gathered while selling pianos and cell phones [...]

I consider myself a perfectly creative person. I can paint Manet-quality word pictures; every once in a while I will whip up such stunning moments of alliteration that the Cat in the Hat’s whiskers curl with envy. I am a copywriter. Outside of my poetic prowess, my creativity is pretty much useless. And most days [...]

If you think an English degree would prepare you for anything in the world of copywriting, think again! There are plenty of things you’ll need to unlearn if you plan to write internet content

Here’s the story of our lost blogposts and linkbait projects, and how they found a home on the island of rejected ideas.

Copywriting is a career replete with pitfalls, from editorial visions gone awry to hair-pulling, forehead-pounding hours attempting to come up with synonyms for “elegant” that alliterate with “xylophone.” There are good parts, too. Really good parts. I promise. But that is an entirely different post. This is a post about the depths of despair all [...]

Enter my copy house of horrors and see how one copywriting blunder could destroy your brand. Don’t let these copy fails happen to you!

Keep your titles short, simple and obvious. Look at the image below. It’s a partial screenshot of my RSS reader. This is your space to hook me. If you don’t, I’m not opening your story. I have 241 unread items. I don’t have time to read them all so I’ll pick and choose based on [...]

As Mad Men’s Don Draper so eloquently put it, to sell a product you have to first evoke an emotion. Get your audience to feel. Sex doesn’t sell; desire does. But how do you get your customers to feel desire when you can’t even see them?

Any reputable Internet marketing company will tell you that you need product descriptions. That’s the bad news. The good news is, they aren’t difficult to write and they not only help sell the product, they can improve your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Who knew? Trouble is, most copywriters would rather write toilet plunger ads than [...]