Friday, September 17, 2010

I believe the current debate between whether traditional direct mail or e-mail is best for marketing purposes is obscuring what is really most important--the content.

Until what you say in your marketing communications has value to your customers and prospects and is well-presented, then how you get it to them is irrelevant.
There are two parts to delivering meaningful content;the words themselves and how they are presented graphically. Writing that is full of cliches, grammatical errors, misspellings and punctuation errors calls attention to the writing itself rather than the meaning. Likewise, ordinary or commonplace design wastes the opportunity to draw the reader in and may even confuse the reader.

We understand that budgets may be tight, providing the temptation to save money by do-it-yourself content preparation. If this is your situation, may we suggest that you budget enough to have us review your work. Sometimes the simplest of changes can make a significant difference in the impression you'll make on your readers.

Friday, September 3, 2010

A very useful tool for any writer is a swipe file, a place to collect examples of effective writing that comes to your attention.
A swipe file can contain anything you want it to---headlines,introductory paragraphs,body copy,guarantees,interesting phrases or slogans,display ads,direct mail marketing pieces,e-mail messages,graphics, photos--anything that might serve as a future idea starter. It is a good idea to organize your swipe file into subsections to make searching for ideas easier, and to base it on hard copy rather than digital files.
Look for material for your swipe file in anything you come across that is sales-related. Instead of tossing direct mail marketing pieces unopened, take a look and see if there is anything suitable for your swipe file. Likewise for e-mail advertising messages. The more you view and collect, the more useful your swipe file will become.
Keep in mind that the purpose of a swipe file is to generate ideas, not to plagiarize. Your goal is to adapt the information in your swipe file to your own needs, not to copy it outright.