Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Five Common Grammar Mistakes That Turn Off Readers

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for using a personal and casual style where it is appropriate, like in blogs and ads. However, there is a difference between copy that engages the reader and copy that is written carelessly. Certain glaring mistakes are liable to hurt your credibility and even turn away potential customers.

Based on my own experience in the multi-lingual Israeli high tech community, here are five big time grammatical errors that I continue to see all too often – despite the valiant efforts of the English grammar police.

1. It's vs. Its

This is no doubt one of the most frequent grammatical mistakes made by native English speakers. "It's" is used instead of "It is" or "It has" (e.g., It's a marvelous night for a moondance). "Its" is only used to show possession (e.g., Music today has lost its soul). Here's a hint: try replacing "it's" with "it is" or "it has". If it makes sense leave the apostrophe.

Wrong: Its been fun writing this blog.

Correct: It's been fun writing this blog.

2. Latin 101 – i.e. or e.g.?

It's hard to remember when I've written a piece of copy without using one of these very handy terms. Id est in Latin means "that is" or more loosely "in other words." It is used to add clarity to the phrase or term that precedes it.

Wrong: This song was written by my favorite artist (e.g., Van Morisson).

Correct: This song was written by my favorite artist (i.e., Van Morisson).

The omnipresent exempli gratia means “for example” and should only be used before giving specific examples to support a statement.

Wrong: You should try to avoid grammatical errors, i.e., punctuation, spelling, etc.

Correct: You should try to avoid grammatical errors, e.g., punctuation, spelling, etc.

Note that both "i.e." and "e.g." should always be immediately followed by a comma.

3. Present Progressive vs. Present Simple

Since there is no distinction between Present Progressive (e.g., I am walking my dog right now) and Present Simple (e.g., I walk my dog every evening) in Hebrew, this is a very common mistake in both written and spoken English among Israelis. Present Progressive is used to indicate an action that is occurring this very moment. Present Simple is used to describe an action that takes place regularly or to describe a state or condition (e.g., It rains frequently in London). If it's not happening right now, use Present Simple.

Wrong: The application is updating the database on a regular basis.

Correct: The application updates the database on a regular basis.

4. Improper Use of Apostrophes

Here's the deal. The apostrophe is used to form contractions (e.g., That's a beautiful building) and to indicate possession (e.g., John's shirt is red), but never to form plurals. When used to indicate possession with single or plural nouns that end in "s," the apostrophe should appear at the end of the word without an additional "s" (e.g., the girls' uniforms were burgundy and gold).

Wrong: The technician's will come by tomorrow.

Correct: The technicians will come by tomorrow.

5. Plural Noun Pairs

This issue results from the extensive use in Hebrew of the construct state (smichut). The rule here is simple: do not juxtapose a pair of plural nouns (e.g., if you're talking about the preferences of your readers, say "reader preferences"). It is understood that "reader" in this instance represents all your readers. The first word in the pair should be singular, and the latter should be plural.

Wrong: I have a long list of features options that requires review.

Correct: I have a long list of feature options that requires review.


Do you have more suggestions? Help me put together a post on the next five.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Four Painless Ways to Get the Most out of Your Marcom Dollar

Tight budgets are a fact of life in the world of marcom. While it’s hard to participate in a major trade show without paying for registration fees, travel costs and booth design & construction, there are ways to stretch your marcom dollar, particularly in today's web-driven business environment.

Let's assume that as a complement to your product literature and webpage, you have written a business-oriented white paper that focuses on market trends, business drivers and the various alternative solutions to the problem your product uniquely addresses. The objective of the white paper is to drive your potential customers to the natural conclusion that your company has the perfect solution for them. Once the white paper is complete, you can post it to your website, distribute it to the sales team, and cross another task off your "To Do" list.

Or, you could take the same white paper, and actually turn it into a sales tool that brings measurable results (e.g., sales leads). Here are a few battle-tested ways to make this happen:

1. The simplest option is to place the white paper on your website with form protection, as a way to generate leads. You could add a colorful banner to your homepage, with the title of the white paper and a "Free Download" button linking to the download form.

2. Before exposing the white paper to your competitors and the rest of the universe via your website, use it as the "hook" for an email campaign. An introductory paragraph talking about the need (probably could be cut and pasted from the white paper itself) and a "Click here to download free white paper" usually does the trick.

3. Create a landing page on your website with a short overview and a bulleted list of highlights of what the reader will learn from the white paper (clicking on the online banner in the first option would lead to this page). The landing page should also include a short form (name, company, email are mandatory) to be filled in before the white paper is mailed to the reader. Not only do you generate leads, you also drive more traffic to your website.

