Content Marketing for Consultants and Solo Practitioners: Playing to Your Strengths
Category: Business Development
How to Write a Case Study That Actually Converts
Most case studies read like press releases. Here’s how to write ones that actually persuade.
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
A case study is a detailed, evidence-based account of how a specific client or customer achieved a measurable outcome using a product, service, or approach. Case studies are told in narrative form to help prospective buyers understand what results are possible and how they might be achieved in their own context. A well-written case study is one of the most persuasive content formats available to B2B marketers because it combines social proof (‘someone like me has done this’) with specificity (‘here’s exactly what happened and what it produced’).
I’ve written a lot of case studies over the years for clients across industries, in formats ranging from one-page snapshots to 3,000-word deep dives. Over that time I’ve read even more: the ones clients show me as examples of what they want, the ones competitors publish, the ones that show up as thought leadership assets in B2B sales cycles.
The pattern I see most often: case studies written for the company that produced them, not for the prospect who is supposed to be persuaded by them.
Continue reading “How to Write a Case Study That Actually Converts”
LinkedIn Groups in 2026: What My 2011 Article Got Right — And What Changed
Fifteen years ago I interviewed a half-dozen experts about LinkedIn Groups. Here’s how their advice has aged.
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Prompting Your Prompts: A Simple Strategy for Getting Better Results from AI Tools
What if the fastest way to improve your AI prompts was to ask the AI to do it for you?
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting precise, well-structured instructions for generative AI tools—specifying context, desired format, tone, audience, and output type—to produce more accurate, relevant, and useful responses. As AI tools become standard in professional workflows across every industry, the ability to write effective prompts is rapidly emerging as one of the most consequential skills in the modern workplace. And like most skills, it improves with deliberate practice not just use.
I’ve been an early adopter of AI tools. I’ve used tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity extensively in my own work and for clients, and I’ve been intentional about trying to improve my prompt writing skills along the way.
More specific context. Clearer output instructions. Better framing of what I actually need.
Wake Up Customer Service: HERE’S YOUR SIGN!!!
“This happens all the time” is not a customer service strategy.
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
Chronic customer service failure occurs when an organization identifies a recurring problem that negatively impacts customers but chooses to absorb the complaint volume rather than address the root cause—often because the problem has become so normalized that staff no longer recognize it as fixable. In an era of increasing automation and AI-driven customer interactions, chronic failures are becoming more, not less, common as technology handles transactions efficiently but removes the human touchpoints that once caught and corrected errors before they impacted the customer.
This isn’t a hypothetical. This is something that happened to me recently.
Continue reading “Wake Up Customer Service: HERE’S YOUR SIGN!!!”
The 2026 Content Marketing Imperative: Know Your Audience
Copy that resonates requires knowing your audience—intimately. How are you doing with that?
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC
Audience understanding in content marketing is the practice of developing specific, research-grounded knowledge of who your target readers or customers are—their challenges, motivations, behaviors, and preferences—and using that knowledge to create content that resonates precisely rather than broadly. It is widely considered the foundational competency of effective content strategy: content that doesn’t know who it’s for cannot connect with anyone in particular.
Every day, without fail, two very different kinds of content appears in my inbox and on the various social media channels I follow.
One kind captures my attention and gets me to start reading, sometimes dragging me down a rabbit hole that I really wish I hadn’t been dragged down…
The other kind: meh. Generic, boilerplate, trite. Copy that literally any brand could have created. It’s not personal. It’s not specific. It doesn’t speak to me.
The difference between those two experiences has nothing to do with budget, production value, or even writing skill. It comes down to one thing: how well the brand actually knows its audience.
This is not a new principle.
Continue reading “The 2026 Content Marketing Imperative: Know Your Audience”
5 Key Communication Skills for Career Success
In a digital world, traditional communication skills are in high demand
While generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and others are becoming increasingly prevalent in workplaces of all kinds, employees are finding that soft skills like communication are becoming more important and more valued than ever.
It’s not just new employees who are looking for help developing these skills; seasoned workers are as well. I’m frequently asked by audiences of all ages and types what I believe are the top communication skills that can position people for success.
Here are my top five. They’re not newly important. They’re evergreen. Master them and you’ll position yourself for success in whatever field you’re in.
Top 5 Communication Skills
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Your Customers are Talking About You. Do You Know What They’re Saying?
If you’re not on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites —and believe it or not, many people are not!—you may be missing out on some very important conversations. Some of these conversations may be about you!
When we worked with a client recently, we did some quick online research, and they were shocked to find how many discussions about their product, relative to their competitors’ products, were taking place.
Some were good, some were not. Continue reading “Your Customers are Talking About You. Do You Know What They’re Saying?”
Strategic Content Marketing: Where Value Meets Visibility
In today’s digital ecosystem, content remains king—but only when it wears the right crown.
The most effective content marketing isn’t about producing more; it’s about producing with purpose. As I’ve observed working with organizations from Fortune 500 companies to solopreneurs, successful content strategies begin with a fundamental question: Continue reading “Strategic Content Marketing: Where Value Meets Visibility”
LinkedIn Best Practices
LinkedIn is, arguably, the most important social media channel for B2B professionals. Originally started as a job search network, LinkedIn has evolved into a gathering place for a wide range of business professionals. Unlike other social media, LinkedIn content is heavily skewed toward the sharing of professional information, although more personal posts have been creeping in recently.
Still, super users suggest Continue reading “LinkedIn Best Practices”