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Gurners sign up on the night then its hideous faces galore at the World Gurning Championships.

The increase compares with a decrease during the the same period in 2023.

Do you fancy Vernon's live 90's dance tour that's coming to the HMV Empire?

The latest candidate for the post has withdrawn just days after the appointment was announced.

Every website project starts with a leap of faith.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way,” - John C Maxwell, best-selling author, speaker and coach.

Genuine thought leadership is a powerful differentiator for any business.

Articles and reports that demonstrate true expertise, authority and insight stand apart from your competitors’ me-too blah-blah. They build trust, enhance your brand, help close deals and defend your margins.

High-quality content also avoids the Google penalties that come with spammy or AI-created content. Don’t take our word for that, here’s what Google has to say about creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. (See our take on AI in marketing too.)

What is high-quality content?

Thought-leadership copywriting provides unique insights, presents new research and uses data. It covers complex subjects in a new and engaging way. It is designed to expand readers’ understanding. It manages to be persuasive but not pushy.

Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer. High-quality marketing content requires expert copywriters. (Read more about what a copywriter actually does.)

To get it right, writers require a deep understanding of their audiences, clients, products, the wider context of the industry, and the current shape of the market. For businesses embracing thought-leadership content, that’s where the true value lies.

But you have to invest time, money and marketing effort to realise this value. That can be challenging when business leaders and decision-makers can’t see the return on investment (ROI).

Let’s explore the ROI of copywriting and thought leadership to help you build a business case for their value.

What are the likely costs of copywriting and thought leadership?

The short answer? It depends. The long answer? There’s no one-size-fits-all cost and most writers will offer packages or tailored pricing. According to a study by Clutch, the average UK digital agency charges approximately £98.10 per hour. Research by DDIY suggests that a monthly content marketing retainer can cost between £1,805.78 and £23,551.50.

Of course, an hourly rate doesn’t tell you much about how long something will take or the required level of expertise needed to do an outstanding job.

That’s why, at Articulate, we charge for copywriting on a fixed price basis related to the length and complexity of the piece.

For maximum transparency and flexibility, we have a tariff—a kind of menu—of common writing deliverables such as case studies, white papers, or thought leadership articles. Our fixed prices include research, interviewing, writing, project management, editing, proofreading two rounds of revisions (if required), keyword optimisation, and, for blog articles, meta descriptions, a featured image and a couple of social posts.

Our marketing retainers start at £4,100 per month and one-off copywriting projects start at £5,000 for things like a case study library or a lead generation campaign centred around a flagship report or ebook.

We charge for website copywriting slightly differently, on a per-word basis, because of the additional complexity of integrating it with design, search engine optimisation and the rest of the development process. Also, in our experience, writing website copy for clients is like writing poetry and demands a high level of experience and client knowledge for your most important marketing asset.

Broadly speaking though, the cost of a content project will vary depending on the following factors: the who, the what, the when, the where and above all, the why.

The Who

Freelance copywriters and marketing agencies will charge different prices because, of course, their overheads and offerings are different. An agency may cost more but brings benefits such as editing, additional skills (e.g. SEO, research), better availability and turnaround times.

Then there are factors such as years of experience, location, specialisations and so on. You might also consider an in-house or staff writer who will require a competitive salary.

There are specific skills required to be a good marketing copywriter, including:

• Marketing know-how
• Business, sector and client knowledge
• Interviewing skills
• Research and analytical skills
• Search engine optimisation, e.g. writing with keywords
• Agility with tone of voice and messaging
• Self- and pair-editing
• Proofreading
• Social media writing skills
• Content planning and ideation

It’s helpful to put a good marketing copywriter with a reasonable level of skill and five or more years of experience in the same bracket as, say, a lawyer or an experienced, professional journalist writing for a trade magazine or reputable newspaper.

Typically, in an agency, they will work in teams that provide complementary skills and coverage for illness or holidays. All of this is hard to replicate in-house. (For more on this see our article: Should you hire a marketing person or a marketing agency.)

The What

The nature of your business and its content can impact how much copywriting will cost you. For technical or niche businesses, you’ll need to work with writers who understand your industry thoroughly or who have the skills and processes in place to learn about it efficiently.

You might not need to work with specialists if your company wants more generic content. But generic isn’t going to cut through the noise. Similarly, the length of your copy will affect the price, too. Some providers charge per project, others per word.

