#some of the taglines have clicked immediately and some of them are. not doing that

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

Behind every great warrior woman is another woman who is choosing kindness. For now.

[vidyback]

Your Guide to Product Video Ad Success

Top Mistakes to Erase Product video ads have proven to be a powerful tool for engaging consumers and conveying a brand's message. But it takes careful preparation and execution to produce a successful product video ad. In this article, we'll discuss some common mistakes that businesses should avoid when crafting their product video ads.

1. Neglecting the Target Audience:

One of the most significant mistakes a business can make is not considering their target audience during the video ad creation process. Understanding your audience's demographics, interests, and preferences is crucial to crafting a message that resonates with them. Failing to do so can lead to an ad that falls flat and fails to engage the intended viewers.

2. Overlooking Storytelling:

A compelling narrative can turn a mundane product into an exciting experience. Some businesses make the mistake of focusing solely on the product's features and specifications, neglecting the power of storytelling. Incorporating a relatable story that showcases how the product solves a problem or enhances the consumer's life can significantly improve the ad's effectiveness.

3. Lengthy Introductions:

In the fast-paced world of digital media, you have only a few seconds to grab your viewer's attention. Lengthy introductions that don't immediately communicate the value of the product can lead to viewers clicking away before they even get to the main content of the ad. Keep the introduction concise and captivating.

4. Lack of Clear Call to Action (CTA):

Every effective product video ad should have a clear and compelling call to action. Whether it's visiting your website, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter, viewers need to know what you want them to do next. Without a well-defined CTA, the viewer might enjoy the ad but won't take any action, defeating the purpose of the advertisement.

5. Ignoring Mobile Compatibility:

Mobile devices account for a sizable share of internet video consumption. Neglecting to optimize your video ad for mobile viewing can result in a poor user experience, with elements appearing too small or not displaying correctly. Ensure that your video ad is responsive and looks just as engaging on smaller screens.

6. Complicated Messaging:

Simplicity is key when it comes to video ads. Trying to cram too much information into a short ad can overwhelm viewers and dilute the main message. Instead, focus on one or two key benefits of your product and communicate them clearly and concisely.

7. Poor Video Quality:

A high-quality video reflects positively on your brand's image and professionalism. Grainy visuals, shaky camera work, and poor audio can all detract from the viewer's experience and make your product appear less appealing. Invest in good production quality to make a lasting impression.

8. Neglecting Branding:

Your product video ad shouldn't just showcase the product—it should also reinforce your brand identity. Neglecting to include consistent branding elements such as logos, colors, and taglines can make your ad forgettable and prevent viewers from connecting the product to your brand.

9. Misalignment with Platform:

Users on various social media sites exhibit a variety of user behaviors and demographics. Creating a one-size-fits-all video ad and sharing it across all platforms might not yield the best results. Tailor your ad to each platform's unique audience and format to maximize engagement.

10. Lack of Testing:

Before launching your product video ad campaign, it's essential to test it with a small audience. Gathering feedback and analyzing metrics can help you identify any weaknesses and make necessary adjustments before reaching a broader audience.

11. Neglecting SEO:

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't limited to written content—it's crucial for videos too. Include relevant keywords in your video's title, description, and tags to improve its discoverability on platforms like YouTube.

12. Disregarding Data Analytics:

Modern digital advertising provides a wealth of data that can help you understand how your video ad is performing. Metrics like views, engagement rate, and conversion rate can give you valuable insights into what's working and what needs improvement.

Conclusion: Crafting a Winning Product Video Ad

Creating a successful product video ad requires a combination of creativity, strategic thinking, and attention to detail. By avoiding these common mistakes, businesses can enhance their chances of creating an engaging and effective video ad that resonates with their target audience. Remember, the goal is not just to showcase the product, but to create a memorable experience that drives action and builds a stronger connection between the brand and its customers.

[myowngametales]

Life is Strange Retrospective

Welcome! Welcome! Internet nomad. This is My Own Game Tales, and today, we are looking back at the entire Life is Strange series. Now, my history with the games. My first experience of this game involved Game Theory Live. I saw Matt Pat play this game one day. I didn’t spend that much time watching. The only scene I saw was early on in episode 1. Now, before I talk about every game and other media, I will state that this retrospective will be spoiler free as much as possible. I just think that narrative games rely on the story. It wouldn’t be fair to ruin the story. Reviews in my eyes should only encourage or discourage players from playing.

I will be uploading spoiler reviews in the future though. Mainly because I want to talk and dissect the story elements. Now, I am going to run down every Life is Strange piece of media I am going to review. I will start with the original life is strange, then before the storm, followed by the graphic novels, then Welcome to Blackwell Book, the demo The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, then Life is Strange 2, True Colors and finally Steph’s Story novel. Outside of the Life is Strange games, I will discuss the game Tell Me Why since many fans treat this game as a part of the series.

Now, I have zero experience with the original game. I bought the remastered version on the Switch. At first, I was only going to play the first game. Since the only way to buy the game on the switch included the prequel, I decided to play both. After the great stories, I immediately bought true colors. Then, I found out that Life is Strange 2 exists.I bought the game twice. I fully played it on the PS4 then the switch port was released and I decided to buy that one too just because I wanted the full series at my fingertips.

Now, what makes a Life is Strange game? Usually, it entails a power that one of the main characters have and choices, and music. Every Life is Strange game has a great soundtrack. Most moments are paired well with a song that really creates atmosphere and mood.

So let’s begin my first retrospective with the Original Life is Strange Remastered.

Max and Chloe investigate the disappearance of a close friend to Chloe named Rachel. Max and Chloe were childhood friends that parted ways and a twist of fate brought them back together. Max learns she has the power to turn back time. This game is centered on choices. While the story doesn’t really change much, your choices impact dialogue and how certain scenes play out. There is a part of the game where your previous choices could lead to a very divide in the story. I am not going to spoil it, but that decision made me want to replay the game to alter the events.The main mechanic of time travel really allows the gameplay to not feel just like a point and click adventure. This game probably has my favorite gameplay in the series followed by True Colors.

The story has some great twists and turns. I did not see any of it coming. Do not play the prequel until you have played the first game once. The collectibles in this game are photos. Max has a great interest in photography. My main criticism of this game is the ending. Basically, none of your choices matter when it comes to how the game ends. It is a fifty-fifty choice which ending you pick. It kinda kills the point of the tagline this action will have consequences. What I like about this game that the other life is strange games don’t have is the ability to change almost every choice you make. You will only get to see the immediate reaction and then you could rewind time. This is great. It doesn’t ruin the option of your choice because the long term effects won’t happen until much later in the game.

Life is Strange Before the Storm

This game is the only Life is Strange game without a power. I feel like they didn’t want Chloe and Rachel to have powers because Chloe kinda fangirls out about Max’s power, so having a power in context to the first game wouldn't work. What I would do would be give Rachel a hidden power that she doesn’t share with Chloe. In fact, I think Rachel should have the power to read minds. It would be hidden enough that Chloe might not catch on.

At last, the game’s true mechanic is the backtalk sequence. Basically, Chloe roasts or convinces people by a string of dialogue. This mechanic is very strict though. Basically, you have to choose a reply based on the previous dialogue. I only failed one late in the game but some only give you a couple mistakes before you lose the argument.

I love the story of Rachel and Chloe. It is cool to see the relationship between the two that the first game only alluded to. I kinda wished the ending didn’t nearly spoil the twist in one. Because many newcomers to the series might want to play the prequel to understand the story before one.

Life is Strange graphic novels

Max and Chloe feature in a graphic novel series. Based on one of the two endings from the first game, Max’s adventures after the first game aren't necessary to read. This novel is only for people who really liked the game and wanted to know what happened next. Many fans don’t see this as canon since it locks-in one ending to be official. I bought a collection of six graphic novels. It includes a new character that has his own power The comics also explain that every decision from the game plays out in its own universe. The story revolves around time travel and dimension hopping. It also teases True Colors by adding a prequel story that introduces Alex Chen and her powers.

Welcome to Blackwell Book

This book is not necessary reading. It helps seeing exchanges between Rachel, Chloe and Max. Some other characters join less frequently. If you’re a big fan, maybe check it out. The artwork is cool to look at, but it tries to be two parts, art book and flavor text for the series. I don’t think it does a great job at either of those things.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

Now, this is a short demo for Life is Strange 2. I still think as a standalone game it works. Basically, you play as Chistopher, a character you met in the second episode. My one complaint about the demo is it should give a warning that interacting with your father will end the demo at one point. True Colors had this feature when it replicated the open ended game design that Captain Spirit had. I was kinda confused when I saw the checklist of objectives and how it wasn’t really used in Life is Strange 2. I thought the demo was hinting at a more open experience in the sequel which brings us to Life is Strange 2.

Life is Strange 2

This game is one of the best in the series. I felt like my choices really mattered when it came to the ending. Basically, this game centers on two brothers and the way you treat your brother changes which endings you could get. This game has split the fan base. I believe it is better than Before the Storm. It also changes depending on your choice in Life is Strange 1. This game is also a stand-alone story. You don't need to play first to experience this game.

Life is Strange True Colors

This game and Before the Storm was developed by Deck Nine. I feel like Deck Nine learned so much from Don't Nod who made 1 and 2. I feel like they saw Life is Strange 2 and made a game that could stand up with the best of Don't Nod.

This game has great collectibles. Each one gives more story context. I miss most of them in the game since the game doesn't do a great job at introducing them so I missed almost all of them on the first playthrough. The gameplay is awesome. There are parts that feel like Life is Strange 2 demo where it is open-ended.

The story is great. The power is really interesting where the main character could feel others' emotions.

Life is Strange Steph’s Story and Wavelengths

I decided to review both Steph’s Story and Wavelengths as one. I got the audiobook of Steph’s Story which is great because the voice actress lends her voice to the book. It is a great novel. I liked how it explores her past relationship which is alluded to in wavelengths. I love how these and graphic novels bridge the gap in time between True Colors and Before the Storm. Steph is a minor character in Before the Storm. This book and dlc really brings insight and makes it so Steph is the only character I would consider in True Colors. This book includes the first trans character in the Life is Strange universe and I believed they may have handled the subject better than Tell Me Why. Talking about Tell Me Why here we go and review.

Tell Me Why

Don't Nod Entertainment made their last Life is Strange game with two. Tell Me Why is basically a Life is Strange game at heart. You play as twins who have the power to communicate in their heads and recall memories from childhood.

Tyler is a trans male. One of the first triple A games to include a trans character as one of the protagonists. At first, I prayed this wouldn’t be an awful representation for a trans character. Luckily, Don’t Nod did their research and made a believable character that understands the plight and struggles of being trans.

The puzzles are the best in the series. Most of them focus on a book that their mother wrote for them. I feel so stupid for playing the game because I used a guide. These puzzles aren't hard but they are usually my least favorite parts of Life is Strange. I will replay the game blind once I forget the solutions.

The collectibles are these cool models of monsters that tie into the childhood stories that the main characters shared with their mom.

The story is one of the best for Don't Nod. I wished the choices played more in the story. I feel like most choices just lead to more or less information which is why Tell Me Why is the title of the game. You are searching for answers.

That concludes my first thoughts on the series as a whole. I will be posting spoiler reviews in the future. I am going to alternate between a Life is Strange game and another game tale. In the meantime, play life is strange. It is one of my favorite game series outside of nintendo.

[dreamescapeswriting]

BTS Reaction || First Ultrasound [Request]

[BTS XFem!Reader] [GIF Rights to the makers]

First Pregnancy Scan - 10 - 14 Weeks

Seokjin:

Jin watched the screen as the baby started to appear, it was hard to see at first but once the nurse began to point out where the baby was it was easier.

"Look at that, we made a whole new person." He chuckled as he held onto your hand, tears were streaming down your cheeks as you smiled but the nurse shook her head as she giggled.

"You better make that two new people, it looks like you're having twins." She smiled proudly but Jin's face fell and he looked as though he'd seen a ghost,

"Two?" He stuttered out making you laugh softly as the nurse began to point out where the second baby was hiding,

"We're having two babies?!" He finally yelled out in excitement jumping up a little as he realised what was going to happen, then he repeated the same statement in a more scared tone.

"I'm going to guess he's happy but worried?" The nurse asked as she began snapping pictures of the babies, you nodded watching as Jin began to pace back and forth while mumbling about twice as much work.

"Baby, it'll be a baby for me and you, it's okay." You reassured him as you stretched your hands out to calm him down but he began shaking his head and trying to work out how many nappies and supplies you were going to need.

Yoongi:

The whole drive to the nurses office Yoongi had been silent, you knew it was becuase he was nervous about going for the first scan. This was your first child together so he'd been going out of his mind researching everything almost scaring himself as he realised youcould have had a false positive and the baby might not be there. But as soon as the baby appeared on the screen you visibly saw the tension leave his body,

"Whoa," He mumbled as he looked at the screen, letting go of your hand as he moved closer to get a better look at the baby on the screen. A warm gummy smile appearing on his face as the nurse zoomed in closer for him,

"I'll leave you alone for a minute while I get the print out's." She whispered turning to leave the room,

"You okay Yoongi?" You whispered as you sat up in the bed, wiping the goo off your stomach as he nodded at you,

"I'm perfect, we're perfect...We're creating a family," He smiled brightly as he held onto your hands ignoring your whines about wanting to get the goo off your stomach and pointing at the baby on the screen once again,

Hoseok:

"I have to tell you, this is the weirdest ultrasound I've had to do." The doctor spoke as you held up your phone to face the screen, you smiled softly.

"Well, he's away on tour and he didn't want to miss the first scan," You told him as you watched Hoseok squint to see what he was trying to see on the screen,

"Here-" The doctor began clicking on the computer to outline the baby for Hoseok and you smiled, tearing up as you realised that you were growing your baby inside of you. Hoseok smiled to himself as he bit down on his lip, he'd promised you that he wouldn't cry but he was starting to realise he couldn't keep to his promise.

"Would you like a video recording of the heartbeat?" The doctor questioned but without giving you time to answer for yourself Hoseok screamed out yes and smiled shyly at you through the screen.

"I'll get it all sorted for you," The doctor chuckled as you turned the camera to face you once again,

"I told you we could do this, two more months and I'm home to look after you." He promised as he blew you a kiss through the screen.

Namjoon:

You knew how badly Namjoon wanted to be a father so when you first got pregnant you were both over the moon about it, always smiling and getting excited about it.

"Is this your first child?" The nurse asked as she pointed at the screen, your small baby appearing there making you smile brightly.

"Yeah, how can you tell?" You questioned looking at her when she nodded to Namjoon, you turned to look at him and he had tears streaming down his cheeks as he stared at the screen.

"Joonie?" You whimpered as you realised he was almost just as emotional as you were at this point,

"I'm going to be a dad." He mumbled before sobbing into his hands, you laughed softly bringing him into a hug as he held onto your arm the nurse smiling to herself as she continued to take videos and photos of the baby for you.

Jimin:

As soon as the baby was shown on the screen Jimin was a wreck, started crying and blabbering more than you had since becoming pregnant which made you and the nurse giggle.

"You sure you're okay?" You laughed as you got down from the bed and walked towards the door, he nodded at you as he took a tissue from the nurse and began wiping his eyes.

"Do we have to ell the boys?" He groaned as he remembered who was sitting in the waiting room for you, all of you had bets on when he was going to cry and you'd won.

"Baby, yes. I want my money," You laughed as you swung the door open and smirked at all of the boys who knew instantly that you had won by the look on your face.

"Pay-up, I had bets on as soon as he saw the baby," You giggled holding out your hand for their money. Jimin grumbled about being the source of your entertainment while the boys grumbled about you being right all of the time.

Taehyung:

The nurse had finally stopped asking all of the routine questions and was about to apply the cream to your stomach,

"This will be a little cold," You bit down on your lip as you held onto Taehyung's hand, he'd been silent the whole time as he waited anxiously to see your baby on the screen. Since the moment he found out you were pregnant he'd been stunned by everything going on inside of your body. Amazed by the fact that your body could make a whole new person, all of their vital organs and 10 toes with 10 fingers.

"You okay?" You giggled as you cupped his cheek in your hand, running your thumb under his eye to remove the tears that were starting to fall from them.

"Perfect," He breathed watching the screen as your baby first appeared,

"Do you want to hear their heartbeat?" The nurse questioned as she continued running the wand over your stomach, clicking a couple of buttons before a small healthy heartbeat was playing through the speakers.

"That's our baby, Jagiya," Taehyung whispered excitedly as he held onto your hand tightly and squeezed it softly watching the screen.

