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Words Matter - How To Choose The Right Ones For Your Marketing Material by Albert Kelly
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Words Matter - How To Choose The Right Ones For Your Marketing Material by ALBERT KELLY
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| Article Posted: 06/30/2013 |
| Article Views: 77 |
| Articles Written: 180 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
| Word Count: 489 |
| Article Votes: 0 |
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Words Matter - How To Choose The Right Ones For Your Marketing Material |
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Education
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x recently saw a sign for a graphic design company, displayed prominently on a building in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. The company's name in Chinese translates literally as "King of design", but the name in English on the sign is "Wrong design" - doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? That's a pretty obvious mistake in English. But where in YOUR marketing material (ads, signs, website text, brochures, e-mails, media releases, letters, scripts, invoices, reports, project proposals...) are YOU choosing words that create the wrong impression? Do the words in your marketing material: Consistently express the unique, authentic brand and "personality" of your business? Accurately hit the emotional "hot buttons" of the people in your intended target market? Convey the right tone? Tell the readers everything they want and need to know in order to buy from you? I confess that, as a copywriter and editor, I'm biased - I believe that the words in your marketing material are more important than (or at least as important as) the visuals. Especially with websites, too many businesspeople focus their time and money on the graphic design and the technical bells and whistles, then only call in a writer at the last minute to fill in the blank spaces. Or they just ask an editor to fix up the grammar and spelling. But even if the grammar and spelling are perfect, what if: Your underlying message is ineffective? The names of your website's main menu items are confusing, or worse, meaningless, to your readers? The keywords you use are not the ones your prospective clients are searching for? You don't make it clear what you want the reader to do next? Your error messages are unhelpful and infuriating? Your terminology is not consistent throughout your site? For example, on the site that I use to create and send my e-newsletter is the instruction "...click on the 'OK' button to create a link", but the necessary button, just a bit further down on the same page, is actually labelled "Insert link", not "OK". Not OK. All of those things depend on words. The right words, at the right time, in the right place. So tweaking just a few words could make a huge difference to your results. Lesson: Words matter! One single wrong word (or even a wrong comma) could create a negative perception in the mind of your client or prospect, and that could mean you lose the sale. Action steps: If English isn't your first language (or gee, even if it is), please ask a professional copywriter/editor (preferably one who understands marketing) to write or edit all of your English-language marketing material. And please don't wait until the last minute - involve them in the earliest stages of planning your marketing campaign, and brief them thoroughly about your business, your industry, your products/services, your clients, your brand, your desired results, your budget, your deadlines... professional custom writing services
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