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Read our best-practice tips and advice

Have you maxxed out your SEO for YouTube?

2/2/2026

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Young businesswoman looking at her computer screen in shock.Great photo by Grok.
Wait. What? SEO for YouTube? Is that even a thing? 
 
Here at Copel Communications, we are not SEO gurus. But fortunately, some of our clients are. So we learn a lot. And when it’s prudent and discreet to do so, we’ll share some of the love. Hence this article. 
 
Short takeaway/spoiler: You can, and should, max out the SEO for your YouTube videos. In this article, we’ll discuss how. 
 
But first, the genesis of this story. 
 
As we’d noted above, this comes to us from an actual client assignment which, as we write this, is ongoing; they have tons of YouTube videos (most of which, incidentally, we also scripted). 
 
The challenge, as our client made clear, was to drive more search-query traffic to this huge repository of videos, spread across multiple playlists on our client’s YouTube channel. 
 
But how? 
 
There are two parts to this. Both are basic, yet nuanced. They are: 
 
1. The actual title of the video. 
2. The YouTube description of the video
 
Let’s review each. 
 
1. The title
 
We’re talking B2B videos here. So you might have an existing video about a product or service that you offer to prospects. And what’s its title? Sure, it’s something like “Our Great Product.” 
 
You must understand that there’s the real world, and then there’s the SEO world. In the real world, populated solely by humans, “Our Great Product” is a perfectly good title. It tells people what the video is about. Simple. No clutter. Great. 
 
But in SEO World, it’s unfortunately insufficient. You want to “think backward” from what someone who would ultimately want that product or service would be searching on in, say, Google (or in AI; more on that in a minute). 
 
So if your Great Product solves Challenge X for, say, logistics executives, you might want to revise and expand the title accordingly: “Challenge-X-Solving Product for Logistics Executives Seeking Productivity Gains.” 
 
Not terribly exciting in the real world, but a step forward in SEO Land. 
 
But wait. That new title is pretty darned long. Aren’t there limits on this, imposed by, say, YouTube? 
 
There sure are. Titles max out at 100 characters, including spaces. The one we just noted above was only 66. So there’s room to play. 
 
Often, depending on the viewing device (desktop or laptop browser, tablet, or phone), that title will get truncated and lopped off with just an ellipsis (three dots or “. . .”) after the first few words. Meaning, the first few words are the most important. Because those are the ones that will stick. So factor that into your re-naming. Put the most important stuff first.
 
It's not the real world. Sure, humans will read this stuff, too, but they’re only part of the audience. The rest is web crawlers, spiders, and all the algorithms that the search engines employ to serve up results which hopefully include your video. 
 
Now that you know about 1. The Title, let’s proceed to 
 
2. The description
 
Clearly, this is much longer than the title, but some of the same rules apply. Stuff will get cut off before you see the clickable “…more” to reveal the rest of the copy; a quick test on our desktop browser clipped it off at around 60 words. 
 
The max is 5,000 characters (not words), which can include links, text, and hashtags. 
 
That’s a lot of copy. It’s almost like a blog. About 1,000 words. 
 
Again, you want to fill this with info that your human searchers are searching for (what problems will the product or service showcased in your video solve?), as well as what the web crawlers want to find. For our recent project, these videos often offered solutions that helped with numerous arcane technology platforms, so we included bullet lists of those platforms in the description. 
 
The search engines like stuff like that. 
 
Know what they don’t like? Verbatim copy stolen from your website; they’ll ding you for that. So you want original copy. 
 
And you want it written by a human. All the search engines can spot AI-written copy from a mile away (as can we), and they’ll ding you for it. 
 
Which gets back to AI-based search vs. classic Google search. The landscape is still shaking out as we write this; even the term AEO (“ask engine optimization”) may not have legs. But what we’re seeing already is a refreshing overlap of what makes for good SEO content vs. AEO content. If you can nail the SEO side, the AEO side will likely catch up. 
 
Bottom line: Depending on the number of YouTube videos you already have posted, this could be a quick or long-term retrofitting assignment. And it should definitely shape your efforts for future videos; write the new titles and YouTube descriptions at the same time that you write the scripts. It will save you time and effort. 
 
Need help with any of this stuff? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help. 

