- Marketing Writing
- Business Writing
- Finance Writing
- Additional Services
Where Craft Meets Strategy
Marketing writing is a blend of strategy and craft—a skill I’ve been honing for over 20 years. I started my career on the editorial side of magazines, where I learned the craft of story. In business school, I was trained in strategic thinking and classic marketing. Most importantly, I learned how to communicate value to customers in terms that resonate with them—a practice I use to this day.
Before I get to work for a client, I research and interview key stakeholders to learn about the company, its strategy, its products and services, its customers, its competitors, and the larger industry dynamics. Ultimately, I learn what I must in order to produce content that speaks to the needs and desires of the intended audience while simultaneously highlighting and differentiating key features and benefits of the service or product at hand.
My clients include individual thought leaders and companies at every stage of the business life cycle, from pre-launch to decades old. Their industries run the gamut, from technology to health tech, healthcare, finance, education, executive search, venture capital, and more.
Examples of B2C and B2B marketing writing deliverables I’ve produced:
If you’ve already written content but it needs editing, I provide editing services as well.
Business Plans
Over the decades, I’ve written numerous customized business plans for a range of businesses, all of which have succeeded in winning my clients their desired funding. Playing a small role in helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams is a true joy.
Business plans are making a comeback
I’m a big believer in business plans. Since earning my MBA in 2008—where I learned how to write a classic business plan, including building pro forma financial models—I watched with some consternation as they fell out of favor. In the now bygone era of perennially low interest rates and modern monetary theory, the business plan was deemed long and unnecessary. Instead, the pithy deck was de rigueur in the world of cheap and plentiful money.
Reading the post-Silicon Valley Bank-collapse tea leaves, the classic business plan is making a comeback. With less investor cash sloshing around, investors will have no choice but to return to the days of discernment. Entrepreneurs will be more closely scrutinized and therefore need a stronger business model and proficient ability to communicate the opportunity.
Business plans are powerful—in many ways
Having written several plans, I’ve seen their power again and again. Their benefits include:
Front-loading the strategic thinking and planning
A classic business plan forces you to rigorously interrogate your business model and think through every aspect of the business, including operations, hiring, marketing, finance, and more. First and foremost, a business plan is a tool that helps you build the most bullet-proof case for you and your business.
Dramatically improving launch
Front-loaded strategic thinking is a surefire way to launch your business with less friction, fewer unforeseen setbacks, and more expediency, efficiency, and success. When investment cash was copious, there was more room for entrepreneurs to launch without a clear plan and simply pivot in the face of inevitable roadblocks. Investors will have less patience for this now and will want your company positioned for strategic success at launch.
Building confidence
Without fail, a comprehensive business plan leaves you and your team that much more confident in your idea—and this is essential to earning the trust of prospective investors and winning investment.
Enabling a substantive deck
From a comprehensive plan, we can easily produce a comprehensive deck for those who still prefer it. The depth of your plan will allow for a substantive deck that positions you as strategic, serious, and worthy of investment.
Winning Funding
And, of course, the most important piece of all—an exhaustively researched, well-articulated, engaging business plan that conveys clear value to both a customer base and a prospective investor stands the greatest chance of getting funding.
My business plan services
I can handle the entirety of your business plan needs, including:
- Interviewing key stakeholders to learn all aspects of the business or idea
- Conducting exhaustive research, e.g., market, industry, economic research, and more
- Helping you define market segments and articulating value propositions for each of them
- Helping you articulate all core business strategies, e.g., operations, marketing, hiring, finance, growth, and exit strategies
- Writing and editing a fully customized business plan
- Building exhibits and tables
- Building the pro forma financial models and calculating start-up funding needs
- Project managing additional vendors, as desired, including graphic designers and a copy editor/proofreader (I have people I routinely engage for these services, or I will happily work with people you prefer)
Internal Communications
Internal communications encompass any form of communication that serves to keep your team up to date on the business, clarify team responsibilities and expectations, build and reinforce company culture, and nurture high morale. Such communications can be straightforward, like announcements, or more creative and playful, like sharing employee stories to foster a sense of community.
