1. Cut the boring parts
I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard
Unless you’re writing for personal reasons alone, you need to consider the attention of your readers. There’s no point in publishing content that isn’t useful, interesting or both.

2. Eliminate unnecessary words
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it, and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain
Some people feel that using words like “really”, “actually”, or “extremely” make writing more forceful. It doesn’t. They only get in the way. Cut them and never look back.

3. Write with passion
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth
It’s not hard to realize that unless you’re excited about your writing no one else will be.

4. Keep it simple
Vigorous writing is concise. ~William Strunk Jr.
It’s more difficult (and effective) to express yourself in the simplest possible manner.

5. Learn to thrive on criticism
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. ~Ray Bradbury
Writing means putting yourself at the mercy of anonymous hecklers and shameless sycophants. Learn to make the most of the insults and distrust the praise.

6. Write what you know … or what you want to know
Learn as much by writing as by reading. ~Lord Acton
Successful writing is all about trust and authority. It makes sense to write about your area of expertise. If you don’t have an expertise, reading and writing is the best way to develop one and put it on display.

7. Be unique and unpredictable
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. ~G.K. Chesterton
Following what works will only get you so far. Experiment with new styles, even if it means taking criticism. Without moving forward, you’ll be left behind.
Check out the blog in its entirety at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/art-of-writing/.
(Source: September 6th, 2007 by Editor, Pick The Brain)

When building a new web site, or re-building an old one, a CMS should always be taken into consideration.  Some of the core functions include:

• adding new pages (more robust CMS allow for this)
• editing/removing/organizing current pages
• updating content
• adding images or updating photo galleries

There are many different flavors of CMS. Some are restricted to just editing content, others allow full control to edit virtually anything on your website.  All of these factors should be explored in the planning stages of your new website, as its more cost affective to implement a CMS in the beginning stages than it is to retrofit a web site that is live. Don’t get me wrong though, it can be done. Paul Boag does a great job of explaining things to consider when choosing a CMS in his article “10 Thing To Consider When Choosing a Perfect CMS”

The benefits of a CMS are also huge. Let’s say you want to start publishing your news updates to an RSS feed.  If your CMS was set up correctly, it would only take a tiny bit of programming (maybe just a checkbox) to “start” that feed.   If your CMS wasn’t set up for it – or if you don’t use a CMS on your site currently – it could be a pretty big headache (in both time and money) trying to show feeds from static pages.

CMS is just a small tool to help the creation and maintenance of a healthy web presence. There are many more details and variables to work out when starting or rebuilding a web site. However, if the right CMS is implemented from the start, it will help to address the variables and changes you have along the way – in the end reducing your dependence on programmers (which saves you money).

Anchor has implemented all flavors of CMS, from 3rd party solutions like WordPress, concrete5 and CushyCMS, to custom written CMS solutions which automate contests and entry form submissions.  Contact us today to see what else we can do for you.

In the article, 10 Secrets To More Magnetic Copy, Jason Cohen offers ten hints to writing unique and effective copy. These include:

1. Don’t hedge

“Hedging” is when you go out of your way to cover every contingency in an argument. Example: “Nowadays many middle-school girls have at least some affinity for vampires.” The hedges are “almost all” and “at least some affinity.” These may be strictly true, but it’s soft, pudgy wording that lacks punch. Instead: “Nowadays middle-school girls love vampires.”

2. Repeat a phrase

Repetition establishes structure and rhythm. Repetition taps into the old part of our brain that loves rhyme and meter. Repetition pulls the reader into the flow of your writing. Repetition isn’t difficult to use. Repetition is your friend. Repetition is annoying if overused.

3. No passive voice

Passive voice is when you switch the positions of the subject and object of a sentence. For example: “The boy hit the ball” is in active voice; passive voice is: “The ball is hit by the boy.” Notice how passive voice uses more words without adding information — usually a warning sign of flabby writing.

The wrongness of passive voice isn’t universal, but wouldn’t it have been clearer if I had said that passive voice isn’t always wrong?

4. Brevity

I don’t care how good your writing is, most people won’t read more than a few sentences. Any more and they’ll start scanning. You probably aren’t reading this article exactly from top to bottom are you? In fact, you’re probably not even reading this sentence. Man, for a discussion about brevity this sure is dragging on. You can fight it by being more entertaining, but the best policy is to just write less.

5. Use short sentences

Short sentences are easy to read. They’re easy to digest. It’s easier to follow each point of an argument. Sometimes longer sentences — especially if divided up with dashes — are an appropriate tool, especially mixed in with shorter sentences to break things up. If you think short sentences are incompatible with excellent writing, read Stephen King. Or Hemingway. Or Basho.

