TashWord

Refer to older posts…

Tash is a professional writer who loves helping people communicate clearly and effectively.

Winning despite poor template use

Published 7 August, 2013 | By TashWord

I may soon be $5,000 richer.

Money pouring into my email – a lovely idea!

Then again, I may not be as I know my chances of winning a competition are somewhat less than 100%!

Reading the competition terms…

I just entered a competition, after looking through the terms. I don’t read the terms in full but I always check if there are unexpected uses of my email address before I give it to someone.

In this case, adding me to a single mailing list was acceptable so I entered.

However, I also noted a few things in the terms that were silly.

I think they have used a generic set of competition terms, adding in a few specific details but leaving everything else as it was in the template. To me, this looks like they were too lazy to bother writing or editing their terms.

Let’s assume they had permission to use that template rather than breaching copyright by copying someone else’s terms. They could still face legal issues if something in the template doesn’t apply to their current situation – like how winners are notified.

Dubious terms

To enter, I gave my name and email address – no postal address or phone number.

According to the terms, if I win, I will be ‘contacted by phone and email’. Interesting idea given they don’t have my phone number…

A single prize of $5,000 is on offer to the winner. Yet, ‘the prize… is not transferable as cash.’

This competition is ‘only open to everyone worldwide…’ The use of only and everyone doesn’t quite work – presumably it makes more sense for competitions where ‘only open to customers’ or ‘only open to Australian residents’. A quick read of the completed sentence could have shown the wisdom of deleting ‘only’.

[Tweet “Not editing a template to use it appears lazy.”]

Have you ever seen someone use a template without thinking to update all the relevant details in it?

Was the result funny or did it damage the business’ reputation (or both!)?

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools | Tagged edit, generic, specific, template | 1 Comment

Giving a wealth of choice…

Published 30 July, 2013 | By TashWord

I often pick up surveys for errors they make – it is unfortunately a common occurrence.

Today I spotted one that used perfect grammar and made perfect sense. The question listed the following options for someone’s gender:

male
female
intersex
other (please specify)
prefer not to say

For a question where I am used to see two possible answers (male and female), such a long list surprised me!

How much is too much?

When talking to clients, I talk about writing from their points or from scratch – I don’t list writing blog posts, webcopy, disclosure documents, annual reports and letters. Fewer options make their decision easier.

How many choices make it hard to choose?

For a question with a clear answer (like how old are you or do you live in Australia), a lot of choices can work as you can skim across the options to find the relevant response.

But at other times, a large choice can hamper people actually making a decision.

I think there is a balance between not restricting people, offering them options, and overwhelming them with choice. Especially if some of the options are going to be chosen by a very limited number of people.

In business, too many choices can result in people being indecisive and not buying.

I know it can be hard to not offer something (what if my next potential client wants exactly the thing I don’t mention?) but considering if less is more can simplify and help your customers.

[Tweet “Consider if less is more before giving customers lots of choices”]

You can always add a note somewhere to the effect of ‘if what you want isn’t listed, give us a call’.

So how many options does your business offer?

Have you considered if it is too many, or how it could be simplified?

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools | Tagged choice, gender, survey | 2 Comments

Learning from Problogger experts

Published 25 July, 2013 | By TashWord

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to the Problogger webinar. It was not on a specific topic (well, no more specific than blogging anyway!) but was a three person team (named below) answering questions.

Learning how to run an effective blog

As always, I shared various tips from the webinar on Twitter as I listened, but I am also going to share a summary of those tips here.

Writing out my notes helps cement the ideas in my head, for one thing, but I also like to share information to help others so this post is a win-win!

Blog content

Obviously, a blog offers little value if it doesn’t have any content so this is a crucial aspect to cover. Shayne and Darren both agreed that content is the priority – you can adjust the layout and visuals of your blog if need be, but poor content really limits the success of your blog.