Examples of internal communications deliverables I produce:
- Brand voice & tone guidelines
- Executive communications
- Internal team blog posts
- Memos
- Employee announcements
- Company or employee stories
Private Placement Memorandums
In a stroke of kismet, an investor read a business plan I wrote. Not only did he invest in that company, but he also tapped me to write his private equity company’s PPM. Fast forward a few years, and they too have become a document I find fascinating and fun to write. I swear!
The fun of a PPM is the challenge of striking the right balance between compliance and marketing—while always minding SEC marketing rules. I’ve read dozens of PPMs, and almost all are written exclusively as compliance documents. They miss the marketing opportunity to communicate the fund’s objective and strategy with care, precision, and clarity. In doing so, they fall short of communicating the compelling opportunity to potential investors.
While experience has taught me that outsourcing PPMs to a freelance writer is rare, finding a freelance writer who can write well, understands finance and marketing, and knows how to organize and structure dense information for readability is even rarer.
My marketing background, business plan writing experience, strategic thinking, and financial understanding uniquely position me to write a PPM that gets the job done and wins funding. Just because these are highly utilitarian documents doesn’t mean clear and well-written language doesn’t have its place. Clear and concise writing gets read. And a customized PPM is more effective.
Outsourcing the writing of your PPM ultimately saves you time and money—as your team doesn’t need to take the eye off the ball to do work they’re not trained or paid to do.
My PPM services
I handle the front matter of PPMs, which are those sections where you can market the fund opportunity. To this end, my services include:
- Interviewing key stakeholders to understand the fund objective, strategy, and opportunity, as well as the company history and past fund performance
- Working with you to identify the most effective table of contents for your PPM
- Collaborating with your research team to gather all necessary data and financial information for the PPM
- Writing and editing a customized PPM
- As needed, project managing a graphic designer or other relevant vendors (I can suggest vendors or happily work with yours)
Note: The bulk of a PPM is compliance language, which is fairly standard. I advise working with a lawyer to adapt the language for your needs, and I can proofread it.
Additional services I provide for finance companies:
- Investor letters
- Newsletters
- Deck copy
- Website and email copy
Marketing and Content Strategy
I’ve helped clients build both marketing and content strategies, including delivering a comprehensive plan and offering support with, and project management of, implementation.
For marketing strategies, my work includes:
- Conducting research to understand the market and competitive landscape
- Identifying the audience who will benefit from your offering; segmenting the audience
- Defining marketing goals
- Identifying the strategy that will meet your marketing goals
- Articulating a value proposition(s) that will uniquely position your product or service and set it apart from competitors
- Thinking through the marketing mix: product, price, placement, and promotion
- Creating a marketing budget and determining optimal resource allocation
- Implementing the plan, including optional project management services
- Measuring and analyzing results and adapting the strategy as needed to achieve success
For content strategies, my work includes:
- Researching and analyzing what’s important to the target audience and where and how they consume content
- Defining the content objectives, e.g., generating leads, growing brand awareness, and so on
- Identifying the strategy that will meet your content objectives
- Creating a content plan, which involves determining the optimal type and tone of content, the distribution plan, and an editorial calendar
- Implementing the plan, which includes developing and distributing content through the appropriate marketing channels, as well as optional project management services
- Measuring and analyzing results and adapting the strategy as needed to achieve success
Project Management
Not only do I constantly manage my own work and those necessary to get it done, I am also often asked to manage larger projects on behalf of clients. Such work satisfies that part of my brain that loves and seeks organization and efficiency.
Examples of project management services I provide:
- Managing editorial calendars and the various involved parties
- Implementing content plans
- Implementing marketing plans
- Business plans and PPMs by nature involve various people, are contingent on key milestones, and require project management
Editing
Clients often come to me with written drafts that need a boost to be ready for prime time. I’ve edited everything from blogs to books and all manner of marketing collateral in between.
When I edit, I seek to keep the intent and integrity of the piece intact. It is not my role to steamroll but to enhance. And, of course, make sure everything is grammatically above board.
In certain cases, I may recommend a rewrite, which I would only do with your buy-in.
