Copywriting & Content Tips

Create An Effective Content Marketing Plan At Content Camp

August 7, 2019 Jennifer Bourn

What do blogging, podcasting, attracting clients, acquiring customers, growing a YouTube channel, building an email list, and establishing a social following have in common?

Content.

No matter what your goal is, if you want to grow your business and expand your brand:

You need to create high-quality, strategic content on a regular basis. Year-over-year growth in unique site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders compared to followers (19.7% vs 2.5%) according to Aberdeen.
You need to market that content to gain as much visibility and website traffic as possible. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads according to DemandMetric.
You need people who engage and interact with your content to take action. Conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%) shares Aberdeen.

Content Camp: A Content Marketing Workshop For Small Business

July 2, 2019 Jennifer Bourn

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of content marketing and how it can bring a flood of new clients to your business and new customers in the door. You’ve probably also heard that blogging is the fastest way to improve your search rankings and attract new clients. You may have even thought, “I really need to be doing that and leverage the free and low cost tools available to grow my business.”

So you decided to look into it — you did online research, read blog posts, watched YouTube videos, and downloaded a white paper or ebook. But there is so much information out there, so much to learn, so many people with opinions, and so many different options, it’s hard to know what is right for your business and where to start to get the most bang for your buck.

You might have also invested in attending networking events and conferences (or sending your staff to these events) to learn about blogging, content marketing, and the tools available. Unfortunately, all you walked away with is a few tips and a giant to do list of things you should be doing. The problem is that you still haven’t made progress.

I get it. I’ve been there.

I see it happening to small business owners time and time again, and it needs to stop.

Create Clear Communication By Speaking The Same Project Language

October 27, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Have you ever been in a conversation where you’re communicating you’re point and the other person is communicating their point, and you find yourself getting increasingly irritated and frustrated because you’re talking about the same thing, but speaking a completely different language?

Have you ever shared something important with another person, and they respond with some comeback that makes you say, “Yes, that’s what I just said!”

Have you ever been listening to someone explain a topic only to be left confused because they use a completely different vocabulary than you do?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone.

Clear communication is a skill that is developed over time, and without it, professional conversations between service providers and clients can devolve into a frustrating and confusing experience. That’s why one of the very first things we do with new clients is ensure we’re both speaking the same project language and using the same vocabulary.

Here are 3 important tips to empower you to communicate clearly with clients and equip clients to communicate clearly with you:

How To Achieve Higher Profits While Working Less And Enjoying More Freedom

August 9, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

“I want to work less and make more money,” is a common desire among internet business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs, but often with so much work to do, it seems next to impossible.

If you focus on sales and marketing, you end up falling behind on client work, and if you focus on client work, you risk losing potential new business. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get ahead of the work you have so you can take the evenings or weekend off… and maybe you’re even so busy that things are starting to slip through the cracks? I have been there, and almost 10 years ago, it all came to a head one night when I realized that I had a big problem in a very embarrassing and public way, and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible or my business would begin to suffer greatly.

After celebrating Bourn Creative’s twelve year anniversary this July, I decided to share my story, the lessons, learned, and how I overcame exhaustion and stress to run the streamlined, freedom-based business Bourn Creative is today.

Selling A Million Dollars In Design Side Projects

May 18, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Development is clear cut. It works or it doesn’t. The code is well-written or it’s a mess. Design on the other hand, is subjective, with the success of a project often based on the client’s ideas, perceptions, opinions, and personal experiences of what good design is.

Jennifer Bourn (that’s me) is founding partner and lead designer of Bourn Creative. While she spends her days designing high-end, complex, custom WordPress sites and brand suites, she has also sold well over a million dollars in just side projects and add-ons ranging from in price from $75-$3,000 — and the journey has been good, bad, and at times, down right ugly.

Jennifer recently teamed up with iThemes Training to deliver a free webinar called Selling a Million Dollars In Design about selling design services that skips the hype and sugar-coating, and gets right to the mistakes made, lessons learned, and business practices implemented over the 12 years Bourn Creative has been in business.

How to Create A Website That Works When You’re Not Working

December 21, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Today, a website is a fundamental requirement for every business. The process of planning, designing, and building a website is a critical step in establishing and launching a brand, yet website building is often fraught with problems caused by common misconceptions, misinformation, dangerous shortcuts, and poor guidance.

While no one thinks it will ever happen to them, even the most careful and savvy business owners fall victim to potential threats that sabotage their website’s success from day one.

Luckily, with the right mindset about your small business website, the right approach to creating your site, and the right website strategy to gain conversions, you can create a powerful website that works when you’re not working.

