Boston marketing strategist who loves to sing and ferment vegetables.
Check out World's Quietest Band for my newest music.
Help brands and organizations:
Tell authentic stories that engage audiences meaningfully using the right media.
Think about the big picture in an evolving media landscape.
Focus on who they are and what they do best.
Summary: Envisioned, planned, executed, distributed and promoted content. Busy, high-energy, collaborative environment with daily, weekly, monthly and ad hoc deadlines.
Core responsibilities:
* Creating and directing overall vision and messaging for content.
* Turning strategy and client requests into content implementations.
* Ensuring content meets strategic and quality objectives.
* Managing operations of content creation, planning, implementation and distribution.
* Carrying client voice and branding across multiple content efforts and media.
Summary: Wrote content across a wide variety of media including blogs, e-commerce, proposals, video, podcasts, press releases, pitches, and more. Curated and edited content from contributors. Busy, high-energy, collaborative environment with daily, weekly, monthly and ad hoc deadlines.
Core responsibilities:
* Writing and editing for E-commerce sites, magazine sites, and social network content as assigned.
* Writing scripts for videos and podcasts.
* Copyediting, proofreading and quality assurance of content.
Destroying appliances. Why not? My idea + I wrote the scripts for this series. (IMHO, I wish the video was a little shorter and snappier)
Infographic showing that Breville’s centrifugal juicers do the trick. I wrote the rest of the page too.
A Valentine’s Day email for Breville. The strategy was to drive people to Like them on Facebook. It worked.
This is a black and white print ad I wrote for the New York Food and Wine Festival program. The goal to filter the newly established brand messaging and voice through the cookie and Smart Oven lens.
Here are a series of mastheads that are designed to sit at the top of every category page at BrevilleUSA.com. I wrote them to sum up the benefit of each category in a much shorter way than the client provided.
I produced and edited this eBook with the lovely locavore chef James Stolich out in San Francisco.
I wrote this case study to highlight the effectiveness of Tippingpoint Labs’ editorial calendar workshop. I have definitely seen how effective using newsroom techniques can be in driving content production in any industry.
In October of 2009, NJ-based Fusionapps approached Tippingpoint Labs with a business challenge. They were spending a lot of resources trying to figure out the right process for creating and managing marketing content. They were not creating content regularly and were not sure how to approach it, despite having hired a few different people to manage their content.
Fusionapps has smart people who know their disciplines and are motivated to write and produce. But they were struggling with the creation process and with how to broadcast their content to their audience.
According to Jess Pugsley, Fusionapps Managing Director and Chief Strategist, “Structure was absent from our team from a marketing perspective. From how we produce content to how we dealt with it editorially to how we scheduled content to be produced. We wanted to do it in a way that makes sense so it’s part of a deeper strategy.”
After consulting with Fusionapps, Tippingpoint Labs recommended a Content Marketing Newsroom Workshop. The structure of an editorial calendar could drive effective pitch meetings and an efficient workflow.
Andrew Davis travelled to Secaucus to conduct the 2-day workshop with all the Fusionapps stakeholders. He worked through much more than web content management. He helped the team define roles and responsibilities and create weekly and monthly routines.
By the end of the workshop, Fusionapps had created Feature formats based on the strengths and skills of each of the content creators. The formats were, by design, easily repeatable to achieve efficiency. The team also knew who would be doing what, and when they would go through the editorial process each month.
Where before they had desire and knowledge, now Fusionapps had a form to drive their content. As they put the Newsroom structure and editorial calendar into practice, they saw immediate results.
“We went through the workshop, developed a number of different formats for our content strategy, and developed a number of features that have worked out quite well,” says Pugsley. “Now we have a 3-month backlog of content that we’re looking forward to pushing out.”
Fusionapps’ most successful format to date is the Blur Test by Chris Geiger, their Director of User Experience. The Blur Test applies “an old art school technique used to reveal a design’s focal point” by blurring a web page to see where the eye wants to go.
As Jess Pugsley explains, “It’s something we do inherently in our business every day. Drew brought it out as something we could create as content. It’s an easy format to put together. It’s structured, quick, easy to produce, and frankly, he’s been creating his content a lot faster than I’ve been creating mine.”
