Celebrating Autism Acceptance Month
April is Autism Acceptance Month, and it’s a great time to showcase the diversity or neurodiversity of our team and beyond! As we reflect on Autism Acceptance Month and the broader spectrum, it’s good to recognize the personal impact this campaign has on many individuals, like myself, and the movement toward inclusion.
Celebrating International Women's Day, Every Day
We’re proud to be a woman-founded, woman-owned, and woman-run business. Among our ranks are smart, talented, and driven women with a beautifully diverse set of backgrounds, beliefs, and stories. It’s one of the many things that make sitting down to work so fulfilling each day. So while we believe every day is International Women’s Day, I’d like to pause for a moment and reflect on the ways that we aim to honor each other’s contributions, support other women, and mentor the next generation of women leaders.
Short Or Long? Writing The Perfect Email Campaign
Short emails are mistakenly thought of as easier to write. And to be fair, you can easily write a short email–but risk it being done poorly. Well-written communication takes thought and a degree of skill to reduce the extraneous and strike the right balance between underwhelming and overwhelming to land squarely on motivating.
Fall To The Finish Line: Making The Most Of Q4
Fall has definitely arrived and the rush to the end of the year is on! During the summer months, you might have enjoyed a more relaxed schedule, shorter meetings, and perhaps working on the patio with a drink; but now it's time to welcome refocus and get back into the swing of things.
Nudge Vs. Sludge: How Clarity Will Always Win The Long Game
Good content has to resist the excitement of the sexy sell and prioritize clarity over catchiness, means over ends, to provide users with informed (and well-laid out) choice.
Finding Creative Inspiration
It’s an unfortunate truth that when the to-do list gets long, the creative inspiration sometimes falls short. Yet creativity is vital to good work in any industry–and especially ours.
6 Tips For Being An Effective Virtual Project Manager
Project management has a certain kind of reputation: that it’s dull or mundane. That it's only for analytical and structured thinkers. When a project is looked at only as processes, checks and balances and not the bigger picture, the team behind you can feel frustrated. Most assume the tips would be about tools you need to be an effective project manager, but at the end of the day, tools are just tools. They aren't what makes someone effective. You are what makes you effective.
No, ChatGPT Isn’t Coming For Our Copywriters
If you work in the creative industry–actually, if you’re a human on planet Earth–you probably haven’t gone more than a day lately without hearing somebody talk about ChatGPT. This chatbot was only released a few months ago, but it’s already making waves on many fronts. So it’s not surprising that I’ve recently had clients ask me if I’m worried that chatbots are coming for my job. Will copywriting as a career become obsolete once chatbots can write everything? Will there be nothing left to write? In a word? No.
Wrangling Your Brand Guidelines
One of the first questions we ask when we onboard a new client is, “Can we have a copy of your brand guidelines?” Our goal is always to write copy that is on brand and fits in seamlessly with everything else a company is producing.
Keeping Remote Workplace Communication Short and Sweet with Slack Huddles
Last summer, Slack introduced huddles, a new tool that enables you to hop on a quick audio chat with your coworkers. Think of it like sticking your head into a coworker's office or beckoning them over to look at something on your computer for a second.
What Makes For An Inclusive Workplace?
All year, my team and I have been working with Candidate to write a series of articles exploring how startup and tech companies can create inclusive workplaces, build thriving corporate cultures, and navigate current hiring challenges. For our most recent piece, I had the chance to interview colleagues, clients, and friends about what makes them feel like they're part of the culture at the place they work. I'm republishing it here, because I think it's an important topic and the insights I got were really wonderful. Enjoy!
So You Want To Hire A Copywriting Agency…
Companies hire a copywriting agency for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes it’s to augment the in-house copywriting staff or fill in while an in-house resource is on vacation or out on family leave. Some companies have no in-house copy support and instead reach out to an agency whenever a specific need arises. Still others count on an agency like ours when they need specialty support.
Announcing Lyons Creative Studio
It’s an exciting time here at Lyons Creative, and I can’t wait any longer to share. We’ll soon be launching Lyons Creative Studio, an offshoot of Lyons Creative that will offer self-paced training courses for anyone interested in learning more about copywriting, branding, marketing and owning and operating a small business.
Want Powerful Messaging? Cut The Content Creep.
With multiple platforms, a potential mixed bag of writers who take on content, and numerous initiatives, what’s keeping your messaging aligned? Unless you have a content writer who has dedicated their life to fully knowing your messaging priorities, your communication is likely creeping away from your core content strategy.
6 Ways Creative Freelancers Can Prevent And Treat Burnout
One of the major challenges creative professionals face is burnout. This isn’t news to anyone—creative burnout has been a hot topic for years—but after two years of working through a global pandemic, we’re facing yet another shift: the transition away from the majority of the population working remotely. As a hybrid model of in-person and remote work looms on the horizon, it’s a great opportunity to consider how freelance creatives can avoid burnout in order to stay at the top of our game.
3 Meditation Apps to Improve Your Creativity, Focus, and Work Engagement
It’s no secret that meditation—and more specifically, mindfulness—have been linked to a plethora of health benefits. Studies suggest that practicing mindfulness can alleviate stress, boost attention and short-term memory, and make complex cognitive activities easier to perform. It’s clear that cultivating a regular meditation practice is beneficial to your work life, but it can be intimidating to carve out the time to get started. Luckily, there are several apps that make it easy.
The Importance Of Goal Setting
As we approach the end of the year, it’s time to start thinking about your business plans for the year to come and this includes setting up budgets. When determining how much to set aside for marketing; knowing your goals is very important.
2021 Corporate Gift Guide | Inspiration For This Holiday Season
Business is about relationships - and gift giving is about nurturing those relationships. Thoughtful gifts not only say ‘thank you’ but tell your clients and employees you value them - that they mean more than dollar signs or cogs in the wheel. So, to help inspire some thoughtful gift buying this season, we’ve pulled together a few ideas we hope will resonate with your values and the message you want your gift to send.
Who Wears The Cape In Your Relationship?
You don’t have to be a writer to know that every good story has a hero. Marketing content is no different. But many businesses—and this may include yours—are confused about who plays the hero in their story meaning their marketing lacks the ability to resonate with its audience. When you make yourself the hero, your story—and your product—never sells as well. And here’s why…
Go Ahead, Give Yourself A Break
As we get closer to the holiday season, it’s important for all of us to prioritize time off. But if you’re questioning whether it’s okay to take a few days off, perhaps, like me, you need to remind yourself why you set up as a freelancer.