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Our top posts for consultants from 2025

12/1/2025

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Pleasantly surprised businessman at his computerGreat photo by Grok.
​Wait, it’s December already? We must have blinked. 
 
Because it’s already time for the round-up of our top posts for consultants from 2025—an annual tradition here at Copel Communications. Here, then, is your chance to catch any articles you may have missed, or to brush up on others you may want to re-visit: 

  • The most stress-reducing marketing tip you’ll read this week. This is, without a doubt, the most counterintuitive advice you’ll ever encounter. And you’ll love it! A ridiculously easy way to boost your marketing effectiveness. 
 
  • Trade-show prep made easy. You’d be surprised how much stuff is already yours, for free. And how many “wheels” have already been invented. Get the tips here. 
 
  • Is your business branding missing out on a blend word? Wait, what’s a “blend word” Or a portmanteau, for that matter? You’ll love this article; we’ve gotten great feedback from it—and it can really help boost your business, too. 
 
  • A ridiculously easy trick for generating fresh marketing content. It’s staring you in the face: A source, right in your office right now, of endless custom marketing content for your biz. Read the article to find out where. 
 
  • How to out-Google Google to broaden your marketing reach. We’re not SEO gurus, but some of our clients are, and we learned some wild tips that we freely share in this article. Take advantage! 
 
  • Selling a client story is more than anonymizing a client story. You want to tell the world how you helped a client succeed. But sometimes, there’s a slightly different path to take, which will generate more business. Find out what it is. 
 
  • So you want to be a podcast guest… What now? If you’re a thought leader, there’s nothing better than a podcast guest appearance for showing off your expertise, and engaging with new prospects. But becoming a guest is hardly straightforward. See how you can crack the code. 
 
  • ChatGPT Doesn’t Wear Shoes. And if you think it does, stop reading right here. Seriously: This article points up a big weakness in generative AI, which you can easily exploit, to your sales advantage. 
 
  • Sometimes it’s okay to ask the customer what they want. Wait—was Steve Jobs wrong? And if so, how can you profit? This is one of those staring-right-at-you revelations… you’re welcome! 
 
  • You’ll never believe the best way to tease your webinars! You’ll likely laugh out loud when you discover this surefire trick to boosting attendance at your next webinar. Who said marketing isn’t fun? 
 
  • How to McDonald-ize your B2B demo videos. Can you make a custom marketing video, showcasing your services… without any video footage on hand? And if so, how? Cash in on all the years of process improvement that we, and our clients, have been honing in this field. 
 
Phew! That should be enough reading and tips to tide you over for a little bit. 
 
But how about next year? Any topics you’d like us to address? Contact us and let us know! 

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Sometimes it’s okay to ask the customer what they want

9/2/2025

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Young businesswoman completing a Customer Satisfaction Survey at her computer.Great photo by Grok.
Steve Jobs famously said “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.” 
 
What did he mean by that? Is that a hard-and-fast rule that you should never break? If not, when should you break it? 
 
And most importantly, how can you generate more revenue from the answers to these questions? 
 
Let’s dive in! 
 
Creative inference
 
That (in)famous Steve Jobs quote was about his notion of eschewing focus groups when it came to product development. His thinking was, that if you’d asked a customer, say in 1983, what they “wanted,” in terms of electronic brainpower, they would have simply said “a better calculator.” They couldn’t envision a Macintosh, because they didn’t know what was technically possible, nor how to transform that technology into a wholly new product category which would surprise and delight them at every turn. 
 
Gee. Steve Jobs was onto something. Who’da thunk? 
 
Is this a hard-and-fast rule? Hate to be squishy, but it depends. If you really want to nail product or service development, you can certainly borrow a page from Steve Jobs. The whole idea of creatively inferring what customers want, based on their day-in-the-life situation, is a specialized practice that doesn’t come naturally to many business owners; as such, there are consultancies (and we’ve worked with them) which specialize in this. 
 
Let’s talk about marketing. And let’s assume, for now, that you’ve got a product or service to sell which already checks the surprise-and-delight boxes for your customers. 
 
If those customers are repeat customers, you have an opportunity here. Yep: you can ask them things.
 
Oh, the sacrilege!
 
Survey the situation
 
We recently helped a client craft a customer-satisfaction survey campaign. We say “campaign,” because it included a few components. Pay attention, and you’ll get ideas for your own business: 
 
Our client had always conducted customer-satisfaction surveys at the conclusion of any engagement with any of their clients. It was, and is, a sound business practice: It helps them to continually improve. 
 
