help with business communications
Grabbing the headlines
Grabbing the headlines
Whatever we think of the reporting standards in our national newspapers, they have given us some great headlines over the years.
One of my personal favourites is The Sun’s “Super Cally go ballasitc, Celtic are atrocious” following Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s 3-1 win over Celtic in the Scottish Cup in 2000.
I spotted one of a slightly more sophisticated nature on the front page of The Guardian in April and have been meaning to write a post based on it ever since. It accompanied a front-page story by the paper’s Paris correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis. She was writing about the alleged outrage of notorious French riot police – the Compagnie Repulicaines de Securite (CRS) on hearing they would no longer be allowed to drink alcohol with their lunch.
Apparently, up until now, even packed lunches provided to the CRS out of riot vans while they were patrolling demos, came with a can of beer or glass of wine. And the headline?
“Riot squad sees rouge as police vin gets bottled.”
It’s tempting to think that good headlines are the result of a flash of inspiration (an old stalwart, by the way, when I was Head of Press and PR for Nikon UK and writing about the company’s flashlights – yes I know, I know). But the majority of strong, memorable, and more importantly, effective headlines take time and a great deal of hard work.
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Wimbledon tennis commentators serve faulty phrase
So Wimbledon is over for another year and I’m trying to adjust to tennis-free days. One thing I won’t miss though is that horrible phrase ‘the business end’ that too many of the match commentators used too often.
I got tired of hearing, ‘well, we’re at the business end of the set now.’ Ugh. Not only is it plain ugly, but like all phrases that become over-used, it jars. You have to be very careful, in writing as well as in speech, about becoming reliant on certain distinctive words, phrases, and devices.
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Marketing confessions of a shy, retiring copywriter
When I saw Jupiter Jasper Marketing’s blogging competition, http://bit.ly/lpyv7p, I thought I’d give it a go and enter. For one it gives me a topic for a blog post – not always easy to find when you’re busy. And it’s a chance to share some of the things I’ve learnt in business. The topic for the competition is ‘My biggest lesson in marketing so far’, so here’s mine: consistency.
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Why choosing the right words is essential if you want to engage your audience
A lesson in subtlety from World War ll
Writing copy for marketing materials is about much more than describing your business. In my post ‘Let me tell you a story’, I wrote about the power of painting a picture for your audience and the importance of choosing words that will engage them. Well, I’ve just come across a great example from the Second World War of why you need to keep your audience in mind all the time you’re writing.
The Home Publicity Division of The Ministry of Information managed to alienate its target audience with its first poster. Created to boost morale, the poster had the opposite affect because it read:
‘your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us Victory.’ Not surprisingly, it prompted people to wonder who exactly you and we were in that equation!
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Let me tell you a story
I’ve just read a great article in Intelligent Life – The Economist’s quarterly magazine – by Robert Butler an arts and environmentalist blogger.
Basically it’s about getting your message across, and Butler uses environmentalists to make his point. Now, I’ve no idea whether or not this is true but he claims they have a tendency to hit people with stats, results and conclusions.
He says this closes the subject down and doesn’t allow the other person’s mind anywhere to go. His recommendation to Greens is to ditch information overload, “in favour of suggesting details that actually catch people’s interest and allow the other person to get involved.”
It’s good advice that also applies to our marketing materials.
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Think like your customer
Setting up internet banking for an account that’s been open for 18 months proved rather more difficult for my partner, Graham, than he imagined.
I won’t go into everything that went wrong; I want to highlight one thing in particular to show how important it is to be clear and put ourselves in our customers’ shoes. Nowhere is that more important than in our copy. Read the rest of this page »
Commonly misused words
Quite often in English, words develop a different meaning through constant misuse. Here’s list of words that are frequently used in the wrong context; often in business letters and documents. Test your knowledge and make sure you are using them correctly.
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