The Blur Test
The workshop has fundamentally changed Fusionapps’ approach to marketing. Pugsley expounds:
“It’s the cornerstone of everything we’re doing. The workshop increased our efficiency. It’s allowed us to focus on other things that we couldn’t focus on before because our attention was on a broken content strategy that didn’t get us the results we wanted. Instead of devoting a whole month to the process, it’s opened up half the month for us to work on new content ideas and new audiences. We didn’t have that opportunity before.”
Not only is Fusionapps creating content more easily and more efficiently, their leads have already doubled.
“We’ve seen at least twice the number of web leads as a result of the content being produced. If we continue to follow the learnings from the workshop, we’ll continue to see increases in traffic and conversions.”
I wrote this and published it on Foodthinkers.com. It picked up a bit of traction on Stumbleupon.
Fresh Organic Honeydew vs. the Girly Drink Mystique
Most of the time, bright-colored, sweet liqueurs are co-opted into so-called girly drinks. Cosmos, Fuzzy Navels, Sexes-on-the-Beach, Alcopops, Appletinis … you get the picture. Unless you’re going for a feminine vibe, it’s hard to get away with drinking girly drinks.
But can these often tasty liqueurs escape this narrow typecasting? Can even the neon-colored Midori be imbibed in a gender-neutral, if not downright manly, fashion? This may be controversial, but the answer is yes.
The solution? Focus on freshness. Nobody in their right mind is going to turn down a drink that is organic and uber-fresh. Because when you’re dealing with the fruits of the earth, we all have a primal connection to that.
The honeydew is a great place to start experimenting along these lines. It has a sweet — but not too sweet — flavor and it has brilliant color. Find the ripest, freshest melon you can get your hands on. If you’re entertaining, cut the melon up in front of your guests. Let them taste a slice. Let them enter the full experience of preparing and making the cocktail.
So many mixed drinks are full of so many different ingredients that people have no connection. Connect yourself and your guests to the ingredients and you will have a richer hospitality experience. Since the Honeydew Dream recipe uses a juicer, you’re going to be making a lot of noise.
Embrace the noise and bring your guests into the kitchen as you juice. What could be more gratifying than big loud power tools that yield a delicately flavored, sweet cocktail?
Serve immediately. For real style points, serve it up in nice tall glasses to highlight the color and body of your handiwork.
Here is the dessert course of a series of videos I conceived, wrote and produced for Scanpan USA. I also found and retained the services of the talent.
This is one of a series of Q&A videos I wrote with Breville’s designers. I am also the interviewer. They are great guys.
This is an email I wrote for Breville promoting a contest we conceived to leverage the Foodbuzz audience and drive subscriptions and awareness.
When I was working on Food Thinkers, I was able to build a strong, niche foodie following on Twitter. By interacting with the community and posting a good combination of original content and valuable links, I was able to foster positive organic growth.
Editing, title and subtitle writing.
from Tippingpoint Labs
Writing for the web is different from writing for other media. Different types of sites have different types of goals. On an eCommerce…
from Tippingpoint Labs — Ghostwritten for Brett Virmalo
It seems like every time I meet with an agency, they bring along their social media experts. I’m not exactly sure what makes someone a…
World’s Quietest Band, an aptly named duo who performed from the center of the room, sans amplifiers or microphones, were on first. With a set of alternately humorous and poignant songs, and a series of performance antics that kept even the unfamiliar audience members engaged, they put on a memorable show.
Coolidge by the Descendents. Live on 3.1.13 in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Our first stab at this one. It’s both of our favorite song.
Here’s my feedback. You guys are creative, engaging, talented and clever. The love you have for each other as friends shines through and your chemistry as performers is magnetic. I LOVED it. Yes I am gushing. Yes I would have said ‘nice job’ if you were terrible. I want to see you in a non home environment.
Tuning the room, not just the instruments but all the people and the whole space, is essential. Without an in tune room, all you have is a concert. With it, you have something special.
Say You’re Sorry (live at The O’Brien’s place 12.18.12)
Use words. Use feeling. Be genuine and honest. Mean it.