New Year, New Directions: CBA Content in 2020 - A new year means unmarked pages waiting to be filled with exploring, learning, growing and creating. It also represents a fresh and refocused start – a time to reflect, set goals and channel positive energy into the next phase of the business. At the end of 2019, we kickstarted our reflections and ran a series … Continue reading New Year, New Directions: CBA Content in 2020
Victorian Trees and Tudor Pies: Exploring Customs of Christmas Past - It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the holiday season, where we reflect on the year gone by, spend time with friends and family and inevitably indulge in our favourite traditions. During this festive time of reflection and celebration, have you ever considered how far back Christmas traditions go? I certainly hadn’t, until I … Continue reading Victorian Trees and Tudor Pies: Exploring Customs of Christmas Past
Like Mary Quant, Dare to be Different in Your Content Marketing - London-born fashion designer Mary Quant has gone down in history for her striking, daring and exciting takes on ordinary clothes in the 1960s. She is best known for popularising – some even say inventing – the miniskirt, and making fashion fun, accessible and practical for the modern woman. Fast forward to 2019 and you can … Continue reading Like Mary Quant, Dare to be Different in Your Content Marketing
Use This Victorian Trick to Know Your Readers Better - Thomas and Jane Carlyle’s home in London was the place to be during the Victorian Era. Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Lord Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are a few of the literary giants who visited the writers’ home, engaging in worldly debates and friendly chats by the fire. The Carlyles moved to Chelsea in 1834 … Continue reading Use This Victorian Trick to Know Your Readers Better
A Summer of Content Adventures and Sunny Outlooks - It’s the last Friday of August and the start of Labor Day weekend in the US – the perfect time to look back on summer and ahead to the fall. These past three months have been full of travel and content adventures. Both uncovered new territory and CBA Content, in particular, benefitted from new collaborations … Continue reading A Summer of Content Adventures and Sunny Outlooks
White Papers Made Simple: Their Star Role in Content Marketing - At its core, a white paper is a guide that solves a problem for its reader. So not unlike a blog post or ebook? Correct, these content types all work to solve a problem for their audience, but white papers have certain qualities that set them apart. For example, white papers are: Longer than blog … Continue reading White Papers Made Simple: Their Star Role in Content Marketing
Leonardo’s Drawings: An Enlightening Exercise in Understanding Your Audience - By the end of his life, Leonardo da Vinci had drawn thousands of sketches on the human body, horses, plants, architecture, engineering, maps, forces of nature – anything that captured his imagination. 500 years later and these drawings give us one of the closest and clearest looks into the Renaissance master’s mind. To celebrate his … Continue reading Leonardo’s Drawings: An Enlightening Exercise in Understanding Your Audience
My Favorite Way for Coming Up With New Ideas (and How to Generate Your Own) - Consider these three facts: The best pizzeria in the world doesn’t use menus that’s how easy they make it for you to decide – Marinara or Margherita. Growing lavender is a gradual process that takes some nurturing if you want it to last for years. Shakespeare is the master of capturing and holding an audience’s … Continue reading My Favorite Way for Coming Up With New Ideas (and How to Generate Your Own)
A Shakespearean Guide to Writing Killer Landing Pages - “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” The playwright behind this quote and many other famous lines of speech is none other than the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare. Like most of his plays and poems, this quote from Hamlet still holds meaning some 400 years later. … Continue reading A Shakespearean Guide to Writing Killer Landing Pages
4 Illuminating Steps to Listening to Your Audience (and Learning to Speak Their Language) - Have you ever traveled to a foreign city without planning anything except your plane ticket? If you have, I bet you felt lost and a bit overwhelmed by all the decisions you had to make on the spot – directions, accommodation, activities, meals. Most likely though you did some research and planning ahead of time … Continue reading 4 Illuminating Steps to Listening to Your Audience (and Learning to Speak Their Language)
The Magic of Matilda: How to Use Content to Help Others - By the time she was two, Matilda had learned what most people learn in their early 30s: how to take care of herself. I’ve always thought being able to take care of yourself is an achievement in its own right. So doing it while you’re learning to talk? That’s a superpower. Rewatching the film adaptation … Continue reading The Magic of Matilda: How to Use Content to Help Others
5 Simple Ways to Spring Clean Your Online Business - Overheard in the office this morning: “The sun’s out so I can’t complain.” After a few grey days and long months of winter, that pretty much sums up my feelings exactly. Spring has officially sprung in the British capital! Even if I’m still in boots and a jumper (hey, it’s London) the sunnier weather signals … Continue reading 5 Simple Ways to Spring Clean Your Online Business