The When

How quickly and how often do you need copywriting and thought leadership content? Time-sensitive projects may incur additional costs to help you meet deadlines. And the more content you need, the more it will add up. A freelancer will struggle to produce tens of thousands of words in a short period of time but an agency can bring a whole team and a well-oiled production process to the challenge. You can, however, explore these helpful tips from the Articulate Marketing team on how to make every piece of content work harder for you.

The Where

Where are you posting, hosting or submitting the writing? The platform will impact the word count and, in turn, the price. A detailed report, an eBook or a long-form pillar page will set you back more than a 750-word blog post for your company website, for example. Similarly, copy for your home page might be short but it is very important and getting it right might take longer and cost more on a per-word basis than a more general piece.

The Why

Here’s where it gets interesting. You might know who you want to work with, what you want them to produce, when you need it and where it’s going. But do you know why you’re doing it? Have you considered who you want to read your thought-leadership content? And what you want them to do once they’ve read it?

From top-of-the-funnel content for brand awareness and lead generation to bottom-of-the-funnel content for conversions or customer retention, your copywriter needs to know what role your content plays in the context of your wider business.

In our opinion, the ‘why’ separates good writers from bad ones — and both kinds from the likes of ChatGPT. This is why we call our writers ‘marketing copywriters’ because they understand how to weave their work into broader marketing objectives.

So, what’s the ROI of copywriting and thought leadership?

Whether you choose to go external or in-house, there’s significant value in investing in the art of copywriting. Here’s why.

Demonstrate relevance and expertise

A study by Edelman and LinkedIn found that 73 percent of decision-makers say an organisation’s thought leadership content is more trustworthy for assessing its capabilities than its marketing materials.

The same study found that 80% of respondents want to see third-party data included in it, and 44% believe the highest-quality content helps them better understand a business's challenges and opportunities.

Decision-makers want to know why they should work with you. And your knowledge, experience, and expertise are your differentiators. The ROI? As many as 60 per cent of decision-makers say they’re willing to pay a premium to work with a business that produces good thought leadership.

Establish your brand and raise your profile

While thought-leadership and content marketing materials are busy showcasing your expertise, they’re also putting you on the map. Readers get to know your brand and tone of voice (TOV). Decision-makers may even share your content online, quote your research in their content, and reference your work conversationally.

The front of a buyer’s mind is a powerful place to be. Especially when we consider that 70 percent of C-suite executives said thought leadership content made them question their current B2B relationships — with 54 percent realizing other vendors might better understand their needs, according to a study by Edelman and LinkedIn.

Reach new audiences

A key part of establishing your brand with thought leadership is connecting with new audiences. Businesses often have a clear idea of who they want to work with and who wants to work with them. But growing your brand presence with thought leadership content means you’ll start to appear in new places online.

For example, when Basecamp founder Jason Fried tweeted about his company’s new ad, which called out Google’s paid ad strategy, he subsequently received over 1,000 backlinks to the company’s website. Depending on how you value backlinks, that could be worth up to $500,000 in SEO benefits.

This kind of thought-leadership content will help you rank for new search engine queries, generate more backlinks, appear in different social media feeds and so on. You might even find that your successful written content creates entirely new opportunities for you — podcast appearances, webinar invitations, the chance to speak at industry events and so on.

Build existing customer loyalty

Your written content doesn’t just serve the purpose of attracting new audiences. It’s a valuable tool for staying connected to your existing customers (and re-connecting with previous ones, too).

According to Accenture, 80 percent of businesses spend less than a third of their time and budget on customer-focused messaging. This presents a clear missed opportunity when considering loyal customers' ROI.

On average, a loyal customer is worth up to 10 times the value of their original purchase, according to the Office of Consumer Affairs. And, Bain and Co found that increasing customer retention by two percent has the same impact as reducing costs by 10 percent. Remember: the grass is greener where you water it!

Content is still king

Powerful, engaging, well-written thought leadership content has a functional role to play, too. Of course, establishing your brand, growing your audience, and giving your customers something to talk about are important. But high-quality written content is necessary to get discovered online. For example, brands that regularly update their blog get 67 percent more leads than those that don’t, according to Absurd Insights.

Similarly, search engines are starting to prioritise the quality of the content they promote to users, cracking down on misinformation, clickbait, spam, and AI-generated content. For example, Google looks for content showcasing experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This is called E-E-A-T content and thought leadership is precisely the kind of writing that reflects these crucial areas.

Recent Google updates penalise companies that fill up their site with cheap AI-generated SEO content. This tactic is just empty calories and now it’s creating marketing heart attacks for companies that tried it. The need for high-quality EEAT content has never been higher.