But, assuming that they’re doing most things very well, it also makes for a very nice marketing opportunity. 
 
Think about that: Let’s say you’re a client of this company. They just served you very nicely. You’re about to move on, and lose that precious top-of-mind awareness of what they do… when you get a friendly email from them, asking you to please complete their customer-satisfaction survey. 
 
Aha. You’re instantly reminded of them! When you complete the survey, you’re instantly reminded of just what they did, and how good they were at it. What a wonderful reinforcement!
 
…But what if you don’t complete the survey? Then what? 
 
Well, you still got the email, inviting you to participate. And there was another dollop of incentive therein; as we’d said, this was a “campaign.”
 
Sweetening the deal
 
The customer-satisfaction survey email was a classic opportunity for our client—and for you, reading this—to easily capture low-hanging re-sell and/or up-sell opportunities. 
 
That’s because the email included a referral offer. 
 
It went something like this: 
 
“Complete the survey, and we’ll send you a $25 Amazon Gift Card. Bonus: After you’ve completed the survey, you can earn a $500 Amazon Gift Card by referring a new client to us. And to make you feel better about referring us, you can tell your friends that we’ll give them a $1,000 discount off of our services because you sent them our way! Everyone wins!”
 
You got that right. Everyone wins. 
 
So. The survey is somewhat anti-Jobsian, in that it asks customers how they feel about something that they already bought. But in that regard, Apple is no different: We’ve actually received surveys from them, asking us about products we’ve purchased from them… which have actually included radio-box options for products and features that Apple has not released yet (32-inch iMac, anyone?) So much for their ultra-secretive/customer-detached company culture. 
 
You can also use this technique for other, very basic stuff: What topics would your clients like to see addressed in your upcoming blogs, webinars, or YouTube videos? Ask them.
 
And if you toss in, say, a referral program along with the ask, we surely won’t hold it against you. 
 
Have a marketing challenge you could use help with? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help! 

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One blog is worse than none. Really!

7/15/2025

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Photo of a laptop showing a Great photo by Grok.
​We recently saw what we’re about to describe, and it left us aghast. 
 
Learn from the little tale we’re about to spin!
 
What you’re reading—this article, these very words—is a blog entry. Here at Copel Communications, we’ve been posting articles like this, every two weeks, for more than ten years, now. 
 
Thank you. We knew you’d be impressed. 
 
But what is this horror-inducing tale? you’re surely asking. And what does that have to do with the title of this article?
 
Okay. Maybe you’re not asking. We already knew you were smart. And likely figured it out already. But stay with us. 
 
So. We post blogs on a regular cadence. Twice a month. At the top of the month, each month, our blogs are more focused on our consultants audience. At mid-month—like this article—they’re more broadly geared toward our creatives audience. And yes, they certainly overlap. You don’t need to be running an ad agency to get a good takeaway, from this article, for your business. 
 
As we’d said. Every two weeks. Like clockwork. 
 
Now you don’t need to do them every two weeks. That’s our cadence. 
 
But man oh man. It is a cadence. 
 
Here’s the story: 
 
We were recently connected with a gentleman who was running his own creative agency; it specialized in web design. We’d been introduced by a mutual acquaintance, and had booked a Zoom call. 
 
Prior to the Zoom call, we did our due diligence. That is, we checked out this web designer’s website. And this is where we had our holy !@#$ moment. 
 
Just like our site—and almost everyone else’s—this designer’s website had a “Blog” section. (It could also be called “Recent Posts.” Same thing.) 
 
So we decided to check it out. 
 
And when we got there—we are not making this up—we saw—promise, we are not making this up: 
 
One blog. 
 
One. 
 
Just one. 
 
One.
 
And—to make matters worse—it was date-stamped. From about two years ago. 
 
Oh-my-goodness. 
 
Put yourself in the shoes of a prospect searching for a web designer. You Google. You find this designer’s site. And you check it out, just as we did. 
 
And, out of curiosity, you decide to catch up on their latest thought leadership and/or musings. And you see one sole blog, time-stamped from two years ago. 
 
Quick: What’s your reaction? 
 
You got it: Are they still in business???
 
Our reaction precisely. 
 