Create content to show your expertise/credibility relating to your goals. So if your goal is to get more coaching clients, write content that shows you are a good coach and how you can help people
there are many advantages to adding content to your site consistently, especially when your blog is new
it is ok to ask for help, including in blog posts and on social media, as it builds engagement
create a reader profile so you know who you are writing to/for. And figure out where they are online so you can go there, too.
1. test where your readers are – try different social media platforms, etc
grow your reader base by helping people. Become a resource for them, do things like answer relevant questions on Twitter/Facebook
featuring others is a good way to engage with people and build interest (and therefore readers!)
be honest to develop trust – for example, the carryology blog gives honest product reviews, even of competitor products!
generally, adding opinions and personality to blog posts results in more engagement and loyal readers – it helps differentiate you from others covering similar topics
SEO knowledge should inform the way you write, not drive it. So yes use keywords in your content and titles, but don’t focus on SEO – focus on your readers.

And always remember that blogging success can take time so hang in there and don’t give up too soon!

Advertising on your blog

While not all blogs have advertisers, for those who do want this income option a common question is whether to get direct advertisers or use something like AdSense. Here are some of the comparisons from the webinar:

Accepting advertising can make you money

using AdSense can turn off other advertisers – or they will just rely on AdSense to get onto your site (so you share the profits!)
you need a decent amount of traffic to get direct advertisers paying you. Personally, I think the amount of traffic needed is less for a very niche blog or if the blogger has some connection so advertisers can be sure the blog will pick up.
in the early days, expect to contact advertisers rather than waiting for them to approach you. And continue this even when you have advertisers approaching you!
you have less control with AdSense so less desirable ads may be shown on your site – and may therefore be part of a first impression for a new reader. Remember you may not even see the ads your readers see, especially as Google is targeting ads at people’s past browsing history more and more.

Moving beyond blog posts

Many bloggers have found their blog has led to other opportunities – and many make more money and gain credibility more from those extras. Of course, many other bloggers are happy to just blog or use the blog to support a business.

if you are thinking of using a freebie to entice people to sign up for something or subscribe to a newsletter, plan ahead. For instance, if you expect to sell eBooks in a year or so, don’t start giving away an eBook now as an enticement. Once someone has received a free eBook from you, they are less likely to want to pay for one later (although hopefully they will have seen the value in your eBook!)
while good writing is always a good thing, remember that your sales page is not just about the writing or describing what is in the eBook (or other product information) – it has to induce action (ie buying!)
a blog can be a great testing ground and experience for writing eBooks. There was a lot more about eBooks in the webinar but I think that can wait for another blog post!

Who or what is Problogger?

Problogger is a website about blogging (what a surprise!) started by a Melbourne man, Darren Rowse. Darren and the site have gone on to be well recognised as blogging authorities, with a range of blog posts, eBooks, webinars and the annual ProBlogger conference (and virtual conference attendance) to help other bloggers learn and develop.

Today’s webinar was hosted by Darren and included Shayne Tulley and Jasmin Tragas. Shayne manages Problogger’s marketing and website design/development – and has a one week old baby – while Jasmin produces the eBooks and live events for Problogger.

Between them, this trio has a lot of knowledge and they generously shared some of it with us today.

Additional resources

Some other information gained from today’s webinar included:

Or you can listen to a recording of the webinar 🙂

Posted in blogging | 8 Comments

Without context, messages get lost

Published 23 July, 2013 | By TashWord

In an article about Australian Standards on what I thought a national-focus site, the following section stood out…

The retrofitting of automatic sprinkler systems became a mandatory requirement for existing aged care facilities in January 2013. Similar requirements also exist in Victoria and Queensland.

Fire sprinkler image over WA, not rotecting the rest of Australia

Does a national law only cover one state?

So two states have similar laws to the national laws? Why are the national laws not, well, national?

Or is the author just assuming everyone knows he is writing about a particular state because it is so important and somehow obvious?

Or was something edited out that made it clearer in the draft?

Fire safety is important – but so is clarity so people understand your message.

Clarify your context…

When proof reading and editing, always make sure you read your writing from start to finish to check the correct context is in place.

A better way to write the above sentence (and I’m guessing which state is the assumed one!) would be…

In January 2013, the retrofitting of automatic sprinkler systems became a mandatory requirement for existing aged care facilities in Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland.

I think it would also be nice to add another sentence along the lines of “The other states are reviewing their laws” or “Currently the other states have this as a voluntary measure”. I prefer to get the whole picture, but that could just be me!

