How do you convince consumers that hot dogs are healthy food? Coney Island hot dog entrepreneur Nathan Handwerker did it with stethoscopes, says writer Bob Bly in his book “All American Frank: A History of the Hot Dog” (http://www.bly.com/AllAmericanFrank).
Handwerker’s price of a nickel per dog couldn’t overcome public worries about the quality of the meat. There was a perception that processors used tainted beef.
When I started my business, I’d spend a lot of time reading through online forums and other small business advice sites. I found some good advice (along with a lot of really crappy stuff from self-styled experts).
One issue that came up again and again was whether the owners of these new businesses should refer to themselves as “I” or “we” when writing about the business in brochures and other materials. (Websites were still new enough that people weren’t agonizing over them.)
Indiana is currently embroiled in a battle over what its proponents are calling “education reform” and what opponents see as an attempt to dismember the public school system (personally, I’m in the latter camp, but that’s not the point I’m here to make).
Newspaper articles and TV coverage of the battle have been extensive, and the websites of these media outlets give voice to readers and viewers through their “comment” sections. Judging from many of those comments … particularly those from the pro-“reform” side … Indiana should spend a lot more money on education, not less. I base that on the plethora of spelling errors, grammar gaffes that go beyond picky mistakes, and leaps of logic that aren’t even in the neighborhood of what we call reasoning.
Another simple way to gauge your copy’s potential effectiveness is to highlight it in two different colors. Whether you’re developing a letter, a brochure, a web page, or any other channel, take a few moments to highlight all of the sentences that are really about your customer and his or her needs. Let’s do that in pink. Next, highlight all the sentences that are about your company and what it does in yellow.
Now look at the page. What color is your page?
There’s a company from which I’ve been buying products off and on for the better part of three decades. I bought when they were primarily a catalog marketer, and kept buying after they made the move online. I don’t buy a lot from them — maybe something once every three or four years — but enough so they continue to stay in contact.
But I’m about to break off that contact and press the evil unsubscribe button. Why? Because whoever is in charge of their online marketing strategy seems to believe that the best way to maintain my loyalty is to stuff my emailbox with email after email — and the frequency keeps increasing.
“… He then undressed her from the waste down and cut open her shirt and bra …” That salacious gem came from a story on the Indianapolis Star’s website. I had images of Lady Gaga wearing an outfit made of trash, or perhaps someone who was stuck headfirst into a landfill. Once again, a story was spellchecked, but not edited. Or maybe the writer really wasn’t referring to a woman’s waist.
A similar, but less exciting example appeared in the February issue of Trains Magazine. In an item about a railroad executive, a writer mentioned that the man “was previously general council.” No, that would be “counsel,” a noun most often referring to attorneys when preceded by “general.” A “council” is a group of people gathered for a particular task, such as a “town council” or a “merchants’ council.”
I’ve read a lot of great books about advertising and marketing, but none even comes close to one I read as a teen. It still occupies a prominent place on my bookshelf.
It’s a 1972 text called “Madvertising (or Up Madison Ave.),” and it was created by the same geniuses who guided Mad Magazine through its glory years. Many of those writers and artists had cut their teeth in the advertising industry, and they used the book to skewer the many tricks and techniques major advertisers employ.
As a society, we’ve developed a frightening level of trust in technology. We often abandon our own knowledge and better judgment because some aspect of technology has a different answer — and it must be correct, right?
Microsoft Word is an amazing piece of technology. I spend several hours with it every day, and I know that I’ll never do more than scratch the surface of its capabilities. But any piece of software is only as good as the knowledge and preferences of its programmers.
Nearly everyone likes humor. We enjoy telling jokes, and we enjoy hearing them. So it comes as no surprise that companies try to spice up their advertising by using humor.
They reason that humor will catch the reader’s eye or listener’s ear, and make them more amenable to the sales message that will soon follow. Unfortunately, more often than not, those attempts at humor backfire.
Wonder how well your next ad, website, or brochure will communicate with your readers? Here’s a simple test that’s remarkably powerful.
Count the number of times that your company’s name appears in the text. Then count the number of times words “we,” “us,” and “our” appear in there, and add it to your first number.