Dare to be Like Dracula: The Mesmerizing Power of History & Horror - Vampires look like humans. Some so beautiful they hypnotize people. Three such mesmerizing vampires seduced a lawyer from England, Jonathan Harker, when he visited Castle Dracula for the first time. It’s not until after Harker escapes from the female vampires’ deadly spell that he realizes Dracula, his host, only wants one thing: human blood. This … Continue reading Dare to be Like Dracula: The Mesmerizing Power of History & Horror
March of the Penguins: 3 Rituals to Enrich Your Client Relationships - Emperor penguins are extraordinary animals. For starters, they return to the same stretch of frozen water every winter to mate and give life to the next generation of penguins. In between finding a mate and nudging their chick onto the ice for the first time, they endure brutal weather elements (up to -60°C / -76°F), … Continue reading March of the Penguins: 3 Rituals to Enrich Your Client Relationships
How to Immerse Readers in Your Content - When we arrived at the Music Box Village, people had already taken their seats. The film hadn’t started yet but it was plain to see that the show had already begun. We were the actors and actresses, lovers and mistresses, dancers and revellers, dressed as Voodoo maidens and Rio Casanovas. Coinciding with Valentine’s Day, the … Continue reading How to Immerse Readers in Your Content
Want to Get Published? Start Here. - There’s nothing like good ole practical advice, is there? No wishy-washy explanations or roundabout responses, just the useful stuff. So when last week a freelance writer emailed me asking if I had any tips on pitching articles and breaking into a niche of writing, I wanted to give her something she could act on right … Continue reading Want to Get Published? Start Here.
A Bed & Breakfast Guide to Attracting New Visitors to Your Site - The sun was setting as we walked up to our bed and breakfast in Broadway, a charming village in the Cotswolds. Andy opened the door with a warm handshake and a smile, welcoming us inside so we could drop our bags before he gave us a tour of the house. Starting in the entranceway, he gave … Continue reading A Bed & Breakfast Guide to Attracting New Visitors to Your Site
The Crystal Ball of CBA Content: 5 Bright Visions - It’s only natural, or supernatural rather, to look at the year ahead each January. In the past, I kept my goals largely to myself, but now that I’m fully responsible for the direction and success of my work life, I’ve decided to spend some time reflecting on the past year and set goals for this … Continue reading The Crystal Ball of CBA Content: 5 Bright Visions
Why French Cuisine is Good for Content Marketing - “[T]hey know what to do with every scrap of hoof, snout, entrail, and skin … Because they grew up with that all-important dictum. Use everything! (And use it well.)” This is how Anthony Bourdain describes the French style of cooking in his book, A Cook’s Tour. I picked up his collection of food and travel tales before … Continue reading Why French Cuisine is Good for Content Marketing
How Creators Create: A Plastic Surgeon’s Love of Pottery - He credits his early creative drive to spending three years in kindergarten — the advantage of being grouped together with his older brother — and his later breakthroughs in breast reconstruction, he believes were due in part to specializing in a more creative field of medicine: plastic surgery. Given his background, pottery seems to be … Continue reading How Creators Create: A Plastic Surgeon’s Love of Pottery
12 Summertime Workspaces Bound to Give You Digital Nomad Envy - The air is warm, the breeze is welcome and the backdrop, spectacular — a scene fit for a seasoned digital nomad. Even though I can’t say I’m one of them (well, not near the extent of the remote workers below), I have always believed that a change in scenery has the power to inspire and … Continue reading 12 Summertime Workspaces Bound to Give You Digital Nomad Envy
3 Ways Mary Poppins Can Magically Boost Your Business - If you want this choice position Have a cheery disposition Rosy cheeks, no warts! Play games, all sort Does that bring back any childhood memories? Luckily for Jane and Michael Banks, the qualifications set out in their Perfect Nanny advertisement brought Mary Poppins down from her cloud and into their playroom. A little magic … Continue reading 3 Ways Mary Poppins Can Magically Boost Your Business
How to Grow Your Content Strategy Like Lavender - Walking through lavender fields in south London last weekend, I was filled with happiness. The beauty, the sight, the smell was all a delight. This new experience wandering through rows of lavender got me thinking — is it possible to give your audience a similarly positive experience through content? Turns out, yes it is. Lavender … Continue reading How to Grow Your Content Strategy Like Lavender
For the Love of London: What This Content Creation Venture Has Taught Me So Far - Keep laundry and other chores on Sundays. Set alarm clock (and get up) on weekdays. Grab a newspaper from the tube station every day. This sounds more like personal to-dos than work ones, doesn’t it? That’s because ever since I decided to go it alone and start my own content creation business, I’ve had to … Continue reading For the Love of London: What This Content Creation Venture Has Taught Me So Far
Real Talk: What’s Content (and Why Should You Care About It)? - You’ve heard this term, “content”, being thrown around a lot lately. “If you’re not producing content, then do you even exist?” they say. The word even makes up half of my business’s name. But really, what is it? And why does it matter to your business? Since there is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions, let’s … Continue reading Real Talk: What’s Content (and Why Should You Care About It)?
