They are the struggle to be heard in a world of media noise and clamor. Today, most brand messages and mass appeals for causes are drowned out before they even reach us. But a few consistently break through the din, using the only tool that has ever moved minds and changed behavior—great stories.With insights from mythology, advertising history, evolutionary biology, and psychology, viral storyteller and advertising expert Jonah Sachs takes readers into a fascinating world of seemingly insurmountable challenges and enormous opportunity. You’ll discover how:• Social media tools are driving a return to the oral tradition, in which stories that matter rise above the fray• Marketers have become today’s mythmakers, providing society with explanation, meaning, and ritual• Memorable stories based on timeless themes build legions of eager evangelists• Marketers and audiences can work together to create deeper meaning and stronger partnerships in building a better world• Brands like Old Spice, The Story of Stuff, Nike, the Tea Party, and Occupy Wall Street created and sustained massive viral buzzWinning the Story Wars is a call to arms for business communicators to cast aside broken traditions and join a revolution to build the iconic brands of the future. It puts marketers in the role of heroes with a chance to transform not just their craft but the enterprises they represent. After all, success in the story wars doesn’t come just from telling great stories, but from learning to live them.

    Armed with this book, you can confidently tackle difficult activities like telling your boss or client what's wrong with their content, getting the budget to do content work, and aligning stakeholders on a common vision. Reading The Content Strategy Toolkit is like having your own personal consulting firm on retainer with a complete array of tools and tips for every challenge you'll face. In this practical and relevant guide, you'll learn how to: Identify problems with your content and persuade your bosses it's worth the time and resources to do it right Make sense of your business environment and understand your audience Get stakeholders aligned on business goals and user needs Set your content strategy and decide how to measure success Create, maintain, and govern on-strategy content You'll learn to control your content-and not have it control you.

    Redesigning your home page won't help. Investing in a new content management system won't fix it, either. So, where do you start? Without meaningful content, your website isn't worth much to your key audiences. But creating (and caring for) "meaningful" content is far more complicated than we're often willing to acknowledge. Content Strategy for the Web explains how to create and deliver useful, usable content for your online audiences, when and where they need it most. It also shares content best practices so you can get your next website redesign right, on time and on budget. For the first time, you'll: See content strategy (and its business value) explained in plain languageFind out why so many web projects implode in the content development phase ... and how to avoid the associated, unnecessary costs and delaysLearn how to audit and analyze your contentMake smarter, achievable decisions about which content to create and howFind out how to maintain consistent, accurate, compelling content over timeGet solid, practical advice on staffing for content-related roles and responsibilities "

    Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog-gapingvoid.com-and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?Ignore Everybody expands on MacLeod's sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. For example:-Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.-If your plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.-Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.-The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.After learning MacLeod's forty keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.

    Ironically, I must recommend that you read her every word so that you can find out why your customers won't read very many words on your website -- and what to do about it.-- Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group"There are at least twelve billion web pages out there. Twelve billion voices talking, but saying mostly nothing. If just 1% of those pages followed Ginny's practical, clear advice, the world would be a better place. Fortunately, you can follow her advice for 100% of your own site's pages, so pick up a copy of Letting Go of the Words and start communicating effectively today."--Lou Rosenfeld, co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide WebOn the web, whether on the job or at home, we usually want to grab information and use it quickly. We go to the web to get answers to questions or to complete tasks - to gather information, reading only what we need. We are all too busy to read much on the web.This book helps you write successfully for web users. It offers strategy, process, and tactics for creating or revising content for the web. It helps you plan, organize, write, design, and test web content that will make web users come back again and again to your site.Learn how to create usable and useful content for the web from the master - Ginny Redish. Ginny has taught and mentored hundreds of writers, information designers, and content owners in the principles and secrets of creating web information that is easy to scan, easy to read, and easy to use.This practical, informative book will help anyone creating web content do it better.Features* Clearly-explained guidelines with full color illustrations and examples from actual web sites throughout the book. * Written in easy-to-read style with many befores and afters.* Specific guidelines for web-based press releases, legal notices, and other documents.* Tips on making web content accessible for people with special needs.Janice (Ginny) Redish has been helping clients and colleagues communicate clearly for more than 20 years. For the past ten years, her focus has been helping people create usable and useful web sites. She is co-author of two classic books on usability: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (with Joseph Dumas), and User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (with JoAnn Hackos), and is the recipient of many awards.

    Businesses across the world are having to face up to how they remain relevant in the choppy waters of the digital ocean. In an era where a YouTube star gets more daily impressions than Nike, Coca-Cola and Walmart combined, traditional marketing as we know it is dead. The End of Marketing revolutionizes the way brands, agencies and marketers should approach marketing. From how Donald Trump won the American presidency using social media and why Kim Kardashian is one of the world's biggest online brands, through to the impact of bots and automation, this book will teach you about new features and emerging platforms that will engage customers and employees. Discover bold content ideas, hear from some of the world's largest brands and content creators and find out how to build smarter paid-strategies, guaranteed to help you dominate your markets. The End of Marketing explains that no matter how easy it is to reach potential customers, the key relationship between brand and consumer still needs the human touch. Learn how to put 'social' back into social media and claim brand relevancy in a world where algorithms dominate, organic reach is dwindling and consumers don't want to be sold to, they want to be engaged.