"All ten fingers, all ten toes and one very strong and healthy heartbeat." The nurse spoke as she began taking photos for you both,

"I'll leave this playing while I go to print off the photos." She whispered before leaving the room, Taehyung immediately started to cry as he looked at you.

"Oh baby," You laughed softly bringing him into your arms.

Jungkook:

"Miss Y/l/n?" You looked up at the nurse that was calling your name out and sighed, Jungkook told you he was running late but you didn't expect him to be this late. Almost an hour late to your first ever pregnancy scan, you couldn't hold it against him but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"Coming," You mumbled as you stood up from the chair in the waiting room and a couple of the other mothers all watched you walk towards the smiling nurse.

"No dad today?" She questioned as you laid back on the small bed that was inside the room, you bit down on your lip trying not to get too emotional over him not being there.

"He's running a little late-"

"That's okay, we can print off some pictures for him." She promised you as she began to get everything ready, pulling your files up onto the screen and asking you routine questions.

[X]

"EXCUSE ME YOU CAN'T JUST-" The door slammed against the wall and you jumped to see a sweaty and panting Jungkook standing there with an angry nurse behind him,

"Y/n? Did they scan yet?! Am I late!?" You giggled as his voice went up in pitch as he asked the questions, the nurse who was about to press to ultrasound wand against your stomach began to laugh softly.

"Father I presume?" Jungkook walked further into the room and the angry nurse from before shut the door, Jungkook came over to you and held onto your hand tightly.

"The boys are outside aren't they?" You laughed as you looked up at him, he nodded shyly staring at the screen as the wand was placed onto your stomach. A black and white image appearing on the screen, it took a couple of seconds until the nurse finally began to point out where the baby was and that they were in perfect health.

"We made a baby," He mumbled as he let go of your hand, staring at the small baby on the screen as he began to tear up.

Tagline: @lyoongx​ @mitzwinchester​ @fan-ati--c​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @taestannie​ @rjsmochii​ @bisexualmess007​ @innersooya​ @sw33tnight​ @sweeneyblue1​ @agustdjoon​ @jin-from-the-block​ 

[ghostwriterofthemachine]

War stories of your time in book pr you say 👀👀

God do I ever have some. 

This was a job where I needed to spend a huge chunk of my time keeping up with things on twitter, which I simply,,,, do not have the personality for. There are people who can dedicate massive amounts of time to twitter and that is a skill I do not have. There are people who can dedicate massive amounts of time to YA twitter, and that is a skill I really do not have. I would rather go through an unfiltered political hashtag on twitter than go onto YA twitter again. Maybe it’s gotten better in the, like, 4ish years since I worked this job, but at the time it had more petty drama blowing up into massive fucking problems than the damn youtube makeup space.

But I digress. The first thing you need to understand is that if you are a booktuber, or if you run a blog where you review books on a fairly regular basis, you are going to get free books. That’s a huge reason that a lot of people do it -- ARC (advanced review copies) are a huge draw. Not only do you get books for free, but you get books for free before they come to print! Isn’t the cool? That sounds great!

And it is! That’s really, really great for some people. This is how it works for people who publish reviews on blogs or newspapers or culture websites. Why wouldn’t this work for youtubers? They get free books, they promote the books on their youtube channel, that gets more clicks on their videos, boosts their ad revenue. Seems like a win all-around, right?

Then things started to get tricky because, most of the time, these booktubers will only talk about the way the book looks, and then repeat some buzzwords and tagline from the press release (and I would know, because I was writing the press releases). Because so many publishers and PR firms/agents would be sending them so many books, they had no time to read them at all. They say yes to pretty much every book pitched to them, because that’s the pace that youtube goes. But books aren’t like netflix shows or movies, you know? Most people can’t just knock them out in one or two sittings. And that’s a good thing! That’s a really wonderful thing about books, that they force you to slow down in a world where media is increasingly fast and immediate. 

So haul videos became the bread and butter of booktube. A lot of them got disguised as “TBR” videos, but they were totally hauls. Basically “Look how cool these titles look! look how many cool books I have!!!” videos. Which is, you know, exposure, and PR will take pretty much an positive exposure (for books, particularly in the YA space at the time, you really wanted positive exposure). But what PR wants more of it quotes, and a throwaway line in a haul video is not what we’re looking for. 

So booktubers who only did haul videos started getting sent less ARCs, because people like me were keeping up with their videos and seeing that they didn’t really do full reviews. So we started pitching them less (pitching is when we offer them the book, basically saying “do you wanna review this?” and then see if they say yes), and because they’re getting less books, they’re getting less clicks (not that most of them were getting a ton anyway - youtube just does not mesh well for that kind of literary content, no matter now hard people try, with a few exceptions). 

So that’s where the really awful “30 books in 30 weeks” challenges that the original post mentioned came from. Basically booktubers are pushing themselves to read enough of the books so they can say something interesting about the books to keep getting free books to keep their content alive. It’s a really capitalist, unhealthy, and un-joyful way of engaging with stories and nothing convinced me of the soullessness of the currently publishing promotion model more than that. 

Oh, the other thing people started to do instead of those “30 in 30″ challenges, was start making bookstagram content, where you literally just take as pretty a picture with the book as possible and post it with an excerpt of the press release. PR goes crazy for bookstagram content. 

But yeah. It’s all very soulless and consumerist, while also pretending they were too good for soulless consumerism. Very weird vibes. 

[fcntasmas-archive]

hii ceecee! okay I hope this isn't a weird question? (feel free to ignore this if so) but can you talk about what a copywriter does as a job? I've always been curious, but google kind of confused me, it seems like something between and editor and social media designing, almost? Am I way off base? (sorry if I am!) I'm actually looking for new career paths and am always interested in learning more about what other people do :) Not sure if it requires heavy schooling (ie degree?)

hello my love!!! not a weird question at all!! i will be putting this under a read more though just in case no one wants to scroll through me talking about my job fasdkljfl but pls!! come along with me

so the kind of copywriting i do is for marketing/advertising -- i have a degree in mass communication and advertising, focused mostly on the creative aspect of the job rather than the technical aspects (marketing and advertising are sister-careers; one is more outreach/research while the other one is using said outreach/research to create the right advertisement/campaign for an audience)

so in the advertising world, of which i ventured into for a couple of years, copywriters tend to pair up with art directors to come up with an assortment of ads that fall under a campaign umbrella. so copywriters will usually be in charge of the tagline (a copywriter came up with “just do it” for nike, for example, and even “what happens in vegas, stays in vegas”, one of the literal most successful advertising campaigns ever bc you just say that, but that was an advertising/branding effort by the city! amazing), writing tv/radio scripts in visual/audio campaigns, etc etc. that’s not to say it’s all exclusive to one copywriter (and help can definitely be brought in), but they are quite literally the writer to the artist, a la big bang in fandom, and i was lucky enough to find an art director i clicked with immediately in college and i freelanced with her for a while and she’s still one of my closest friends in the world and our work is floating out there in the country, just existing

for this, you’ll probably definitely need a degree, and i only suggest that because university classes can help you build an advertising portfolio/website, which many of these jobs require. they won’t consider you without you showing what you can do!! internships also count a bunch for this (and most of them in this career are actually paid, which is a bonus) and also help build your perfect portfolio!! 

what i’m doing now, however, is working as a copywriter as part of a content marketing team in a digital media company, which means two things: one, it’s different than the traditional advertising i did while freelancing, and two, it involves creativity in a completely different level: mostly internal. i work on copy (shorthand for some sort of written material) for their homepages, outreach emails, newsletters, press releases, article titles, meta descriptions, tutorials, and all the fun stuff that is helped by creative, succinct, and catchy Word Smithing. this, too, involves a degree and some sort of experience, though you can probably apply several different degrees to this job -- like i said, my degree is in advertising and mass communication, but my coworker's degree was in business marketing (though her portfolio helped show off her writing chops!)

i think this is where most "copywriters" fall under these days; a lot of them freelance for different companies/websites, and most companies are hiring outside help these days in order to get a press release/blog post/anything long-form done in an enticing manner.

the truth is, most everything i do for this digital media company is still a form of advertising; i'm still trying to convince someone to open an email, or click on our article over another, or be enticed to use our website as a resource rather than this other very similar site.

it's a lot of fun sometimes -- coming up with different ways to say something, finding success when you realize your words have had some sort of positive impact on the company. sometimes it's tedious, because it is a lot of sitting and writing pretty things professionally and it can be draining, especially if you're a writer yourself and most of your creative juices are spent from 9-5.

if you have any specific questions or if NONE of this made sense, pls don't hesitate to reach back out to me!!!

[sultrysirens]

Story Time

Out of nowhere I decided to share a bit of my story as a fanfiction writer, starting with my original introduction into the profession. It’s going to be a long one, but hopefully, and inspiring one. Skip if you’re not interested.

NOTE: This includes spoilers for certain anime and fandoms. If you don’t know Dragonball Z or Inuyasha, specifically, you’ll be quite lost.

The Beginning

How everything started was just through surfing the net. Back then my interest was Dragonball Z. I was 14. I had only had the internet for a few months, so everything about it was new. This was 20 years ago, now, back in 2000. I used Yahoo! for all my searches. Google had not yet been born. Fanfiction.net was the main hub where all these amazing stories were birthed, and yet at this point I had not yet found it.

What I found, first, was a fanfiction writer who had a website. Geocities, I believe. I can’t recall how I found it, exactly, except that I had only just learned about Bulma and Vegeta getting together and thought they were an amazing couple. I looked up art, and it led me to this site. I can’t recall the site’s name anymore, but I remember the tagline for it was something like, “Bulma and Vegeta’s Cove.”

One thing I can distinctly recall is a small gif in one corner of the main page, displaying a chibi Vegeta with a microphone in one hand, going between 2 or 3 singing poses. It was cute.

This site was coded in such a way that it linked directly to fanfiction.net, displaying the owner’s many, many, many fanfictions in an embedded window. The stories were largely explicit, included sex and, in a few stories, rape, all of them AUs from all the rest. But each had a singular goal: Bulma and Vegeta’s romance, how they ended up getting together.

Some of the stories I remember very clearly. Others have faded. Some were modern AUs, one included dimension-hopping via a magical device Bulma created and recharged every 24 hours (sound familiar, anyone?), and some were painfully OOC but in very sweet ways.

I devoured these stories. There must have been two dozen, with most of them multi-chapter works. And, eventually, I started to notice the format with these stories, how it seemed to be a miniature explorer window within the website. Eventually, I clicked on the mini website and was given a full introduction to fanfiction.net and its massive breadth.

Back in those days, fanfiction.net (or FF.net, as it was usually called) allowed explicit content. And this I looked for very directly. I enjoyed the “lemons” more than anything, easily reading the most ridiculous stories just for the porn therein.

Eventually, I figured it out. I understood fanfiction and what it meant. And though I’d only been using a computer for a few months, I started writing.

It was a painful process at first. Think back to your first months with a keyboard and how difficult it was to get used to the format, how to move your fingers. I had to stare directly at the keyboard to write anything and it was a pain, a slow-going endeavor of passion.

My first fanfictions were Dragonball Z, unsurprisingly. I made a few silly ones, a few serious ones, a few sexual ones. At 14, with no grasp of the anatomy of sex, I was writing porn, using the porn I’d already read as resources. I didn’t know what a clitoris was, but I knew ladies apparently went nuts when men tongued them, so that’s what I wrote.

Eventually I got my first hit: Temptation. It was a Bulma/Vegeta story. I don’t remember it very clearly, and this is probably for the best. The plot, as I recall, was Bulma getting sick and Vegeta having to be her nurse for a time. Eventually she got worse and worse, until she recognized why she was sick: she’d cut herself one night with a device that’d had a compound on it. I can’t recall what the compound was designed to do, but the short version is it made you feel weaker and sicker until you increased your physical activity to burn it out.

This led to wild sex. Like, very wild sex. For hours. My lack of experience evidently was not a consideration; I was given compliments by the dozens. I’d done good.

And now I was addicted.

The Second Hit

I was 16 now. We’d be moving out of my childhood home soon, but I didn’t know this yet. I’d been spending a lot of time with my sister, who was 26, and soaking up Adult Swim shows on her cable. Inuyasha was my new obsession, as well as a liberal amount of Trigun. I lived, slept, ate, and breathed these shows. My head was constantly alight with ideas, concepts, and desires. I wrote near-constantly.

Through this, I managed my second big hit: Transformations.

It’s been a long time, now, and I can’t recall the beginning as much as the ending. I think perhaps I called it something else at the start.

The premise was simple: Kagome, the main character, suddenly transforms into a half-demon, a hanyou, after a demon bites her in battle. I remember that initially I was just writing bullshit; I had no filter and didn’t edit or delete anything. What I wrote got posted verbatim. And, at first, it was cringe-worthy.

I can distinctly recall two things: first, Sesshomaru -- Inuyasha’s full-demon elder brother -- caught Kagome’s scent and investigated and had difficulty resisting her. She was a half-wolf demon, and he was attracted to that. Earlier she and Inuyasha were together in a cave, and her transformation had given her a tail -- which she didn’t like. She chased it, trying to catch it and rip it off.

That’s when the accusations started coming in.

Out of nowhere, and totally unexpectedly, I was getting a slew of comments accusing me of copying another popular fanfiction. I’d legitimately never heard of it, and I had to search it out. I remember reading the first chapter or two and feeling surprised; they were very similar, to the point where I couldn’t blame anyone for thinking I’d copied it.

This was a case of great minds thinking alike, or so I said at the time. I was amused more than anything, but it was clear the accusations weren’t going to stop. Eventually I deleted the story and started over. I’d learned a bit in those few chapters I’d posted and decided that I didn’t really want the events to unfold the way they had, so starting over sounded like a great idea.

And it was.

Now came Transformations as it remains today. The beginning is the same -- Kagome is bitten by a demon and transforms into a half-wolf demon -- but the events following take a different turn from the original.

It was a monster of a hit. I got multiple comments and reviews on every chapter, and I can remember doing this thing for a long time in which I threaten the readers at the end of each chapter with various weapons, only to have the weapon backfire somehow and hurt and/or kill me. The readers seemed to enjoy it, and soon they were suggesting new weapons for me to use.

I loved it.

Eventually the story ended at 64 chapter, but back then my chapters weren’t nearly as long as I write them now, and the final chapter was just a family tree of sorts leading the characters from Feudal Japan to modern day. It was a great, beautiful monster and I had drawn dozens of pictures to go along with it.

It was actually through this that I decided I needed a better place to post my art and thus discovered DeviantART.com. That’s been my main art gallery ever since, around 16 years now (I believe I created it in 2004, a year after I started the fic). If you go there and head all the way back to the first images I posted, you’ll find all of that art remaining even today.

It’s...pretty bad. X’D

But the story doesn’t end there. I wanted my fic to have a greater reach, so I started looking for more websites. I found MediaMiner.org, which was appealing because it hosted both written works and art. And once Transformation was finished, the story concluded, I found I couldn’t quite let it go.

So I did something I’ve not done since: I created an alternate ending.

Titled Changing Lives, this story picked up after chapter 28 of Transformations and went a different way. It treated the story of Transformations as just that: a story, written by Kagome, which Inuyasha read while she was gone one day. He was thunderstruck by it, given it so clearly screamed “I love you” and was full of romance -- and sex.

This led to them getting together, but soon thereafter, tragedy struck.

Kagome was kidnapped on her way home from school. By the time Inuyasha found her, she’d been gang-raped and discarded.

The story very deeply included time travel and revenge aspects from that point on, and I can also recall giving the character Miroku a reincarnation as a detective. He was put on the case, and with Inuyasha’s help, had all the men arrested -- there were seven of them.

Then they started dying.

Inuyasha wasn’t doing this, but he was happy to allow it to happen. The detective did his job per the law, trying to keep the criminals safe as they started dropping like flies. The killer left notes written on the cell walls in the criminal’s own blood, though I can’t quite recall the sequence anymore.

What I do remember is this: the first one read, “He touched her first.” The rest followed that sequence, killing the men in order -- second, third, fourth, etc. I remember one said “hurt her”, one said “made her cry”, and so on.

Eventually, the truth was discovered: Inuyasha was killing them, but not “young” Inuyasha. “Old” Inuyasha. The one who’d lived through the centuries. And his story was the most tragic of all.

In his time, Kagome had been raped and her rapists arrested, as normal. Then, years later, they were freed, having served their time, and immediately they tried to track her down. She was pregnant at the time with Inuyasha’s child. When she saw she was being chased, she jumped down the well back to his time, and the men followed her.

