Posted by Robert Celaschi on Thu, Oct 01, 2009
Have pity for the poor sentence that is asked to do too much
By Robert Celaschi
I did promise not to get all grammatical in these blog posts, and I'm not going to bring out the chalkboard today. I'll only make a quick mention of nouns and verbs. You can say a lot with just a pair of nouns and a verb.
You probably remember: A noun is a thing, and a verb is what the thing does. If you have a company - for instance, Niftycorp - that's a noun. If you introduce a product, "introduce" is a verb. And "product"? That's another noun.
Now, in a product announcement you need a few additional words or else you'll sound like Tonto: "Mmmm, Kemosabe. Niftycorp introduces product." But watch out when you start loading up the sentence with details.
Here’s how it typically starts. Your company is announcing its brand new line of framdoodles. You start writing,
“Niftycorp has introduced its new line of framdoodles.”
It’s better than Tonto, but still not very good. It does tell me what the product is, but it doesn’t tell me what’s so new and special about it. So you expand it to,
“Niftycorp has introduced its new line of color-coded framdoodles.”
Ah, that’s good. Of course we have to include our trademarked product name:
“Niftycorp has introduced its new line of Framtastik® color-coded framdoodles.”
Oh, and don’t forget that the Big Boss wants us to play up the product’s durability.
“Niftycorp has introduced its new line of Framtastik® shock-resistant, color-coded framdoodles.”
But wait, there’s more!
While you were writing all that, a few more important people have weighed in with their suggestions. Before long, you have an announcement that says,
“Niftycorp has introduced its new line of Framtastik® shock-resistant, color-coded, industrial strength, environmentally friendly, anodized, high-throughput, permeable framdoodles.”
Of course, you can’t pass up a chance to tout the company itself. And you need to identify your target audience. And you want to show the company’s reach.
So:
“Niftycorp, the leading provider of provision leadership solutions to the cost-object deliverables industry in the greater tri-state metroplex, has introduced its new line of Framtastik® shock-resistant, color-coded, industrial strength, environmentally friendly, anodized, high-throughput, permeable framdoodles.”
If you can’t tell yet what’s wrong with that, try reading the sentence out loud. Now try doing it in one breath.
Yes, you have many important points to convey. But when you try to make everything stand out as important, nothing stands out as important. So start with a couple of nouns and a verb. Lightly sprinkle them with one or two ultra-important bits of information, like the product name and what’s new about it. Save the other important information for later sentences.
Your turn!
Pick up some of your marketing materials and read them out loud. Do you start stumbling over sentences that are trying to do too much? Do you run out of breath? If so, take a deep breath and start splitting the message into manageable loads.
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Robert has been a business journalist for 22 years, both as a reporter and an editor. He joined Business Communications Group in 2005.
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Posted by Robert Celaschi on Mon, Sep 14, 2009
By Robert Celaschi
Something strange happens to people when they send marketing email. They’ll take a powerful, persuasive marketing message, and torpedo the whole thing by slapping a lousy subject line on it.
What makes it really strange is that the email might contain a press release or other message with a really great headline. The sender could have cut and pasted it. But no, instead they type a vague or garbled mess of words that makes me shrug and move on.
I’ll confess I’m sometimes guilty of sloppy subject lines. I’ve struggled and sweated to craft the right message. I’ve set the right tone. I’ve targeted the right people. I’m ready to press the “send” button and then — oh, yeah, gotta put some kind of subject line on this puppy. Zip-zip-zip, done. Instead, I should take even more care with those precious few words that may determine whether the email even gets opened.
Let’s look at a half-dozen real subject lines that real marketing people emailed to me in the past month.
Subj: New Dilemma For Small Business Car Leases After Unemployment
Huh? Let’s see: I gather that there’s a new dilemma of some sort. For whom? Small Business Car Leases After Unemployment. Uhhhhhhh, sorry, does not compute. This one would work better with a simple colon after “Business.” Not great, but better. The story is about businesses transferring the leases on company cars, because they’ve laid off so many of the workers who used to drive them.
Subj: Non-Profit
That’s it, just “Non-Profit.” There are a lot of nonprofits out there. They do a lot of different things. I had to dig way, way down to discover that this nonprofit is a foundation that helps children. They are holding a fund-raiser this month in Miami. If I hadn’t picked this as an example for the blog post, I wouldn’t have bothered to find out any of that.