When you’re beginning to think about building a new website, the first step is getting in the right frame of mind so you avoid these three common website fallacies:

How To Create An Ideal Client Profile And Use It To Make Your Marketing More Effective

November 7, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Last week I shared some thoughts on the gut of surface-level blog posts about defining an ideal client and why it is helpful in business. My article on Defining Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages walks you through what an ideal client profile is, why you need one, and how it helps your marketing efforts. I even provided some tips on how to identify who your ideal client is.

The feedback on the article so far has been amazing, so I wanted to take it a step further and really dig in deeper to share exactly how to create an ideal client profile, in another article I wrote for GoDaddy, Narrow Your Focus: Tips For Creating An Ideal Client Profile And Putting It To Work, including:

9 Ways evaluate data to create an ideal client profile
How to get the data needed to create an ideal client profile
How to use an ideal client profile

Here is the full article:

Define Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages

October 31, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

There is a lot of talk about defining an ideal client profile or ideal client persona online and throughout social media, especially in the entrepreneurial, freelance, solopreneur, online business, and internet marketing arenas. Some of it is good, some of it is okay but a bit misguided, and some of it is downright incorrect — yikes!

The problem is the same for anything that becomes a marketing buzz-word or assumed magic pill for success: everyone, even non-experts, jump on the hype bandwagon and start writing blog posts to earn extra traffic and capitalize on the buzzword. This means that many of the blog posts attempting to teach you about ideal client profiles and how to use a client persona aren’t teaching from first-hand experience and wild success, but from mere regurgitation of what they themselves have read online.

If you’re not quite sure what an ideal client profile or client persona is, or even how to use it, this article I recently wrote for GoDaddy, Cast a narrower net: Define your client persona to easily create targeted marketing messages, will get you started in the right direction:

StudioPress.FM Podcast Talks Building A Sustainable Agency With Brian And Jennifer Bourn

September 29, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

The StudioPress.FM podcast is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Each week, StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform, and this past week, Bourn Creative partners, Brian Bourn and Jennifer Bourn, were the featured guests.

In the most recent StudioPress FM episode, Brian and I talk shop with podcast host Brian Gardner. From how we started our own business and how we found the Genesis Framework, to the steps we take to create fulfillment in both our personal lives and professional lives and what we wish each other did better, this podcast offers up some classic infotainment.

Host Brian Gardner asked us about:

A WordPress Blog Is A Filing Cabinet For Your Website

March 28, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

I’m guilty of it. Almost every blogger I know is guilty of it —, well, at least the bloggers who have been blogging for years. It’s a problem we caused that has haunted us for the life of our blog and now is either a huge task we know we need to tackle, or a huge task we’re just going to ignore and push to the side.

Category and Tag Abuse

WordPress category and tag abuse is a real struggle. It’s how this blog at one point, ballooned to more than 30 categories and 800 tags that I then had to clean up.

Now you may be thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal”

The big deal is that not only does category and tag abuse split and fracture your content, it creates a poor experience for your website visitors, making it harder to find similar or related content about the topic they are interested in on your website.

Categories and Tags Used As Keywords

The problem of category and tag abuse stems from the belief that categories and tags are similar to keywords, and that when assigned a category or tag to a blog post, it is the same as assigning a keyword to the post. This action is further perpetuated by the belief that assigning a post to a specific category or tag like a keyword somehow will help their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

Sometimes Creativity Doesn’t Come Naturally

July 22, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

My last few articles for WP Elevation have covered contracts, follow up, and new client on boarding. My latest article is a bit of a departure from the normal business advice and tips for designers, developers, and consultants working in the WordPress space — it’s all about creativity, or rather the lack thereof.

Creative People Aren’t Always Creative

I follow a lot of designers and developers on the web; they tweet some amazing links and share great resources and quick doses of inspiration through their work and the work of others.

It’s easy to see all of the great work others are doing and sometimes get frustrated — especially when you’re stuck, when you’ve hit a creative roadblock, or when you feel uninspired. I know because I’ve been there on more than one occasion.

Sometimes Creativity Doesn’t Come Naturally. Even the most creative of us have days where the flow doesn’t quite flow, the groove can’t quite find its rhythm, and frustration comes as a white screen or blank sheet of sketch paper sits mockingly in front of us.

“For those who would argue that it’s impossible to evaluate designs without real content, let me ask this: why then, is it okay to evaluate content out of context of the designs?”

Karen McGrane

Shift The Client Conversation From Can’t To Can

April 17, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

As a freelancer or an agency, client relationships are the most valuable asset we have. Clients are the backbone of every successful services company and happy clients result in more referrals, more sales, and more business.

