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Give options that make sense

Published 4 November, 2009 | By TashWord

I have written before about the need to use clear questions in surveys to get meaningful results, and given some tips on how to write such questions. Every time I do a survey with poor questions I cringe – do they really not care about getting good results or just don’t understand that not everyone knows what they are really asking?

One of the most common questions I have seen in online surveys is the following:

Are you …

male
female?

Technically, the answer is yes  – I am male or female and so is every other human I know of! Fairly pointless question to ask unless you have a third group responding.

In this case, we can see what is really being asked (“which are you?”) and the available answers lead us to answering correctly, but it isn’t always so easy.

It was great recently to be asked to help a major research centre refine their questionnaire. They had determined the questions they wanted to ask but understood that how they asked was critical to the final result of their research.

So if you are preparing surveys or questionnaires, my two key tips are:

  • read the questions to make sure the options answer the question and suit your needs
  • get at least one other person to read the questions to ensure they make sense to a less involved pair of eyes

Use your words wisely!

Posted in bad writing examples, grammar & details, writing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

One little letter…

Published 28 October, 2009 | By TashWord

One little letter can make a huge difference.

I have just come across an example of why it is critical to proof read everything before you publish it, and why attention to details such as spelling and grammar are important.

Actually, I first saw this site about 8 months ago and they still haven’t noticed or corrected it. I had forgotten it but for my amusement I’m glad it was still there!

In the header of every page of the site, they have used an a instead of u in their tagline. One little letter could be a simple typo, of course, but your tagline and header are the first things people notice! And in this case, it doesn’t look like a typo as it makes a real word which gives a VERY different meaning.

The tagline in the header is “Pass a drag test no sweat” which instantly brings to mind men dressing as women (testing to see if they are real drag queens is perhaps unusual but I guess we don’t want people pretending to be in drag?)

Elsewhere, they use the tagline “Pass a drug test no sweat” which related to the fact they sell “products is removing unwanted substances from your body and provides for quick detoxification of your organism.”

I’m not going to touch the rights and wrongs of passing drug tests this way, but it is clear that there is a huge difference between drag and drug.

So check your work carefully and don’t just rely on spell checks to get your work correct.

Use your words wisely!

Posted in bad writing examples, grammar & details | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Clear titles

Published 19 October, 2009 | By TashWord

I recently read an article with a ridiculous heading. It claimed that the majority of Australians were victims of internet scams. As I have never been such a victim, I doubted the title and read the article (ok, so a ridiculous title did work in terms of getting a reader!)

What they really meant was most Australians have been exposed to internet scams, or had the opportunity to be taken in by such a scam. They then quoted that about 13% of people have actually been hurt by a scam.

Their title was misleading and dishonest really, and totally reduced their credibility in my eyes – I’m not planning on returning to their articles.

Titles and headings are important – they need to attract attention, set the topic for the article and work as part of your brand. In short pieces, the title also has to prove its worth in giving part of the message.

Use your words wisely, and honestly!

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | 2 Comments

New weight loss system?

Published 16 August, 2009 | By TashWord

I was on a walk yesterday, and I noticed a sandwich board out the front of a beauty shop. As well as the usual details, it included some text to the side as if to attract attention. The text was:

50% off new clients

If you are very overweight, you may be happy to know they could remove 50% of you (I wonder if you get to choose where the 50% comes from?) If you aren’t overweight enough to want to loose 50%, we can only hope they don’t remove other parts of you!

Of course, what they really meant was new clients pay half price on their usual services – but it is important to write what you mean rather than assume people can understand you.

How could it have been better?

50% off for new clients {yes, adding one word makes all the difference!}

OR

half price for your first visit {longer, but very clear and also shows the discount is for only one visit}

Have you read your marketing messages to be sure they say what you mean them to?

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Clear definitions…

Published 24 July, 2009 | By TashWord

I looked at a website today that is trying to explain technical terms to enhance their sales – a good concept of course, but if the definitions aren’t clear I think they’d be better off without them.

This is pretty much the first thing on their site:

What is “Domain Name”?
Compared with IP address, Domain Name is a character sign which is like a doorplate number on internet, it’s used to identify and orient hiberarchy of computer on internet.

