Your boss has just asked you to write an email telling your customers their free trial has ended and encouraging them to upgrade to premium. But writing isn’t your thing and you could use some copywriting examples.

I mean, where do you start? What do these emails look like? If you had a swipe file, you’d have a reference point straight away.

Swipe files are collections of material kept by creatives for easy reference, consisting of great material you can learn from. If you’re just starting out, you’ll probably want to start making one and be prepared for your next assignment.

It’s best to amass your swipe file as you go, quickly adding quality copywriting examples when you see them and tagging for easy reference. Keep reading to find out how to do this using Evernote. But first, let’s look at where you can find awesome material to get started.

Swiped.co

While relatively new, Swiped is actively archiving a large selection of new and classic ads, emails, pop-ups, sales letters, direct mail examples and more.

If you’ve already got some material for your swipe file, go ahead and upload it to Swiped! It survives on user uploads and is an amazing labor of love by Mike Schauer.

It was created because archives of ads are sparse, and if you’re a copywriter or advertisers without a hefty swipe file you’ll have to rely on the rare chance that someone has uploaded the advert you want to reference somewhere on the web.

As it turns out, most people don’t really like ads that much. More often than not, you won’t find what you’re looking for.

Swiped’s collection is small, but growing quickly and has an active community of marketers uploading their finds and even making annotations to highlight the effective elements.

I have a proposal for you.

I can build you a house, complete with walls, windows, doors, and a roof for $350,000.

Do we have a deal?

No. I didn’t think so!

To make a decision like this, you need cold hard facts. You need details, clarity, and proof! You need budgets, breakdowns, and solid guarantees.

That’s exactly how a project stakeholder feels when they receive your project proposal, and to further complicate things, calculating an average proposal win rate is next to impossible.

Project stakeholders will, on average, receive around 50 proposals a week. To choose you out of this huge pile, they need clarity, details, specifics, lateral thinking, and a whole heap of persuasion.

You need to learn the art of how to write a project proposal, to stand any chance of winning their investment, and increasing your proposal success rate.

So, join me in this Process Street post where we will take the following lessons in how to write a project proposal:

• Lesson #1: What a project proposal is
• Lesson #2: What a project proposal reviewer is really looking for
• Lesson #3: The surefire way to succeed with your project proposal
• Lesson #4: The 4 types of project proposal & how to create them (with tips & templates)
• Lesson #5: A little more about Process Street and how it can help your project proposals

If you’re in a hurry, grab this Project Proposal Template Checklist, and catch up with the class later:

Click here to access the Project Proposal Template Checklist!

Now, butts on seats, no talking, and let the class begin!
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Healthcare providers are the backbone of humanity.

It’s through their hard work, diligence, and courageousness that we’re able to recover from injuries and illnesses alike. However, even before the novel coronavirus struck, those working in the healthcare sector were run off their feet – especially considering there are only 2.6 doctors per 1,000 patients in the United States.

Healthcare providers, then, need to strike the fine balance of providing each patient with adequate care but within an appropriate timeframe.

To help make this near-impossible task a reality, many healthcare providers turn to what’s known as a SOAP note.

Not sure what a SOAP note is?

I’ve got you covered. (Spoiler: It’s not related to the cleaning product.)

In this short yet informative post, I’ll explain what a SOAP note is, its interesting history, why it’s useful, and provide a visual example of what a SOAP note looks like. To boot, I’ll also show you how Process Street makes writing and implementing SOAP notes extremely easy.

Read through the below sections to get clued-up:

• What’s the SOAP note definition?
• How a SOAP note works
• The history of the SOAP note
• The benefits of SOAP notes
• A SOAP note example
• Using Process Street for your SOAP notes (and more)!

So what’s up, Doc? Ready to get reading?
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What’s the difference between a winning grant proposal and a losing one?

Grant writing.

Grant funding today is more difficult to obtain than ever before. A recent National Institute of Health (NIH) report showed that out of 50,000 grant applications, only 10,000 were given funding. That’s only 19%, which has fallen from 33% in the last 15 years.

Why?

A lack of Government funding, fierce competition, and poor grant writing skills.

We can’t do anything about the Government funds. We can do little about fierce competition. We can, however, do a lot about poor grant writing skills.

From completing complex grant applications to writing tip-top proposals, we’ve created the following eight templates to hone your grant writing skills.

If you’re in a hurry, go ahead! Click on the links below to jump straight in!

1. Applying for a Government Grant Checklist
2. Budget Proposal Template
3. Grant Application Process
4. How to Search for Grants Process
5. How to Write a Grant Proposal Checklist
6. How to Write a Research Proposal Checklist
7. Proposal Template Checklist Process
8. Simple Proposal Format Checklist

Curious about what these templates looks like? Check out the Proposal Template embedded below.

Scroll down for more information on each template of our grant writing template pack.

In addition to introducing our grant writing templates, I’ll be taking you behind the grant writing scenes, covering the following topics:

• What is a grant? (Clue: it’s not free money)
• Uncover the truth about what grant writing really is
• How to write grant proposals that win every time
• How to ace your grant proposals with Process Street

Ready? Let’s start with the basics…

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Your attention span is shorter than a goldfish’s.

This isn’t meant to be a personal insult. All of our attention spans are now pretty ba-… wait, how was I going to finish this sentence?

Blame it on what you will – the break-neck speed in which content is published on the internet, the various devices all vying for our attention, or a lifestyle that’s overly digitalized – but there’s no getting away from it. There’s only an 8-second window before concentration plummets.

For journalists, content marketers, and pretty much anyone who uses the written word to deliver information, this isn’t news you want to hear.

But with the inverted pyramid, you can quickly supply global audiences with the news they do want to hear – and quickly (read: before they move onto the next shiny, sparkly thing).