The final word

The ROI of thought leadership is going to take a lot of work to prove. That’s because it’s about more than just numbers. It’s about value. An AI-generated blog post will save you time and probably be fairly accurate. It may even generate a small amount of traffic (before Google recognises it as AI and penalises you for it, that is). But well-written thought leadership is a conversation starter. It’s the kind of content people are still thinking about after they’ve logged off. It makes potential customers think — and start questioning whether they’re working with the right providers. It’s full of insight, personality, colour and expertise. You can’t put a price on that.

Read or add comments

Bristol City midfielder George Earthy called up to the England Under-21 squad for the first time after a series of withdrawals due to either injury or transitions into the senior squad.

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We're adding support for return policies at the organization level, which means you'll be able to specify a general return policy for your business instead of having to define one for each individual product you sell.

This post discusses a new and easier way to add shipping or return information directly in Search Console.

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Whether or not you support the leaking of 250,000 embassy cables to the now infamous Wikileaks website, it certainly makes you think. Whatever business you are in there always emails or data that would be embarrassing or more likely harmful to our business if they were made widely available. So what is the lesson to be learnt from the Cablegate affair.

The blame for the issue seems to be landing on a certain US private Bradley Manning. But I place the blame directly on a lack of Governance and poor IT systems. And the measures that have so far been announced - things like removing CD drives from classified systems - are simply the wrong approach. The real problem is why any one person - whatever level of clearance they had - should have access to all 250,000 cables.

Without going into the details of XACML and policy-based entitlement models, suffice it to say that the right approach is to base access not only on the person, but the reason they have for accessing the data. Using policy-based entitlement, it is possible to have a well-defined Governance model where a person is given access to just the right data at just the right time for just the right purpose, and that this can be managed in a process-driven, auditable and controlled manner.

If you live in a crime area and you leave your door open, you will be burgled. If you don't put in place good security and data governance, then it is you that will be blamed, not just the guy who steals your data.

And if you want the technical low-down on XACML, start here, here and here.

A partir de un poema del escritor inglés Philip Larkin, el autor de esta nota afirma: "Para traducir un texto de manera satisfactoria hace falta desearlo".

POR Andres Neuman


PHILIP LARKIN. Poeta, bibliotecario, novelista y crítico de jazz británico.

Recuerdo, traduzco a mi amado Larkin: “La noche no ha dejado nada más que mostrar:/ ni la vela ni el vino que dejamos a medias,/ ni el placer de tocarse;/ solamente este signo de tu vida/ caminando por dentro de la mía”.

Amor y traducción se parecen en su gramática. Querer a alguien implica transformar sus palabras en las nuestras. Esforzarnos en entender a la otra persona e, inevitablemente, malinterpretarla. Construir un precario lenguaje en común. Para traducir un texto de manera satisfactoria hace falta desearlo. Codiciar su sentido. Cierta necesidad de poseer su voz. En ese diálogo que alterna rutina y fascinación, conocimiento previo y aprendizaje en marcha, ambas partes terminan modificadas.

El amante se mira en la persona amada buscando semejanzas en las diferencias. Cada pequeño hallazgo queda incorporado al vocabulario compartido. Aunque, por mucho que intente capturar el idioma del otro, lo que al final recibe es una lección acerca del idioma propio. Así de seductora y refractaria es su convivencia. Quien traduce se acerca a una presencia extraña en la cual, de alguna forma, se ha reconocido. El texto le presenta un misterio parcialmente indescifrable y, al mismo tiempo, una suerte de familiaridad esencial. Como si traductor y texto ya hubieran hablado antes de encontrarse.

Traductores y amantes desarrollan una susceptibilidad casi maníaca. Dudan de cada palabra, cada gesto, cada insinuación que surge enfrente. Sospechan celosamente de cuanto escuchan: ¿qué habrá querido decirme en realidad? Amando y traduciendo, la intención del otro se topa con el límite de mi experiencia. Yo me leo leyéndote. Te escucho en la medida en que sepas hablarme. Pero, si digo algo, es porque me has hablado. Dependo de tu palabra y tu palabra me necesita. Se salva en mis aciertos, sobrevive a mis errores. Para que esto funcione, tenemos que admitir los obstáculos: no vamos a poder leernos literalmente. Voy a manipularte con mi mejor voluntad. Lo que no se negocia es la emoción.



Fuente: Revista Ñ http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/literatura/Philip-Larkin-traduccion-gramatica_0_719928019.html.

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L’info du jour | 10 novembre - Mi-journée

L’info du jour | 11 novembre - Mi-journée

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