Subj: Survey: A Quarter of Firms Scaling Back Training
A direct hit. Tells me everything I need to get started. Now I’ll open the email and find out the details. Whoops — turns out that while 26 percent are cutting back their training programs, 28 percent have expanded. But, hey, they got me to read it.
Subj: Boston – Social Media Capital?
I don’t like questions for subject lines. Why are you asking me? Don’t you already know? If not, go do some more research and get back to me.
Subj: Time for Change in Credit Card Game
Maybe it is indeed time for a change in the credit card game, but since I have no idea what this means, it’s hard to say. The easy fix here would have been to condense the first line of the enclosed press release: Consumers now can say “no” to credit card interest rate hikes.
Subj: July home sales increased 12 percent; median home price declined 19.6 percent
This one delivers. I feel like a double winner, because I learn about sales volume and about price. This is about the California housing market, by the way. Bad news if you are a seller with a fat mortgage.
Your turn!
OK, you get the idea. Now take a look at the email you’ve sent in the past month. If someone didn’t already know your message, would they get the right idea from the subject line?
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Robert has been a business journalist for 22 years, both as a reporter and an editor. He joined Business Communications Group in 2005.
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Get help to make marketing materials that encourage prospects to take the next step.
Posted by Robert Celaschi on Thu, Aug 13, 2009
By Robert Celaschi
I won't buy your product or service if you don't tell me what it is.
Fun and games!
Here’s a fun game:
Guess what each company is selling, using these lines from their press releases.
“…an expert in the image solution arena.”
“This is a result of an improved customer focus and strong actions to improve our solution competitiveness.”
“… delivers business-aligned solutions
“… a provider of mobility solutions”
And my favorite of the moment:
“… a trusted solutions provider to customers in manufacturing, health care, financial services, public safety, transportation & logistics, and other industries.”
Believe it or not, these companies sell specific things: elevators, servers, computer consulting services, camera phones, iPhone applications.
Drifting off message
I know how we got here. Back in the mists of the 20th century, some truly brilliant marketing folks got the idea that their company did more than push a product out the door; the product actually solved a problem for their customers.
“Mr. Customer, we aren’t just selling you a widget polisher, we are providing a solution to your scuffed-widget problem.”
But somewhere along the way, companies got so fixated on “solution” that they forgot to say what they are selling.
Think about the marketing material you are writing right now. When it falls into my hands, it may be the first time I have run across your company, and I’d really like to know what business you are in. But I don’t have time to play detective. Tell me the specific product or service, preferably near the start.
If you want to call it a “solution” later on, that’s fine.
Reality check
Here’s your homework assignment: Pick up some of your marketing materials and look at them through the eyes of someone who never heard of your company. Is it clear from the start what you are offering? Or are you merely providing vague “solutions” for an undefined problem?
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Posted by Robert Celaschi on Fri, Jun 12, 2009
By Robert Celaschi
You want your marketing materials to carry a wallop, right? So don’t waste words. Here are three words that are almost always a waste. Take a few extra seconds to get rid of them, and nine times out of ten you’ll improve what you just wrote.
“Situation”
“Situation” isn’t such a bad word by itself. But it’s usually a big waste when it’s bolted onto another word. For instance, how is an “emergency situation” any worse than a plain old emergency? It isn’t. That’s always a good way to tell if you’ve padded out your writing with useless words: If you can chuck the word without changing the meaning, you didn’t need the word in the first place.
I’ve heard advice about how to handle a layoff situation. I’ve seen TV news reporters talk about flood situations. I’ve read blogs describing a hoax situation. They don’t fool me. These are just garden-variety layoffs, floods and hoaxes.
“Process”
It’s the same drill with “process.” Here’s a fun video about choreographed ball-passing. Notice that the choreographer isn’t content to merely start rehearsals. No, he starts the rehearsal process. Remember the flood situation from a few sentences ago? It’s almost always followed by a cleanup process. How about the interview process? The reading process? Engage in the thinking process about that.