6. Provoke, don’t solve

If you’re writing a report that is supposed to cover all the bases, this tip doesn’t apply. But if you’re trying to be persuasive (particularly if you’re creating a content net), don’t try to handle every objection in one sitting. Your goal is to get the other person to respond: To ask you about a feature of your product, to challenge your assumptions about a competitor, to double-check something before scheduling an interview. Don’t solve every problem, leaving no stone unturned; leave them wanting more!

7. Eliminate trash adjectives

Most adjectives and adverbs don’t add information; they just take up space and dull your message. Example: “I’m very interested in quickly scheduling an in-person interview.” Remove the adjectives and you get the same message, but sharper: “I’m interested in scheduling an interview.”

8. Be direct

Pardon me, dear reader, but if it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience, could I trouble you to do me the favor of applying your obvious considerable facility with the English language to just get to the damn point?

Flowery, respectful and qualified wording is appropriate when you’re asking a waiter to do you a favor without spitting in your food. But it has no place in magnetically persuasive writing.

9. Tell a story

I knew a guy named George who couldn’t figure out why people couldn’t understand the benefits of his software. He had feature and benefit bullet points but they just weren’t sinking in. One day George changed his tactics completely. He wrote up a one-paragraph story about how one of his customers saved $125k by using his software. After that, sales were a lot easier.

10. Write informally

Sure, informal writing isn’t “professional.” And yeah, using phrases like “and yeah” violates the brevity rule. But it’s usually smart to write like you talk. Being informal helps you come off as a real person, not a stodgy, robotic copy writer.

Cohen’s full article can be found at: http://www.copyblogger.com/more-magnetic-copy/

http://soshable.com/wheres-the-money-being-spent-in-social-media/

Mistake #1: Failing to Keep Your Pipeline Primed

• Definition: Not having enough prospects at the beginning of the sales cycle.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: Filling the pipeline often involves cold-calling and often plenty of “rejection.”
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: If you don’t have enough prospects at the beginning of your pipeline, you’ll probably not have enough coming out the other end as real live customers.
• The Unintended Consequence: You may end up spending extra time on the accounts that you DO have in the pipeline and put unconscious pressure on those prospects to buy, thereby creating resistance and EVEN FEWER sales.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: You can easily schedule quality time for cold-calling, asking for referrals and other lead generation activities.

Mistake #2: Failing to Research the Prospect

• Definition: Going on a cold call or going to a face-to-face meeting without knowing much about the prospective customer.
• Why It’s Easy To Make: Your primary job is to sell, not to dig around and find out things, right?
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: You have a limited amount of time with each prospect.  If you spend it finding out things that you could find out elsewhere, that’s less time you have to actually move the sale forward.
• The Unintended Consequence: The prospect will know you’re unprepared and (worse) take it as a sign of disrespect.
• Why It’s Easy To Avoid: You can use the web to discover where your offering fits before contacting the prospect.

Mistake #3: Failing to Qualify the Lead

• Definition: Putting a sales lead into your pipeline without being certain that they have a need for your offering or the money to buy it.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: If you get some prospects in the pipeline, your manager will finally get off your back, right? And, who knows, maybe they’ll buy…
• What It’s a Big Mistake: Every second that you spend on a prospect that won’t and can’t buy is time you could be spending on prospects that will and can.
• The Unintended Consequence: You’ll make a few sales… but your numbers at the end of the quarter will look weak compared to your peers who bothered to qualify their leads.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: Have a list of qualification questions and ask them early in the sales cycle.

Mistake #4: Failing to Discover the Buying Process

• Definition: Going through the sales cycle assuming that your sales activities will drive the sale from inception to closing.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: The illusion that you can control the sales through persuasion and manipulation is comforting in an essentially chaotic world.
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: Every firm has its own way to make buying decisions, with its own timetable for making them.  When your sales activities get out of sync, you end up working a cross-purposes.
• The Unintended Consequence: Surprises at the end of the sales cycle… like contracts and P.O.s that get signed late, or never get signed at all.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: During your initial conversations, you can work with your customer contact to define the buying process.  You then adapt your sales activity to match.

Mistake #5: Giving a Generic Sales Pitch

• Definition: Pulling out your slides and going through a canned list of features and benefits.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: Marketing gave you this pitch and said it would WOW the customer.  And rumor is that it does work sometimes.  Or so you’ve heard.
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: Canned presentations are not only boring, they’re vaguely insulting.  plus, you’re force-fitting whatever you’ve got to sell into something that the customer should buy, whether or not he really wants or needs it.
• The Unintended Consequence: Best case, this “spray and pray” behavior simple wastes the customer’s time, but the prospect will forgive you and move on and perhaps even buy.  Worst case, you can antagonize the prospect to the point where he’s not going to buy from you, period.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: Simple.  Just remember that you should never fire up PowerPoint unless you’re presenting to a room full of people… and then only after you’ve customized the presentation to match the prospect’s requirements.