The Royal Wedding’s Guide to Bonding With Your Readers - “She looked back at us!” “We totally made eye contact!” That’s pretty much how it went (times 100) after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry rode past my friend and me during their wedding procession around Windsor. We felt a real connection with Meghan, especially after seeing the personal and modern touches she put on the … Continue reading The Royal Wedding’s Guide to Bonding With Your Readers
3 Compelling Content Ideas to Win Over Your Audience’s Heart - The last bite of seafood pasta had been twirled onto my fork and finished off. None of us wanted to leave this restaurant, its beachy, open-air construction built right into the cliff. To remember it, we took a photo with the very friendly staff before saying ciao and grazie. It was a 30-minute walk back to the ferry, but … Continue reading 3 Compelling Content Ideas to Win Over Your Audience’s Heart
Easy as (Pizza) Pie: How to Make Your Customer Say Yes - Marinara or Margherita? Coca-Cola, birra or acqua? That’s how they take your order at L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Naples, what some consider to be the best pizza place in the world. Sure, it doesn’t hurt that this was the pizza Elizabeth Gilbert affectionately described in Eat, Pray, Love, but part of the restaurant’s appeal is … Continue reading Easy as (Pizza) Pie: How to Make Your Customer Say Yes
This Content Checklist Will Make More People Want to Visit Your Site - Bathing suit…check. Passport…check. Boarding pass…check. If only improving your website’s content was as easy as preparing for a trip to the coast of Italy (I may be going there this weekend and it may be consuming all my thoughts). Well, if you knew how to prep your content and had a focused checklist to follow, … Continue reading This Content Checklist Will Make More People Want to Visit Your Site
Put a Spring in Your Website’s Step With These 3 Revitalizing Tips - Cafe doors are flung open. City dwellers flock to the park and I’m sipping on the first iced coffee of the season. It’s only mid-April but with temperatures in the 80s (close to 30°C), London has fallen under a summertime spell. Of course it won’t stay this warm for long, but while it does, let’s … Continue reading Put a Spring in Your Website’s Step With These 3 Revitalizing Tips
The Simple Art of Differentiating Yourself (and Attracting an Audience) - One of the first things you see when you exit the train station in Bath, Somerset, is an iconic British telephone booth filled with flowers. I’ve seen lots of red telephone booths, some lined with books inside, others vandalized and wreaking of urine, but never filled with purple primroses and intertwining ivy. I took a … Continue reading The Simple Art of Differentiating Yourself (and Attracting an Audience)
3 Meaningful Ways to Connect with Your Online Community - We had 30 minutes to kill before the next bus to Chatsworth, so we started making our way to a coffee shop around the corner. Before going in, I noticed a man in a big green coat and checkered Sherlock Holmes hat talking to my boyfriend. He had just arrived from Baslow, a town over, … Continue reading 3 Meaningful Ways to Connect with Your Online Community
The ‘This Is Us’ Approach to Evaluating Your Online Business - While catching up on one of my favorite American TV shows, This Is Us, Beth and Randall (a married couple) played a game called “Worst-Case Scenario.” It’s like a mental check they do with each other when something goes wrong. For example, when their foster daughter, Deja, is being difficult and moody all the time, they … Continue reading The ‘This Is Us’ Approach to Evaluating Your Online Business