Clients come to us because they need help. They need direction, guidance, advice, consulting, strategy, and design and development work. They need an expert in an area they know very little about, and they need to trust the designer or developer they hire to deliver a quality product and quality experience.

But that isn’t always the case. In my latest article for The GoDaddy Garage, Shifting the client conversation from can’t to can, I write about the negative implications of using the word can’t in conversations with clients, and how it can sabotage the experience your clients have working with you.

Here’s the article:

How to Consistently Create Content That Builds Your Business And Attracts Clients

April 6, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I recently partnered with iThemes Training to deliver a FREE webinar training for graphic designers, web designers, and developers — and you don’t even have to opt-in to watch it!

There is a plethora of information available about how to build a successful web design business, how to write code, and everything from how to choose typefaces and color palettes, to how to design a logo or website. There is also an abundance of information about the effectiveness and power of content marketing, but there is a shocking lack of information about how designers and developers can create content that will help grow their business AND attract clients.

Are you a designer or developer who:

Struggles to consistently create content that resonates with your audience
Experiences frustration with rocky client projects or client confusion
Is drowning in administrative or project management tasks
Doesn’t have time to add yet another task to your to-do list for the week

If you answered yes, this webinar is for you. In it, I walk you through a simple content creation process you can use to grow your business, automate your processes, and attract more clients — and we’ll talk about repurposing content to save you time and effort.

Watch it for FREE with NO OPT-IN needed right now!

Watch The Webinar

Free Tool to Discover Plagarism And Content Theft

March 23, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently a friend reached out with some disconcerting information — Another web design company was using our content and images. At first she didn’t notice, but when she saw my photo on their website, she looked a little closer and sent me a link to check it out.

Unfortunately today owning a website and doing business online also means that if you’re any good or if your site ranks well with search engines, others will steal, rip off, and copy what you do, that you write, what you say, and even how you look. If you’ve never done the research, the blatant thievery and lack of integrity among content thieves online can be shocking and disheartening.

But how do you know if someone is stealing you hard work?

How To Plan A Content Creation Process Your Small Business Can Actually Achieve

February 14, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I love content — content planning, content organization, content design, content development, content strategy — the geek in me comes out in full force when it comes to content.

It could be because I like writing a lot, or maybe it’s because I find joy in teaching and sharing information. Whatever the reason may be, creating content comes easy to me.

In my article How To Plan A Content Creation Process Your Small Business Can Actually Achieve for CoSchedule, I break down step-by-step the exact process I use to plan and create content for Bourn Creative. I also share our strategy behind creating internal content for automation, client education, and our systems and processes, as well as external content for marketing, and how you can repurpose content for both purposes.

Here’s the full article:

How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time

October 2, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Consumers don’t take action when you want them to take action, they take action when they are ready. They don’t buy when you want them to buy, they buy when they are ready to buy, and they certainly don’t read your newest article or blog post just because you published it — it has to be the right audience, and the right content, at the right time.

As a content marketer, your job is to make sure that your content gets in front of the right audience at the right time — when they are ready. That means making sure your content is easily accessible and can be discovered in many different ways on different platforms.

In my article How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time for CoSchedule, I break down how to reach the right audience, with the right content, and the right time, and provide tips and suggestions to help you get the most out of your content.

Here’s the article:

How To Answer The Question “What Do You Do?” With Confidence

September 10, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Networking is stressful. Almost no one I know enjoys it or gets excited to network with a room full of strangers — and it’s most often because they don’t quite know how to answer that dreaded question “What do you do?” in a powerful way.

I hate this question! It’s a lazy question. It is vague and encourages the most basic and boring of answers. Asking it is like asking the other people to put on a show.

In my article How To Powerfully Answer The Question: “What Do You Do?” for WP Elevation I not only address exactly why people have such a hard time with this question, but what you need to know to answer this question in a powerful and meaningful way.

I even break it down into a simple, step-by-step formula that will help you communicate with confidence and ease. Plus, I’ll walk you through how to squash common objections, talk about your services or products, and how to tell them what to do next if they are interested — all without feeling too salesy or pushy.

Here’s the article:

Simple But Effective Copywriting Tips For Email Marketing

March 28, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Like the email subject line, the copywriting in your email is also an important part of the your email marketing success — and the approach needs to be personal.

When you’re writing for email (and most types of marketing for that matter), you’re not writing to a general audience, to a big group, to just anyone — you’re writing to one person, to one subscriber that has a connection to you. You must think of your email marketing copywriting as the art of creating a conversation between you and a single subscriber.

You want them to read your email and feel like you are speaking right to them. Like they matter. Like they know you and you know them.

Are Your Marketing Materials Drivel or Driven?

