A good portion of my business comes from helping companies develop websites, so you won’t be surprised to learn that I believe creating a new site or redoing an existing one is a worthwhile investment. But I’m less enthusiastic about companies that see rolling out a new website as an exciting event for their customers. … Read more
We’d have a tough time surviving without quotation marks. As a famous writer once described, “Quotation marks allow us to identify what someone actually says, as opposed to simple statements being made by the writer.” Okay, I just made that quote up, but it illustrates one of the main reasons people use quotation marks. The … Read more
A quarter-century ago, when I started my business (in the days when nearly all websites were blue), I spent time in online groups that catered to the small-business crowd. I was looking for sound advice, but found little. One conundrum really seemed to vex visitors to those sites. “When writing about my business, should I … Read more
If you’ve ever lived in an apartment or a college dorm, you’re probably aware that toothpaste offers a fast and cheap way to hide nail holes and other small damage to the walls. Anyone who has ever tried to sell a house has probably heard that slapping a quick coat of paint on the walls … Read more
I’ve recently seen several mistakes involving the wrong word used in place of another that sounds identical, but is spelled differently and carries a vastly different meaning. An Indianapolis Star article about flooding had a caption that began “Storms dye down …” The writer meant to say “die down,” as in taper away, not “dye … Read more
One of the most common mistakes in advertising and marketing materials — one that’s even made by professionals who should know better — is forgetting to include a call to action. In simple terms, a call to action is the instructions you’re giving the reader or viewer, so they know what you want them to … Read more
What is a brochure? An ad? A radio commercial? A website? I’ll give you 5 points if you said they’re all marketing communications channels. But they’re also something more important. You can’t be everywhere your prospective customers are. So you develop materials such as ads and brochures to stand in when you can’t. In essence, … Read more
You may be a highly skilled writer who can craft brilliant sentences. Which is why you might be surprised that I believe you probably shouldn’t write your own copy. Do I have a reason for that assertion? I do — actually several: It’s a waste of time. Well, maybe a waste of your time. Odds … Read more
Most people who insert foreign-language phrases and expressions into their materials do so because it makes them appear to be intelligent and sophisticated, n’est-ce pas? That is, it does unless they misspell the phrase or don’t really understand what it means. A particularly common error involves using the marvelous French word “voilà” (“behold” or “there … Read more
Grammar and syntax can be funny things. You can have two sentences that appear to be identical, aside from some subtle switches in word order, but they may mean very different things. Take this sentence: “Towering above the company’s production facility, our technician inspected the smokestack.” Or this one: “Born in Schenectady, the inventor’s first … Read more