• We have social media platforms, so blogs are no longer the best way to connect with others;
• Mainstream media sites produce great blog content, so personal blogs aren’t really necessary to distribute information;
• There is so much content online that eyeballs are hard to come by; personal blogs are like sparks firing in a wide and lonesome universe.

What I’m describing is a kind taming of the open web. Filters–whether search engines, RSS feeds, social media sites, or traditional media outlets–have helped to organize all the content out there. Nevertheless, the web is still an open space where people can create. We don’t live in “walled gardens”–yet.

There’s another kind of filter out there, which for a while people thought might kill the web: Apps. Apps, such as those designed by Apple for iOS, are like walled gardens, meaning that you open it up and work within its constraints. The media hasn’t been thrilled with apps, because they’re not in control (but neither are users). Apple makes the money.

This trend might be changing. Here’s an interesting article about why apps haven’t lived up to the hype, according to traditional media. The alternative seems to be HTML5, which promises to be a way of restoring the open, connectedness of the web, a format that will allow content to be distributed across multiple media with one design (rather than requiring separate apps for the iPad, the Kindle, the Web, etc.).

Outside of commercial copywriting, I’m in the book business, so the narrative of technology and publishing and how readers will be accessing content. Related to all of this, I think, is the Department of Justice lawsuit over ebook pricing. At issue is the threat of a tech-company monopoly, which develops and owns the software and thus locks readers into a platform.

Consumers might be winning in the short-term, because they’re getting cheap books, but in the long term, who knows? At least one writer said he’s considering hanging up his hat, for what seems to be the same reason I quit blogging–the media landscape has changed.

In the end, I think one thing at issue is the disconnect between law and technology and business on the one hand, and consumers on the other hand. When I buy a book, I don’t consider the publisher’s profits or the author’s royalty statement or Amazon’s ownership of the market or, if it’s an ebook, that I’m buying a license to read the book rather than the book itself. All I consider, as a consumer, is the words on the page.

Same thing if I’m reading the news, or sending an email, etc. Consumers will gravitate toward the cheapest, easiest option, and the business that comes up with the perfect venn diagram of quality content and ease of access and cheapness will win out.

Once you know whom you’re writing for, and why, you can begin focusing the project, figuring out what copy is necessary and what tone to strike. You wouldn’t, for instance, write a sales letter to home builders that reads like a how-to-build-a-house-for-dummies article. They already know how to build houses. Your goal is to find what they don’t know but would be interested to find out — in short, your goal is to engage the reader.

What struck me, as I was answering the question, was just how important research is to a writing assignment. I write relatively quickly; I can bang out 500 to 1,000 words in an hour if I know what I want to say. Yet a 1,000-word writing project might take me 10 hours to complete — eight hours for research and two hours for actual writing.

Research can take many forms. As a novelist, your “research” may involve lying on a couch and staring into space, or taking a 5-mile run to think about your characters and situation. As a student, your research may involve reading journals in the library stacks and taking notes, pulling out quotes, etc.

As a copywriter, research can involve staring into space and thinking, or it can involve taking notes from background material (websites, brochures, sales collateral), or it may involve interviewing someone. It also might involve outlining, or writing up sample copy, or flipping through a thesaurus.

Someone — I can’t remember who — said that writing is rewriting. Maybe. But in the commercial realm, writing is most definitely prewriting. There’s an adage that says if you can’t explain something simply, you probably don’t understand it. Commercial copywriting is all about explaining something simply, which means you have to understand it thoroughly, which means 80% of what you’re doing is research.

There’s a whole realm out there of “content writing,” which is different from “copywriting.” From a business standpoint, everything from journalism to blogging is content. The goal of content is to gain a readership. Revenue comes from selling that content directly (as in the case of a book) or from selling advertising (as in the case of a newspaper or a blog).

This blog is kind of a hybrid. The material, this post included, is partly content, because the immediate goal is to draw readers in from search engines, but it’s also copywriting, because the end goal is to sell my copywriting services. Because this blog, ultimately, is sales-oriented, I’m updating less frequently than if I were trying to garner regular readers. My goal is to show up if someone googles “freelance copywriter Richmond” or “freelance copywriter Virginia.” A few updates a month seem to work OK. But if I were looking for a loyal readership, I’d post several times a day and the content would be “content,” not copywriting.

This distinction is important for both writers and people who want to hire writers. Outside of Sealy Communications, I’m a fiction writer. I’ve sold maybe half a dozen stories, but I’ve only been paid for one of them. For the rest, I’ve received contributor’s copies. That’s a fair arrangement because, from the magazine’s end, they don’t have enough readers to pay their writers. There’s so much content in the marketplace that the value is nil. Likewise, from the writer’s perspective, there are so many of us that the value of what we do is nil. (The goal, however, is to work your way up in the food chain, to become known — branded — so that your value increases.)