They traveled through time with her but had no idea. They killed her there, then climbed out, and Inuyasha arrived too late to help. But the men were there, confused and lost, and the blood of his wife and child were on them. He slaughtered them all.

But now the well had ceased functioning. He couldn’t return to her time. And, at first, he was just...sad. He mourned. Then, with time, he began to plan. For five centuries, he planned.

His plan was to keep Kagome from ever getting raped. Alas, he failed in this, so instead he decided to get pre-revenge and kill the men while they were imprisoned. He succeeded, but along the way grew...exhausted. By the time he murdered the last man, he had little will left to do so.

But he finished it. For her.

Then he showed himself to Kagome and Inuyasha, explaining what had happened. And he wished them well.

Changing Lives was significantly shorter than its predecessor, only 35 chapters, but I felt it was the better story, overall. I never made art for it, I don’t think, but it was more emotional.

To Present Day

I kept writing, on and off, ever since. Any time I got sufficiently involved in a story, my mind immediately began making my own stories for it. Movies, shows, video games; nothing remained untouched by my mind. I made stories for Labyrinth, Dragon Age, Trigun, Spyro, Jak & Daxter, Naruto...the list went on. I started posted on a third site, adultfanfiction.net (comprised specifically of explicit stories), and I started existing solely on my stories and the feedback I received from them.

I got better. And better. And better. I started looking back on my first stories, my first “hits”, and cringed at the horrendous grammar and articulation of my youth. But it was nostalgic as well, bringing back fond memories of writing on my home computer before we had internet and then rushing to my sister’s with a 3.5″ disc to post them via her internet.

I had a friend around this time, named Leila (Lee-lah), and drew and wrote together. We came up with original stories and though we never really posted them, we had so much fun it didn’t matter. Mostly we talked and drew together, and while I considered myself the better artist, I considered her far better at clothes designs.

Then...a dry spell. I went into college at age 20 and there I met my husband, Eric. He was 17 at the time. And he introduced me to so many more worlds than I’d known before, including the aforementioned Jak & Daxter series and the Sims 2.

Years passed. I still wrote from time to time, but it wasn’t such an obsession as it’d been before. If I had a good enough idea, I’d write it, but I tried to keep my things to oneshots. I posted many such stories on adultfanfiction.net, and I generally got positive reviews and ratings. In the meantime we were more addicted to World of Warcraft, us two and a few friends, and we played that often.

Eventually I slowed down. Time blurred together. I had a lot of good stories, but no major hits. Then came Megamind, and with it, an interesting idea that a lot of people took a liking to: Megamind as the indirect hero, and Metro Man as an abusive spouse of Roxanne. I titled it Bad to be Good, and it was an incredible story.

I started counting words with this one, only posting chapters when they reached around 6,000 words.

The story was a very serious one. It struck cords with a lot of readers, one in particular saying it helped her through some similar times with her abusive husband. We eventually became friends and remain to this day. (She since divorced him, so don’t worry about her. ♥)

Ultimately I never truly completed that story. I remember getting up to 12 chapters and then having difficulty figuring out how to proceed. I used to open the Word document from time to time, check what I’d written, and try to edit things or continue it, but it never really took. Eventually I abandoned it, but luckily the 12th chapter was a softer ending of sorts, so my readers were satisfied.

Then came the Marvel films and, with it, a resurgence in an activity I’d long since stopped participating: roleplaying.

The Crazy Train

It started simple enough. The Avengers just came out, and I was starting to see Facebook RPs popping up between the characters. Curious, I tried to find the pages in question but couldn’t locate them. I did, however, come to find out that there were dozens of pages dedicated to the main characters, alone, with dozens more popping up by the month.

Eventually I stepped in. I’d grown to love Loki’s character and subsequently found he had a canonical wife, Sigyn, but hadn’t found any pages for her. So I made one. Without checking with the other RPer, I just threw myself into a Loki page and, thankfully, that Loki accepted his “wife’s” presence.

We had fun. And our group steadily grew. A Thor, another Loki, and Odin, a Sleipnir, and a whole slew of original characters joined the ranks. I, too, began adding more pages to my roleplays, starting with Narfi and Vali -- Loki and Sigyn’s twin sons.

At the start, these two shared a page. Then, when it became increasingly obvious that people had their favorite of the two boys, I separated them. Funny enough, Vali started off as the clear favorite (he was flirty AF), but Narfi steadily became more so.

Their relationships grew. They both fell in love. They were both tricked by a succubus, giving each an unwanted child at different intervals. Narfi soon had a family of his own, as his lover had an adopted daughter and he was given a daughter of his own.

We spent years here, six or seven I think, just roleplaying with one another. Our group grew and shrank as people joined our circles or left it. There was drama in and out of the roleplay setting. Friendships were forged and abandoned. At one point a Thor page (titled Fatty Thor) targeted me for my roleplay choices and tried to get his followers to harass me. Eventually he left, deleting his page, and our RPs continued without him, never addressing his disappearance.

Then Ragnarok struck -- but not the film’s Rangarok. No, this was worse. We were impatient to have the event occur, me in large part because the mythology says that Vali slays Narfi during the sequence and I couldn’t wait to put all that pain into writing. But what really kicked this off was a friend’s page getting repeatedly deleted.

Sleipnir.

In this RP setting, Sleipnir was a fully intelligent horse capable of speech and even transforming for short periods of time into a humanoid form. He fell in love with a half-demon woman and they had a son together, a centaur named Grani. And then his page kept vanishing.

Initially, we believed the page was reported because there was a rape sequence between his character and the half-demon, though -- and this is imperative -- the two RPers had discussed this in detail before agreeing to the RP. A great deal of thought went into it before they started the roleplay.

And yet, Sleipnir’s page went down.

The RPer made a new one, and that too, went down a short time later. This was disheartening for her, and though we all did our best to help, even creating the page for her in case it was her account getting it flagged, the pages kept getting deleted. The only cause we could work out was that Microsoft just came out with a Sleipnir program of some form and were removing all other pages with that name regardless of content.

So we kicked off Ragnarok and wrecked our Facebook RP world, killing off some of the characters and leaving others behind. We moved platforms, taking our remaining world to Gaia Online, but it wasn’t to be.

Though the RPs increased in quality while there and we created avatars for each of our characters and it definitely helped the process, we just couldn’t keep it up. We were too disheartened for our friend and how things had ended on Facebook.

Slowly but surely, our RPs died. We tried just once more by moving to a new forum called Valucre, but we couldn’t quite get steam going there, either. Eventually all of the RPs died, most of them without conclusions. In some ways, we mourned the loss.

But our remaining group, a total of four of us, remained friends for a great while longer. Three of us, in particular created this very blog some years later with the purpose of posting all of our NSFW works here.

Art, writing, roleplays, etc; this blog was meant to be a joint page to display all of our wicked wiles.

For several months we didn’t post much. Kyone did the most posting during this time, art for her favorite yaoi couple of the time, both NSFW and SFW, and it was moderately popular. Then came my contribution: The Dancer.

The Resurgence

To this day, I’m not sure what really got me back into TMNT. I know I was tired of RPs but wanted the stories to continue, and thus did I begin writing fanfictions again after years of never touching them -- or, at least, never posting them.

The Bayverse movies kicked this off. I’d always loved TMNT, since I was a kid, but the Bayverse films put them in a new light. They weren’t anthropomorphic turtles under 5′ tall anymore, naked 100% of the time. They were tall, big bois, more humanoid, and more like hybrids. I loved them. I wanted them.

I wanted them to be loved.

At the start, I was under the false belief that they didn’t get much love -- i.e., no romance. I especially believed Raphael didn’t get much affection, being such an angry and brash character. Oh, how wrong I was, lol.

Thus did I start with Raphael.

At the beginning I was inspired by a story written by another page, @teradoration, featuring a merman. I wasn’t too interested in the story, personally, as it’s m|m and I’ve never enjoyed those types of stories, but the inspiration came from the fact that it was a multi-chapter work -- on Tumblr.

So I decided to write some porn.

Initially, the idea was to make a short story, something like 10 chapters. I put thought into it, into the character I wanted to create and introduce, into her appearance and history and passions. I considered Raphael, his personality, and crafted a character designed to intrigue and challenge him. Then I looked at both popular and unique character tropes and the kinds of characters I’d made and turned in another direction.

Thus was Jocelyn born, a half-black, half-Polynesian ballet dancer with blonde hair and freckles. And, at first...it was a dead story. No one saw it. No one liked it. No one took a chance on Jocelyn.

For nearly a year, I wrote chapters to an empty audience. I tried not to let it get me down, but the consensus seemed clear: no one was interested in reading it. Still, I’d started it and come to love the characters very dearly, and so I continued. For my sake, for their sake, I continued.

Then came my first big break: tmnttrashcan. If you’re wondering why I didn’t @ that one, it’s because it’s been deactivated. But this amazing woman found my story, loved it, and began sharing it. And because her blog was one driven by reblogs and gifsets, it was far more popular than this one despite its younger age.

And thus did The Dancer begin drawing attention, fans, and feedback. Thus did I finally feel as if this labor of love was validated, that I wasn’t posting just for me anymore. People were enjoying the story, and in return, I poured more effort and love into it.

This is how I thanked my readers: with better content. More drama, more emotion, more love, more heartache, more sex, more everything.

Even before this happened, however, my head had continued the story far into the future. I made a sequel -- The Dragon -- before I’d even had a concept of The DJ. But in this sequel I’d begun laying the groundwork for something in between the two, and through this I began creating Lisa.

With Lisa, I wanted to create a character that fit more securely with the next turtle on my list: Michelangelo. Rather than opposing the turtle in many ways, as Jocelyn does with Raphael, I wanted Lisa to mesh very easily with him.

The DJ had begun.

For a time, tmnttrashcan’s admin and I were fantastic friends. We talked often, over text and over voice chatting. I told her ideas I had for the future, plans going years down the line both in and out of the story, and even let her read what I’d written of The Dragon thus far. She loved it, every last word, and heaped praise at me.

I loved this woman very deeply. I’d tell her as much from time to time, and she echoed the sentiment.

Then she simply...vanished. She stopped talking to me, stopped responding. Eventually I asked her if we were no longer friends. She never answered.

It was heartbreaking.

Soon thereafter, I was also left behind by Kyone. She unfriended me. And then Tumblr decided to ban all NSFW content, so in order to preserve this blog, I was forced to delete all her NSFW art. And when she went further and removed herself from the blog, I went further too and removed all of her posts. But it wasn’t easy.

It’s been a few years since then and I remain heartbroken. We’d been friends for over a decade. I saw her grow up (we met when she was 16), saw her graduate, saw her go through schooling and jobs and hard times. Between her, myself, and Fluxx, we’d amassed a mountain of great times and greater stories. We’d been a sisterhood in all but blood. We’d even called ourselves such.

To this day there remains a hollow place in me. In short, I’ve been jaded. My whole life, I’d seen this pattern repeated: I make a friend, we become close, then they abandon me, usually within a year or two. But with Fluxx and Kyone, I’d truly believed this pattern had finally been broken. I’d believed I finally had friends for life.

Between the loss of tmnttrashcan and Kyone, however, I learned a hard lesson: not to trust so deeply.

This was repeated twice more before I gave up on sharing. With Blue Blood, twice I made a close friend, got to the point of talking near-constantly and voice chatting. Twice I shared previews of what was to come. Once I even told the entire story, everything, every last detail I have planned to the end of the series. And twice, after hearing so much of the tale, the friend vanished from me. They stopped responding. I was talking to air.

It hurt.

By now you may be wondering why this is included in my fanfiction autobiography. Well, because it spurred me on. If I can’t keep friends for long, then I’ll keep my own company. I won’t let myself down. I decided to focus on my stories, for in this I am always the most important person. I am the one who will never be abandoned. I am the creator, the god, of the worlds I shape for the entertainment of others. Readers may come and go, as much a slave to their interests as I am, but I remain. For those who stay and those who arrive later, I remain.

There is a power in this which cannot be matched, but more so, there’s an enjoyment and responsibility. My stories are unfinished but demand an ending from a slew of followers. And so I keep writing, even though the stories are largely complete in my own mind. I know how they end. I know how they intertwine, how they connect. I know the backstage dancers, how the plot lines link together, where each thread is leading; my readers do not.

And so I continue writing, even as I remain cautious about how much I share.

To The Future

What comes next is largely unknown, even to me. I have many, many, many stories, both in original settings and fandoms. I work on some of them from time to time, in between trying to focus on my bigger hits. Sometimes I just open one and begin reading what I’d already written, refreshing my memory and contemplating where I want the story to go.

I’ve considered other forms of storytelling as well. Otome games have my interest, specifically, because of the nature of them; a single protagonist and multiple love interests with their own unique tales to tell. I love that format and have tried crafting numerous stories for them, but they’ve yet to gain any real ground.

This is partly because it’s a huge undertaking. It’d require more than myself to get them made. I can do art and writing, but I know little to nothing of coding. I’m unsure how I would turn words and images into a novella-type game. Originally I wanted Fluxx and Kyone’s help -- Kyone because I felt her art is better than mine, and Fluxx because she has experience coding. I tried to get them involved. They did not get involved.

As far as otome games are concerned, I am alone.

But this is fine. I am a better writer than anything else -- better than I am an artist, a gamer, or a friend, based on my history. So I’ll continue to write. And if I never truly create an original story, if I never get published, if I never receive royalties for my years of painstaking effort, then so be it.

I made people happy. I made people gush and scream and keyboard-smash. I made people laugh and cry. I made people fall in love with that which I love.

That’s enough.

I’ll see you soon with more updates. My stories are not yet finished.

- Nightshade

[ladyhistorypod]

Episode 16: Ms. Conceptions

Sources:

Bra Burning

Time

Carol Hanish (dot) org

Further learning: Florynce Kennedy (Harvard), NPR, BBC

Harriet Tubman

Time

National Women’s History Museum

National Parks Service

History Channel

Smithsonian Magazine

Monica Lewinsky

The Clinton Affair

CNN

News 24

Further learning: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (YouTube), Vanity Fair

Attributions: Commercial for Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra, Railway to Freedom, Pure T Saxophone Sample by Stan Rams

Click below for a transcript of this episode!