Whoever you are, reading this article, do not repeat this suicidal mistake. Do not project to the world—and to your prospects, for goodness’ sake—that you, once, two years ago, had an idea, just one, and then went completely brain dead but somehow managed to keep paying your URL hosting fees. 
 
It is worse, far worse, than not having any blogs at all. Clearly!
 
Now extrapolate from this story, this extreme example. 
 
Could you solve this by having two blogs? One from two years ago, and another from merely one year ago? 
 
Of course not. 
 
See where this is going? If you’re going to post, then post. And keep at it. 
 
But what if you’re not a content machine? That’s entirely possible.
 
Then do this: Create at least, say, a half-dozen entries. And make sure they’re not date-stamped when you post them. Needless to say, make sure that the topics of these articles are evergreen, too; you don’t want to, say, comment on that morning’s big headline from the news. 
 
Of course, if you’re a web designer, you may want to show off that you’re good at building, and updating, websites. Starting with your own. 
 
Need help with a challenge like this? Or any other? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help. 

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So you want to be a podcast guest… What now?

7/1/2025

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Man and woman chatting on mic in a podcast studioGreat photo by Grok.
​Podcasting has exploded. It’s been around so long now that many people don’t even realize that the word “podcast” has its roots in the word “iPod.” Which doesn’t even exist anymore. 
 
But you’re not interested in etymology. You want to build your business and make more money. Sure, you could create and host your own podcast—quite the lift—or you could essentially ride the coat-tails of someone else who already has a big following, and grab a little bit of that love for yourself. 
 
If only it were that easy. 
 
What are the odds? 
 
The sad reality of today’s podcast landscape (“podscape”?) is that the numbers are driven by popularity. Media exposure, once it gets going, can snowball. But it’s hard to get it going. 
 
We hate to employ this analogy, but it’s useful nonetheless: If you’re some business wonk, how many people will follow you? How many companies will be lining up for paid sponsorships? 
 
Now replace the words “business wonk” with “Kardashian.” 
 
Ouch. 
 
As we’d said, sad reality. 
 
This is not to say that business-related podcasts can’t have influence or big audiences; they can. But before you aim to be a guest on Acquired, for example, set your sights more realistically. You, too, can build momentum and rise up the pecking order. 
 
Who are you? (And who cares?)
 
An easy way to approach the I-want-to-be-a-podcast-guest-to-promote-my-business challenge is to look at it through the eyes of the podcast host. Why would they want you? Why would you help them? If you can definitively answer that question, you’re in good shape. 
 
Some considerations: 

  • Are you a thought leader in your industry? 
 
  • Are you the inventor or creator of some kind of breakthrough product, service, or solution? 
 
  • Are you a published author on your topic of expertise? 
 
  • How many years of experience can you claim? 
 
  • Are you telegenic? 
 
The more of the above boxes you can check, the better. 
 
Money can’t buy happiness
 
It wasn’t long ago that we would advise clients to reach out to attractive podcasts on their own—usually in the form of a note from, say, an underling who would say “Hey! I think my boss would be a great guest for your podcast! Here’s why!” And then that underling would rattle off as many of the bullet points we’d listed above, as possible. 
 
Dirty little secret: No underlings were harmed in the making of that email. They were actually ghost-penned by—you guessed it—Copel Communications. 
 
Looking back, those days were quaint. 
 
As we’d said at the outset, podcasting has exploded. There are well over four million podcasts out there today. Not episodes. But actual podcasts. And the good ones—the ones you want to be on—are overwhelmed by entreaties from wanna-be guests, 24/7. 
 
So what do you do? 
 
There are actually agencies out there, today, which specialize in booking you as a guest on podcasts. No kidding: Google them and you’ll find them. 
 
And you’ll quickly see a pattern, too: 
 
They’ll often offer tiers of service, for, say, booking you on two podcasts per month. Or four, for a higher fee. 
 
But here’s the catch: You can’t simply hire one of these agencies. Throw money at them—it won’t work. Because they need to vet you first.
 
It’s like any talent agent. They can only take your money if they can sell you in the first place.
 
Which brings us back, once again, to all of those bullet points we’d listed above. What do you think those podcast-guest-booking agencies’ applications look like? Yup. Just like our bullet points. 
 
