Thanks to a handy tool within Microsoft Word and most other word processors, it’s easy to make your writing tighter and more powerful. That handy tool is the Word Count indicator. And here’s how you can use it to improve your writing: highlight whatever it is that you’re writing, whether that’s a page or a […]
Worried that you might lose a customer, client, or supporter because of something you do? My experience has taught me that more losses are caused by what you don’t do. Lousy customer service will certainly lose a piece of business now and then. But what I call benign neglect is one of the most consistent […]
About what you say in your marketing materials, that is. I wish that weren’t the case, but it’s absolutely true. I may spend hours trying to get a paragraph just right, even though I know that the audience is only going to glance at it for a couple seconds. You’d never know that from the […]
Again and again, I see proof of professional reliance on spellcheckers instead of good old proofreading and editing. Case in point: a Northwest Indiana Times article about funding for safety improvements on the South Shore Railroad. The reporter included this bullet point: “Implementation of Positive Train Control, a federally mandated safety system that tracks the precise location […]
I admire companies that make the extra effort to survey customers of their products and services. That is, except when their approach to surveying makes me never want to do business with them again. Taking the time to follow up with the people who buy your products or use your services, gauge their satisfaction, and […]
Whether mistakes are just amusing, horribly damaging, or simply embarrassing, they don’t belong in your marketing communications materials. That’s why proofreading is so important. That said, there’s a certain kind of error that proofreaders miss more often than any other … and it’s quite embarrassing (well, not as much as substituting a call-in sex line’s […]
You’re responsible for your organization’s newsletter, and the other day, you read a great item in a magazine. It’s perfect for your organization’s audience, so you reprint it in your newsletter. If you didn’t get permission to do so, you’ve just broken the law. “Wait!” you protest. “I put the name of the magazine under […]
A well-known consumer marketer emailed what they thought was an irresistible offer. Using my address, they deduced that I must be a St. Louis Cardinals fan and presented me with a great deal on some Cards memorabilia. Bad move. My lifelong allegiance lies with a team that plays at the intersection of Clark and Addison […]
They can be painful. Of course, I’m referring to arguments about whether it’s okay to use those delightful little word combinations we call contractions. You know them: cannot becomes can’t, will not shortens to won’t, and so forth. When professional writers insert those handy contractions into copy, it often gives birth to a strange reaction […]
Strip and stripe are two words that look similar and are pronounced differently. More important, they convey strikingly different meanings. And yet both and their derivatives are constantly being used incorrectly by people who don’t know better. If you see a Facebook post selling a “striped” piece of furniture, it means one of two things. […]