Alana: Yeah my sister is here. Erika: It’s me I’m here. Haley: I can't believe you’re both sitting in the goddamn closet. Sure the acoustics are better but you could’ve cleaned it up. Alana: The whole point is that the clothes do the soundproofing. Lexi: This is high end professional podcasting. Haley: What do you study, because this is like how I’m gonna judge you now. Erika: I'm a television radio film major. Alana: But I'm the one with the podcast. Haley We like this. She can stay. I was ready for you to say like– Erika: I really like TV. I really like movies, so I decided to make a career out of it. Lexi: That would have been me if I'd had balls. Except then I went to another pointless moneyless career so what's the deal? Alana: What are we doing? Lexi: Well, I don't have a sister. No just kidding, I have three thousand five hundred and two sisters. Actually I think that number's been updated since I memorized it because it's been a whole semester and there are new sisters. Alana you tell them what you think about my sisters. Alana: Every single time Lexi talks about a sister, I always think… she'll be like oh my sister Kate… Lexi you don’t have a sister. Haley: I completely agree but she doesn't say, or she went through this phase where she didn't say the people's names. She’d be like one of my sisters blah blah blah. And that will lead into like my next– like the other banter because I have a motherfucking story for you. Lexi: Okay, I love it. What about your sister Haley? Haley: Lou Lou? She's about to graduate from NYU and she's like writing a thesis right now and internally I'm just so happy that she has to like write this because I need her to feel this type of pain. Erika: That's sisterhood. Haley: I needed her to like feel this type of… Because for some reason I feel like her undergraduate time has just flown the freak by and she studied abroad three different times and I always feel like study abroad is always like some bullshit thing from like all the times for GW kids that come back and they're like well it's not graded you just have to pass the class. Lexi: All my friends who studied abroad in Korea and my sisters who studied abroad in Korea just like drunk and… Drank? Drank. Just drunk drank the whole time. Haley: Because she was out of like NYU London or NYU Madrid or NYU Abu Dhabi. Lexi: So it's like real classes from your school. Haley: I think so, yeah. Erika: Yeah that’s how it is for Syracuse. Alana: Yeah. Erika: Two of my roommates in– when I was in London last semester were from GW and we all– it was me and two other girls from Syracuse and two girls from GW and all the Syracuse girls were like are you kidding me. Like, are you for real? Because I was taking classes for my major and for my minors and they were just like well we're gonna mess around we're gonna like not try on this paper because we need a C. Lexi: Yeah. GW’s like go for the experience. Alana: Let’s talk about brothers for a sec. Lexi is the only one who has a brother. Lexi: Yes. I am the only one who's experienced the brother and let me tell you… Erika: I always wanted one. Alana: Okay well fuck off. Erika: I wanted an older one– Alana, louder: Okay fuck off! Erika: An older than you one. Like an old, old one. Haley: My sister’s like I wish I had an older brother and I'm like okay I didn't want you either. Erika: I didn’t mean it like that! Haley: I wanted to be a child so fucking badly. Erika: She wanted to be an only child. Alana: I was supposed to be an only child. Lexi: I literally cried. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. [INTRO MUSIC] Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. Back on Zoom is Lexi. Lexi, what’s something you wish people knew about your field? Lexi: I guess I'll say about archaeology. I wish people knew that archaeologists do not dig up dinosaurs. Alana: And my other zoom companion is Haley. Haley, what's something most people incorrectly assume about you? Haley: Did you really fucking set me up for that one? Everyone thinks I'm gay. Alana: And if I'm a little echo-y today it's because we have a very special guest. My sister Dave is here. Dave, what's your actual name and why do I call you Dave? Erika: My name is Erika. It’s not Dave. The Dave joke started because way back really really long ago there was a Staples commercial for like a one man running his own business. Alana: The tagline was in a small business it's all you. Erika: right so with all Dave and it was just a bunch of Dave's around the office. Like one guy was like making copies, one was walking around with papers or whatever. Then it’s just like hey Dave, how you doing Dave, how's it going Dave and we thought that was so funny. Alana: Uproariously funny. Erika: I remember like crying on the couch laughing for like twenty minutes. Alana: And I'm Alana and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that wax is the part of the candle that burns. Haley: So I thought of this in the shower where all my great thoughts come but since we're doing misconceptions– I did not have a misconception of Alana, but my first impression of Lexi was the furthest thing from Lexi possible. Lexi: What? I've never heard this before. Haley: I never accurately told the story– or like actually told this story to anyone. I like kept it in, but secretly chuckle from time to time. So like our group of friends didn't have Lexi immediately. Like I knew Cece and Kelsie from class, and I knew Cece from freshman year even. This is like second semester sophomore year so I kind of knew Alana. But for Lexi, I just knew Lexi from this one guy who we won't mention– we just won’t mention they're not important– and our lovely Holly. And Holly described Lexi as a girl from like rural Pennsylvania who was like really smart. Like I was ready for a fun loving friend because Holly's great and like I trusted Holly on personality like recommendations and just life choices to an extent. And I was like cool great let's meet this gal, we're all going to be like taking this one class together. Let's rock and roll. And then Lexi comes in, she's wearing like this bird– you were definitely wearing a skirt, like a long flowy skirt and had some sort of animal bird or whatever on your shirt or like on you. Speaker 0: And literally within five minutes you were talking about your sisters. I'm in my head thinking oh crap do we have like another nineteen kids and counting? Like who the fuck is this girl? Alana: Oh my god. Haley: Because like I called out Lexi, fifty fifty she may not say like sorority sister. But she may not even say like her sister's name. Like enter sorority sister name but using my sister and then… But at this point, she also used the phrase also commonly use and does commonly use is one of my sisters. So she said “one of my sisters,” “and other sisters,” “so a group of my sisters are hanging out.” So I was like this did this whole family just fucking come to GW? Speaker 0: Like either we have like Weasley but in reverse of like six girls and one bro, or like nineteen kids and counting coming on in. And I… Straight three weeks at least I was trying to figure Lexi out because I knew I was going to instantly love her but I was like scared to get like deep dive in like all her siblings. Lexi: So you thought I was like from a rural Pennsylvanian Amish family with thirty kids? Haley: Literally.

[Archival Audio of a 1960s bra commercial] Lexi: In my opinion, this is the biggest misconception in modern women's history because even I believed it until very much into my adulthood of so far my adulthood. And I was definitely told this in a history class in high school as being true, the lie. So we'll get right into it. The Women's Liberation Movement of the sixties and seventies granted women many rights, reforming policies surrounding work, education, and medicine. So overall, pretty good move. Today, the efforts of mid century feminists are often lumped into other stories and are not granted their own lesson plans in schools or their own sections of museums. Instead, stories like the suffrage movement are rehashed time and again and the more modern efforts of women fighting for equality are brushed aside. I mean even we are guilty of this, covering many more suffragists than twentieth century feminists so in keeping with our mission– Alana: Hold on. Lexi: Yeah? Alana: This is episode sixteen. Lexi: Yeah. Alana: There haven’t been many episodes! We haven’t had a chance to talk about twentieth century feminists! Lexi: Valid. So the story I'm about to tell you it's just a small piece of the larger movement, but considering someone could start an entire podcast series covering just the events of this movement and probably go on for like five seasons, who knows, I think it does make the most sense to give a small snippet of the efforts of these women here on our show, and maybe in the future we can cover other snippets as they relate to other things we're doing, so stay tuned. In 1968, a group of women gathered to protest the Miss America pageant. You know, we all know Miss America, women come from each state and I think also territories now, they get together they compete and one becomes Miss America. Carol Hanisch, whose name I might be saying wrong so please correct me if you know, the feminist scholar and activist who coined the phrase “the personal is political” conceived the protest as a way of bringing the Women's Liberation Movement to the mainstream. The pageant itself had a tradition of using white single childless women's beauty to make money, which is not exactly a very cash money thing to do or a very feminist thing to do. Actually it is a super cash money thing to do because it makes a lot of money. Alana, singing: Capitalism Lexi: Yes. So Carol and her fellow activists of the New York Radical Women organization decided the pageant was the perfect institution for them to protest. Women of all political backgrounds were invited to join in the protest which took place on the Atlantic City boardwalk outside the pageant venue, and the pageant venue was one of the Atlantic City casinos, so they were just on the boardwalk outside of it. And they had a permit, and they were doing it with permission, just in case anyone tries to come at them about that. They did have a permit for a protest on the boardwalk. These women rejected the idea of the massive air quotes ideal woman perpetuated by the Miss America pageant. Reporters arrived at the scene. The women spoke only to other women who were reporters and refused to speak to reporters who were men. The women issued a document to everyone in attendance outlining the ten reasons they decided to protest Miss America. One such reason was the fact that women of color had never won and a Black contestant had never even been allowed to participate, so the feminists believed the pageant was racist and they were calling out it as a racist institution. And we love to see intersectional feminism, so this is why that's the specific reason I wanted to point out. The women were also protesting the consumerism promoted by the event which was fueled by corporate sponsorships. They protested it as a symbol of military industrial complex, asserting that Miss America's role in entertaining troops made her a death mascot, you know those are just a few. Protesters also engaged in performance art. One protester Florynce “Flo” Kennedy, a Black woman who worked as a reproductive rights lawyer, chained herself to a doll depicting Miss America, invoking metaphors of enslavement. In an interview she said “the Atlantic City action is comparable to peeing on an expensive rug at a polite cocktail party. The Man never expects that kind of protest, and very often that's the one that really gets him uptight.” And she means the Man like capital M The Man, just in case that wasn't clear. Side note, five years later Flo hosted what she called a “pee in” at Harvard University to protest the lack of women's restrooms on the campus because women had to walk out of one of their academic buildings into another when they needed to pee, so I think Flo had a thing for peeing on rich people’s shit. And that's a mood because she just went into the quad and she just had people poor jars of yellow liquid which may or may not have been pee down the steps and that was the demonstration, so… Alana: I like that her name is Flo. Lexi: It's a very fun name. I love it. I like that her name is Flo and she's doing all of this like… (Laughing) Lexi: The women’s work. Simultaneously, women across the country in support the movement boycotted companies who were sponsoring the pageant. So this wasn't just contained to the New York Radical Women, it involves lots of people. Yet, the iconic image of the protest is the “Freedom Trash Can” and you might see pictures of this around on the interwebs it's like a barrel, a can, and it says “Freedom Trash Can” painted on the side. Protesters filled it with objects of oppression such as girdles, bras, wigs, fake eyelashes, hair curlers and homemaking magazines- so like “Country Woman” and “Women’s Day” and that kind of stuff. Then, they lit it on fire. Just kidding. Nothing was set on fire. No burning, no fire, not even the tiny candle, not even a tiny spark, no one pulled out a lighter. They just filled up a trash can and presumably took all the stuff out of the trash can after they were done. It was performance art. That's literally it. But this powerful, falsified visual leads to a myth that perpetuates to this day, of feminists gathering around, burning their bras as if they're participating in some sort of religious ceremony. It was a perfect visual to sell to the American people; don't support these radical angry women, who run around braless, unshaven, burning their undergarments, and worshipping like witches. Frustrated men argued that by burning their beauty products the protesters were making themselves less appealing to men, which is a hot take no one gives a shit about. So, the truth is a group of a few hundred women in Atlantic City in 1968 threw their bras and other items in the trash. They tossed away objects representative of consumerism and oppression, the two things they were protesting. The myth of bra burning lives as an anti-feminist propaganda piece, boiling a strong political and intellectual movement down to a visual of air quotes “Nasty Women,” a stereotype that continues to this day and myth even young women believe until learning the truth because it's literally taught in schools and exists in some textbooks that you can still buy. According to many historians, this protest event ushered in mainstream second wave feminism. The next day just down the boardwalk the first Miss Black America competition was held, which Oprah would go on to compete in in 1971 as Miss Tennessee. Just a few months later, Carol expressed that she regretted protesting Miss America saying “one of the biggest mistakes of the whole pageant was our anti-womanism...Miss America and all beautiful women came off as our enemy instead of our sisters who suffer with us.” The fight continues today. Yes all women. Alana: We love that, acknowledging mistakes. We love intersectional feminism. We love including all kinds of women in the feminism. Lexi: And since all the pictures are copyright, I can't put them on our Instagram but they are in the articles, so please go enjoy. They’re fantastic pictures of the performance art. Haley: When you started talking, I was having such flashbacks to like middle school/high school. The women around me, and I won't name names in case they ever listen to this, but just like their attitude towards how I and other budding females should act and like dress. Alana: I totally was that feminist bitch in high school. Everyone was like going to parties and I was like no one wants to fuck you when you're that feminist bitch. [Archival Audio: Railway to Freedom] Haley: This next story on Lady History, we're gonna be talking about Harriet Tubman and for a brief content warning topics like slavery, racism, and violence will be discussed. Alright friends bear with me because I've been very sick, not the coronas, no fever or whatever, just exhaustion, isolation dust hitting my asthma, and I've just been in the pits. So, anywho, when creating like the master spreadsheet of ladies that we had Harriet Tubman was on this list, but I think I switched her around… Alana: Who recommended Harriet Tubman? Haley: Excellent question, it was your sister Erika. I actually moved Harriet Tubman, so I had her originally, I think it was one of the earlier episodes, it was definitely before this episode. Yes I had her for heroines but I was gonna move her down the list because I wanted to do Selena. And then Erika was like let's do Harriet Tubman so I was like sweet, had some notes on her already, got sick, decided to do a radical change because I love testing out different methods of storytelling. I love narrations and for Harriet I think this would be a good opportunity to like pick a new style because she is very well known but mainly because of slavery, her being an enslaved human being, and then quote the conductor of the Underground Railroad where– where she was given the nickname “Moses of her people” because of all the people she helped. I would say ninety percent of the time, there's some article or book that I read and that's kind of like my aha moment of what I want to shape a full on story around, besides doing like our usual intros. So I found that article and it's kind of like… It’s got me going I kind of liked doing it that research way even though I'm sweaty and tired but my eyeballs still were like we're sweaty and tired but we like this article. So cracking open this history book to 1820 Maryland where Harriet Tubman was born, and we don't know her exact age so she may have also been born in 1822 if your ears are perking up and being like this lady got her dates wrong. So I didn't know this and this was kind of like one of my misconceptions for Harriet Tubman, but her name is not actually Harriet Tubman, or like the name her parents gave her, like birth name was Araminta Ross and I just love the name Araminta, like I think that's just a lovely name, you could have some stellar nicknames. And besides the point, we're gonna go back to just some deep dark history and by the age of five she was quote “rented” by her quote “owners” as a quote “domestic servant.” I'm gonna be using a lot of quotes because I really hate some of the terms used across some sources and just that's also a misconception for history is that you have to use X. Y. Z. term, like yes they should be taught in the sense of vocabulary, but like we don't… I don't want to be teaching five year olds or like elementary school kids that like… “rented by her owners.” Talk about the dichotomy but I don't I don't know it makes me– Lexi: Kidnapped by the people who enslaved her. Haley: Yeah, yes. I like that way more. And by age twelve we see her resistance to slavery blossom because she intervened a fight/quarrel/scuffle between very bad slave owner and a man who was trying to like escape slavery, and she kind of like came on in. So that was one of the many moments where she was like “I'm standing up for myself, I'm standing up for others, slavery is very very bad.” So now you get to the article because of course, of course, and it ties into also the movie Harriet that came out, starring Cynthia Erivo as Harriet. This was actually the first movie dedicated solely to this American icon. So like that was also a surprise to me. This Time Magazine opinion piece by Erica Armstrong Dunbar was ran exactly a year ago, when also the movie Harriet came out, and of course it's in the show notes, and it's called The True Story of Harriet Tubman Shows That Sometimes Running is Brave as Fighting. There are a lot of little misconceptions like the Underground Railroad wasn't actually a railroad, that's a big one I see many times. Also with the movie Harriet, I watched half of it, it's on HBO. So like every biopic… it's not a documentary, people are acting. Like I'm obviously people who are way more in depth into the American Civil War, Harriet Tubman history than I am will be like this misconception, this inconsistency. I'm gonna be– I'm gonna agree with you. So I'll just come out right there and say it like when you have actors portraying a character and just movies like this, they have to add some sprinkle of fiction. However, what this article really talks about is that how we have this whole misconception that fight or flight. So if you fight your battles, you’re coming up to a quarrel or scuffle and you fight them, you're seen as brave. You are seen as like this alpha human, alpha wolf. If you flee, if you fly, with your little wings, you are seen as like a coward, and that's just not true of Harriet Tubman because she literally ran away, but that was like the brave thing she could do. Also with this misconception, what the article also kind of nodded to was like if you're running into battle… like that’s still brave. Like that’s seen as heroic. But running towards like another route… because like it wasn't like if you left the South, you passed like northern Maryland, going into like up past the Mason Dixon line you were like Scot free. It wasn’t like this magical like utopia. You're running away from one battle into another battle. It was not black and white for this, so like her running away was not running away from the situation and that was like one misconception I never really thought about but after reading this article, reading more about Harriet it's like oh, that's a hundred percent true. And then the last misconception was how I perceived her as like an elusive person. Like I truly thought that the reason why we have pictures of Harriet Tubman was that she got caught, not in a great way. Like she got caught and like she had to like weasel her way out like but she was still free and like when she was free it was– she was just free because she happened to be in like the northern part and not like the part where she could go back to being a slave. I'm explaining this horribly wrong but this is me trying to remember back to like early middle school/late elementary school history. So like I– and this was also a misconception for just history, and I thought it was more like if you were a bad important, we would have a picture to remember your face. So that was kind of like I knew Harriet Tubman was like the hero and the good guy in this whole scenario, like I thought the reason why she was photographed and talked about was because she got caught and didn't want to be in the public eye. That is not necessarily true; she was an elusive person who tried to keep to herself, however she did do speaking engagements. Like she would talk about like her life in the North and then go back into the shadows and just like taking time away from society. And I don't know if she I can't like find out like what she did talk about the talks, like specifically, but I know that in the speaking engagements she obviously condemned slavery, and she would also condemned like the lawmakers, and like for the lawmakers who condemned slavery but didn't do anything about it she was still like you're not as good at like– you're not good or better… or you’re not better, you're still doing a shitty job. And in the end, she made twelve to thirteen trips to Maryland rescuing nearly seventy people and by doing that each of those trips she was breaking federal law each and every time. [Saxophone music because Lexi thought it would be funny] Alana: This is the first time we're covering someone who is still like active in the world, and I'm very nervous, but I’m gonna do my best. So this story it has a content warning for sexual assault and a brief mention of suicide that I'll note when it comes up so just in case sexual assault isn't triggering for you but maybe suicide is I will let you know when to hit that skippy boi. So I am talking about Monica Lewinsky, who was born July 23, 1973 that makes her a Leo. A lot of my notes come from the 2018 so kind of recent docuseries called The Clinton Affair, which I watched all of it, I binged it, it was exhausting. It features Monica herself actually and so in further reading I have included a Vanity Fair article that she wrote about why she decided to participate. One of the reasons was that she really liked that so many women were involved, whereas until that point a lot of the biographies of Bill Clinton and like the books about that whole time were written by men and she was like oh this is really cool that a lot of women are so heavily involved so she agreed to participate in the docuseries and I thought that was really cool of her. So after she graduated college, we're going back in time to 1995, she graduated college, and she had initially wanted to get a PhD in forensic psychology but she didn't score high enough on one section of the GRE. She was very interested in where psychology and the law kind of meet, but she wasn't really into politics. But also she like didn't know what to do since she wasn't going into a PhD program. She had a family friend who had done the White House summer internship, he put in a good word for her, and so she got the summer internship for the summer of 1995. At one point she had a conversation with one of the other interns who was like “oh, isn’t President Clinton so handsome” and she was like “no.” But then they were in the same room together and he was hypnotically charismatic and she developed like a celebrity crush kind of on him. There were a couple of flirtatious interactions during the internship but nothing like serious. She had been hired full time after the internship was over and so that's when the affair began, in November of 1995. Except here's the thing, 1996 was an election year, and Clinton was running for reelection. This would have been, and ended up being, very scandalous and could have cost him his reelection. So she was transferred to the Pentagon with the promise that she'd be back at the White House when the election was over. Except then the election was over and Monica was still at the Pentagon. She made a joke about how she was so underqualified to be at the Pentagon but there she was. She confided in her colleague named Linda Tripp, and what is the first thing that this bitch Linda Tripp does? She calls a literary agent and starts taping their conversations. I would like to note that Linda Tripp did not participate in the docuseries; she also died in April, but as previously mentioned this docuseries came out two years ago. So that timeline doesn’t work. I don't know if they asked her but I feel like… The literary agent participated. Let me take a second and put all of this in context. There was an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton by a woman named Paula Jones who said that he assaulted her when he was governor of Arkansas and there were a lot of other accusers involved. So calling it The Lewinsky Scandal– as it kind of has been– is bad, but you also can't really call it The Clinton Scandal because there are just too many of them. There was this thing called like Whitewater about banking that I didn't really understand… it's fine. I'll touch back on that at the end. And so someone leaked to Ken Starr, who was the investigator, that President Clinton was having a– currently having an affair with a young intern. On January 16, 1998 the FBI like held her in custody at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City. They didn't really arrest her, but they also– it was pretty clear that she wasn't allowed to go anywhere. They teased her for wanting her to call her mom, and then manipulated her into not calling her lawyer, and lied about an immunity deal. And this is the suicide mention, so maybe skip forward fifteen seconds. She was so distraught and scared that she thought the only way to protect her loved ones and the president was to jump out the window. Like that was a serious thought she had. There was some back and forth between Ken Starr, who sucks, just objectively– I guess not to Ken Starr and his family, but he's the worst. So there's some back and forth between him and Monica's lawyers if she can have an immunity deal or not and she finally gets one in writing in July of 1998. The lawyers in the docuseries said that they probably wouldn't have charged her with anything anyway. Frustration noises. Part of the immunity deal was answering very specific and very detailed questions about the nature of the sex that they had had directly to Ken Starr and she was very uncomfortable and so she made a chart, and wrote it all down instead of saying it. Later Starr said that he didn't want the president getting asked pornographic questions. Except hold the fucking phone, there’s a horrible relatively new thing out there called the internet. And in September, the House Judiciary Committee releases the Starr Report on the internet. And this is where we get to the horrible way that late night shows and the news treated Monica Lewinsky. She was slutshamed, she became a caricature, all of the late night shows have their go at her, and just say horrible things. Fuck Jay Leno, all my homies hate Jay Leno. He was the worst of them and has yet to apologize and even called for like civility to return to late night TV and I was like MM. Also fuck Bill Maher, I hate Bill Maher, not just because of this but also in general, sorry Dad, I hate him. But Bill Clinton, President Clinton, had encouraged Monica to lie during the Jones investigation and that was what came up and caused the impeachment trial. Not the assaults, not the affair, the quote “obstruction of justice.” Fun fact for my fellow DC friends, my favorite place in the whole world Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe which is now just Kramers and that makes me feel weird, is kind of tangentially involved in this because Monica bought a book on phone sex from them and the investigation subpoenad those records. Lexi: Are you kidding me? Alana: I am not kidding you. Lexi: I guess the point is for twenty five years young women in DC have been going to Kramer's and buying suspicious books. Alana: Totally! So could all of this have been avoided if Bill Clinton was just honest the first time he was asked because there was like years and years of denying this, and if he just said he had an inappropriate relationship with her? Maybe. Monica probably would have still been ridiculed and slutshamed though, but I guess certain semen stained dresses would not have come to light. For context there's this very famous blue dress that Monica wore during one of their encounters that had Bill Clinton’s semen on it. Fun fact, Linda Tripp encouraged her not to wash the dress. On the tape of that conversation Tripp says that she just has this nagging feeling that it'll come up later. Also all the women who accused Bill Clinton in the nineties of sexual misconduct went on to support Trump in 2016. Lexi: Like, like advocate– like publicly tell people? Alana: Yeah. There's this whole panel of them. He did– in 2016 he did a whole panel with all of Bill Clinton's accusers because that was relevant to Hillary’s run, I guess. Lexi: Did he pay them for that? Alana: I don't know. Lexi: Or they just really– they just– they hated him so much they had to just yeet HIllary? Alana: I mean the alternative title for this is “The Way in Which Bill Clinton is Democratic Donald Trump.” If you, if you're not seeing parallels…  Like I watched this in 2018 I was like oh my god… Or, I watched it now but that it took place in 2018. Haley: I've trick or treated at Bill and Hill's house. I've met them on various occasions, we grew up in– I grew up in Chappaqua, New York and that's the town they live in. Alana: My cousin has prayed with Jared and Ivanka because they're Jewish. So Monica today is a goddamn delight. She's so much fun. She is an anti bullying and anti public shaming activist. Her Twitter bio includes “rap song muse” which is hilarious because according to a John Oliver piece from 2019, which I have linked in the show notes because he is also a goddamn delight, her name is featured in 193 rap songs as of 2019. There was this Twitter meme a while ago that was “what pop culture thing ruined your first name” and she was like “am I even allowed to play?” If you want to know more, I do recommend The Clinton Affair docuseries, but maybe don't binge it like I did. You might want some time to recover. It also has snippets of info about the other Clinton scandals, like Hillary's involvement in one of them, a little bit about Hillary, how Newt Gingrich and his Republican Party pretty much single handedly made politics the vitriolic cesspit that is and definitely made space for Trumpism to rise, an actual right wing conspiracy and a lot of things that I just couldn't cover because we're only talking about Monica and we don't have a lot of time. Basically, society was shitty to Monica Lewinsky and we have a lot of repenting to do and we should do better. I say that like I wasn't literally born in 1998, like right in the middle of all this, but like in general we need to call bad people on their shit and believe survivors. Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review, or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself. Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History. [OUTRO MUSIC] Haley: Next week on Lady History, you'll see Alana crap herself because we have such a special guest. Alana: I have a burger waiting for me. Lexi: Go. We love you. Haley: Bye. Lexi: We’ll talk later. Okay bye.

