You could practically hear poor Seth Godin’s teeth grinding Sunday when he wrote about a recent agonizing encounter with corporate voice mail. You know the drill: you finally work your way through four or five menus, then end up with a recording, “Sorry, we’re closed.” No human employee could get away with that kind of […]
Category Archives: communication
Which costs more, pizza or porn(.com)?
Well, duh. Porn, of course. Well, at least it costs more if you want it as your Web domain. Yahoo’s Christopher Null reports that domain name pizza.com just sold for a cool $2.6 million — a lot of dough. (Sorry.) But it didn’t even crack the top ten most expensive domain names ever sold. The […]
Can squiggles on a whiteboard define your company? Ask UPS.
Am I the only one who gets mesmerized by those ultra-simple UPS commercials? Apparently not, according to Slate’s Seth Stephenson, who gives a great behind-the-scenes look at those ads here. (You can watch the whole series of UPS spots here.) You can’t take your eyes off them. There’s something about all that white space, and […]
Want more word-of-mouth?
Andy Sernovitz at MarketingProfs offers six WOM tips, gleaned from his experiences with Holly Suttmann, a former schoolteacher who has effectively been promoting her Black & Light Candle company. “Holly really understands word of mouth,” Andy says. “She’s proof that every business can master these inexpensive techniques. There are a lot of global companies that […]
Two secrets that make your message seem personal
To make your writing seem personal, write like a person, for cryin’ out loud. That goes for most corporate communications as well as speeches and presentations, as Dick Cavett pointed out in a recent NY Times blog post. The former talk show host was referring to political candidates’ speeches, but the same principles hold true […]
Seth: Write like a blogger (but not this blogger!)
Seth says write like a blogger. Good advice. The two biggies on Seth’s list that hit home for me were: #3: Drip, drip, drip. Bloggers don’t have to say everything at once. We can add a new idea every day, piling on a thesis over time. #9: Say it. Don’t hide, don’t embellish. I’m always […]
Is your writing wimpy and wishy-washy?
Strong, powerful, confident words communicate and convince. Lame, wimpy writing kicks the legs out from under your message, and waters it down. The most common kind of wimpy writing are “qualifiers.” If you remember what your 7th grade English teacher told you, qualifiers are adjectives and adverbs that limit (“qualify”) your message — thus modifying […]