“Facility”
“Facility” takes a little more thought. If you run across something like “nursing home facility,” you already know what to do. But sometimes facility is hanging out there all by itself. In those cases, you still take it out, but you have to put something in its place.
But what? Try this little exercise. It works better with two people, but you can do it by yourself in a pinch. Close your eyes and have somebody read the following list of words out loud, slowly. Pay attention to mental image you get when you hear the words:
- Gas station
- Hospital
- Ballpark
- Laboratory
- Restaurant
- Church
- Facility
If you got any kind of mental picture for “facility,” you have a better imagination than I do. Just about any building (or group of them) is a facility. So the word doesn’t mean anything in particular. If you see “facility” in your blog, brochure or other writing, try to picture what kind of facility you are talking about, then use that word instead.
Of course, someday you may find yourself writing about a combination gas station, church and restaurant. Don’t rack your brain. Call it a facility and move on.
Other words and phrases
Can you think of some other words and phrases that don’t really mean anything? Sure you can. There are lots of them.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Fri, Mar 13, 2009
A high profile marketing automation company assuming permission — in an email with subject line “B2B marketing best practices”? Sounds too ironic to be true.
Last week I noticed a nice clean online ad by Marketo for a whitepaper. I clicked it and saw a landing page that made it easy to get what the ad had offered. I requested the whitepaper. The confirmation page that popped up invited me to engage with Marketo in other ways — right when they had my attention.
Here’s a shot of the confirmation page — good stuff. Bravo!
The next day, this email arrived:
If my image is too hard to read, it says:
“When you recently visited Marketo.com, you requested information from us via email. I think you will be interested in other B2B marketing best practices, so I will send you an email every two weeks for the next few months…”
My emotional response: “You bastards! You will do no such thing!”
My actual email reply: “Shame on you for assuming permission. You know better than that — c’mon guys.”
My blogger brain’s snarky thought process: “Another lovely No-No for my bloopers folder! Thank you marketing companies who make ironic blunders, may I have another?”
What do you think?
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Wed, Dec 31, 2008
It was hard to pick just a few ‘best’ tweets from this fall. I started with dozens of favorites. Here are 10 that killed me.
10. @nick: Just got an invite confirming that anything described as “INCREDIBLE” is not. As in, “an INCREDIBLE tech/social media summit.”
9. @ilinap: My son says Cheesus instead of Jesus. Now Chuck E Cheese’s commercial on TV really has him confused. What does Chuck have to do w/ Cheesus?
8. @InsoOutso: I could nap on so many horizontal surfaces in this office.
7. @joshdmorg: There is a single fly in my office – he mocks me
6. @laughingsquid: Free giant squid on Craigslist, I would take it in, but I’m not sure if it would get along with our cats
5. @marklisanti: Pretty sure that Blagojevich believed that when he put on his enchanted hair-helmet, no one could eavesdrop on his corrupt thoughts
4. @marklisanti: Oh, darn! A bag full of loose turkey innards again! Guess I was on the naughty list. Thought I might find a new train set this year
3. @mriggen: My family’s emergency preparedness plan involves not just one but two trips to the liquor store
2. @nick: It’s the year 2008. Can’t they design pasta that screams just as it gets al dente?
1. @nick: How are there still typos on the Wikipedia page for meth?
And if you’re craving more… check out:
To learn more, check out:
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Mon, Dec 29, 2008
Here’s a countdown of 10 toons, articles, and videos I can’t stop laughing over.
Oh, business humor, if I had more chutzpah (and you’d think I have a headstart on that, with the ‘kah’ in my name), I’d make you myself.
But at least I’m doing the next best thing… collecting the most entertaining things I run across at work. Not all are about business. But all of them have been useful while doing business.
Sorry to post links rather than images. I know it’s not very sexy. But I don’t want folks with traditional copyrights (versus Creative Commons copyrights) to yell at me.