4. Execute an inexpensive Google AdWords campaign around this white paper and landing page. Identify the keywords that your target market is likely to search for, and entice them with a “Free White Paper” ad that addresses their business challenge and leads them to the existing landing page. Even better, tweak the existing landing page to focus on the keywords that will appeal to your target audience.

How does your company get maximum mileage from its marcom materials? Share your real-world experiences.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The "On-Time vs. Perfect" Quandary

An important customer asks you to write a two-page brochure for a new product. You happily agree to come in for a briefing. At the end of the meeting, you are told that they need it by tomorrow morning to allow for design, printing and shipment to the big show in Europe next week. You don't want to disappoint them (after all, they are one of your best customers), but on the other hand, you know that to do this properly you need at least two days and, preferably, one review cycle with the product manager. Sound familiar?

Writing for business customers inevitably leads to situations where one is forced to make compromises in order to meet real-world deadlines. The question is how to handle situations where you know that given a few more hours you could deliver a better product. While savvy customers generally understand how long it takes to write high-quality copy, they have to balance this against their own customers' requirements and urgent requests from Sales for materials needed in the field (often at the last minute).

These complexities can result in the "quick and dirty" syndrome. Since the customer already knows (or you have told them) that the deadline is unrealistic, they ask for a quick and dirty version just to "get it out the door," promising to refine it later. Depending on the company, this second stage may or may not happen. In the meantime, the "quick and dirty" brochure has been printed, distributed and emailed in PDF format from Sales to various partners and customers. Those that read the brochure are not interested in the fact that Marketing got the brochure out the door in 48 hours. The writer (and designer for that matter) are going to be judged on the quality of the final product, even if it was "quick and dirty."

On the other hand, let's give the customer credit for knowing what's important from a business standpoint. Sometimes failure to deliver on time, e.g., new brochure for product launch or a document to be submitted as part of an RFP process, can have significant business implications. Copywriting is a service, and like any other service, is about providing value to customers. If the customer determines that it is more valuable to submit on time than to review and refine the text, this is certainly a legitimate decision. The quandary for the writer (and this will vary depending on the writer's experience and relationship with the particular customer) is whether meeting the customer's time constraints warrants submitting a document that is okay but not great.

Ever come across a similar situation? Tell me about your experiences.

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Sunday, March 9, 2008

Why Use a Copywriter?

Many companies are born around a single, brilliant idea. In the world of high-tech, the spark for a start-up is typically a new technology. Inevitably, the first year (or years) of the company's existence is dedicated to developing this idea or technology into something that can be sold (i.e., a product).

While having a great product is a definitely a prerequisite, it's not enough by itself to guarantee success in today’s highly competitive market. You need to be able to communicate the distinct advantages of your product or service to the right audience in order to generate sales.

This is exactly where a good copywriter fits in. While you wouldn't hire an accountant to perform QA on your product, why would you expect your technology gurus to create the marketing message? The copywriter's job is to communicate to your potential buyers that you have the product that solves their problem or otherwise helps them improve their bottom lines (B2B). A strong and well-built messaging platform allows your target customers to understand exactly how your product addresses their specific pain points.

An experienced copywriter can help you formulate your marketing message and even create an internal positioning statement to share within the company. This is the "marketing DNA" which serves as the underlying platform for all your marketing efforts. The message platform will reflect a joint analysis of your market, how you stack up against your main competitors, unique product differentiators and your company's overall business objectives.

Working as an integral part of the marketing team, the copywriter is responsible for your company’s messaging platform. Once this platform has been developed, the copywriter creates a set of marketing materials for the product that both incorporates and radiates this message as it dominant theme. These materials include, but are not limited to, web copy (preferably optimized for search engines), product and corporate brochures, white papers, case studies, and presentations.

Your company's goal is to generate revenues. A compelling, high-impact marketing message is crucial in a competitive marketplace. A great product without the right message is like a vintage wine without the bottle. A professional copywriter can help you reach your target markets and present your offering in a way that will help you meet your business goals.

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Using Creativity to Maximize Your Trade Show ROI

Those of us who work in or with corporate marcom departments know that the first six months of each year are trade show season. Whether it be Mobile World Congress, CeBIT, InfoSecurity or any other of the dozens "must exhibit" events, companies will spend huge amounts of energy and budget on these important industry showcases. Naturally, if you’re going to allocate the resources, you will definitely want to maximize your ROI in terms of sales leads and PR exposure.