We can’t guarantee that we can get you “signed” by a booking firm. But we can help you burnish your credentials and make an honest assessment of your odds. 
 
Contact us and let’s talk. 

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How to out-Google Google to broaden your marketing reach

5/1/2025

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Young man looking at computer screen and data trendsGreat photo by Grok.
​We recently had a client assignment that went something like this (don’t worry; we’ll tell you how you can profit from this story in just a moment): 
 
We’d helped them write a huge long-form article for their website, touting their experience with a given industry, in a given U.S. state.
 
Thing is, this client of ours—a B2B consultancy—also had similar experience with other industries. And—you guessed it—in other states, too. 
 
On the surface, this is a very simple assignment. You want to broaden your reach, and your SEO rankings, for more than one industry, in more than one state. 
 
Sound familiar? Read on. 
 
Thinking outside the algorithm
 
Granted, the original article was an SEO play. In other words, it went after very specific long-tail keywords that our client knew were attainable, in terms of search domination. They’d called us in to do the writing. 
 
The original article—as you’ll recall, for one industry, in one state—was quite specific and detailed. But now there were two challenges, in terms of making “spin-off” articles: 
 
1. Talking about the other industries. 
2. Talking about the other states. 
 
Oh. And there was a third challenge, which was arguably bigger than the first two: 
 
3. Convincing Google that none of the spin-off articles were, in fact, spin-off articles. 
 
So Challenges 1 and 2 were fairly straightforward. To wit: 

  • As far as talking about our client’s expertise serving other, specific industries, we were well-versed on those topics, and had plenty of material to draw from. This is good, because it already makes the first spin-off article substantially different from the original, in Google’s eyes. Of course, that won’t help with the subsequent spin-off articles targeting the same industry. 
 
  • For serving the other states, a little research was required. This was admittedly a fun assignment: We found quick high-school-level fact-sheets on each state, and also visited the website of each state’s visitor’s bureau, to learn fun facts, nicknames of different areas, and so on, so we could pen these with a better level of local familiarity. 
 
(Did we do this 49 times? No. We didn’t. Our client had us rank all 50 U.S. states by population, and we went after the biggest 25. Smart, and cost-effective.) 
 
So now, armed with these different buckets of data, it came time to write all of the spin-off articles. 
 
Sure, we could’ve commanded Word to do a search-and-replace, on the original article, to plug in “Industry B” for “Industry A,” and even “State No. 2” for “State No. 1.” And even though the resulting article would be totally fine in the eyes of an Industry B prospect living in State No. 2, Google would not be amused. 
 
So it was time to get more creative. We had to re-order ideas and arguments, move paragraphs, re-title headlines and subheads, and change the phrasing within most sentences… to the point where the spin-off article was materially different from the original, yet still sold, potently, to the proper audience, toiling in the proper industry, while living in the targeted state. 
 
To AI or not to AI
 
We know what you’ve been thinking all this time: Why not hand off a basic assignment like this to ChatGPT? Isn’t that, after all, what it excels at? 
 
Yes and no. As we’ve discovered, ChatGPT can really help non-writers look better. For actual writers, the opposite is true. And that was the case here. We actually let ChatGPT take the first stab at this assignment. And its results worked in letter, but not in spirit. There were just too many flubs, none of which would be acceptable to this demanding client of ours. 
 
Could we fix those flubs ourselves? Absolutely. And we, at first, tried. But we quickly realized that it was actually less work to follow the process we’d described above than to babysit ChatGPT for this. 
 
Fast-forward a few weeks, and all the articles were written and illustrated (with the graphic team taking an analogous approach to ours) and posted online. The client was happy, and most important, the effort paid off in the SEO results. 
 
So it was a lot of effort, but certainly worth it. 
 
Need help with a tricky assignment like this? While we do a lot of big-picture marketing and creative strategy, we’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get into the weeds. Contact us and let’s talk. 

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A ridiculously easy trick for generating fresh marketing content

4/1/2025

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Attractive business woman smiling at the camera.Great photo by Grok.
​You may know—if you don’t, here it comes—that we’ve been writing these blogs, twice a month, for more than ten years, here at Copel Communications. 
 
How do we always have something new to talk about? 
 
More important for you and your business: How can you always have something new to talk about? 
 
And when we say “talk about,” we’re, well, talking about things like blog entries. Videos. Social posts. Stuff that keeps you out there, in the eyes of your target audience, as a thought leader. 
 
