My apologies for not writing more this week. I think this is the most time I’ve let pass without making a post since the site sputtered to a start last year. Besides the normal distractions, I’ve had my hands full recently with a freelance web copy project. I’ve been commissioned to write site content for Jackson’s Service Station in Edwardsville, Kan. And, for the first time in my career, I’m doing it for trade. My payment is going to be a tire rotation and the owner, Gary Jackson, has agreed to help me score a good deal on new tires when I need them. Money was on the table but it makes a much better story if some Goodyears are involved, don’t you think?
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Tags: Business
Exercising a haughty vocabulary – particularly in a sales piece – can be a risky move for a copywriter. I don’t know about you, but if I was writing promotional copy for a book touting effective communication with employees, I don’t think I’d use the word “panoply” in the opening sentence. PR News dropped me a line with an e-cycle today that utilized this hook. I’ve pasted the opening paragraph below. Notice the semicolon and yet another vocabulary stretch, “foolhardy”. The person who wrote this is trying to tell readers something – and I think it’s that they are more intelligent than us. Or maybe that know how to use a thesaurus. But that does that make you want to purchase the book?
“In PR News’ inaugural Employee Communications Guidebook, we offer a full panoply of information that can improve your skills for many scenarios. Whether it’s recruiting and retaining talent or greening the workplace, this Guidebook will hone your understanding on how you can craft and ensure effective messaging to employees; it will also give you the resources you need to streamline all channels of internal communications. Putting employee communications on the backburner during this challenging period is not only foolhardy but a serious misstep that can have damaging repercussions from which your company, agency or association may never fully recover.”
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Tags: Business
Last week, a friend asked me to visit the web site for a marketing agency she was considering an interview with in Chicago. She had questions about its legitimacy and whether it was a legitimate agency that provides actual services to clients or one that uses the word marketing loosely in job ads to attract applicants – usually intelligent ones, fresh from college – and then sell them on a career in hocking knives, hard-back book collections, cleaning solvents and anything that can be crammed into a suitcase and carried door to door. Below is the first sentence posted on the company’s home page. Judging by its length and lack of clarity, would you work for them? (I changed the company name to conceal its identity.)
“Luau Marketing is an organization developed on the premise that an approach to a successful business and marketing plan based on personal communication combined with a genuine interest in people will always be more compelling and meaningful than the latest technology craze.”
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Tags: Business
If you happen to have the evening free tomorrow, I’ll be at the University of Kansas in Lawrence visiting with students involved with the marketing club. The presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Student Union in the Jayhawk Room. My discussion topic will loosely focus on how employees in the marketing field are able to craft their own positions in the agency environment. Maybe I’ll see you there …
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Tags: Business
Overhead, the floorboards cracked while I sat chatting among the bookstacks, worried that my tape recorder would pick up the background noise and not the conversation. I was conducting an interview for Present yesterday in the basement of a local bookstore. While I can’t yet divulge the article topic (the piece will be appearing online this week,) the discussion involved Kansas City’s bohemian arts scene and the proprietors’ role in fostering passionate local poets and hosting wild open mic readings. (more…)
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Tags: Business, Present Mag.