    - Quick, easy approach and a wealth of case studies give readers a crash course in the difference between good and bad branding. - Tons of tips and real-world advice plus a new branding dictionary help readers turn brand strategy into brand design and execution.

    But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

    

    In How to Write Short, Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed-from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services. With examples from the long tradition of short-form writing in Western culture, How to Write Short guides writers to crafting brilliant prose, even in 140 characters.

    Addressed to copyeditors in book publishing and corporate communications, this thoughtful handbook explains what copyeditors do, what they look for when they edit a manuscript, and how they develop the editorial judgment needed to make sound decisions.This revised edition reflects the most recent editions of The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.), and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

    Whether you've already got a business or you're itching to start one, this is a recipe for getting more traction.Think about it: what if you could launch like Apple or the big Hollywood studios? What if your prospects eagerly counted down the days until they could buy your product? What if you could create such powerful positioning in your market that you all but eliminated your competition? And you could do all that no matter how humble your business or budget?Since 1996 Jeff Walker has been creating hugely successful online launches. After bootstrapping his first Internet business from his basement, he quickly developed an underground process for launching new products and businesses with unprecedented success.But the success-train was just getting started; once he started teaching his formula to other entrepreneurs, the results were simply breathtaking. Tiny, home-based businesses started doing launches that sold tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars in sales with their launches.Launch is the treasure map into that world; an almost secret world of digital entrepreneurs who create cash-on-demand paydays with their product launches and business launches.Whether you have an existing business, or you have a service-based business and want to develop your own products so you can leverage your time and your impact, or you're still in the planning phase, this is how you start fast. This formula is how you engineer massive success.Now the question is this : are you going to start slow, and fade away from there? Or are you ready for a launch that will change the future of your business and your life?

    Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets--and it's a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper. The vast majority of writing advice focuses on writing well as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail--they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won't hold anyone's interest. Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

    No longer can we interrupt our customers with mediocre content and sales messages they don't care about.Epic Content Marketing takes you step-by-step through the process of developing stories that inform and entertain and compel customers to act--without actually telling them to. Epic content, distributed to the right person at the right time, is the way to truly capture the hearts and minds of customers. It's how to position your business as a trusted expert in its industry. It's what customers share and talk about.Once we hook customers with epic content, they reward us by sending our sales through the roof.Epic Content Marketing provides everything you need to:Determine what your content niche should be to attract and retain customersDiscover and develop your content marketing mission statementSet up a process for creating and curating epic contentLearn how to leverage social and e-mail channels to create--and grow--your audienceMeasure the performance of your content--and increase your content marketing budgetWith in-depth case studies of how John Deere, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and other leading corporations are using content to drive epic sales, this groundbreaking guide gives you all the tools to start creating and disseminating content that leads directly to greater profits and growth.Whether you're the CMO of a Fortune 500, a digital marketer, or an entrepreneur, Epic Content Marketing gives you the tools you need to vanquish the competition. Start your epic journey now!PRAISE FOR EPIC CONTENT MARKETINGFrom the man who invented content marketing. Listen to this guy. He really understands the new world of marketing. The concepts in Epic Content Marketing are usable all over the world--instantly usable and useful for any business. -- Don Schultz, the father of integrated marketing, Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and author of 13 booksJoe Pulizzi's ideas are so consistently . . . well, epic (!) that they really don't need any endorsement by anyone. But here's mine anyway: You don't need MORE content. You need the right kind of content, strategically applied. For those organizations struggling to create a content marketing program that drives results, Joe delivers. Again. -- Ann Handley, coauthor of Content Rules and Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfsAs Joe shows us in his wonderful Epic Content Marketing, you must unlearn interrupting people with your nonsense. Instead, publish the valuable content they want to consume and are eager to share. -- David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PRThis is a brilliant canter through the rapid and ever-changing world of content marketing. Joe has managed to capture the right blend of art and science as he plots the major trends impacting all marketers right now. -- Jonathan Mildenhall, VP, Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, Coca-Cola CompanyYou could say that Joe Pulizzi wrote the book on content marketing, but now it's more than just a saying. It's what you're holding in your hands. If you truly want to be successful at content marketing, Pulizzi is one of the few who can show you the way. -- Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image, and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete"Joe Pulizzi may know more about content marketing than any person alive. He proves it in these pages. -- Jay Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype"The future of successful brand building, and especially the art of solidifying the emotional connection between people and brands, will require expertise in Content Marketing. Epic Content Marketing gives all the details practitioners need without overcomplicating." -- Professor JoAnn Sciarrino, Knight Chair, Digital Advertising and Marketing, UNC Chapel Hill Joe Pulizzi is the godfather of our burgeoning profession of Content Marketing. He lays out the objectives, principles, and core strategies of our field in a way that's easy-to-understand, inspiring, and entertaining. If your company doesn't yet realize that it's a media company, with all the challenges and advantages that implies, you're missing the most powerful way to connect with your customers. -- Julie Fleischer, Director, Media & Consumer Engagement, Kraft Foods

    "What makes a great advertisement?" Nearly four decades ago, an unmatched group of five advertising pioneers first answered that question in "The Art of Writing Advertising." Their entertaining and historically compelling answers will provide advertising professionals with valuable techniques for applying breakthrough creativity and innovation in the workplace.