May 23, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

Whether you are a small business owner, an entrepreneur, or a service professional, I bet that when it comes to marketing, you’re feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. I’ll also bet that even though you may be an expert in your niche, you probably don’t feel like an expert in keeping your marketing pipeline full of new customers.

Being overwhelmed and insecure about your marketing can be dangerous if you don’t learn and plan.

I have seen it over an over. One person or business devises a marketing piece, such as an advertisement, that breaks new ground. People are going, “Wow,” that ad or strategy is converting leads into sales like gangbusters, and everyone else in that market is scrambling to catch up.

Unfortunately, the next thing that usually happens is that others try to copy the successful ad for their businesses, but they don’t adjust the ad to fit their marketing or their focus. Naturally, placed in the wrong context, the ad or strategy fails.

How to Create an Endless Supply of Content

May 8, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

Entrepreneurs of the Information Age have had to adapt their marketing strategies to suit the times. It used to be that advertising was the bulwark of marketing, but that has changed with the lightning fast development of the king of all Information Age technologies, the internet. Now, one of the staples of your marketing strategy is the development, sharing, and selling of content.

You may have heard or experienced firsthand that generating quality content in blog posts, articles, videos, reports, ebooks, audio files, DVDs, teleseminars, webinars, and so on can revitalize your marketing by helping you:

Expand brand visibility
Establish expert status
Build backlinks
Increase website traffic

And if you’ve been doing any of that for any length of time, you may have run into a common problem of content marketing — the problem of supply.

Bait the Hook: Market with Benefits, not Features

February 10, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

If you’ve ever been shopping for higher-end technology, you’ll resonate with the marketing ideas I’m going to share with you today, because part of shopping for technology involves reading about features, and today we’re going to learn why marketing with features isn’t enough to capture your customers.

To begin to understand what I’m talking about, just read (or try to read) this list of features posted on Amazon for a Nikon digital camera:

14.1-megapixel CCD sensor for superb image quality
21x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom-NIKKOR Glass Lens
5-way VR Image Stabilization System
EXPEED C2 for enhanced image quality and processing speed
3-inch Ultra-High Resolution (921,000-dot) Clear Color Display

Now, if you’re NOT a photographer versed in digital photography, the features listed above aren’t going to tell you much. But if you’re a savvy shopper, you would be asking, “Well, just what IS a 5-Way VR Image Stabilization System, and how can it help me?” In other words, reading a list of features can only take you so far. What you really want to know are the benefits. Now, sure, a few of the items above state that with the given feature, “image quality” will improve, but none of them says exactly how or why.

That’s exactly the problem with marketing with features instead of benefits.

Who is Your Ideal Client? Do you know?

January 28, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

While getting started on brand strategy and design and website strategy with my clients, one of the first things I want to know is who the ideal client is. Who is the person the brand and website must resonate with and speak to. Who does it need to attract to my client?

How do you know who your ideal client is? Your Ideal Client is some one who:

Has problems and challenges you can easily fix and solve with your eyes closed
Sees you as a valuable necessity they treasure, instead of a necessary evil
Likes you, appreciates your hard work, and will tell their friends, peers, and contacts about you
Will pay you what you’re worth and will be happy to do so because they know you’re worth it

But how do you find out exactly who they are? Grade Them.Look at all of your clients for a set time period and give each one a grade — A, B, C, D, F. Don’t think about it too much. Just go with your gut instinct and be honest — Don’t worry! No one will see this but you.

Create An Effective Content Marketing Plan At Content Camp

Create Clear Communication By Speaking The Same Project Language

How To Achieve Higher Profits While Working Less And Enjoying More Freedom

Selling A Million Dollars In Design Side Projects

How to Create A Website That Works When You’re Not Working

How To Create An Ideal Client Profile And Use It To Make Your Marketing More Effective

Define Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages

StudioPress.FM Podcast Talks Building A Sustainable Agency With Brian And Jennifer Bourn

A WordPress Blog Is A Filing Cabinet For Your Website

Category and Tag Abuse

Categories and Tags Used As Keywords

Sometimes Creativity Doesn’t Come Naturally

Creative People Aren’t Always Creative

Shift The Client Conversation From Can’t To Can

How to Consistently Create Content That Builds Your Business And Attracts Clients

Free Tool to Discover Plagarism And Content Theft

How To Plan A Content Creation Process Your Small Business Can Actually Achieve

How To Get Your Content In Front Of The Right Audience At The Right Time

How To Answer The Question “What Do You Do?” With Confidence

Simple But Effective Copywriting Tips For Email Marketing

Are Your Marketing Materials Drivel or Driven?

How to Create an Endless Supply of Content

Bait the Hook: Market with Benefits, not Features

Who is Your Ideal Client? Do you know?

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