Without discounting the role of the marcom writer in this effort (this is a copywriting blog after all), the writer’s contribution here is marginal when it comes to the actual success or failure of the show. Concept and design are the keys to success – your booth has got to stand out from the hundreds of others. Unless you're a Microsoft, budget limitations mean you can't be bigger or louder than the giants, so you've got to be smarter and more creative.

Here's a great example from an Internet security company I worked for a number of years ago. We sold security appliances and our standard modus operandi for major trade shows was to set up a booth with a few demo stations (each one demoing a different appliance), a plasma screen with the latest product video, and an attractive back wall with images of our appliances and posters listing the benefits for our enterprise and SMB customers. Naturally, we also had stands bursting at the seams with our latest collaterals.

While this was all done very professionally, in terms of concept it was no different from our competitors who had much larger budgets – i.e., they had larger booths, more advantageous hall locations, and better giveaways. Suffice it to say we never really came away with the traffic, leads and PR value that we had hoped for.

Then, one year we decided to be different. Instead of the product-oriented, "hard sell" approach, we turned our booth into an "Internet threats museum" which provided a graphic timeline, examples and descriptions of the different types of security threats discovered in the 12 months since the last trade show. Demo stations showing how the various threats actually work were manned by our security researchers, rather than salespersons. At the end of the "tour" each visitor received a white paper with in-depth explanations of the year's major security trends, rather than a product brochure. The feedback we received was tremendous, with customers and prospects applauding us for actually providing them with educational value, and then asking us (drum roll, please) how we solve these types of challenges.

So, when you start thinking about your next big trade show, don't be afraid to be different. Give your potential customers an experience they will remember and value. They will reward you with results.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Marketing vs. Technical Writing - Vive la Différence

During my 15 years working as an in-house marketing writer at four leading Israel-based technology companies, one of my pet peeves was being mistakenly referred to (despite my persistent corrections) as the “technical writer.” Don't get me wrong - I have the utmost respect for technical writers, who perform a very difficult and often thankless task (Confession #1: I started my professional writing career in the early 1990s as a technical writer at Amdocs).

The fact that most technical and marketing writers (aka marcom writer, copywriter) in Israel are immigrants from English-speaking countries and speak Hebrew with a funny accent makes it easy to group us together. However, what really bothered me all those years about being pigeonholed by the techies as a "tech writer" (even though the guy who wrote the user manuals sat right down the hall) was the underlying lack of knowledge as to the fundamental differences between technical writing and marketing writing. (Confession #2: I had the good fortune of working for companies with Marketing VPs that fully appreciated the distinction and need for both).

So let's straighten this out once and for all. Two key distinguishing factors between the disciplines of technical writing and marketing writing are their deliverables and the audience for which these deliverables are produced. Not surprisingly, technical writers produce technical documentation. This includes, but is not limited to, user manuals, maintenance and installation guides, API guides, release notes, technical training materials, and the like. The range of technical documentation varies depending on each company's product offering and organizational requirements. What is common to all of these materials is that they are provided to customers together with the actual product. In other words, they are part of the post-sale deliverables (together with training, support and the like).

Marketing, in general, and marketing writing, in particular, is a pre-sales activity. The materials created by the marketing writer include web content, white papers, brochures, case studies, ads, multimedia presentations and more. These deliverables serve as sales tools for use by the sales force in the field. In my view, an in-house marketing writer should always try to view the sales team as the "client," while the deliverables are the client’s ammunition on the battlefield. As part of the pre-sales process, the ultimate objective of a white paper or brochure (not to mention an advertisement) is to raise market awareness concerning a business need, generate interest in the company's solution and drive prospects to contact sales.

Marketing writing and technical writing are two separate disciplines, each requiring a specific set of skills, tools and knowledge. While the deliverables of each are usually cooked in the same language, the flavor is totally different. (Last aside: Reminds me of the allusion to the Americans and British as "two peoples separated by a common language").

So the next time you run into that English speaker in the company kitchen, show her that you understand the difference.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Thanks for Visiting

Welcome to my brand new blog.

After 15 years as an in-house marketing writer at several leading Israeli software and technology companies, I have “taken the plunge” and joined the ranks of the freelance writing community.

This blog is intended for marketers and writers that are interested in copywriting. My aim is to share my experience, provide an occasional insight and spur discussion among professional colleagues regarding some of the thornier issues that a copywriter deals with on a daily basis. If you have friends or colleagues who might also be interested in the world of copywriting, please spread the word. Naturally, comments and feedback are always more than welcome.

In upcoming posts, I will discuss some of the ways companies can leverage messaging platforms to create effective content that achieves measurable business results.