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (3)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, youtuber phil lester, dan howell is not a youtuber, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.1k (this chapter), 9.5k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Interviews used to be Phil's least favourite part of this job. The research was always captivating, the filming was always fun, the editing was always challenging, but talking? To people? About things? Absolutely not.

He still doesn't love doing it, but he's long past the point of begging Martyn or Ian to pretend to be him on the phone.

The curtains in Phil's room are open for once, letting natural light in so he doesn't look as dark on the Skype screen. His eyes keep drifting to himself, distracting him as he tries to fix his hair or laments not getting out of his pyjamas. This is his fourth interview of the day, and he's starting to hate the process with a renewed fervour.

"Okay, thank you," he says, clicking out of the screen record window. "Can I message you here if I have any further questions, or would you prefer this to be your final statement?"

"Oh, um," the girl says, her eyes round with some kind of emotion that Phil can't be bothered to parse. "No, no, that's... that's all I saw. I don't have anything else. But you can still... message me, if you like."

Ah. Phil makes a face that he hopes reads as apologetic and not panicked. "No, I - sorry. Gay. Just interested in your ghost."

"Oh!" she says again, looking more puzzled than Phil thinks she has any right to after a forty minute conversation where he mostly just asked her clarifying questions that she kept dodging. She tucks some of her long hair behind her ear and shakes her head. "Sorry, that's just - you haven't said that online."

Phil isn't very good at knowing when people are lying to him, but now he's definitely suspicious of the half-assed testimony he'd gotten from this girl. He sighs. "Okay, you know who I am, then?"

"I mean, I looked you up when you messaged me about a video and all," she says. "Wanted to know if you were a creep or, like, legit."

Okay, that's fair enough. Phil supposes that if he were a girl in uni and a stranger asked to video chat, he'd also do a little digging first. He still doesn't quite believe her story, though - most of it matches what she'd written on Facebook, word for word, and she didn't go into detail on anything she claimed happened.

"Right, of course," says Phil, feeling awkward and exposed.

Her eyes are wide and blue and she can see into his room, into his life, and she's giving him this look like she thinks she knows something about him. He hates this feeling.

"That a secret, then?" she asks.

"No," Phil says. "It's just not relevant to my job. I don't have a lot of ghouls asking me out."

She doesn't laugh. Phil is getting more and more uncomfortable by the second, and he's wondering if it's worth it to hang up on a potential lead - no matter how dubious her claims - when she says, "Well, alright. I won't tell anyone anyway."

"Thanks," Phil says automatically. He doesn't particularly care if she does or not, but he does want this call to end as soon as possible. "And thanks for your time. Message me if you think of anything else you forgot to mention about the Wilkins place or if you know of someone who's seen something."

Before she can even respond, Phil hits end on the call and groans, resting his forehead on his thumbs for a moment.

Unsurprisingly, this is giving him a migraine. It doesn't take much to make the twinge of a headache turn to insistent throbbing, because Phil's body hates him and overreacts to everything.

Phil takes a couple of deep breaths before he comes out of hiding. He attaches the final screen recording to the email he's already got open and ready to send to Martyn. After a moment's thought, he CCs PJ and Sophie in and adds, Nobody sounds credible except the second person to me, so... it's not looking good lol, before hitting send.

He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes for a moment. Interviews are still draining for him, especially when they don't go as planned, and Phil's starting to get the impression that there's nothing to even find at the Wilkins place.

But. Phil pauses, considers his options. He hasn't interviewed everyone, has he.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Phil shoves his glasses unceremoniously back onto his face and opens Tumblr. Winnie hasn't said anything to him so far today, so Phil feels only a little like he's bothering them when he shoots off a quick, Hey! I just finished interviewing the sources you gave me and most of them aren't very promising. Would you consider letting me ask you some questions to round out the video?

me?????, Winnie replies almost immediately. i didnt even see anything?? like im happy to answer questions but idk how much use ill b in an INTERVIEW

I know! And you don't have to lmao so don't feel pressured or anything but you know so much more about the place than they do. Everyone claimed that they didn't know other people were having paranormal experiences.

oh bullshit, Winnie says. Phil is surprised into a huff of laughter.

There's a part of Phil, fuelled by anxiety and uncertainty, that worries Winnie is just pulling an elaborate joke on him. That part of him feels a little more at ease every time he actually talks to Winnie. They just seem... genuine. And maybe Martyn would disagree, would blame Phil's desperation to see the best in people, but there's a reason Phil doesn't tell Martyn everything.

Before Phil can agree with Winnie's colourful derision, his laptop beeps again. i look like an ogre rn but i can voice chat if you rly think itll help

It would!!, Phil assures them. The tender spot behind his eyes twinges again, serving as a reminder. Can I call in like an hour? I've got a headache from the screen lol

sure i really have nothing else going on today

--

So it's later in the day, late afternoon light still streaking through Phil's window, when Phil sits back down at his computer and adds the Skype username Winnie gave him. His head still hurts a bit, but it isn't all-consuming now that he's had another coffee and some painkillers. The padded headphones feel good to put over his ears, blocking out most of the typical noises from such a full house and a busy street, and Phil just sits in the blissful quiet for a moment before he sends a voice call request.

It gets picked up almost immediately, and Phil presses a smile into his palm before he says, "Hi! Can you hear me alright?"

There's a beat. Phil waits, in case Skype is lagging as usual, but he's opening his mouth to repeat himself by the time he gets a response.

"Yeah," says Winnie. "I can hear you."

Phil isn't really proud of himself for being surprised by Winnie's voice. It's just. He knows his viewer demographics, okay, and he has a rough grasp on Tumblr demographics, and the name - alright. It isn't his proudest moment, is his point, because he's expecting a much higher pitch for absolutely no good reason.

In addition to that, his brain automatically tries to classify Winnie's voice as very obviously masculine, and Phil has to push back against that.

"I can hear you, too," Phil says cheerfully, not allowing his anxieties to spill over into the conversation.

"That's good, probably," Winnie says. There's another beat of silence, and then a huff that might be laughter or a sigh comes through Phil's headphones. "Sorry, I - I'm not trying to be fucking weird, this is just surreal."

"Is it?" Phil hums. "But I haven't even asked you about ghosts yet."

A snort - definitely laughter, this time - follows, and Phil is so glad that he's able to put Winnie at ease even if his brain is betraying him. "That's true. I guess it's gotta get weirder from here."

"That's kind of, like, the subtitle of my whole channel," says Phil. After a moment, he frowns. "Subtitle? No. What's the thing, on the poster -"

"Tagline," says Winnie. They sound so amused and warm and, okay, they've got a nice voice. That's not gendered. Phil can think that. "You're thinking of a tagline, you buffoon."

"Tagline," Phil echoes gratefully.

"Don't you," Winnie starts, then stops abruptly. They don't finish the sentence, but Phil can kind of guess what they were going to say. There's the sound of some rustling, like Winnie is getting comfortable, before they change tacks. "Again, I didn't see any of this alleged ghostly activity with my own eyes, but I know the hot goss."

Phil opens the recording program out of habit, nodding even though Winnie can't see him. "That's still really useful at this point," he says encouragingly. He clicks a couple of buttons. "And, yes, I do have an English degree. Thank you for not asking."

Winnie laughs, the sound of it filling Phil's headphones and making it feel like they're in the room with him. It's warm, like everything else about their voice, and absolutely contagious.

"I didn't want you to think I was, like, a big stalker," Winnie says, and Phil can hear the grin in their voice.

"Eh, I know you watch my videos," says Phil. "So I figure you know some stuff about me. You probably know that I'm going to ask this, too, but - is it okay if I record our conversation? I don't need to include it in the video if you don't want me to, but it's still useful for me if I don't so I can, like, actually remember the things you told me."

"Yeah, sure," Winnie agrees easily. They hesitate, for a moment, and Phil waits for whatever the caveat will be. "Uh, can I still swear?"

The question surprises Phil into laughing. "Yeah, you're fine. I can bleep them out."

"Then I am all for it. Ask me the ghost questions, ghost man."

Phil presses record and glances down at his notebook, where he's scrawled some disjointed questions alongside his usual doodling. "Uh, okay. Yes. I am totally a professional."

"If you say so, mate," says Winnie.

"Hush. Okay." Phil finally gets his brain back on track and taps his pen against a question near the end of his list. "So, Winnie, you did all this research into the Wilkins place on your own downtime, but you mentioned that you've been hearing murmurs about it for a while, right?"

"Not that long, actually, I've only been hearing about it since term started," Winnie says, and Phil is struck by how comfortable they suddenly are now that there's a guideline. Or, maybe, now that there's a non-Phil audience. "Which I thought was pretty weird, since I'd been there a couple times since I moved here, and it's a spooky fucking place but nothing to write home about."

That's more or less exactly how Phil feels about the situation, except that he doesn't remember the Wilkins place to be scary at all. Maybe it's gotten worse in the years since, or maybe he's just got a higher threshold for empty, decrepit homes than Winnie does. Either way, he's not sure if he should be relieved or suspicious that their thoughts on it mirror his own so well. He starts a spiral in the corner of his page as he considers the answer.

"So, you never got the impression that it was haunted before?"

"I - can I be perfectly honest?" Winnie asks, and then doesn't wait for a response. "I don't get the impression that it's haunted now. I dunno if people are just making shit up or if they're doing too many drugs, but we all know that ghosts don't actually exist."