If you want to avoid similar errors, let me know – I offer proof-reading and editing services as well as writing 🙂

Posted in bad writing examples, business info & tools | Tagged context, name, national, state | 1 Comment

Developing interest is a marketing baby

Published 19 July, 2013 | By TashWord

We had a baby in the house last night, and it was lovely. Lovely to have a baby to hold but also to see how it brought our family together to watch and care for baby Sam.

Sam even came to a school event with us.

We got some interesting looks at the school, too. My daughter even got comments about being a teen Mum as she did most of the carrying at school*.

Some people smiled instinctively when they saw a baby or the baby carrier, others smiled in a bemused way when they realised Sam wasn’t a real baby. Many people were obviously curious and a number actually asked us about Sam.

Why a baby?

Obviously not a real baby, but a close resemblance in many ways

Sam was with us as part of my daughter’s school work – individual students are given 24 hours to care for the baby simulator which cries randomly and needs comforting or feeding.

In this case, it was part of learning about human development although some places run this same program as an anti-teen-pregnancy concept.

The fake baby is about the same size as a newborn, although it felt heavier and bulkier to me – probably because of the electronics in the middle and a lighter head than in a real baby.

Sparks of interest

We walked around a course/career expo and got a lot of interest – a lot more smiles than you would normally expect and exhibitors had a different reason to speak to us.

Goes to show what an ice-breaker a baby can be – it is pretty much the ultimate way to spark interest! Even (or perhaps more so!) a fake baby.

It got me thinking though – what could a SMB person do to spark a similar level of interest at an expo or other business event?

If you have a baby (or a pregnant belly) of your own, the answer is easy!

Carrying a baby simulator to gain attention is a bit weird – actually it would be a lot weird – so I wouldn’t recommend that. I wouldn’t think you’d get one cheaply, either.

So what can you do to generate sparks of interest before you open your mouth and give an elevator speech or mention your USP?

* The school event last night was aimed at younger students and my daughter had Sam because of an accelerated subject, thus it wasn’t common knowledge or a common sight and therefore generated comments and wonder.

Posted in bit off track, marketing | Tagged baby, interest, sparks | 17 Comments

Making your business dough creatively

Published 9 July, 2013 | By TashWord

Over the weekend, we were coming home late so dropped in at a country town for dinner on the way.

We chose the pizza and wine club because it looked nice and suitable for a quick family meal.

A thoughtful surprise

When the waitress gave us menus, I was pleased to see a Little Golden Book on top thinking it would be a distraction for my children while we waited for food.

However, the waitress told us the kids’ menu was inside the book’s cover!

It was a creative way to present the kids’ menu and would serve to make kids feel special (their own menu) and entertained. Of course, older children may be less impressed – our elder daughter didn’t seem to mind though.

The kids’ menu had a small selection of pizza choices and so on.

But it was the message at the end that really caught my eye. There were two offers we could ask for – pencils and colouring pages for entertainment or a ball of dough to play with!

My children chose the dough – no surprises there!

They had a lovely time playing with the dough while we waited for our food. Then, their creations were taken away and baked in the pizza oven so we came home with bread lions, cars, horses and a rose (my daughter made me the rose – it is sitting on my desk!)

A rose by any other name smells, ah tastes, as sweet…

Making dough

Have you ever experienced something like a restaurant providing dough to play with?

It was such a great idea – it kept the kids quiet so the restaurant was nicer for everyone. Especially the parents who got to relax a bit more.

It was all done with a smile and obviously is done regularly – they had special baking dishes for the purpose.

The cost for the restaurant would be negligible – what’s a bit of dough in a pizza/pasta restaurant?

The reward is great – happy customers and I bet I’m not the only one sharing the story.

My kids have already asked to go back there…

What’s your dough?

Lots of places make pizza. Maybe the other pizza shops in Kyneton make as good or better pizza than the restaurant we went into. But have they attracted a loyal following like this?

Do you ‘offer kids dough’ in your business? What do you do that’s unexpected, creative, simple and appreciated?

It’s the little touches in business that can make a huge difference.

