From the category archives:

Writing

How to Be a Marketing Drama Queen

by Travis Heermann July 21, 2010 Communication

Evoking response is the primary duty of any marketing campaign. Generating more sales and revenue than the campaign cost to produce is the bottom line. Any good marketer knows that the first step is understanding the benefits of the product or service. Why should the customer care about what you’re saying? How can your widget [...]

Tagged as: advertising, business communication, copywriting, Marketing, messaging, sales

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What Motivates Your Prospect?

by Travis Heermann July 14, 2010 Audience

The Myers-Briggs Temperament Test is an increasingly popular way to identify what makes a person tick. The Myers-Briggs Test, originally developed in the 1950s, is now used worldwide to identify patterns of behavior and attitude. The expansion of the test’s popularity has been spurred in large part by Dr. David Keirsey, who refined and expanded [...]

Tagged as: audience, messaging

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7 Tips for Tapping Your Creativity

by Travis Heermann July 6, 2010 Writing

Professionals of all backgrounds need to unlock the doors of creativity at one time or another. Copywriters, marketers, executives, anyone who needs to find new solutions to intractable problems. Sometimes those solutions do not come. The brain feels blocked. How do you free your imagination? Writers, for instance, are in the business of capturing emotions. [...]

Tagged as: business communication, copywriting, creativity, discipline, Writing, writing tips

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Why Less Is More in Writing

by Mistina Picciano July 1, 2010 Writing

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” – Mark Twain I’ve just finished reading The Power of Less by Leo Babauta, yet another book that promises greater productivity with less effort. His principles are sound, and reading the book takes very little time. Putting those principles [...]

Tagged as: brevity, dvorak, qwerty, Writing

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4 Essential Tips for Writing an Effective Letter

by Travis Heermann June 8, 2010 Audience

Does anyone write letters anymore? We have e-mail, text messaging, social media web sites, and the soul of communicational brevity, Twitter. With all these other forms of communication, do we still need to know how to write a good letter? Whether you’re seeking employment, trying to sell widgets, or contacting business associates, now, more than [...]

Tagged as: audience, business letters, how to write a letter, letters

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7 Attention-Grabbing Words for the 21st Century

by Travis Heermann June 1, 2010 Audience

Culture evolves and language evolves with it. Words that worked in 1950 will not necessarily work in the 21st century. The following list of words seize the attention of your audience–whether your audience is sales prospects, potential donors, or voters–and elicit powerful internal responses with American audiences. In the direction our culture is evolving, these [...]

Tagged as: attention grabbing words, messaging, words

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Why Good Writing Doesn’t Matter

by Mistina Picciano April 29, 2010 Writing

When people find out I have a business writing agency, they often smile and nod. Then, invariably they tell me about their wife, nephew, fourth cousin, etc., who’s “a good writer.” What, exactly, does it mean to be a good writer? Signs of writing competency Vivid storytelling abilities Creative, effective syntax Mastery of grammar [...]

Tagged as: business communication, messaging, Writing

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Top 10 Writing Mistakes Part 2: Today

by Travis Heermann March 31, 2010 Communication

In Part 1, we examined error studies of writing during three decades of the 20th Century: 1917, the late 1930s, and 1986. We found that the nature of the errors shifted slightly–even though the primary errors were with comma usage, pronouns, spelling/misused words, verb tense–but the incidence of errors held steady, at about 2.1-2.2 errors [...]

Tagged as: audience, business communication, language, Writing

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Top 10 Writing Mistakes Part 1: the 20th Century

by Travis Heermann March 18, 2010 Communication

Many people speculate that writing is getting worse. Employers lament the ubiquity of text-speak and inappropriate informality in professional communication from new college graduates. Grammarians gnash their teeth at the downturn in writing quality across the board. But is it true? While it is true that technology is changing how human beings interact, the effect [...]

Tagged as: writing tips

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6 Online Writing Mistakes that Make People Click Away

by Deidre Rienzo February 11, 2010 Marketing

Do you remember “The Gong Show”? Brave contestants would go on stage and display their talents (or lack thereof) in front of three judges. If the contestants made a mistake, or just didn’t impress… GONG. Game over. The world of online business has a gong equivalent. It’s called your bounce rate, and it tracks how [...]

Tagged as: business communication, online marketing, writing tips

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