Phil snorts. He does have a fairly large number of skeptics who watch his videos to argue in the comments about logical explanations for his findings or to just enjoy watching him fail so much, but he hadn't really expected that from someone who sent him a sourced essay on the topic of ghosts.

He's recording right now, so he's not about to give away the fact that, yeah, he kind of does agree with Winnie on this one. Instead, he keeps his tone neutral and says, "You don't believe in ghosts."

"I don't believe in most things that can't be explained by science," Winnie says, so matter-of-fact that Phil has to smile.

"I don't really believe in science," Phil says, mild.

A beat. "Excuse me?"

"I said I don't believe in science," Phil repeats, doubling down on the joke so he can hear that incredulous pitch of Winnie's nice voice again. "I mean, isn't it all just as made-up as anything else? People just tell us stuff exists and we have to believe them?"

"We believe them," Winnie says slowly, "because it's a fact."

"How do I know that?" Phil asks. He knows how off track he's already gotten, and he decides to cut this part out before he sends the file to Martyn or his friends.

"Because you can. See it. With your eyes." The genuine bewilderment in Winnie's voice is very funny. "Like. What the fuck, Phil. If someone drops an apple and it hits the ground and they're like, 'oh that's gravity', how are you supposed to say, 'uh, no it ain't'?"

Phil leans back in his chair a bit, his spiral turning into an apple. "Because, what if that's just what the apple wanted to do? It's not like we know any of this for sure, Winnie."

"You're fucking with me," Winnie says, but they don't sound very certain.

"I am," Phil admits happily. "Do you remember the first incident that kicked off the Wilkins place rumours?"

"You," Winnie says, and then cackles. They lean away from their mic as they do, but the sound of it still makes Phil feel some secondhand giddiness. He wonders if their laugh has a volume limit, or if it's just going to keep getting louder the funnier Phil is. He is so tempted to put that to the test. "Fuck. You little fucker."

Phil hides his own giggle in the palm of his hand and clears his throat, trying to get back into the professional mindset he'd forced himself to be in for the four earlier interviews.

"Do you need me to repeat the question?" Phil asks. He can't resist teasing, just a bit.

"No, fuck off," Winnie chuckles. They take a deep breath and let it out on a hum, low and thoughtful. "So, there was this shindig during fresher's, which I obviously didn't go to because I'm not a fresher and I'm too old to go to shindigs, but people were talking about how the house was making weird noises. A girl I know - I linked you to her Reddit post - said she saw someone just standing outside the window watching them, but, like, is that really a supernatural occurrence in Rusholme?"

"It's not. And she hit on me as well, so I'm not sure her judgement is trustworthy."

"Sounds like her. Sorry. Anyway, nobody really thought 'ghosts' as much as they thought 'rats in the walls and a pervert on the street', but then - this one didn't get spoken about online. I don't even know how valid it is."

"Word of mouth is how most ghost stories get passed," says Phil. "I'm not going to hold you to citations on rumours."

Winnie huffs a laugh. It's soft, quiet, and Phil almost wishes he could say something ridiculous to make them cackle again. Unfortunately, he has a job to do.

"Fair enough. Well, some idiots spent the night there to see if anything weird would happen," Winnie says, and Phil feels a bit attacked, "and three separate dudes had sleep paralysis."

Phil hums and jots some messy notes down. "In the same night?"

"At the same time," Winnie corrects him. "The other idiots were trying to wake them up for a long time, apparently. They're convinced that the guys who fell asleep were just pulling a prank on them, and maybe they were, but that's when the ball really got rolling."

Out of everything Phil has heard today, this is the most compelling story so far. Maybe that's a good indicator of the Manchester students being full of it - maybe there truly is nothing to find in the Wilkins place - but it piques Phil's interest anyway.

"For someone who only believes in cold, hard science, you're good at telling ghost stories," Phil says.

"Thanks," Winnie says, sounding pleased with themselves. "Learned from the best."

Phil is suddenly very, very glad that this isn't a video call, because he can't stop himself from smiling like an idiot. "Oh, is that what they're calling me?"

Another cackle. Phil doesn't remember the last time he made someone laugh so much without tripping over his own clown feet.

"I never said I was talking about you."

"Uh huh."

"Oh, shut up," says Winnie, and Phil can still hear the laughter in their voice. "Don't you have a bunch of questions to ask or something?"

Phil does. He has a whole list of questions that he should be following. He chews on his pen and looks at the doodle-covered list of things he's meant to ask Winnie. His head still hurts - maybe the extra caffeine didn't help after all - and all he really wants to do is take a nap.

"Yeah," Phil says, reluctant. "I've just got, like, a migraine. Can I call you back another time? This was a really great start."

"Oh, yeah, sure," says Winnie. They've dropped their voice down to something soft, like they're worried that they'll make Phil's headache worse.

"I'm actually going up to check the place out this weekend." Phil isn't sure what makes him say that. He meets up with sources in person, sometimes, but usually only if they've seen something with their own eyes. He just feels comfortable talking to Winnie, far more than he'd felt talking to the other students he'd interviewed today.

Phil doesn't actually extend the invitation, and Winnie either doesn't pick up the hint or doesn't care to.

"That'll be good," they say, still soft. "Get some rest, Phil, you can call me back when your brain stops trying to drill a hole through your temple."

After Phil says goodbye and hangs up, he sits at his desk for a long moment. It feels too quiet, all of a sudden, his padded headphones blocking out all the ambient noise around him. It's good for his head, but Phil is still weirdly disappointed.

[jjonassevilla]

Get More Conversions with Lessons from 13 Irresistible Call to Action Examples

What’s the difference between a window shopper and a customer?

I’ll give you a hint: It’s the same thing that separates a scroll-by from a click-through. Or an anonymous lurker from a known lead.

The one thing that all your leads, clickthroughs, and customers have in common is that they’ve taken action. More specifically, they responded to a call to action (CTA) on your landing page, website, or ad and actively made a choice to advance through your sales funnel.

If you want to inspire more of your target audience to convert (which, of course, you do), then you need to step up your call to action game. With the right copy, design, and placement, you can create landing pages with powerful CTAs that motivate website visitors to make a move.

A call to action is exactly what it sounds like: you’re literally calling on your audience to take a specific action. This might be clicking a “buy now” button on a sales page or filling out a lead gen form to “download your free copy.”

The Psychology Behind Effective Calls to Action

Knowing the elements that make for a truly compelling offer (and understanding why they work) is the first step to crafting the perfect CTAs for just about every use case.

So, what makes a CTA effective? Let’s start by looking at some of the hard-and-fast rules for creating irresistible calls to action.

1. Grab the Audience’s Attention

Before a visitor can be persuaded to do anything, they need to first notice the call to action. Use a combination of font, design, and placement on the page to ensure your CTA button or form jumps out from the rest of the content—even during a quick skim.

2. Make a Single, Specific Request

Your CTA is not the place to play hard to get. Instead, tell readers exactly what you want them to do. Though there are various ways to use calls to action, the general rule is that it should align with a single conversion goal at the center of your campaign.

3. Present a Clear Path Forward

Use plain language to set expectations and tell users exactly what they’ll get from clicking. People are less likely to click on a link if they don’t know where it’s taking them, so be clear on what the next step will be—whether it’s a pricing page to “compare phone plans,” an account creation page to “start [their] free trial,” or a registration form to “join [your] community.”

4. Motivate Readers to Click

Use action-oriented language that focuses on results. The basic approach is to use action verbs (like “get,” “download,” “start,” “reserve,” and “grab”) to build momentum. You can also experiment with first-person point-of-view (“Give me my deal”), positive affirmations (“Yes, I want to 10X my ROI”), and creating a sense of urgency (“In limited supply. Claim yours today!”).

5. Optimize and Test

Sometimes the best approach to writing calls to action is to test out several variations. When it comes to optimizing copy, a call to action is one of the easiest things to swap out (and even small changes can make a big impact on your conversions). Smart Traffic uses AI to analyze your visitors and automatically display the most effective CTA to each person.

Where Do CTAs Fit into Your Marketing Campaigns?

Your landing page or marketing campaign is most effective when it’s built around a single conversion goal. That conversion goal is represented on the page as a call to action. This might take the form of a single button (click-through page) or a form (lead generation).

There are several different types of CTAs you might leverage at different points of your marketing funnel. Everything from your campaign goal to your audience awareness should influence how you write calls to action for your sales pages, landing pages, and lead generation forms.

These are the most common types of calls to action marketers need to master.

Lead Generation: A lead generation call to action helps identify viable leads. Whether the prompt is to download a piece of gated content, register for an upcoming event or webinar, or request a quote from the sales team, lead generation CTAs nudge leads to raise their hand and share details that help qualify them.

Click-through CTAs: In many cases, lead nurturing campaigns feature call to action buttons designed specifically to get viewers to click. This could be part of an email campaign, a social media ad, or a landing page, but the aim is always to boost product awareness (“Get a sneak peek at our upcoming release”) and aid discovery (“Click to learn more about this awesome gadget!”).

Sales and Signups: In the right place at the right time, calls to action can fuel sales and convert leads into customers. That means targeting leads who are ready to “buy now”—like those who click through to your sales landing page—and using action-oriented language. This applies to account creation (perhaps for a trial, paid account, or freemium version of the service) and ecommerce checkout pages. (Want to learn more about how ecommerce brands are using landing pages to drive sales? Check out 27 Ecommerce Landing Page Examples to Maximize Sales in 2020.)

Click-to-Call Buttons: Rather than filling out a form or collecting data about leads, a click-to-call button gives prospects a direct line to reach your team. Not only is this convenient, but click-to-call CTAs can be combined with A/B testing and call tracking to boost lead generation. (For an example of just how well this can work, check out how clever call tracking helped this agency get 219% more leads.)

Social Engagement: Brands that successfully promote their products and services on social media use calls to action to drive engagement. By asking viewers to follow, share, like, comment, or smash that subscribe button, you can broaden your reach, increase your following, and build relationships with potential customers.

Next, we’ll explore the most popular use cases using real-world call to action examples from Unbounce customers.

Real-World Call to Action Examples: How Unbounce Customers Use CTAs to Drive Conversions

Here’s how Unbounce customers use CTAs to drive customer actions across a range of industries and use cases. Use these to inspire your next CTA, or A/B test ‘em against one that’s not doing so well. 

CloudSpot | “Get Your App” (App Download)

In this example, CloudSpot uses a lead magnet to attract potential customers, build an email list, and drive app downloads. The entire page is perfectly catered to their target audience (wedding and portrait photographers), which immediately tells leads that they’ve landed in the right place. 

Image courtesy of CloudSpot.

Even the call to action itself is written with the audience in mind. By encouraging readers to “Get YOUR App” instead of “Get OUR app,” CloudSpot cleverly places further emphasis on the reader and draws them into the page. Plus, by promising to help photographers “replace awkward, unnatural moments” with more flattering poses, the benefits are clearly stated in terms related to the audience’s pain points.

The Listings Lab | “Fill Your Calendar with Appointments” (Gated Content)

Here’s an example that reminds us CTAs don’t exist in a vacuum. Even the smartest CTA button copy doesn’t work magic without an assist from a strong headline, supporting copy, and visual cues. Not only is the button itself designed to stand out, but there’s literally an arrow directing readers from the small print to the CTA.

Image courtesy of the Listings Lab.

By promising to show real estate agents how to “fill [their] calendar with appointments” without “working more hours,” the Listings Lab creates some serious incentive for agents to “get [their] free download.” Plus, the headline serves as a clever way to qualify leads by speaking directly to agents who are “stuck at 6-figures.”

There are tons of ways to match gated content with a simple call to action to generate leads. For more real-world examples like this one, take a look at 8 High-Converting Lead Generation Landing Page Examples.

Waldo Contacts: “Get Ready to See Happiness” (Free Trial)

Image courtesy of Waldo.

The secret to good copywriting is balancing cleverness with clarity. It’s not always an easy balance, but a tagline like “Get ready to see happiness” is both cute and concise, making it perfect for this contact lens subscription service—especially when paired with a straightforward benefits statement and a direct CTA.

This call to action example by Waldo effectively drives website visitors to start a free trial because even though the tagline leans towards clever, the call to action button itself is 100% clear about the reader’s next step (“Start your free trial”).

Sourcebooks: “Enter to WIN a Signed Copy!” (Contest Entry)

Image courtesy of Sourcebooks.

Sourcebooks used this landing page to attract leads interested in winning a signed copy of The Similars by Rebecca Hanover. The contest served two valuable purposes: to get people excited for the book (and boost future sales from those who don’t win a free copy) and to build a targeted list of potential leads (by collecting contact info from those who are most interested in this particular genre and author).

An important caveat here is that we typically don’t recommend CTA buttons that simply say “submit.” Although the heading encourages readers to fill out the form (“Enter to WIN a signed copy!”), it’d be worth testing out more actionable copy on the button itself (like “Sign me up!” or “I want to win!”) to see how it impacts conversions.

The round button in the top left corner presents a second, competing call to action (“Click here for an excerpt”). Interestingly enough, this strategy also goes against conventional advice, which would be to focus on one call to action per page to prevent diluting your conversions. However, it works well in this use case because the main CTA is not related to a purchase and because the secondary CTA is an option to preview an excerpt from the book—which actually adds value to the main action of entering the contest, rather than competing.

Athabasca University: “Let’s Get You Started” (Program Registration)

Image courtesy of Athabasca University.

Athabasca University uses landing pages like the one above to drive enrollment for online courses. In this case, they use a soft CTA above the form to get visitors to fill it out and a simple “submit” button at the bottom.

The heading “Let’s get you started…” is less of an order to do something and more of a supportive pat on the back. This tells prospective students, right from the get-go, the school is ready to provide support and help them achieve their goals.

The biggest lesson here is that writing for your audience and speaking to their needs is more important than blindly following any hard and fast rules for call to action writing. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rate for signups or account creation, check out some more of our tips for creating signup pages that convert.

Indochino: “The Tailor Is In” (Appointment Booking)

Image courtesy of Indochino.

By letting visuals of their suits do much of the selling, Indochino shows potential customers what they can aspire to, rather than telling them why they should book an appointment. In this context, their approach makes sense. Afterall, Indochino doesn’t sell one-size-fits-all clothing—but they do aim to make all of their customers look their best.

The call to action itself (a basic, “Book an appointment”) comes across as more of a low-pressure invitation than a marketing move. However, they also sweeten the incentive and create a minor sense of urgency by mentioning that booking your appointment by a certain date will enter you into a draw for a “perfectly tailored wardrobe.”

Awayco: “Free the Funk” (Equipment Rental)

Image courtesy of Awayco.

The use case for this example is a bit different, so the approach is a bit different, too. Awayco is an equipment rental company for surfers and other outdoor enthusiasts. The call to action changes a bit throughout the page, ranging from “Free the funk” to “Book the board” to “I’d like to ride that.” It’s this last one, in particular, that’s interesting because rather than simply asking visitors to do something, Awayco is putting words directly into their mouths—and potentially putting ideas into their heads.

On one hand, trying out different calls to action is kind of like A/B testing within a single landing page. (If you have a heatmap set up on the page, you can see which one visitors click more often.) But more importantly, the variety of CTAs give Awayco more opportunities to play with language and show their audience that they’re on the same, ahem, wavelength.

Shoelace: “Download the Deck” (Free Download)

Image courtesy of Shoelace.

As a Good Witch once said, if you want a wish to come true you must repeat it three times (I’m paraphrasing here). By repeating the exact same call to action three times throughout this landing page (“Download the Deck”), Shoelace keeps the desired action top of mind and reinforces the visitor’s next step at the end of each benefits section.

We also love this example simply because the landing page and call to action design both embody the pop-art animated aesthetic of the brand perfectly—and you can bet the deck matches it as well.

ClaimCompass: “Claim your compensation” (Clickthrough)

Image courtesy of ClaimCompass.

Much like the example above, ClaimCompass drives home the audience’s goal by repeating the call to action three times. However, in this case, the wording is switched up in each instance in an attempt to match the reader’s intent.

They start off with the most forward phrasing at the top of the page (“Claim your compensation”) and tailor the next call to action to readers who are scrolling further for more information—perhaps because they’re unsure if they qualify (“Check if your flight is eligible”). At the very bottom of the page, ClaimCompass ends with the most urgent version of the call to action (“Check your flight now”) to re-engage leads who have scrolled to the bottom.

Bonus Tips to Keep in Mind (+4 More Call-to-Action Examples)

If you’re still searching for inspiration, there are plenty of awesome call to action examples out there in the wild. Here are a few lessons you can borrow from big-name brands.