10. “…[whereas] the run-of-the-mill Amazon bracelet provides no special protection.” — Wikipedia entry revealing details of Wonder Woman’s bracelet technology http://tinyurl.com/78zldt
9. “Dude, Cold Calling Is For Losers” – Hubspot video http://tinyurl.com/42w3jl
8. “You should invest all of your money in diseased livestock…” – Dilbert cartoon http://i35.tinypic.com/2liwwvn.jpg
7. “Free giant squid on Craigslist. I would take it in, but I’m not sure if it would get along with our cats.” – LaughingSquid tweet (ok, I snuck in one tweet!) http://tinyurl.com/9xzprh
6. “Let me see the first one again.” – Tom Cheney cartoon http://tinyurl.com/74lguz7
5. “Twitter in Real Life – the Follow Back” – Hubspot cartoon http://tinyurl.com/6ru58j
4. “How about never? Is never good for you?” – Robert Mankoff cartoon http://tinyurl.com/howboutnever
3. “Just build these features into your web site. They’re like an internet marketing mullet.” – Conversation Marketing article http://tinyurl.com/4sqbbo
2. “Work-chair with a giant no-distraction hood.” – BoingBoing http://tinyurl.com/5lkmdu
1. “I love market analysis, Fred, but my heart’s with the World Wrestling Federation.” – Leo Cullum cartoon http://tinyurl.com/6buvdg
I’m pretty sure I’ve violated the “Do Not Make Fun of Your Industry” rule set out by Brad Shorr in “The 5 Rules of Business Humor“… probably several times. But I think people can handle it. And there’s good reason to think so… the New Yorker Store gets $125 for a framed print of each of their cartoons!
So… what’d I miss?
Next up: 10 tweets that kill me
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Mon, Jul 14, 2008
The last time I had to send in a photo of myself, I automatically asked a coworker to grab the standard formal portrait. You know the kind, the head-and-shoulders photo also known as a mug shot.
When we scrolled through them later, I groaned. It seems like they are, by their nature, too often bland and static. Fine for a passport, but not how I want the outside world to see me and Business Communications Group. Today, with more two-way conversation going on between our company and clients, it's important to show the real person who means business - who has a real personality.
So we tried getting some "environmental" shots - in the office, in the field, talking to staff and checking on projects.
But in the end I settled on a shot taken at the very end of the day at a coffee shop, when I was too tired to get frozen and awkward.
Lesson learned: Even when the occasion demands a plain head-and-shoulders photo, I don't have to look like I'm about to be booked and fingerprinted. Here is what I can suggest:
* Staying loose is the hardest part. To avoid freezing up, try walking in or turning around to face the camera just before the photo is taken.
* To get your mojo working, recite your company's boilerplate 3x with conviction (this helps when you're recording audio or video too)
* Avoid colorful backdrops, props and clutter - less is more. I had a rose colored wall behind on this one, and wish I didn't. A plain white background is great for most online contexts where photos are posted.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Thu, Jul 10, 2008
I received this email from LegalZoom this afternoon and can't get over it the wry humor of the copywriter.
I'm posting without any sermonizing... just make sure you scroll down to the casual mention in the final bullet.
As my colleague Fiona said just now, "hey, I know how hard it is to align your story to a good trend angle."
But here comes a bolt of lightning now - nice knowing you.
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Mon, Jun 30, 2008
While reading B2B magazine’s Interactive Marketing Guide earlier this year, a cluster of graphics caught my eye. They had to do with expected marketing allocations for online video, podcasts and other technology through 2012.
Through 2012?!?
Fortune magazine is not publishing recommendations on specific stocks to buy in 2012. Why would we pick specific 2012 marketing tactics now? It’s more risky than picking stocks. If you bet wrong on your organization’s ability to communicate with its target audiences, that could result in zillions of lost opportunities.
A lot can happen in the online world in four years. Think of how many tools weren’t around as recently as 2004. No YouTube. No Twitter. Facebook and other social networking sites were barely getting off the ground. Would your 2004 online marketing plan still work well today?
You can bet there will be plenty more changes by 2012. Who knows what will come along to change the online marketing world? The most effective marketing allocations will depend on things like ESPs’ relationships with the biggest domains; whether chat overtakes email for peer-to-peer communications, as the experts predict; whether a niche engine like business.com continues to gain market share from Google.
It’s good to have long-term plans as long as you can be flexible about them. Go ahead and think about your marketing allocations four years from now. Write a brief plan and put it away for a year. Next year take it out and revise it with a little more attention to details. Do it again in 2010 and 2011. By the time 2012 shows up, you’ll surely have changed your outlook.