In this post from Process Street, you’re going to learn about the inverted pyramid, the benefits of using it, see examples of it in action, and discover how checklists can help you with getting the right information out there. Fast.

Read through these sections to get completely clued up:

• What does inverted pyramid mean?
• Inverted pyramid examples (from 1865, 2018, and 2020)
• Benefits of the inverted pyramid writing structure
• How to not bury the lead (by taking a systematic approach)
• Ensure your audiences get what they need with Process Street!

Now, what was the topic again? Oh, right – the inverted pyramid!

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This is a guest post by Travis Taborek. Travis is a content marketer and copywriter based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a graduate of General Assembly’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp and has done SEO and content work for business ranging from small tech startups to corporations like TiVo. Read his work here.

Content marketers have their work cut out for them.

They’re tasked with generating fresh ideas for content that stimulates interest in a brand and demonstrates thought leadership consistently, frequently, and at scale.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of productivity apps out there to help keep your mind focused, your writing clear, your headlines eye-grabbing, and your calls-to-action compelling.

To help you do your best work possible, I’ll show you the 10 best productivity apps you need in your digital toolbox.

Specifically, after explaining what productivity apps are, I’ll break each app down into one of four categories – brainstorming, focus, creation, and general productivity – then highlight their features, use cases, and pricing plans.

Just read through the following sections in this guest post for Process Street:

• What is a productivity app?
• The best productivity apps for brainstorming
• The best productivity apps for focus
• The best productivity apps for creation
• The best productivity apps for general productivity
• Put the pro in productivity with Process Street!

Let’s get started!

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This is a guest post from internet marketing specialist Deana Kovač at Point Visible, a digital agency providing custom blogger outreach services. In her free time, she enjoys listening to music and singing karaoke – and she just can’t start her day without a hot cup of coffee!

With millions of blog posts being published daily, consumers are exposed to more content than ever before. This is intense competition, meaning not every piece of content is going to stand out.

Statistics show that 65% of marketers rank the production of engaging content as their biggest challenge – yes, churning out quality information can really be a hard task.

The Process Street blog has been going for a while now. Since 2014, to be precise. Along the way, we figured out a pretty solid process for making the most out of old content.

It’s a kind of content optimization: optimize existing underperforming content by making small, but impactful changes.

With a few tweaks to the information and layout that is already there, you can negate the need for time heavy research required for a fresh piece.

Additionally, underperforming content harms your SEO efforts. Google has said as much.

What’s more, recent SEO research suggests that having many low‐value‐add URLs can negatively affect a site’s crawling and indexing.

But don’t worry – we wrote this post so that you can follow our process to weed out and rejuvenate your low-value content.

It’s simple really. By optimizing the same content to perform better, you convert low-value URLs to high-value resources. This can prove to be a very rewarding strategy if implemented correctly.

In this article, you will learn how to fix underperforming content through content optimization, the process of which has been split into two stages:

• Content optimization: How to separate good content from bad content
• Content optimization: Our six simple tips

We also go into some depth as to how you might use Process Street to streamline your content creation workflow, by taking advantage of some of our free checklist templates!
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This is a guest post by Ronita Mohan. Ronita is a content marketer at Venngage, the online infographic and design platform. Ronita is interested in a variety of topics related to digital marketing, visual content, and online engagement, which she enjoys researching and writing about.

Content marketing has certainly become popular.

In fact, it’s become a lynchpin for marketing strategies.

Businesses of all sizes are employing content marketers left, right, and center to ensure that content is created and distributed on a regular schedule.

The purpose of content marketing may have started as a way for businesses to communicate with their audiences, but it has taken on another angle altogether. Content marketing is now seen as a primary driver of SEO and organic web traffic, and content needs to be tailored accordingly.

Unsurprisingly, content marketers are spending huge amounts of time developing blog post ideas that will gain them traction, incite visitors to their websites, and tempt users to use the businesses’ products or services. But without a solid content strategy, the content itself could be insubstantial and ineffective.

That’s why in this informative post I’ll be discussing content marketing in detail, and presenting you with an easy-to-understand, four-step content marketing framework you can follow straight away. Just read the following sections:

• How to improve your content plan
• Content framework step #1: Setting your content marketing goals
• Content framework step #2: Undergoing content research
• Content framework step #3: Establish your authority
• Content framework step #4: Cross-promotion
• Use Process Street to complement this content marketing framework!

Ready to dive in?

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This is a guest post by Nicole Cowart, an online marketing executive. She works at a cloud-based company that offers smart business solutions. She is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Web Development.

Digital marketing is the future of marketing and doing business. Most successful companies currently have their online websites and stores that generate more traffic.

Nevertheless, online marketing is also the right place for beginners who are taking their first steps in the business realm.

Even if you’re not a professional marketer, you can still design and execute a successful content strategy that helps you establish your status in the online world. All you need is a good process for it.

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Data shows that creative design is reshaping products, portfolios, and industry standards at more than 70% of companies.

If creative design is so important, doesn’t it also make sense to invest time and money on writing a good creative brief?

Before the actual work of designing an infographic, launching a PPC campaign, or even beginning to pull ideas together in the early stages, you need to be sure that you have a solid creative brief.

The creative brief is the foundation upon which the work of any creative project will be done, but all too often projects fall short because of poorly written, bloated, non-actionable, ambiguous creative briefs.

And what’s arguably a bigger problem than a poorly written creative brief? The process (or lack thereof) that led to its creation.

In this Process Street article, I’ll try to address the elements that make up a good creative brief, but perhaps more importantly, I’ll look at how to build a process for creative brief writing; one that’s consistent, reliable, and gets the job done.

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