Interesting note: This becomes all the more challenging in the age of generative AI. How can you possibly stand out amid the overwhelming tsunami of auto-generated material? 
 
Fast forward
 
We recently gave a presentation on this exact topic. We won’t dive into the details here, but AI—tools like ChatGPT—are amazing at effectively ingesting and then memorizing (how’s that for a mixed metaphor?) the entire internet. Just as easily, they can spit out (first half of previous metaphor) content at will, using said input. 
 
But they have one massive limitation that you don’t. It’s why their “intelligence” is artificial, and yours is quite real. 
 
We’ll circle back to their weakness—and your strength—in just a second. But first, let’s just talk about the mundane challenge of populating your marketing editorial calendar. 
 
You do have a marketing editorial calendar, don’t you? 
 
Oh, don’t be embarrassed. Lots of companies lack them. But it’s never too late to start. 
 
Think of it this way: Why break into a flop sweat every time you need to push out new material on a pre-determined cadence? If that’s an hour of stress, say, twice a month, why not eliminate it?
 
The solution is easy: Dedicate one big chunk of time, typically around year-end, to simply jot down a list of every month of the year, and then brainstorm the topic you’ll develop content for, for each month. It’s hard, but it’s a one-shot effort, and you’ll end up with a year’s worth of topics. 
 
Yes, it’s hard. But there’s a neat trick to it, as the headline of this article has not-so-subtly implied. 
 
Back to that ChatGPT weakness. 
 
Hindsight is overrated
 
ChatGPT seems brilliant because it can memorize the entire internet. That’s some feat. But here’s a feat you accomplish every day, which it can’t do: 
 
You look forward.
 
The internet is a repository of stuff from the past.
 
If you can spot trends among your clients, guess what? You’re already smarter than ChatGPT.
 
This dovetails with our populate-the-calendar challenge rather nicely. 
 
While you may be doing this at year-end (or right now, no one cares), you’ll be using information that ChatGPT has zero access to: Your thoughts, and your files. 
 
So here—finally!—is the trick we’d teased at the outset: 
 
Looking for topics for marketing material for your business? Look no further than your recent invoices.
 
Yep. You read right. Your invoices are magic fodder for this assignment. 
 
Look at any given one. It shows how you earned your keep, and how you delivered unique value, for any given client. And therein lies a story. Think back on what you’d billed for. There was, invariably, a challenge to solve. And you solved it. (And your client was happy to pay you for that expertise.) 
 
That’s a story. It’s a cool story. It’s a story that showcases your uniqueness and thought leadership. It’s also a story that ChatGPT couldn’t write in a million years. 
 
Here at Copel Communications, we practice what we preach. We build our editorial blog-post calendar, and stick to it. And we routinely open up our own billing files for cool stories that we can anonymize and share with you for handy tips and lessons learned. 
 
Need help with that next marketing challenge? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help! 

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The most stress-reducing marketing tip you’ll read this week

1/2/2025

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Woman holding glowing lightsGreat photo by Matheus Bertelli.
Special news! Sure, we’ve got a good blog article here, and we’ll get to it in just a second. But first, a little announcement, which segues to this article quite nicely: 
 
We’re proud to announce that this article, these very words you are reading right now, are officially our tenth anniversary blog post. That’s right: We started publishing these in January 2015, and at that time, committed to publishing them twice a month. 
 
If you’re unaware—or simply curious—our cadence goes like this: At the top of the month, we publish articles focused primarily for our consulting/business-owner audience. At mid-month, we publish blogs focused a little more toward our “creative” audience, which includes ad agencies and other creative people we enjoy working with. 
 
Ten years! And we never missed a post. That’s 240 articles, if we’ve done our math right. 
 
And we’re not stopping now. Thanks so much for joining us for this great, long ride! Let’s dive into our latest topic. 
 
Why blogging shouldn’t be a New Year’s resolution
 
If you watched any TV during New Year’s, you were surely inundated with ads for gym memberships. It’s as predictable as sunrise. 
 
Why? Because people invariably make a New Year’s resolution to “get in shape,” and those gyms are all too happy to cash in. 
 
Be honest. How many people have you known (you may be one of them) who made one of these resolutions, joined a gym, bragged to all their friends for the first month or two… and then kind of quietly quit thereafter? 
 
