Scott's Blog - Page 59 of 63 - Scott Flood Writing

JOE SWITCHED THE BREAD

March 16, 2010 by Scott Flood

One of the most inane commercials I’ve ever seen dates back to my much younger days and a product called Beefsteak rye bread. I’d guess that it was somewhere in the early 70s, and while that time may have been considered creativity’s golden years, this one was as leaden as they get.

The scene was a construction site full of stereotypically macho men (this was pre-Village People). A grizzled journeyman is doing something to his young new co-worker’s lunch, and two other workers chuckle, “Look – Joe’s switched the bread on him.”

ARE YOU TELLING THEM WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW?

March 11, 2010 by Scott Flood

Are you wasting precious time in ads, direct mail, and brochures telling prospects what they already know?

Instead, tell them what matters. Talk about benefits, not features. Don’t say your product uses a three-handled veeblefetzer unless you can explain what that will do for them. “The three-handled veeblefetzer lets you core twice as many radishes in the same time.”

PLAIN ENGLISH BOOSTS TAX REVENUES

March 4, 2010 by Scott Flood

Not that long ago, I heard about a very impressive effort by officials in Washington State. At a time when tax revenues are hard to come by, those officials boosted use-tax revenues by a whopping $800,000!

Did they raise rates? No. Hire private investigators? Uh-uh. Try torture? Nope.

THE DEATH OF APPRENTICESHIP

March 2, 2010 by Scott Flood

A wise boss once lamented what he called the death of apprenticeship. As organizations downsized, the paths to management were compressed, and people found themselves making decisions that they would have previously waited a decade or two to make.

Where a generation before, a marketing decision-maker would approach those decisions having spent many years working under other decision-makers and learning from them, today, it’s not at all unusual for people fresh out of college to find themselves in control of what companies do. Of course, most leave school with more focused education than in days past, but there’s still a lot to be said for experience.

YOUR SILENT SALESMAN

February 25, 2010 by Scott Flood

What is a brochure? An ad? A radio commercial? A website? You get 5 points if you said they’re all marketing communications channels. But they’re also something more.

You can’t be everywhere, and that includes everywhere your prospective customers are. So you develop materials such as ads and brochures to stand in for you. In essence, they’re actually salespeople for your organization, conveying messages when you can’t be there to do it.

THE ROYAL WE AND YOUR BUSINESS

February 23, 2010 by Scott Flood

Way back when I started my business (in the days when the Internet was powered by squirrels in exercise wheels and nearly all websites were blue), I spent a lot of time in online forums and other sites that catered to the small-business crowd. Like the rest of the denizens, I was looking for sound advice. Frankly, I found little.

But I still remember that one conundrum really seemed to vex visitors to those sites. “When writing about my business, should I use ‘I’ or ‘we’?” Oh, there were impassioned arguments about this topic, and I see the same arguments today on sites that cater to budding entrepreneurs. So what is the answer?

YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT

February 18, 2010 by Scott Flood

(Please pardon me if I move away from my usual neighborhood and become somewhat political and perhaps a bit strident for a moment or two.)

Yesterday, I read a letter to the editor from a frustrated teenager. She was filing her income taxes for the first time and was aghast that “the government” was “stealing” her money. I’m reasonably certain that she’s not among my three regular readers, but in the chance she happens upon my blog, I’d like to respond.

RESUMES ARE LIKE ROMANCE

February 16, 2010 by Scott Flood

Not long ago, I spoke to a group of high school students about resume writing. My goal was to help them understand what resumes really are – a tool that allows companies to quickly eliminate people from the application and interview process.

I spoke with some experience, having been the resume screener at several jobs. When the company would run an ad and 200 resumes showed up in response, the first responsibility is to cut that number to something manageable. So I’d spend five to ten seconds with each resume, determining whether it went into the “maybe” pile or the trash.

ADVERTISERS, DON’T GIVE IN TO GUILT

February 11, 2010 by Scott Flood

Nearly every local newspaper publishes special editorial sections and pages like the Spring Sports Review, the Home Improvement Preview, or the Celebrate America’s Freedom tabloid.

I call them “guilt sections” because many sales reps use guilt to sell the space. “You don’t want to support high school basketball? You don’t think Independence Day is important? You know, your competitor down the street is going to be in there.” Have you ever known a point guard to sit depressed on the bench or miss a shot because a particular business didn’t buy an ad?