Match the Messaging to Your Product

At first glance, there’s not a lot going on here–and that’s a big part of what makes this call to action example worth showcasing. The three-word headline and straightforward messaging explain exactly what the product does in the simplest way possible. Not only is this plain old good copy, but the simplicity is also a nod to just how easy it is to “get started.”

This page appeals to those who don’t want to make their own investing choices or actively manage their funds. The clean, simple design and basic language mirror the hands-off user experience offered by this platform. The minimalist messaging aligns with their easy onboarding and low-touch product experience.

The biggest lesson from this example? Keep your page design and call to action minimalist for low-touch products. Or, to apply this more generally, match the messaging to your product and audience pain points.

Use Two-Step User Flows to Gauge (and Grow) Commitment 

This is a great example of how different CTAs can be used at specific points in the customer journey to build momentum and investment.

When leads first visit the page above, they’re invited to start a 15-day free trial. Rather than taking those who click “Try us free” straight to the sign-up page, leads are redirected to a landing page designed to learn more about them.

Everything about this user flow is designed to increase adoption and retention. By inviting prospects to customize their practice (with a casual, non-committal “Sounds good,” no less), Glo is taking advantage of leads’ interest and drawing them deeper into the app experience before they’ve even taken their first class.

Of course, those who click “No thanks” are simply redirected to complete registration. But if you do decide to “design your unique practice,” you’re telling Glo about your skill level and class preferences—which not only gets you more invested in using the app, but also allows them to provide custom recommendations and keep you engaged with relevant messaging.

Nip Objections in the Bud

We’re highlighting this page because it’s such a simple, smart example of catering directly to your ideal audience. In this case, the target customer is budget-conscious, which is why they’re interested in the product in the first place. They’re looking for savings and likely wary of hidden fees or extra expenses. That’s why the button doesn’t just say “Add to Chrome.”

By clarifying that Honey is free to download, the call to action provides extra context and pre-emptively addresses the most relevant customer objection: the cost (especially for a coupon-finding extension).

Play Up Customer FOMO

How often do people “reserve” shoes before they’re available? Most of us probably don’t—at least, not outside of a compelling Kickstarter campaign. Yet, that’s exactly what Vessi is encouraging website visitors to do in this unconventional CTA example.

Vessi taps into consumers’ “fear of missing out” (FOMO) by urging them to pre-order (or “reserve”) a yet-to-be-released sneaker style. This not only builds excitement and creates a sense of exclusivity around the product, but also motivates shoppers to commit to a future purchase.

In this case, the CTA appears on the homepage to draw attention and send more traffic to a specific store page. You can achieve the same effect by using popups and sticky bars to add clickable CTAs to your website or landing page. Best of all, popups and sticky bars makes it easy to experiment with different CTA language, placement, and design to see what clicks—without making changes to the rest of your copy.

Do More with Landing Pages that Inspire Action

A compelling call to action is a key part of effective marketing. In fact, you might say it’s the key. After all, there’s no action—or conversion—without a call to act. It’s your opportunity to ask readers to take a specific action and frame it in a way that speaks to your audience’s needs.

Now that you know what it takes to create an irresistible call to action, it’s time to take some action of your own! Ready to build a landing page that converts? Start applying what you’ve learned today with one of our 100+ designer landing page templates.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/call-to-action-examples/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[syambf]

How do marketers use AI for Marketing?

Artificial intelligence, or AI is now being included in most of the marketing strategies. It is revolutionising many industries, and digital marketing is no exception. An AI is a complex algorithm with self-learning  capabilities. It can check large volumes of data in a short span with no human error. 

Marketers including SEO experts are using the AI for simplifying many of their tasks like keyword analysis and many companies are using it for increasing their productivity. 

Let us know in detail what exactly AI marketing:

AI, or artificial intelligence, attempts to stimulate human emotions in machines; it includes voice recognition and faces recognition. Like other industries, it has been extensively used for digital marketing too. 

Ways marketers leverage AI for marketing:

Helps in understanding the audience better

With the help of AI, you can easily check large volumes of data in a minimal amount of time. That helps you analyze your audience in a much better way. You can know their likes and dislikes easily.

Helps in increasing productivity

By automating various processes, AI helps in enhancing your productivity, like sending emails. You can save time and manual effort by automating a task. 

Make a more effective strategy

AI helps you gather data-driven analysis and helps you make a better social media marketing strategy and target your audience better. 

Increases ROI

As time is the money saved and you will be increasing your productivity, the ROI will definitely go up. You can easily save on various resources you utilize for your daily tasks and help in cutting the cost. 

Ways wherein marketers can utilize AI:

Chat Bots

Whatever website you land upon, you will find a chatbot there. It has become a part of my daily routine. Many times, we have chatbots to clear up all your immediate doubts, so you do not have to wander to the customer service chat or phone number. With chatbots, you will be available to your audience immediately with one-on-one conversations. 

AI for trends

Many social networking sites use AI to learn the audience's behavior and suggest the best ads to them based on their scrolling time, the type of content they watch, or the content they share. Marketers can use this information to know the trends and micro trends that are going on in the market and decide upon their strategy. They can learn their audience's behavior and decide upon where to promote the content, what audience they have to target, and also the capital they need to invest in. 

Web development

With the correct AI tools, easy and rapid web development is now possible. Your developers can take the help of AI and develop a website that is shaped to the users' requirements. AI also leverages content marketing services to produce quality and personalized content with a single click. You can have catchy headlines and taglines for your website with just a single click. 

Voice search

Marketers can deploy voice search options on their websites as it is gaining popularity day by day. Many consumers think the voice search option makes their tasks easier and faster. Hence, we can easily see Alexa, Google, or Siri in every house and doing many things like operating lights and fans, which seemed quite inaccessible some time ago. 

Email marketing

The life of many social media marketing campaigns- email marketing! Marketers can deploy AI to operate their marketing campaigns. They can automate the whole process with the help of AI, and their manual tasks will be reduced to a minimum. 

With each passing day, we are coming close to being fully dependent on AI. It is helping many businesses to enhance their productivity and decrease downtime by limiting manual work. But, human intelligence will always be needed to support AI and control it to give the best results. 

Break a leg!

[muhammed-z-blog]

Supercharge Your Erectile Dysfunction Treatment

A tagline may only be the tip of the iceberg, but it can have a visible and lasting impact on your target audience. Given the short-term memory of a fickle marketplace, the tagline must rise above the din and clutter, vibrant and intact, like a battle cry or a flag waving in the breeze. The other half were given Viagra 100mg plus a 5-gram testosterone gel daily. If you run a search on a product name through an Internet search engine such as Google, you can learn a lot about any given nutritional supplement or drug. There is a wide choice of anti-spam products available on the Internet. No several how plenty of instances yourself’ve discovered the Grand Canyon, oneself received’t regret relocating there. • In some rare instances the heart attack or sudden cardiac arrest was noted. The drug companies would still make profits, because the demand for the drugs would go up tremendously if they suddenly became affordable for people without health insurance, but the profits wouldn't quite be the same. They have the same design and same format as the real company’s emails. You might not have perm ABS or a portfolio full terrain poor or no lighting In For Cow Concert. It is possible, being a new user, that the dosage prescribed for you isn't quite right, it's also possible that a different brand might be what you eventually use. So, please consult the doctor immediately if you feel that you are being infected by any of the infection causing bacteria. The metropolitan goods homosexuality technology also hopes through the cialis comparison viagra, although elsewhere at 2007 it is usually being advocated for charge stores. The opposite is true for tadalafil(Cialis). The generic version is also known by the name of Tadalafil. Nitrates and Tadalafil don't tend to get a long very well. What drugs don't interact well with anesthesia? Hopefully we do not have to cope with this, but I can thankfully say that yes I believe I can survive. Capsule is the one that ordered tablet how treating it is to have medication in overnight dosages. But I will say hopefully we do not have to worry about a total collapse. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. Believe me she will give you leads about what she would like to talk about, in essence, telling you want to say next. “That government will furnish its own money without cost. A lot of hard work, money and years of research go into the production of a drug. If the FDA sponsored a system of legal and regulated prescription drug buying from Canada, this would force American pharmaceutical companies to drop their prices by 80% to compete, canadian pharcharmy online resulting in a better situation for the consumer. While cialis drug interactions were more into pharmacological and slow informations, I was into treatment and injecting medical capsule. Gosh, one generic cialis is far more abhorrent than a nonsensical generic cialis. For more information on generic drugs, ED, and to ask a question, click on the link below. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? The industry model PHR by Blue cross insurance is in fact private, secure web-based tool preserved by an insurer, which contains a consumer's claims and organizational information. The FCA held that application of the legal test for sufficiency of disclosure to the facts of the case is a question of mixed fact and law, reviewable on the standard of palpable and overriding error. Unfortunately, the gold standard doesn't always work either. Female Cialis Review: Does This Really Work? Er, the precise generic cialis stoically spluttered under one bastard generic cialis. It' one of the most well-prepared hubs I ever read. No one even needs to know that Viagra is a part of your dating life. Interesting thing is pregnenolone is one of the most effective and powerful and yet one of the most overlooked hormones with multitude of different health benefits for both men and women. Many doctors are still hung up on the very dubious value of doing blood tests on men before starting them on TRT. The most famous treatments for erectile dysfunction are ED tablets such as Viagra and Cialis. For all we know, Viagra or Cialis could be preventative medicine! In my research, I often come across articles referencing illegal Viagra and Cialis. Viagra and generic Cialis are not just for older people. There are now ways around this problem. Since brand messages can be expressed on several levels (e.g., position, promise, benefit, differentiation, etc.), there is an expectation that taglines should multi-task. In about 6 to 7 days you can overcome the bacterial infections completely.

[webfume-blog]

Tips on Picking Right Website Design for Law Firms

Is a website essential for a law firm today? Many small law firms actually are still operating without a website but shockingly so!

After all, don’t you have to be present where most of your customers are? Yes, a website is not only the need of the hour but an essential component of any business in today’s digital world!

The first thing a customer does is search for a list of top services online. Moreover, if one gets to hear about you via word of mouth, where do you think they would try and find you first? — Of course online!

Thus a basic requirement today is to have an online presence, most professionally advocated by your own website. No website might turn out to be a red flag for potential clients, assuming that you’re not established enough or cut out for the job.

However, only having a website is not sufficient. Neither only an attractive design makes the cut. It has to be tailored specifically to your company and its requirements.

Having the appropriate Law firm web design shall render your firm enhanced lead generation, branding, and customer acquisition. Advanced features and generally compatible, the right website design shall take your company a long way.

Here are some tips on making your law firm’s website super apt and successful. The key is to design right and here is how you can go about it:

Create a website that is simple and unique:

When one lands on your website for the first time, they shouldn’t feel like they’ve seen what they’re looking at tons of times before. In fact, there should be something that grabs their attention or strikes a chord immediately!

Thus, uniqueness is the key. Make your website different and custom designed. It shouldn’t just be a template available online.

Make your lawyers website design stand out using engaging ways of presenting information. It could be a creative photo of the workplace and its people as the main image for instance or say a website that focuses on the women employees of the law firm.

De-clutter and simplify is the new trend and rightly so. In fact, for a law firm’s web design, simplifying not only involves a cleaner look and feel.

It rather means that you should be able to communicate your message through your website design. Why? So that it’s super simple for your clients to understand you better. Yes, simplify in terms of making it simpler, for your customers to grasp what your law firm is all about.

A great way of doing this is by using hero areas on your homepage itself. Incorporate large hero images with simple and clear text. Your hero images can be rotating too, to present a few other variations for the complete message.

These hero images help prospective clients understand what specific niche your law firm operates in, what’s your culture like, how big your brand is etc, depending on what you think is most essential to communicate.

Moreover, all they need is a jiffy, to land on your homepage and have a look at your custom-made hero areas highlighting all that you’re about.

In fact, your customers only read around 28% of the words during an average visit. So, it’s best to only include the most important aspects on the homepage at least. Less is more in the case of law firm web design. One shouldn’t overload the homepage with tons of text and images.

Modern and cut out for today’s trends:

If your website looks like 2014, no one is going to bother about it! Rather it might signal that your firm is dated and your employees still stuck in the old ways.

A great way of showing that your firm is up to date with the latest developments and technologies, the new tastes and trends are via a modern looking lawyers website design.

Make your website look current and now! For instance, since 2017s flat designs are in vogue, so are simple gifts, videos, and animations.

Professionally shot cinemagraphs on work culture or the cause behind the company is very much in trend.

Other than this, larger fonts, bigger images, and illustrations are what you can play with to design a modern-looking website.

Use a Professional logo and brand colors:

Your website has to incorporate your company’s logo in a clear distinctive manner and right at the outset itself. Your logo is literally your company in a snapshot and shall be used to represent it at all times.

However, if you pick up a random clipart from the internet and tweak it minutely to create a logo for your firm, once put up online as part of your website, it might dissuade people from actually taking you seriously.

A differentiated, simple but custom-designed logo is the first step to depict out professionalism for a law firm. You can also use your brand colors as the theme color for your website to resonate more personally with your clients.

Carry out tests to analyze what’s ticking:

An integral part of any marketing plan is to provide for a procedure for analyzing the overall results to infer how the initiatives are faring.

Say you’re going on relentlessly putting in efforts and re-designing your website. However, without ever analyzing how effective this is turning out to be for your business, in that case, how can you establish whether your website design is giving you the outputs you expect?

Moreover, how would you infer which aspects need improvement or change and which should be continued or rather incorporated even more?

The answer is to run simple tests after designing your homepage and having it running for a pre-decided initial period. Carry out A/B tests to determine which types of content, colors, buttons and specific parts of your homepage are doing the most well with prospective clients i.e. earning the most amount of clicks.

Incorporate CTA on your homepage etc:

What would you ideally want from your law firm’s website? For it to be able to engross and engage a prospective client?

The best way to get your customers deeper into your website and the firm today is by including ‘call to action’ buttons on your homepage. Any web design company in California should be able to help you with this.

A CTA if appropriate should be added on to a homepage so that a viewer clicks on it and is taken even deeper into the site before bouncing off. In fact, CTAs should be added on other pages too and it’s a great way of guiding your customers in particular directions and enticing them with further information.

However, one should not overload pages with non-relevant CTAs. Each call to action tab should be clearly visible and stand out on the page, for instance, a pink button on a black background.

The location where you’re placing the CTA is also important. A CTA tab should open up to link of another page that has been created to take your client deeper into the website.

Use subtle gradients. Focus on only a couple of the most significant ones and depict them with larger font and simple yet attention-grabbing content.

Incorporate your services and attorney profiles:

For a law firm, it is important to clarify at the outset as to which niche the attorneys of the firm specialize in. The first thing your customers shall be looking out to determine on your website is your specific services as a law firm.

For instance, even just below your logo, or adjacent to the header itself incorporating a tagline, saying ‘ A Civil Rights Law Firm’ or ‘property law specialists’ can resonate what you’re servicing right from the moment one lands on your site.

Introducing your attorneys, highlighting their experiences, skills, and awards go a long way in building trust. Attach headshots as well to help clients picturize them. You can also talk about their education, fun facts or specific cases handles by them to make it more relatable.

A prospective client, especially when it comes to legal help, shall be longing for reliability before making any calls. Thus design your website in a way that it builds confidence.

Another way of doing this is by including a testimonial page in the design. When actual reviews and experiences of previous or current customers are shared, the prospective ones are naturally much more at peace and more drawn towards the company.

In fact, over and above a testimonials page, try incorporating few key testimonials all around the site in creative ways to resonate with the customer at all times.

Design in a way that your website loads swiftly:

A super slow loading website can be the biggest marketing downfall and most annoying. Yes, your website design has things to do with the loading speed too. Ask any web design company in California, and they shall be able to tell you how.

If your design includes very rich content in terms of graphically intense layouts, it might make your website sluggish to load. In that case, you need a super good bandwidth and host to make up for it and avoid sluggish speeds.

Therefore the cheapest monthly host is not always your best option. In fact, a simple web design plus a decent host is what you should opt for.

Consistent throughout:

You shouldn’t include different patterns of design and ways to navigate on separate pages. These should be kept similar across all the pages of the site.

Keep the design consistent throughout to avoid noise and confusion. In fact, in 2017, this was the reason why most law firms had to re-design their website

Content is the key:

One might create a stunning layout for their website but what about what forms the body of that site? The content was often ignored and not as focused on, however today, all web design companies in California agree that content is very much the key.

If you have gibber on your site just to fill up space, your customers shall not even take a minute to scrape through and bounce off (and probably bad mouth as well).