Getting in shape takes commitment. In that regard, it’s exactly like blogging. Or doing social posts. Pretty much anything that has to do with your marketing outreach. 
 
Not everyone is an Olympian or an NFL star. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t whip your marketing into shape. The good news: It’s much easier than doing squats or lifting weights. 
 
You might be surprised at the trick to all this. 
 
Ready? 
 
Aim low.
 
What??? 
 
What????
 
You read right. This is counterintuitive advice if ever we’d dispensed any. 
 
Aim low.
 
Allow us to explain. 
 
The attainable cadence
 
The reason that so many people burn out on those January gym memberships is that they aim unrealistically high. So they over-do it. They can’t sustain that level of exertion. And so they just drop out. By aiming so high, they turn it into an all-or-nothing proposition. 
 
Which is exactly what you don’t want to do. 
 
So ask yourself this: How many blogs could I reasonably push out, every single month?
 
Factor into your answer disruptions like client emergencies and vacation time. 
 
Now take your answer, and cut it in half. 
 
Really? Really. 
 
The resulting number should be laughably easy to attain. And that’s the number you want.
 
For us, here at Copel Communications, we could probably turn these out every single week. But that’s pushing it. So we do it every two weeks, i.e., twice a month. And, as we’d noted above, we’ve never missed a beat. 
 
The calendar trick
 
Surely, we’ve had our share of client emergencies, vacation time, and what-not. But the trick is to create what’s called an editorial blog post calendar in which you pre-select the topics you want to blog about. 
 
Once you have that in place (we do ours in the fourth quarter each year for the subsequent year), you can then use it to write your blogs in advance so that you always have a cushion for when those client emergencies and/or vacation dates arise. 
 
Think of it. You now have two cushions: 
 
1) You cut your originally-intended cadence in half. 
 
2) You have extra blogs, already written, in the pipeline, which you can publish with a single click. 
 
When you look at it—and do it—that way, there’s zero stress. And you hit the mark every time. 
 
Again, blogging is just one type of output. You can apply this exact same approach to all kinds of marketing and business-development outreach, including emails, webinars, videos, you name it. 
 
Who’da thought it would all start by aiming low? 
 
Need help with this or similar challenges? Contact us. We’d be delighted to pitch in. 

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What is a marketing “content package”? And why would you want one?

6/3/2024

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Woman writing on whiteboard covered with sticky notesGreat photo by Alena Darmel.
​Here at Copel Communications, we get tasked with lots of different writing assignments. There are video scripts. Blogs. Case studies. Email campaigns. Sales decks. Landing pages. Social posts. You name it. 
 
Thing is, a lot of these overlap. 
 
And therein lies an opportunity—for you—to approach your marketing outreach more effectively and cost-efficiently. Learn from our experience and evolved best practice. 
 
It’s actually pretty simple, but it requires both foresight and discipline. 
 
Signed, sealed deliverables
 
Our clients will typically want to promote something (a product, a service, an announcement) to as many people/prospects as possible. Which requires leveraging various media, such as web pages, YouTube, email, and so on. 
 
And here’s where the “package” concept originated. We realized, early on, that all of these deliverables-centered-around-the-same-story were basically all parts of the same, bigger thing. Thus we coined the phrase “content package”; you might not see it described that way elsewhere. 
 
The idea of “packaging” these, however, is powerful. First of all, it’s hugely efficient. If you’re going to create one of these things, create all of them… at the same time.
 
Note that we said “create.” Not, say, “post” or “publish.” That might be staggered, depending on your media plan. 
 
But you do want to create them all at once. It’s going to be easier and more efficient for your writing resource, since they’ll need to align their proverbial ducks just once. That will translate to more consistent content across the package’s discrete elements—and lower costs, too. 
 
Here’s another advantage of packaging these assignments together: It’s effectively a marketing checklist. By green-lighting a package, you eliminate the possibility of later discovering that you’d inadvertently left one element out. 
 
What’s the core asset?
 
The components of any content package will be dissimilar, not in terms of facts or messaging, but rather in terms of sheer size. The package might include, say, an 800-word blog, along with a 280-character tweet (or X-chirp, or whatever it’s called nowadays). 
 
The point is, if you’re going to create all this stuff, know that it’s always easier to cut than to add. That matters, whether you’re creating the materials yourself or assigning them to someone else. 
 