Mistake #6: Trying to Close Too Soon

• Definition: Asking for the business before the prospect is convinced that there is a real need for what you are offering.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: You’re already counting your commission in your imagination, so you misread the cues that the prospect is giving.
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: You end up looking hungry and like you’re really only trying to cut a deal – for your own reasons, not because you want to help the customer.
• The Unintended Consequence: The sale will take longer, because you’ll need to step back and work to re-establish trust.  And if you flub it again, you can probably kiss the sale goodbye, because the prospect now sees you as a “used car salesman.”
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: You can ask confirming questions.  Listen to the customer’s answers carefully. If there’s still resistance, it’s too soon to close.

Mistake #7: Waiting Too Long to Close

• Definition: Letting the sales process go on and on, without ever asking for the business.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: You’re afraid of getting a “NO!” and finding out that the customer doesn’t really like you, even though you’ve spent all this time on the account.
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: The time you spend unnecessarily on one prospect is time that you’re not spending developing another.  And that’s money out of your pocket.
• The Unintended Consequence: You’ll end up hustling like crazy at the end of the quarter to close… and you probably won’t close because you missed the window of opportunity.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: You can ask confirming questions.  Listen to the customer’s answers.  When you’re getting all green lights, ask for the business.

Mistake #8: Failure to Follow-up

• Definition: You make a commitment to a prospect, but don’t find the time to fulfill it; or you forget to check on a customer after you’ve made the sale.
• Why It’s Easy To Make: Hey, you’re busy, right?  You’ve got lots of things that need doing. And there are always other deals in the pipeline, eh?
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: If it’s a prospect, you just proved that you’re unreliable and untrustworthy.  If it’s a customer, you just proved that you were really just trying to make a sale and “so long, Mr. Customer…”
• The Unintended Consequence: You’re clobbering your reputation and making it impossible to sell to those people. And you can forget about ever getting a referral.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: With a little forethought, you can schedule follow-up activities immediately after the contact. And schedule a series of follow-up phone calls and email to check on each customer’s status. Then do it.

Mistake #9: Forgetting to Get a Referral

• Definition: Not getting “warm leads” from your existing customers.
• Why It’s Easy to Make: You were told that the best time to ask for a referral is when you close the deal.  That seldom works, so you stopped bothering.
• Why It’s a Big Mistake: Referrals are the easiest leads to qualify and the easiest prospects to convert to customers because you enter the sales cycle without having to work as hard to establish trust.
• The Unintended Consequence: You end up starting from scratch on every sale, which takes time, which means that you’ll ultimately be making fewer sales than if you had some “warmer” prospects entering the pipeline.
• Why It’s Easy to Avoid: You can make it part of your regular routine.  At closing, you can obtain a promise of a referral if, after delivery, the customer is delighted.  Then, after delivery, you follow up, and ask for the referral.

BNET Insight [Internet]. San Francisco (CA): Geoffrey James – [cited 2010 February 2]. Available from www.blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/

We want the latest fashion jeans even though there are 10 pairs in our closet that we could wear. For me it’s Cole Haan shoes. I like the edgy styles they have, however, the truth is I have two pairs that I don’t wear because the edgy style came and went faster than I could wear them out. I’ve made some emotional decisions that no matter how hard I tried, I could not rationalize.

In my early years of employment I did my share of complaining. I remember one particular time when I was complaining about all kinds of things that seemed unfair or that I would change to someone at the company I worked for. The recipient of this sermon gave me some great advice. They said, “before you waste time complaining about your job or make a decision to change jobs, take time to gather some real data.” This person encouraged me to write down everything that bothered me about my job and everything I enjoyed about my job over a period of two weeks, two months, whatever length of time it took to make a decision based on data — not emotion. Once the time period ended, I would have rational data to make a good decision rather than making an emotional decision that might take me in the wrong career direction.

The advisor said, “it’s like buying a home; you’ll never find one that is perfect – even if you design and build it yourself. After a while you will want to change something.” I took the advice and after four weeks looked at my list. I realized that everything I was complaining about was pretty small and insignificant. This system can also work when you are complaining about your significant other. You’ll never find one that is perfect, and changing a person is near impossible.

It’s human nature to make emotional decisions. We need to continue to think about the emotional when we are writing copy and creating messages to communicate. The emotional is what grabs the attention of target groups. Then, we need to follow with the rational features and benefits that will justify that they made the best buying decision.

Marketing is an amazing business to be part of. What we create with our ideas and skills can affect a whole bunch of people – even change lives. Each day is different, bringing with it a new opportunity to be creative. Enjoy!