One of the best ways to increase response for any type of marketing activity is to make some sort of special offer to the reader. That offer maybe a discount, special pricing, or some sort of bonus available if the reader takes the specified action right now.
Often, when a client is considering using a media outlet that they have not used before, I’ll recommend that they develop an offer to get a better sense of what type of response they can expect from that particular media outlet.
As I was being walked by my trusty canine, Wrigley, we saw a creepy-looking white van. It was extremely grimy and looked as though it would rot away within days. As it approached, I noticed that it was actually from a business, and I wondered what sort of business owner would allow his or her business to be represented in such a negative way.
Then I could see the lettering, and I was stunned. It was one of those mobile dog-washing services that have cropped up in recent years.
Many things have changed in the three decades since I started putting words to paper to earn a living. For one thing, I rarely put words to paper anymore. Sadly, nobody has created an equivalent saying that involves phosphors or pixels. But that’s not the point …
What is the point is that many of those changes have affected the way I write. One of the biggest changes is the result of two factors: an oversupply of information and a paucity of time. Thanks largely to the internet, we face an overwhelming amount of information, and our busier lives mean we have less time to sift through all of it.
Ah, there’s a wonderful old word one rarely hears these days. “Fussbudget” dates back to the turn of the century (the previous turn, not the most recent one) and refers to one who gets worked up about small matters that seem to have little importance. Many people would toss matters about grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage into that category, and would brush aside my concerns as annoying at best, “anal” at worst. (And an aside — how many people who bandy “anal” about as a criticism actually grasp the underlying Freudian concept? But I guess that would be fussbudgety of me.)
Those who know me well know that I’m rarely serious. Why then do I have such a concern about the written word and the finer points associated with its use?
Did that headline stop you? Of course grammar is full of rules, isn’t it? Your seventh-grade English teacher tried her best to drum all those rules into your head. You remember all that red ink on your brilliant essays.
Hate to burst your bubble, but there is no set of definitive grammar rules. When Moses lugged those tablets back down the mountain, he didn’t carry a copy of the Chicago Manual or the AP Stylebook with him. I wish that had been the case, because it would have been a lot easier on those of us who write for a living.
Not long ago, a non-profit organization asked me to come in and perform a bit of tinkering. They had existing materials, such as a website and brochures, but they were fed up with the way things were going. They wanted me to come up with words to describe what they were all about so they could determine the next steps.
I refused to help.
One of the most commonly misspelled words these days — particularly in the social media universe — is definite and its related forms.
Folks who mean to tell you that their agreement is definite will instead write that they are defiant. To demonstrate their agreement with the political stance you’ve expressed in your post, they’ll comment “Defiantly!” And since their trust spellchecker won’t tell them otherwise, they’ll assume they’re correct.
Time to take another look at mistakes that wound up in print. Sometimes, I’m tempted to include gems from the Internet, but I don’t think it’s fair to poke fun at everyday folks, especially when they might be posting to Facebook from one of those smartphones with a touch-screen keyboard so small that it’s nearly impossible to get it right.
Professionals who should know better, on the other hand …
One of the ways many people try to make their business writing sound more impressive is to try to make it a bit lawyerly. The legal community has long had a unique style and syntax that’s meant to create clarity, but that is often far more effective at obfuscating the meaning. I suspect it may be an attempt to ensure the ongoing demand for the profession, because one generally needs to hire an attorney to understand something another attorney has written.
But I’m not here to offend attorneys (nor to incur their wrath). I’m here to help companies and other organizations communicate more clearly, and one way they can do that is to stop trying to write like attorneys.
When FDR spoke about freedom from want in his 1941 State of the Union address, he was talking about the concept, not the word itself. However, I’ve noticed that many people — particularly in the business world — have a very real aversion to “want” and an apparent need to be free from it.
I’m not sure why people are afraid of such a simple word. My only guess is that they’re focused on its more negative contexts, or that they find it too simple and folksy to serve intelligent readers. In most cases, though, it’s the ideal verb for the situation.