Posted in bit off track, marketing | 4 Comments

Don’t distract with a misplaced capital

Published 25 June, 2013 | By TashWord

Do you find the use of capital letters bewildering or frustrating?

girl and megaphone distracting a boy trying to read

Distractions made it hard to read – and poor grammar can be a distraction

Some people struggle with the questions ‘does this word need a capital letter?’ and others use so many unnecessary capital letters that just frustrate readers – excess capital letters actually make text harder to read (and more time-consuming to write, too!)

Poor capitalisation distracts

Some competition terms I recently read confused me because of a poor capital letter use. By adding a capital letter mid-sentence, I thought it was missing a full stop and a new sentence had started – but reading it as a new sentence didn’t make sense.

Entry is open to all Client bookings made with…

What do you think – did the capital C for client distract you?

In my mind, if you have to reread a sentence to understand it, the writing has failed. Good writing is easy to read and lets the reader focus on the message, not the words. {Obviously it’s different if you reread it because you can’t understand a difficult concept!}

Presumably, lack of clarity in something like competition terms or a contract has potential legal implications.

* Photo courtesy of 123RF

Posted in grammar & details | Tagged capital letter, capitalisation, distract, terms | 1 Comment

Social media – quality or quantity?

Published 19 June, 2013 | By TashWord

Quality vs quantity – this question comes up many times in life, and the answer can vary between situations.

So what do you think is important for social media?

Some of my thoughts about quantity vs quality of social media followers

Quantity…

Is it a matter of ‘she with the most social media followers wins’?

How far can you go to get new followers – should there be boundaries or just get as many as possible?

Quality…

Or is it better to nurture a smaller number of followers who actually are interested in what you have to say?

Quality followers, to my thinking, are those who will read my updates, maybe respond or follow through on links, and hopefully share my comments and/or links.

You can give a quality audience a hands-on approach

Quality followers are the ones worth building a relationship with – and that’s easier with a smaller number, too.

Choosing a strategy

I don’t think you can get quantity and quality.

That is, you can get a lot of quality followers and growing your base is not a bad thing in itself. But if you focus on getting many followers the odds are many will not be quality followers and are just there because they were paid or get some other benefit from it.

Like anyone, I like to see my followers increase in number (there’s a bit of that school yard popularity desire in us all I think!) but I don’t make it my priority. I prefer to gain followers who genuinely want to hear from me.

Which strategy do you prefer?

Do you think it varies with different purposes of a social following?

Building quality followers

The obvious technique is to provide quality content on your social media platforms.

I won’t follow anyone (no matter how popular they are or how important others tell me they are) if their social media pages are full of boring chatter or self-promotion. If I’m going to invest my time reading their updates, I want them to be worth reading. So I assume my followers (and potential followers) feel the same way.

Not every update will be awesome, and some chatting is also good, but the bulk of the updates need to provide some sort of value – even if I can see the value despite it not applying to me at that time.

Requesting followers

Asking people to connect with you in social media is fine – to a point.

On platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook, you can only connect with an individual (as distinct from a company page) by inviting them to be a contact. But I resent getting invitations from complete strangers who don’t even bother to add a note to the invitation. A friend can get away with that, as I know who they are, but why I should I connect with a stranger? Especially a stranger who is giving the impression that spamming is ok – I don’t want connections who will bombard me with nonsense.

My advice – if inviting someone on LinkedIn, add a few words to show you are a real person asking and that you know who you are asking. For best results, show how you can give them some value for connecting.

[Tweet “Give people a reason to connect with you”]

Gary Loper recently tweeted “Begging people 4 a RT is sitting on a corner begging 4 change. Let peeps RT u naturally”. And I have to agree – I don’t like tweets that ask to be retweeted and have never retweeted one – including some that I was inclined to retweet until I saw the request (yes, I can be stubborn!) If someone likes my tweet, they’ll share it anyway is my thought. Asking is like young children asking ‘will you be my friend?’ or asking a stranger to pay for your lunch.

Yet I have heard statistics suggesting asking for a retweet increases the chances of being retweeted. I don’t understand it, but there you go!

How do you build your social media followers? Are you focusing on relationships or numbers of followers?

* Images courtesy of Word Constructions and 123rf

Posted in business info & tools | 5 Comments

Email list or social media followers – which is best?

