Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

How to Avoid Jargon and Make Your Writing More Compelling

Published | Last Updated By 5 Comments

Photo by Christin Hume
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook.

Imagine your computer keyboard has started acting up or an appliance in your house has broken. Ugh!

If you’re like me, one of the first things you do is head to Google to see if there’s a tutorial that will help you fix the problem on your own.

You scroll through the search results, and one of the articles looks promising. You click it and begin reading, hoping it will help you.

But the author starts using technical terms and jargon you don’t understand. Your head begins to swim.

You don’t finish reading and, instead, quickly click away to another article so you don’t waste any more time.

Why did the author lose your attention?

Well, those jargon words and technical terms probably made you feel like you were trudging through a bog, rather than effortlessly sliding from one sentence to the next.

Are your readers having a similar experience when they read your writing? [Read more…]

How to Captivate Your Readers with Seeds of Curiosity

Published | Last Updated By 26 Comments

Photo by Joshua Lanzarini
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Have you ever become so engrossed in a TV show that you spend hours binge-watching the episodes? (My weakness is British murder mysteries.)

Maybe your friends told you it was an amazing show that you absolutely had to see. So when you finally have free time on a Saturday evening, you decide to put on the first episode.

At first, you’re leaning back in your chair and enjoying the show, but you have one eye on your phone as you scroll through social media. (Yes, I’m guilty of this.)

And then: Bam! The unexpected happens.

A plot twist changes everything. [Read more…]

The Powerful Ingredient in ‘A Christmas Carol’ That Will Make Your Writing and Marketing Compelling

Published | Last Updated By 10 Comments

Illustration from the first edition of A Christmas Carol | Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham via Victorianweb.org
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Every Christmas Eve, my whole family gathers around the TV to watch the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol. It’s one of our favorite traditions.

(If you haven’t seen this version, you can watch it on YouTube here — I believe it’s the best film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic story.)

No matter how many times I watch it, my heart is always touched by each scene. I feel the happiness of the crowd at Fezziwig’s party. Tears come to my eyes when Bob Cratchit cries over his poor Tiny Tim.

But, most of all, I love Alastair Sim’s wonderful performance as Scrooge — how he convincingly portrays Scrooge’s change from heartless and tightfisted to kind and joyous.

You watch with delight as the once grim man can’t stop laughing and smiling and stunning all with his kindness, even while muttering to himself, “I don’t deserve to be so happy.”

What makes stories like A Christmas Carol so enthralling? Why do we love watching movies like these year after year?

In today’s post, let’s look at one ingredient that makes stories like A Christmas Carol so powerful and emotionally compelling. It’s an ingredient you can use to make any type of writing captivate your readers, whether you’re working on a short story, a blog post, or even a sales page. [Read more…]

3 Simple Descriptive Techniques That Will Help You Write Vividly

Published | Last Updated By 24 Comments

3 Simple Descriptive Techniques That Will Help You Write Vividly
Photo by Rawpixel
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

It feels like you’ve been staring at the computer screen for hours as you struggle to rewrite several paragraphs. You’re trying to capture in words the images in your head, but the sentences on the page sound lifeless and dull.

Maybe you’re writing a blog post about a recent trip you took, and you want your readers to hear the cacophony of the city’s traffic and see the neon signs drenching the street with color.

Or maybe you’re writing a sales page, and you want your readers to be able to envision themselves using your product. You want them to feel as if they’re already holding the product in their hands and can see how it will make their lives so much easier.

The ability to describe something vividly is an essential skill for every writer to master, no matter whether you’re a blogger, novelist, or copywriter. Vivid descriptions transform your paragraphs from vague and boring to engrossing and memorable. [Read more…]

A GDPR Compliance Checklist For Your Email Marketing

Published | Last Updated By 6 Comments

A Super Simple GDPR Compliance Checklist For Your Email Marketing

Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Over the past several weeks, the blogosphere has been buzzing with talk of a new EU privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that will go into effect on May 25.

When I first heard about the law, I thought, “Well, I’m not in the EU so I guess this doesn’t apply to me.”

