Heads up: After this post, if you want more help writing eye-catching subject lines that get your emails opened, make sure to grab this: My free downloadable guide, Non-Sucky Subject Lines Why should you personalize your emails by adding the recipient’s first name? Fun fact: Coca-Cola’s international “Share a Coke” campaign — a release of […]
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The Typo That Ruined My Career (A Top-Ranking Talking Shrimp Email)
This Talking Shrimp email got a high rate of opens, clicks, and replies, so I’ve turned the email into a blog post. (For more on emails vs blog posts, check this out.) Subject Line: The typo that ruined my career I hope this email finds you we’ll. LOLZ. That’s not a real typo, but it […]
KEEP READINGShrimpmukkah! A 2021 roundup of must-have opt-in freebies from Shrimp Club superstars
Happy seasons! There are plenty of gift-buying guides out there. I thought I’d add one that’s a gift-getting guide. Free gifts, for you. All they cost is your email address. Whether you’re shopping for help with: Getting your business in the media… A LinkedIn bio that attracts clients… Writing copy that converts ideal clients… Or even […]
KEEP READING11 cries for help and expensive business mistakes Marie Forleo dug me out of in 2009
TRIVIA QUESTION: Do you know who’s behind the 8-figure juggernaut of an online course called “B-School”? If you’re saying “Marie Forleo,” yeah, duh. That’s the obvious answer. But, as I recently discovered, it’s not the whole answer. Looking for an old email in my inbox, I stumbled on one between me and Marie. It made […]
KEEP READINGHow I Motivated My Lazy Ass To The $1M Mark – A Timeline
[This was originally an email to my list (Subject: About that 1M…). Shrimpers get my best stuff. Are you one of them yet? C’mon, get on the list!] At dinner the other night, my friend Avo told my husband, Steven, “You better install Ring [security system] on your door and put cameras everywhere, because this […]
KEEP READING“Salt your cucumber” and other handpicked Talking Shrimp emails
Here’s a curated archive of Laura Belgray’s Talking Shrimp emails. That’s me, referring to myself in the third person, just in case it’s good for SEO. That’s also me, hoping lots of people are searching for “archive of Laura Belgray’s Talking Shrimp emails.” Or maybe: “Best email newsletter examples from Talking Shrimp.” And that’s not […]
KEEP READINGEvery kind of writing I’ve ever been paid for (and two kinds that paid $zero).
“You have to be EL James or JK Rowling to make a decent living as a writer! Don’t even try! Get a real job!” Ever hear that? Ignore it. There are countless ways to get paid to write. To give you some ideas, I went all the way back to the early Nineties – the […]
KEEP READINGHow To Charge What You’re Worth
I see a lot of blogs and Facebook conversations about “earning the income you deserve” and “charging what you’re worth.”
Blog post vs. email — the death match
What should go in my emails and what should go on the blog? Can they overlap? Should they be the same, or different? I struggled with this one for a long time. Here’s what I used to do:
KEEP READINGHow to sell art, photography, jewelry, luxury goods, entertainment, cupcakes, and anything else that doesn’t "solve a problem."
Have you noticed this? Entrepreneurs* love to get on the digital soapbox and yell, “YOU HAVE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM! IF YOU DON’T SOLVE A PROBLEM, YOU DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS.”
KEEP READINGHow to tap your talent
At my first job that didn’t involve cutting lemon wedges and pouring draught Beer for drunk, off-duty doormen, my father came to meet me one day for lunch.
KEEP READINGMake your name by doing the unsexy work. (AKA Puff Is Pissed, AKA Grownups Eating Ice Cream And Crying)
At the company off-site, they had tubs of ice cream waiting for us first thing in the morning. Breakfast of cry-babies.
KEEP READINGHow to follow up without being a nagging, passive-aggressive psycho
I had a housemate in college who’d leave messages on my answering machine like this: BEEEP! “Hey, just checking in, I was just wondering what you were planning to do with the spaghetti pot and some of the other stuff you left out on the counter. I’d clean them myself, it’s no big deal, but with […]
KEEP READING“Mansplaining” should never have been a word. (On the dopiest portmanteau ever, and how to make your own)
Chocoholic. Faux-hawk. Netiquette. Tanorexic. Jazzercise, glitterati, Brangelina. I love a good portmanteau. You know, that kind of word that’s a combo of two words and usually a twist on a longer one. Cassingle. Showmance. Mathlete. Sometimes it’s called a frankenword. It used to be called a “Sniglet” – coined in the 1980s by comedian Rich […]
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