Not only do you need apt content for communicating with your customers, but also to appear in top places on search engines. Yes, it’s a fact that SEO revolves around content and all major search engines shall pick you on the basis of what your content incorporates (keywords and links). So, optimize your website for SEO by using the appropriate content.

It is also important to understand the current trends with respect to content. It should be fresh and crisp. Use engaging headings to grab attention, bulleted points and be concise. Your customers shall not read long pieces of text.

You can use simple pieces of content as navigation points on your homepage as well. You can also use numbers and stats in bold as highlighted areas on the homepage to engross the customer instantly.

These can depict for instance, how many cases you have solved as a company, how many clients are on board or how many people, in general, are affected by the industry you’re servicing in etc depending on what your USPs are.

Also, try using a larger, more readable font for the content. With the increase in screen resolutions, many formats further reduce your font size making them tiny and difficult to read on the screen.

Make your website design responsive:

Today with the drastic increase in Smartphone use, you really don’t know where your website shall be accessed from. Your web design should be able to fluidly change and be responsive to fit any screen size and format.

Whether a desktop, phone screen, I pad or any other device, a responsive design shall keep your website accessible across all and is really the need of the hour.

Hope you find these tips useful. Take them as a starting point to build on your web-design and witness the magic unfold!

[laurenwestrom]

Come hear a talk about using art to enhance a garden, plus all about Garden Spark

March 23, 2022

Five years ago I started a speaker series about garden design, asking designers and landscape architects I admired, garden authors I found interesting, and other design thinkers to come share their ideas. I called it Garden Spark, with the tagline “garden design talks for thinking gardeners.” It was an attempt to bridge a gap in learning opportunities in the Austin area, a niche filled on the East Coast and West Coast by highly regarded flower and garden shows, regular Garden Conservancy events, and an abundance of print media attention.

OK, it was a one-plank footbridge across that gap, since I was hosting the talks out of my not-especially-large living room. But I was thrilled with the response. Each talk sold out quickly, and enthusiasm was high. People were soon attending not just from Austin but surrounding cities, a few even driving in from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas.

I attracted speakers by offering a generous speaking fee (helpful for those who must travel to get here) and (particularly for busy local designers) by encouraging them to be part of the design conversation here in Austin. For that’s what I saw it as — a design conversation. I’d been inspired by reading about L.A. designer Dustin Gimbel‘s Cross-Pollination garden parties, a mingling mashup of garden designers, gardeners, artists, writers, and other creatives interested in gardens. Garden Spark was — and still is — a chance for Austin gardeners, designers, and garden thinkers to come together to learn and mingle before or after the talks.

For the first 4 years I hosted 3 or 4 speakers per season. Then COVID happened, and Garden Spark was put on pause. But last fall Garden Spark returned for its 5th season with its biggest slate yet: 6 speakers I’m super excited about and in a brand-new location, an outdoor classroom at Barton Springs Nursery that can seat up to 50 people! Far more than my living room can accommodate, plus fresh air, lots of plants, and string lights under a gorgeous old live oak. Barton Springs Nursery’s sponsorship of Garden Spark with a beautiful location and their truly hospitable staff has been a game-changer for me. More speakers, more attendees, more idea sharing!

I don’t regularly write about Garden Spark here because the talks are private events, with tickets sold in advance to subscribers on my Garden Spark email list. (Simply click this link and ask to be added.) That’s because I started out hosting talks out of my home, like a house party for a musical group. Garden Spark subscribers get notified first when tickets go on sale, and talks usually sell out in a matter of hours.

Tickets are available

If you’re reading this and aren’t on my email list, and you’re interested in attending a Garden Spark talk, this is your opportunity! I released tickets for the next talk during spring break — oops! — and because many people were probably out of town or at SXSW, there are still a few seats left. So I’m opening them up to readers who may not have known what they are missing! All you need to do is email me — put “tickets” in the subject line — and I’ll send you the ticket-page link.

Our next speaker, Patterson Webster

My speaker on April 7th is Patterson Webster, who’s coming all the way from Canada. I met Pat on a garden tour a few years ago and was immediately impressed by her experienced eye for garden design and the wide range of gardens she’d toured. Her blog, Site & Insight, is her thoughtful outlet for long-form articles about design and art. It’s well worth a read. I’m delighted that she’s coming to Austin to share her insights about designing with garden art, gleaned from her travels and from home-grown gardens she’s visited. I’m also hoping some bluebonnets will hold on for her, as she’s eager to see Texas wildflowers while she’s here.

Here are the details:

Talk: Patterson Webster presents “Art In the Garden: What, Where, Why”

When: April 7th at 8 pm

Description: Does art enhance a garden or detract from it? Does it reveal something about the site and enrich the experience of being there? And if not, why use it? Using photographs from private gardens in Canada, the United States, and Europe, Pat Webster looks at important issues about using art outdoors. She starts by considering what constitutes art in a garden – the “what” of her title – and goes on to examine practical questions. How do shape, size, and color relate to the choice of location? What is the impact of different types of material? How do these choices influence our emotional responses to the surroundings? Focusing on high and low art, permanent and ephemeral, she considers how the choices we make express our personal taste and what they reveal about the way we relate to the world around us.

Speaker Bio: Pat Webster is an experienced gardener, garden writer, and popular speaker, lecturing on art, garden history, and design. She is an artist whose sculptures, photographs, and garden installations explore the landscape and history of Quebec’s Eastern Townships. For the last five years she has also hosted sold-out garden tours to England and Italy. Pat’s articles about gardens and garden design have appeared in numerous publications, including the British garden website ThinkinGardens, where her most recent piece was about using words in the landscape. In her blog Site & Insight, she writes about her work at Glen Villa, her garden in Quebec, Canada. She reviews gardens she has visited, tackles questions about garden design, plant selection, and maintenance, and illustrates each article with her own photography.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Pat holds two honorary doctorates and has served on the board of directors of a variety of not-for-profit organizations. She lives in North Hatley, Quebec, where she is responsible for her family’s 750-acre lakeside property and garden – a place she and her husband are delighted to share with their five children and eleven grandchildren.

Cost: Ticket price is $35, plus a small fee that goes to the ticket-processing website. Your attendance helps cover a fair speaking fee for our presenter and other expenses, and collectively we’re able to bring talented design thinkers to speak to us!

Where: Barton Springs Nursery on Bee Cave Road in Austin. Tickets must be purchased in advance; no walk-ins.

How to Attend: All you need to do is email me — put “tickets” in the subject line — and I’ll send you the ticket-page link.

I hope you can attend! And by the way, a big thank you to all the wonderful folks who’ve ever attended a Garden Spark talk — especially my regulars! — and to the design thinkers who’ve taken the time to share their ideas and inspiration with us as speakers.

Two Colleens at the last talk

I welcome your comments. Please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading in an email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post. And hey, did someone forward this email to you, and you want to subscribe? Click here to get Digging delivered directly to your inbox!

_______________________

Digging Deeper

Need design help with your yard? Hire me as your personal garden coach! Maybe you need replacement plant ideas after the big freeze. Or maybe your landscaping has grown tired, and you want fresh curb appeal. Or perhaps you’re ready to get rid of some lawn and create a pollinator garden, bird habitat, or hangout space for you and your friends. I’m here to help! Contact me to let me know what’s going on, and let’s figure it out together. My range is Austin and suburbs within a 25-min. drive of NW Austin, but I’m flexible and can travel farther with a surcharge, so let me know where you are. Weekday morning appts. only.

Learn from gardening experts at Trowel & Error, the annual symposium at Mayfield Park in West Austin. After a 2-year COVID hiatus, the symposium returns on Saturday, April 2, from 9:30 am to 1 pm. Designer Colleen Jamison will be speaking at 11 am, along with entomologist Wizzie Brown at 10 am and rose expert Theresa Anderson at noon. Located at Mayfield Park, 3505 W. 35th St. A suggested donation of $5 gets you in.

Join the mailing list for Garden Spark! Hungry to learn about garden design from the experts? I’m hosting a series of talks by inspiring garden designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year in Austin. Check out the 2021-22 schedule. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance. Simply click this link and ask to be added.

All material © 2022 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The post Come hear a talk about using art to enhance a garden, plus all about Garden Spark appeared first on Digging.

from Digging https://www.penick.net/digging/?p=80819 via IFTTT

[localbizlift]

10-Minute Sales Research with True Competitor

Your sales team has just asked you to hop on a call in 30 minutes with a new prospect, ClowdFyre. Not wanting to sound like an idiot, you pull up ClowdFyre.com and see the following: “ClowdFyre leverages the cloud to ignite blockchain synergies.” Cool, cool… hold on, there’s some sort of diagram. Surely, this will give you some insights:

Or maybe not. I’m exaggerating, of course, but having lived through Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and whatever it is we’re doing now, sometimes this feels a little too close to the truth. Maybe the simpler truth is that we’re just running out of names and the world is changing too fast.

So, how can you hope to quickly figure out what ClowdFyre is all about and sound like you did your homework? I’m going to present two real-world examples of how you can use Moz’s True Competitor research tool to solve this problem in under 10 minutes.

Case #1: From Xero to hero

Xero is a good example of a perfectly nice company with a perfectly uninformative name. Their tagline is: “Accounting software to do your to-do.” Okay, I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I understand what accounting software is.

Let’s see what I can learn from their competitive landscape. I plug them into True Competitor...

…and quickly get back something like this (edited down to the top 10):

For reference, we’ve got the Domain Authority (DA) of Xero.com and the DA, keyword Overlap, and Rivalry (a Moz metric that balances three factors, including DA and Overlap) of each of the top 10 organic search competitors. I can quickly spot a couple of things:

FreshBooks and QuickBooks immediately stand out as familiar brands in the accounting software space, and FreshBooks is in a very similar DA range. These are very likely product competitors and give us a talking point during the call. In addition, note these competitors:

These are content competitors that have significant overlap with Xero and are competing for organic traffic. Our prospect may not think of NerdWallet (just to pick one) as a competitor, but their content could provide key insights into questions potential buyers are asking.

If any are unfamiliar, I can click on them to visit the site. For example, I see that Wave (waveapps.com) is an up-and-coming competitor in the space. I could even feed a couple of these competitors back into True Competitor to paint a more complex picture.

In just a few minutes, I’ve got a sense of Xero’s product competitors, content competitors, and a couple of talking points. At the very least, I hopefully won’t sound like an idiot.

Case #2: A Missguided example

You might not know it from the name, but Missguided is a fashion brand focused on Gen-Z and Millennial women. Let’s put them into True Competitor and see what we can learn.

I’ll skip right to the insights (note that MissguidedUS.com has a DA of 64). I can see right away that Missguided is up against some big players in the retail space, including high-end department stores and Amazon. These competitors are aspirational and might not be a realistic focus, but this is a great topic for conversation. Who do they aspire to compete against and how do they face the reality of being in a market with these big players?

Let’s look at a somewhat different set of competitors:

I don’t know anything about these sites/brands, but my immediate sense is that they’re smaller brands (a sense that’s bolstered by their DA scores) and are trying to evoke an edgier vibe. That raises an interesting talking point — who are the most relevant competitors in this target market of Millennial and Gen-Z women, and what unique challenges does that market pose?

With a couple of clicks through to their sites (and less than a minute of work), I can also see that Aritzia and Tobi seem to be targeting a similar demographic and are likely direct competitors (they’re also much more realistic competitors than Macy’s or Amazon).

Glancing at my watch, I’ve still got a couple of minutes before the meeting, so let’s try something fun (well, I think it’s fun, anyway) — let’s click on those two “edgy” brands and use the [+ Analyze Competitors] feature. I’ll request the full keyword intersect…

… and I can immediately get a quick view of what keywords these sites share:

Obviously, five keywords (or even 500) is just a piece of the puzzle, but in a few minutes I’ve gathered enough pieces to have an intelligent conversation and help seal the deal.

Data-assisted human intelligence

From a product perspective, I believe that the most powerful thing we can do is to assist your human intelligence and help drive insights. Tools like True Competitor are never going to replace your own (or the client’s) industry knowledge, but I hope that — as they continue to evolve — we can empower faster and better decisions that help you do what you’re best at. Ultimately, you’re not going to be able to spend hours researching every sales call — even if you want to. But by using True Competitor, you can make the little time you do have more productive.

I’d love to hear from anyone who puts this to work in their sales pitches (hit me up on Twitter @dr_pete) or about any ways that research tools help make your SEO prospecting easier.

[gamebazu]

10-Minute Sales Research with True Competitor

Your sales team has just asked you to hop on a call in 30 minutes with a new prospect, ClowdFyre. Not wanting to sound like an idiot, you pull up ClowdFyre.com and see the following: “ClowdFyre leverages the cloud to ignite blockchain synergies.” Cool, cool… hold on, there’s some sort of diagram. Surely, this will give you some insights:

Or maybe not. I’m exaggerating, of course, but having lived through Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and whatever it is we’re doing now, sometimes this feels a little too close to the truth. Maybe the simpler truth is that we’re just running out of names and the world is changing too fast.

So, how can you hope to quickly figure out what ClowdFyre is all about and sound like you did your homework? I’m going to present two real-world examples of how you can use Moz’s True Competitor research tool to solve this problem in under 10 minutes.

Case #1: From Xero to hero

Xero is a good example of a perfectly nice company with a perfectly uninformative name. Their tagline is: “Accounting software to do your to-do.” Okay, I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I understand what accounting software is.

Let’s see what I can learn from their competitive landscape. I plug them into True Competitor...

…and quickly get back something like this (edited down to the top 10):

For reference, we’ve got the Domain Authority (DA) of Xero.com and the DA, keyword Overlap, and Rivalry (a Moz metric that balances three factors, including DA and Overlap) of each of the top 10 organic search competitors. I can quickly spot a couple of things:

FreshBooks and QuickBooks immediately stand out as familiar brands in the accounting software space, and FreshBooks is in a very similar DA range. These are very likely product competitors and give us a talking point during the call. In addition, note these competitors:

These are content competitors that have significant overlap with Xero and are competing for organic traffic. Our prospect may not think of NerdWallet (just to pick one) as a competitor, but their content could provide key insights into questions potential buyers are asking.

If any are unfamiliar, I can click on them to visit the site. For example, I see that Wave (waveapps.com) is an up-and-coming competitor in the space. I could even feed a couple of these competitors back into True Competitor to paint a more complex picture.

In just a few minutes, I’ve got a sense of Xero’s product competitors, content competitors, and a couple of talking points. At the very least, I hopefully won’t sound like an idiot.

Case #2: A Missguided example

You might not know it from the name, but Missguided is a fashion brand focused on Gen-Z and Millennial women. Let’s put them into True Competitor and see what we can learn.

I’ll skip right to the insights (note that MissguidedUS.com has a DA of 64). I can see right away that Missguided is up against some big players in the retail space, including high-end department stores and Amazon. These competitors are aspirational and might not be a realistic focus, but this is a great topic for conversation. Who do they aspire to compete against and how do they face the reality of being in a market with these big players?

Let’s look at a somewhat different set of competitors:

I don’t know anything about these sites/brands, but my immediate sense is that they’re smaller brands (a sense that’s bolstered by their DA scores) and are trying to evoke an edgier vibe. That raises an interesting talking point — who are the most relevant competitors in this target market of Millennial and Gen-Z women, and what unique challenges does that market pose?

With a couple of clicks through to their sites (and less than a minute of work), I can also see that Aritzia and Tobi seem to be targeting a similar demographic and are likely direct competitors (they’re also much more realistic competitors than Macy’s or Amazon).

Glancing at my watch, I’ve still got a couple of minutes before the meeting, so let’s try something fun (well, I think it’s fun, anyway) — let’s click on those two “edgy” brands and use the [+ Analyze Competitors] feature. I’ll request the full keyword intersect…

… and I can immediately get a quick view of what keywords these sites share:

Obviously, five keywords (or even 500) is just a piece of the puzzle, but in a few minutes I’ve gathered enough pieces to have an intelligent conversation and help seal the deal.

Data-assisted human intelligence

From a product perspective, I believe that the most powerful thing we can do is to assist your human intelligence and help drive insights. Tools like True Competitor are never going to replace your own (or the client’s) industry knowledge, but I hope that — as they continue to evolve — we can empower faster and better decisions that help you do what you’re best at. Ultimately, you’re not going to be able to spend hours researching every sales call — even if you want to. But by using True Competitor, you can make the little time you do have more productive.

I’d love to hear from anyone who puts this to work in their sales pitches (hit me up on Twitter @dr_pete) or about any ways that research tools help make your SEO prospecting easier.

https://ift.tt/3jbgIvY