I noticed that mother began to materialize around the edges of the copper vessel.
Did that sentence startle you? Confuse you? Baffle you? You might be surprised to know that it is a completely legitimate and accurate statement. It’s not unusual for mother to appear when someone is making alcoholic beverages, and it has nothing to do with the personal habits of the woman who brought you into this world.
One of the biggest misconceptions about writing for business or promotional purposes involves those handy little word combinations that we call contractions. You’re familiar with them: cannot becomes can’t, will not shortens to won’t, and so forth.
When professional writers insert those handy contractions into the copy they develop, it often creates a strange reaction among their clients. Suddenly, those clients doubt the very competence of the writer they’ve hired or assume that the writer must have been poorly educated. Why? Because one or more of their teachers told them that using contractions was a big no-no.
I’ll often receive emails asking me about specific rules of word usage. Or when I submit copy to a client, one of the reviewers will send it back with a comment asking whether I know the rule about something.
The grammarians in the crowd will hate me for saying it, but there really aren’t any rules about writing. There are simply preferences that the people who control the writing expect to see.
Some of you may be hearing Roger Daltrey intone that headline, but my goal isn’t to tap into your brain’s storehouse of long-forgotten lyrics. Instead, I’d like to explore an issue that has long puzzled me: why do companies think that rolling out a new website will excite their audiences and incite them to visit en masse?
I ask that because I’ve so often been asked to develop ads and other materials that essentially proclaim, “We have a new website!” So? What’s the big deal?
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.
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.
There are many words that have been misused so often that their meanings have started to blur – and writers who should know better have used the wrong words in the wrong places.
For example, I recently read an article in a national magazine claiming that a particular musician had earned his notoriety by producing a couple albums. “Notoriety” was the wrong word – unless those albums were downright horrible.
Looking for a way to catch the attention of your audience and focus their full attention on your message? Instead of telling them what you want to hear, ask them a question that matters to them.
You may have heard that asking questions in headlines and opening statements is a bad idea. For example, I once had a boss who became furious anytime I presented an ad or brochure with a question in the headline. His reasoning is that the reader might give the wrong answer and lose interest.