For a businessperson who wants to hire a writer, the distinction between copywriting and content is important because content is relatively cheap. At places like Elance, you can find writers willing to crank out $10 blog posts, because (1) there are so many writers that the value is nil and (2) the content doesn’t really have to do much beyond fill space, so it’s easy to write.

Copywriting, while not rocket science, does have a different end goal in mind. You want to draw in readers with a narrative of some sort, but you also want to get your message across for skimmers. David Ogilvie said that only one out of five readers looks beyond your headline, so your headline should have a sales message in it. Also, the copy should do a fair amount of positioning, and should present benefits (not just features) of a product or service, and it should be tailored to a specific audience. Therein lies the value of a good freelance writer — rather, a good freelance copywriter.

Today’s consumer is drowning in a flood of data. To stay afloat, businesses need a compelling story to lift their brands out of the detritus. The best creative in the world is useless unless it gets results, and it won’t get results if the message doesn’t stick.

That’s where I come in. I’ve written a free report about narrative marketing called “What’s Your Story?” that offers creative writing secrets you can apply to your marketing efforts – and make sure your message sticks.

For your copy, simply click here. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn in this valuable report:

• What writers mean when they say “Show, don’t tell”
• How good brands get inside your head with a story
• 3 important rules for creating a good story (and why you should be VERY CAREFUL when you use Rule #3)
• SEO basics, from your meta-data to your content library

I have a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and I have three years of experience as an in-house copywriter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This twin vantage – creative writing on one hand and business experience on the other – makes me uniquely suited to offer this free report.

And if you ever need help crafting just the right story with your marketing, simply contact me at (804) 545-3403 or jon@sealycommunications.com.

Why did the company wait so long and do so little—not once, but time and again—before finally falling into bankruptcy? And what, if anything, does that portend for its future? The questions go beyond GM, a company that’s hardly unique. Why did Blockbuster idly watch Netflix destroy its business? Why did Kodak let digital cameras drive a once-mighty industrial giant into penny-stock territory?

Her conclusion is that failure is related to corporate culture, that there is a “founder’s effect” where newcomers assimilate and corporate cultures tend to remain static. Moreover, she suggests that plenty of companies perform well but have completely dysfunctional cultures, and that when something changes, the internal culture doesn’t adapt, and the company fails.

This sounds plausible. Granted, there’s no substitute for offering a top-notch product or service at a competitive price, for being a wonderful company to do business with, and for getting the word out appropriately. But speaking as someone who has worked for a bunch of companies and interviewed leaders of countless more, internal culture goes a long way. As one auto dealer told me, you put your employees first; if you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of your customers.

We don’t live in a world kind to employees. On one hand, life is incredible compared to life during the Depression — 40-hour workweeks, benefits, labor laws. But on the other hand, we in the younger generations have no pension options, and therefore no reason to stay loyal to one employer. Worse, older generations often face the chopping block first and have a more difficult road to regaining employment. As one older employee told me once, “I feel like I’m walking around with a target on my back.”

In such an environment — where the company is not taking care of you, and where it will ruthlessly cut loose even the longest-tenured employees — what options do employees have but to live in a state of anxiety, or join a labor union (if they can find one), or start their own business. The answer for companies? I have no idea how you reform internal culture — by hiring consultants? Firing your CEO? Clearly, as McArdle wrote about GM, bankruptcy proceedings aren’t a magic bullet.

I think one answer is that small and medium-sized businesses are poised to take over the void from large failing companies. I’ve had meetings with a few business leaders recently who are in charge of smaller companies, and what I’m hearing is that small businesses are spending money again. They’re growing, reinvesting in their foundations (websites, brand development) and their employees.

It’s tough to judge a company’s culture based on a meeting with one of its leaders, but my impression is that employee morale is high, and that these smaller companies are like mammals at the end of the dinosaur era — nimble, hot-blooded and swift of foot, ready to take the crown away from their sluggish forebears.

“With the vendor sales letter you wrote for me, you delivered the message that I wanted to get across. I find you to be a very good listener, and I find your writing to be short, precise, and well said.”

This reminds me of one of the most memorable moments in Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple Squeeze This, a now-classic book about being an advertising copywriter. Sullivan explains that what advertising can do is get people to try a product once. He argues a campaign should look at results: If after the campaign, you see sales spike and continue to rise, the campaign worked and the product was good; on the other hand, if you see sales spike and then sink, the campaign worked but the product was not good.

Sullivan (I think) was trying to undercut the idea that advertising is a magic bullet, that ad agencies were peddling snake oil to hapless consumers and that a slick magazine ad could deliver repeated results. Clearly, that’s not the case. In every business worth it’s salt, it’s the product (or service!) that counts first.