reynoldswriting.com Blog

If you sell products or services during the holiday season, you’re well aware of the need for a strong marketing/advertising push, planned and executed well ahead of time so you can amplify brand awareness and build up a head of steam for those big sales and specials instead of getting lost in the crowd. But if your business closes down for the holidays, you might as well suspend your marketing operations too, right? Well, I’m biased, of course, but I’d advise against it – because the consistency of your marketing and branding efforts in December will determine whether anyone remembers you in January.

For example, this article is being posted on Christmas Day, but of course it isn’t likely to get a lot of eyeball traffic today. It may not get much more attention tomorrow, either, as people continue to enjoy their time away from the office or engage in the mad scramble to return or exchange gifts (an epic struggle that merits its own Hollywood title — Christmas: The Return). Even so, this post, this little chunk of branding, is right here for whoever does see it. I’m displaying marketing activity, therefore I still exist. I blog, therefore I am.

Want to keep your marketing wheels turning and still enjoy a much-deserved break? Then plan for it. Engage your copywriters, designers and consultants early enough to construct the December leg of your marketing campaign well in advance. Many of my clients fast-tracked their December requests for just this reason. They knew I wasn’t going to be around that week, they knew they weren’t going to be around either, but they also knew that their business needed to maintain a degree of visibility and marketing consistency. The sooner you communicate with your marketing professionals, the better off you’ll be heading into January.

And speaking of January – have you got your 2012 marketing campaign ready for action? I have several clients who already have clear ideas and timelines for introducing new strategies while keeping up the current ones. Those folks will be able to launch 2012 with all systems go because they took the extra steps at the end of 2011 to load the rocket and clear the gantry. Of course you can initiate a marketing campaign any day of the year, but there’s something about the New Year that makes us want to start new things. In some countries it’s customary to clean the house top to bottom, getting all the old dust out of the way to make room for shiny new endeavors. January makes a great time for a clean sweep – so contact me if you’re ready to take a new broom to your company’s marketing copy.

That is all. And now, back to your (and my) vacation.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

Oddly enough, millions of words have been written on the subject of writer’s block — it seems that writers never tire of writing about not being able to write. And there are as many different coping strategies as there are writers. Some just stare at a blank page or screen for days, months or even years, waiting for, well, something. Others write down anything and everything that enters their heads in the hopes that two or three consecutive words will actually be worth keeping. Ernest Hemingway used to end each writing day in the middle of a sentence so he’d at least have some direction for starting the next day. Then there are the compulsive rewriters and re-rewriters who must polish a sentence until it gleams before they can gather the courage to try another one.

As as you might image, articles about getting un-blocked, such as this one I found recently on Copyblogger, are popular among professional writers. But of course you don’t have to make your living at the keyboard to struggle with writer’s block, as countless non-writers have discovered for themselves. For what it’s worth, here are a few tips that I’ve found useful for blocking the block:

Call it something else. The very term “writer’s block” can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Gee, the words are coming slowly this morning. Maybe I have WRITER’S BLOCK.” Well, if you didn’t have it before, you probably do now. But isn’t it possible that you’re just tired, unwell, or distracted by some completed unrelated event in your life? If so, maybe you can’t focus on any particular activity just at the moment. You don’t have writer’s block, you have (fill in the blank). Deal with that issue and the writing problem may well resolve itself.

Sneak up on it. “I’ll just jot down a few notes.” I’m always telling myself that. When I’m not sure how to begin a piece of writing, I don’t bother with the beginning at all. I just start writing stuff that may end up going anywhere (or nowhere). If I forced myself to come up with a brilliant beginning before I could move on, I’d never finish. I just write with no preconceived plans or expectations — and before I know it, my “notes” have mushroomed into a full draft.

Take frequent short breaks. If you wear yourself out, sooner or later the ideas will dry up and you’ll find yourself stuck. That’s fatigue, not writer’s block. You can prevent it by forcing yourself to stand up and go do something else — anything — for a few minutes. (Don’t stay away too long, though, or you may never come back.) Recharge your brain a little and then get back to work. Do this at regular intervals, whether you feel like stopping or not.

And if all else fails, you can always hire me to do the writing instead.

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.