Published 14 June, 2013 | By TashWord

email vs social media followers - which gives best results

paraphrased from Scott Stratten, author of The book of business awesome and Unmarketing. top marketing and start engaging[/

Yesterday, I heard Scott Stratten talk about business awesomeness in a webinar run by the Australian Businesswomen’s Network (ABN) and the above statement stuck in my mind.

Traditional or modern?

For many years, building a list was the key to online success according to many marketers and people worked hard to get more email addresses.

Now, the list isn’t mentioned as much but there is much talk of being on social media – and some will certainly imply or say that the more followers the better.

Is it just a sign of the times that social media is taking over from email lists and html newsletters?

Fractional reaction and social media

Scott uses the term fractional reaction to show how limited social media exposure can be.

Let’s say you have 100 Twitter followers and you tweet something important at 1o am. How many of those followers will be watching their Twitter feed at 10am? If they are not looking, there’s a very good chance they won’t see your tweet. How often do you go back very far in your social media feeds to check you haven’t missed something?

Email lists

On the other hand, if you send an email at 10am and I’m offline, it will still be in my inbox when I get online.

Email or social media, I may ignore your message because there are too many things to choose between or because it doesn’t interest me. But Scott is saying more will at least see your email. And your email has more chance of being opened if you have built a reputation of sending emails worth reading.

Of course, the other advantage of an email list is that it is yours.

And thus you have control over contacting those people to build your relationship and business.

So which give the best results?

If you have tried both email marketing and social media marketing, which has given you the best results?

Here are some of my thoughts…

It really isn’t easy to put a (return on investment) ROI on social media as some it is based on relationship building, gaining credibility as a thought leader, exposure and learning as well as direct marketing – social media doesn’t work just as a marketing tool.

Social media can take a lot of time to make regular posts, although often in short bursts, whereas writing emails tends to take bigger blocks of time.

With the use of automated emails, the same email can be used over and over in a way that just can’t apply to social media.

If you leave a social media platform or it stops, you lose those followers. Likewise if the platform changes rules, you may find it harder to stay in front of your followers – for example, if they start charging.

I hadn’t really thought about comparing the two options before hearing Scott yesterday. Yet I can see a lot of wisdom in his words.

Of course, there is no reason to not build both an email list and a social media following but which is worth more time and effort? Is a social media following worth pursuing at the expense of your email list?

I know I have put less effort into building an email list than I used to – and now I am rethinking that. Something to consider at my next working on my business session!

Is this a new perspective for you, too?

Obvious plug – you can join my email list and subscribe to my monthly newsletter and/or see below to subscribe to my blog posts and comments.

Posted in business info & tools, marketing | Tagged email list, followers, marketing, ROI, social media | 3 Comments

Welcome!

eBooks to read

Pages of note

Useful resources

Recent Posts

Categories

Refer to older posts…

Recent Comments

Blogging services

Meta

HCI chat

Winning despite poor template use

Reading the competition terms…

Dubious terms

Giving a wealth of choice…

How much is too much?

Learning from Problogger experts

Blog content

Advertising on your blog

Moving beyond blog posts

Who or what is Problogger?

Additional resources

Without context, messages get lost

Clarify your context…

Developing interest is a marketing baby

Why a baby?

Sparks of interest

Making your business dough creatively

A thoughtful surprise

Making dough

What’s your dough?

Don’t distract with a misplaced capital

Poor capitalisation distracts

Social media – quality or quantity?

Quantity…

Quality…

Choosing a strategy

Building quality followers

Requesting followers

Welcome!

eBooks to read

Pages of note

Useful resources

Recent Posts

Categories

Refer to older posts…

Recent Comments

Blogging services

Meta

HCI chat

TashWord

An enthusiastic thanks

Adding enthusiasm…

Reading the competition terms…

Dubious terms

How much is too much?

Blog content

Advertising on your blog

Moving beyond blog posts

Who or what is Problogger?

Additional resources

Clarify your context…

Why a baby?

Sparks of interest

A thoughtful surprise

Making dough

What’s your dough?

Poor capitalisation distracts

Quantity…

Quality…

Choosing a strategy

Building quality followers

Requesting followers

Traditional or modern?

Fractional reaction and social media

Email lists

So which give the best results?

Here are some of my thoughts…