Wrong. I soon found out that if I had any email subscribers who were EU citizens, the law applied to me as well. That means it probably applies to you too if you have EU subscribers on your email list.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there about GDPR and what actions to take to make sure your email marketing is GDPR compliant. [Read more…]

Use this Strategy to Craft Captivating Blog Post Introductions

Published | Last Updated By 27 Comments

Use this Strategy to Craft Captivating Introductions For Your Blog Posts
Photo by Christin Hume
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

When I was a little kid, I fell in love with a book and read it so many times that I nearly memorized the first page. Here’s the book’s opening line:

Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Do you know what book it’s from? It’s the first sentence of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

Now go back and read that opening line again. It really grabs your attention, doesn’t it?

It certainly grabbed mine when I was a kid. Just like Fern, I wondered why in the world her dad was heading out with an ax. Was he going to chop down a tree or, heaven forbid, kill someone? [Read more…]

How to Write in a Conversational Style That Will Connect with Your Readers

Published | Last Updated By 30 Comments

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

The other day, I was checking my email when I came across a suspicious looking message. It began with the line, “Dear Sir/Madam”.

The first paragraph read,

Please pardon me if I intrude into your privacy, and may I humbly solicit your confidence in this transaction. I came to know about you in my private search for a reliable and reputable foreigner to handle this confidential transaction.

Wow, that writing sounds like something straight out of a Dickens novel. I quickly clicked delete, suspecting that this was a phishing scam.

You’ve probably received emails like this too. And maybe you’ve also chuckled at their standoffish, overly formal tone. It seems to be a trademark of these types of spam emails.

However, not too long ago, no one would have laughed at that style of writing. It’s the style most people would have used if they wanted to come across as polite and professional.

In fact, your English teacher probably taught you a similar academic style when you were in school. Flowery language. Long paragraphs. Precise grammar. No contractions.

And then came the Internet. Over time, everyone from bloggers to big corporations realized that a conversational style of writing is a much more powerful way to engage and connect with your audience. [Read more…]

The One Powerful Strategy That Will Help You Stand out Online

Published | Last Updated By 20 Comments

Photo by Paul Dufour
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

It’s a brand new year filled with opportunity. You’ve resolved to focus your energy on writing more blog posts or maybe even publishing a book. There’s only one problem. There are thousands of people out there who’ve made the exact same New Year’s resolution as you.

The Internet is a crowded place. Every day someone writes a new blog post in your niche or publishes a new book on Amazon in your genre. In a sea of content, how can you get people to pay attention to your work?

I remember a shoe store my mom used to take me to when I was a little kid. It was called Merry-Go-Round Shoes and was quite unlike any store I’d ever been to. There was a merry-go-round in the center of the store that children could ride on.
[Read more…]

I just released my new book!

Published | Last Updated By

 

Hi, friends!

After many long nights of writing, formatting, and editing, I’m excited to announce that my new eBook How to Grow Your Email List: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writers is now available to purchase.

Go here to get your copy.

If you haven’t read the recent posts on my blog, you might be wondering, “Why is an email list so important?” [Read more…]

How to Grow Your Email List With Giveaways

Published | Last Updated By 14 Comments

How to Grow Your Email List With Giveaways
Photo by Ben White
Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

This November, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my soon-to-be-released eBook How to Grow Your Email List: A Step by Step Guide for Writers.

In this in-depth book, I’m compiling all of the strategies I’ve used to grow my email list from 200 to over 2,000 subscribers in just one year. And I show you step-by-step how you can use them to grow your online audience too.

I’m planning to release the book this December. But in today’s blog post, I’m sharing a sneak peek of one of the chapters. It’s about a very cool email list building strategy: giveaways! 🙂

Running a giveaway is one of my favorite email list building strategies. It’s a fun way for you to show your current subscribers how much you appreciate their support. And, at the same time, it’s an effective way to attract new subscribers to your list. (Don’t have an email list yet? Check out my blog post here for how you can get started.) [Read more…]