The Blog
Forget Pain Points in Your Copy: Try This Instead
If you've spent any time delving into the world of marketing, you're probably familiar with the concept of including pain points in your copy. Put simply, pain points are the areas where your target audience feels frustrated, vulnerable, or uncertain. Common marketing...
4 Kinds of Evergreen Content to Update
How often do you refresh your content? We're talking existing, supposedly evergreen content here -- you know, places like your website copy, your email sequences, and your old blog posts. If you’re like most people, this older content tends to gather dust. Which can...
Content Marketing During a Crisis
When a crisis hits, how do you respond? The world is experiencing the unprecedented impact of a global pandemic. Businesses are closing, people are being told to stay home, and everyone is reeling. Emotions are high. Uncertainty is status quo. So how do you, the...
The Origin Story: What it Is {+ When to Use It}
Superbowl Sunday just wrapped up. Amidst the feelings about the game itself and the MANY opinions about the half-time show {Mine? Rock it, ladies.}, there’s a familiar debate taking place online. It’s the Great Commercial Debate. Which Superbowl commercial was the...
![[1 min. Video] When Your CMS Feels Like a #Fail](https://www.northstarmessaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CMA-feels-like-a-fail-400x250.jpg)
[1 min. Video] When Your CMS Feels Like a #Fail
Does your content marketing strategy feel like a big fail? Have you spent hours on creating a content plan, but the only person visiting your website is your mom? So NOW what? Don't despair! Check out this quick video for tips on hanging in there {and what to do in...
{What to Do} When Your Content Marketing Plan Falls Flat
Organic traffic remains one of the most powerful methods for driving traffic, and it’s full of bright, shiny promises. Pageviews in the hundreds of thousands {millions, even!}, social media followings that worship your brand, and email lists so long they resemble a...
Brand Voice: What it Is {and Why You Need It}
"What is brand voice and why do I need it?" is a question we are often asked by fellow entrepreneurs. It's true that there are so many issues to consider when running a successful business, but Brand Voice is something that can't be neglected in an effective...
5 Brand Stories to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy
In the fiction writing world {and high school English} there’s a common phrase: “Show, don’t tell”. This refers to the fact that it’s WAY more compelling to write something like, “the icy cold metal of the doorknob bit into her fingertips as she twisted the handle,”...
Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategist {Stat!}
Business owners wear a lot of hats, some of them more glamorous than others. From being Content Marketing Strategist to Chief Sweeper Upper, when you’re the CEO, you often do it all. If you’re a 6, 7, or 8-figure income CEO, we’re guessing you’re pretty dang talented....
Leverage Your Impact {in your Digital Content Marketing}
So we’re pretty sure you’re hiding something, and we’re here to tell you that we know ALL about it. Okay, well, we don’t know all about it yet, but we will! {If you take our advice, that is…} How do we know? Because we’ve worked with people like you before. We know...
Using the Art of Storytelling to Scale + Impact
Before we jump into how you can leverage the art of storytelling in your branding, let’s start with a little “Once Upon a Time.” {See? We take our own advice!} A long time ago in a far away land {also known as Texas}, we decided to take a huge risk and go into...
Pushing Pause for Greater Profit {+ customer retention}
For most of you who are CEOs of established businesses, running hard is never a problem. It’s never a question of whether or not you are going to go after everything you can with EVERYTHING in you. In fact, one of the reasons you have been so successful is due to...
The Value in Values: Building Client Loyalty
We talk a lot in this business about “the why behind your what.” In building client loyalty, it’s so important to communicate to your audience the stories behind the business you’re running, because it’s those stories that endear you to your audience as you share...
How to Outsource Your Content {without fear}, Part 2
As an established entrepreneur, you already have your plate full with running your business, being the visionary, and managing the million other hats you wear throughout the day. However, regardless of how awesome your big idea is or how unique your services, if...
How to Outsource Your Content {without fear}
One of the things we hear all the time from CEOs is that they’re afraid to hand off their content writing to an outside source. Why? Because they’re afraid of losing their voice. If that makes you think of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, where Ariel gives her voice to...
Why We’re Closing Our Facebook Group
Yep, it’s true. Another Facebook group is biting the dust, and it’s ours. We’ve been going back and forth on this decision for awhile now, and it’s become clear that this is the right move for us. As we transition to shut down the Thought Leaders Think Tank, it was...
Use Adversity to Improve Your Content {Take advantage of April showers}
“April showers bring May flowers,” or so the adage goes. But what do you do when you feel like ALL you’ve experienced lately is “showers” {complete with pummeling hail, strong wind, and a tornado or two}, and you’re just not sure you can hold on until your proverbial...
North Star is growing again! Meet Josh and Natalee
With some truly incredible clients on our roster, since late 2018, North Star has fully embraced an agency model. It's allowing us to support bigger projects, wider scopes, and more clients… all while continuing to give you the intimate, personalized, strategy-driven...
March! How to make confidence the cornerstone of your content marketing
Do you ever have those moments where you’re confidently moving along at a swift pace, firing on all cylinders, feeling great about things, and then suddenly — BAM — you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think, “Who do you think you are to be doing what you...
Love What You Do: Create a brand strategy that stands above the rest
One message you’ll find plastered on home décor items is “Do What You Love.” And I think we could all agree that this advice is most likely what motivated us to pursue this dream we’re living {entrepreneurship} in the first place: We want to do what we love! And kudos...
Why Your Brand Marketing Strategy is Falling Flat
Developing a brand identity? Yeah, it’s hard. You’re an entrepreneur. A thought leader. A world changer. And you’re doing your dangdest to leverage your brand strategy to knock it out of the park. But being a world changer and a thought leader can be a little...