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Don’t confuse space and time.

How many times have you been told what you should put “above the fold” when creating a landing page or marketing email? It’s become my #1 annoyance with content strategy advice. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen debates over which elements take priority, how much content can

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Why the future belongs to independents

It was an honor to be back on Media & the Machine, which has grown to be an un-skippable podcast — usually with guests who are much smarter than me. Rob Kelly puts a lot of work into these episodes – more than any other podcast I’ve been on (even

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The $200 plastic box opportunity

If you ever needed an example of the increasing importance of personal brands in the AI era, I’ve got a whopper.  Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something that construction professionals and jewelry makers on Etsy have in common: they’re always looking out for better ways

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Principles for Creating with AI (update)

Back in April 2023, I posted a list of principles for creating with AI, attempting to separate fact from fiction and find some universal truths about working with AI. How did it hold up?  For the most part, I think it stood up well. But there’s one thing I

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Personal brands to the rescue

Let’s close out summer on a high note — a business doing it right. My wife signed us up for this summer camp-themed dinner at a local restaurant. We were greeted with Old Fashioneds, served with the chefs’ high-end interpretation of camp food, and read a ghost story

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Can personal brands save big business?

NP Digital asked 200 companies about their employees’ personal brands. If you’re guessing that most companies said, “Huh? what?” you’re probably right. Over 80% of the companies didn’t support their employees’ personal brands. Only 18 of the companies reported that they both supported employees with personal brands,

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The best things in life don’t scale.

The best things in life don’t scale. I wrote this past week about how the same is true in marketing. I’ve come up with a list of examples since writing that post, but I’d love to hear yours. Feel free to respond and I’ll share the

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Do shit that doesn’t scale.

I get questions from marketers all the time about what to do as more and more of their work is eaten by AI. They see their clients happy with AI content, even if conversion rates and sales go way down. Why? The amount of cost-cutting involved is so massive,

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Stop asking me if I exist.

Is this true for you? I keep getting emails from newsletters asking me if I’m still around. Maybe it’s because I use Apple products, which emphasize privacy, and mask a lot of opens and clicks that newsletters (still?!) use to determine engagement, as if we were living in

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This newsletter model is dead.

Matt McGarry just posted about what he’s calling Newsletters 3.0. “If you’re running a ‘newsletter business’ the way most people do, you’re doomed to fail.” His post could be mistaken for a summary of the topics in my book on newsletters, but his take is from