In other words, you don’t start with the tweet. Identify the biggest, most detailed, and labor-intensive element in the package, and create that one first. Once it’s nicely honed, you can use it as a feeder for all of the others. It’s not quite as simple as doing a “Save as…” and then chopping down, because there are other constraints and style and audience factors to take into consideration. But still, all the heavy lifting should be done for the “core” asset.
 
Example: We have a client who publishes case studies in a tightly-defined three-tab format (“Client,” “Team,” “Solution”). But they’ll also push out a more narrative-style blog about the same story—and the blog always has more detail, captioned illustrations, and little behind-the-scenes anecdotes baked into it. So we always do the blog first. Then the case study. Then the three-touch email campaign. Then the social teasers for the blog and the case study… you get the idea. 
 
Packaged goods
 
As we’d mentioned earlier, creating content packages requires foresight and discipline. Foresight, in that you must often delay gratification, knowing that one element of the package may well roll out at some time in the future. And discipline, in that you must remember to employ the content-package approach, and stick to it. 
 
But, like any best practice, once you get used to doing this, you’ll find it becomes second nature… to the vast advantage of your marketing outreach, and your production budget. 
 
Need help “packaging” up any content, or creating the elements thereof? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help. 

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Our top articles for creatives from 2023

12/18/2023

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Thoughtful woman writing in notebook with quill pen.Great photo by Andrea Piacquadio.
​It’s that time of year again: Time for the annual year-in-review of our top articles from Copel Communications. We do two of these each December: one for our “Creatives” audience, and another for our consultants audience. 
 
This one is the former. (We’d published the other one recently.) Here are the top articles we’ve posted for creatives, chock full of tips and tricks that you can put to use ASAP. Enjoy! 

  • Deep geek for creative. That client wants you to jam up a pretty headline of yours with tons of SEO verbiage… and they’re right? Grab some good lessons learned, while you satisfy your clients and your creative instincts. It’s all here. 
 
  • How to fall (back) in love with creative work. We all burn out at times. This article, posted on Valentine’s Day, gives you plenty of ways to re-kindle that spark. So you can get back to work again… and love doing it. Again. 
 
  • Why should you avoid creative choices that you like? Provocative! Counterintuitive! And yet, client-pleasing and business-building, too. We won’t give you any spoilers here. Just click, read, learn, and enjoy. 
 
  • How to get better creative out of your creative people. This one went viral, with thousands of impressions, reads, likes, and comments on social media. Must’ve touched a nerve! Regardless, it’s chock full of helpful pointers. Check it out. 
 
  • How to create an (easy) wireframe for your website. Why do some agencies insist on making these simple exercises so needlessly complicated? If you can’t guess the jaded answer already, you’ll find it here. Along with plenty of tips and tricks for knocking out a fast, effective blueprint for your next website. 
 
  • How to get better voiceovers from your V.O. artist. How do you “direct without directing”? What does that even mean? And how will it help you to produce better content? Learn that, and more, in this truly helpful article.
 
  • Why our clients hate “production” blogs. First off, what is a “production blog”? Why do our clients hate them? Would yours? Blogging is still a reliable business-driver, so be sure you do it right. Regardless of your experience level, get the pointers you need here. 
 
  • How do you (or should you) sell to people when they’re down? This is a sensitive subject. And the article is based on a recent experience with a client of ours. You might be surprised how universal this topic it is—and how many applications it has to your day-to-day workload. Check it out. 
 
  • How to stay organized without reading. Talk about a go-to article for creatives! You may have figured out some of the tricks we mention here, but certainly not all of them. This is a great quick-read article that you’ll profit from for years. Enjoy! 
 
  • Taking Sides: Word vs. Google Docs (and others). Now that all of the big platforms have rolled out real-time collaborative working capabilities, how do you take advantage of them? Bigger question: Or should you?? We're not afraid to step on lots of toes. This one is written for you, not for some behemoth software vendor. 
 
  • What we’re thankful for this year. From creature comforts to cutting-edge tech, there’s a lot to be thankful for, as called out in this Thanksgiving-themed article. Can you guess which one we’d saved for last? 
 
That wraps up this year. And so… Happy New Year! 
 
Any topics you’d like to see us address in 2024? Contact us and let us know!  

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