Ok, English isn’t their first language, but their site is in English so it needs to be understandable in English! Even if we change ‘hiberarchy’ to ‘heirarchy’ it still doesn’t help explain a domain name – and I actually know what a domain name is!

Moral of this story – make sure a definition is easier than the term it is meant to explain! I suggest using the simplest words possible when writing  definitions so people can concentrate on the definition rather than the words you use.

 

P.S. Try my article for a longer but simpler explanation of domain names.

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Sales emails

Published 4 April, 2009 | By TashWord
unsuccessful gesture of thunbs down

An impersonal email got the thumb down from me

There was no reason for me to read some spam I received recently, but it was top of my spam folder and I glanced at it. The subject was “USB Inquiry” and the content was five paragraphs telling me how they could sell me USB keys for my customers (with my logo and presentation on the USB key).

From that email, I spotted a number of tips for writing a good sales letter/email:

  • make your subject match the content. I wouldn’t have read the above email by the subject as it appeared to be asking me about USB keys which I don’t sell. A better subject would have appealed to my need for a USB key rather than asking me about them (inquiry meaning question)
  • check the relevance of your offer to the person receiving the email. Why would I buy USB keys from the USA? There are perfectly good USB keys in Australia and they would cost me less in time and freight. If I’m wrong, they could have explained that in the email. The .com.au part of my web address is a clue that I am not in the USA…
  • relate the offer to the person. A USB key could be useful for me, but a more targeted response would have suggested I put client documents on a branded USB key instead of a plain disc or compile some templates or articles to hand out to prospective clients. They just assumed I did presentations that have notes suitable to a USB key. A serious sales proposition would be based on my needs, not a generalisation
  • I’ve said it before, but use the person’s name – it is the most important word in their language. “Hello,” isn’t good enough and finding a name off a good website isn’t that hard.
  • The paragraphs start ‘Could you…’, ‘My company…’, “We can…’, “please visit…’ and “Thank you…’ Every starting point is asking me to do something or talks about them. Where’s the appeal to me, the message that I am going to benefit from this purchase?
  • The email opens with a request to direct her to the marketing person but then continues as if I am the marketing person. If you request a name, wait for that answer or at least link into the remaining information (e.g. ‘We want to contact your marketing person to explain…’)
  • Check your sentences say what you want them to. This email included this gem “We are not offering rush production services, and custom shape USB flash drives, you tell us the shape you want your flash drive to be, we will make if for you!” So we don’t offer custom shaped drives but we will make any shape you tell us – doesn’t inspire a lot of trust…
  • The email finished with “We offer non – profit organizations, schools and charities a discounted rate, so please be sure to mention that for even better pricing.” That’s nice, but as I’m not a school, charity or non-profit group it doesn’t help me much; then again, the email says mention their discounted rate for better pricing and I could mention it easily enough! The lesson again is make the message relevant and clear.
  • Ensure your contact details are easy to use. This woman gave me a phone number without any area (or country) code and no address so how can I ring her? I’d bet that if I dialed it exactly as is I wouldn’t get her!
  • Build trust. This email came from an email address that doesn’t match the email given in her signature or the URL she includes which makes me wonder why she didn’t use the company email address and makes me very suspicious.

Of course, even had she written a much better email, I still wouldn’t buy from her as I hate spammers and she didn’t meet legal requirements of including her address. Would you have ordered any USB keys from such an email? Had she followed my tips do you think you’d have been more likely to buy from her?

At least you know what to avoid when you next write a sales letter!

 

*Photo courtesy of 123rf

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Learning from SEO spam

Published 1 February, 2009 | By TashWord

Last week, I wrote about SEO offer spam emails. Having just received another one of these annoying emails, I thought I’d give some examples of why I don’t trust them…

We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.

Sincerely,

First Last

So what is wrong with this email?

  • no greeting is rude. Even if he didn’t want to take the time to research my name, he could have said “Hello” at the minimum
  • who is he? There was no other information to help me identify his business or contact him except by reply email
  • if he doesn’t know what my website is (so how did you email me then?) how can he be sure he can help my rankings improve? Maybe I’m already at the top, maybe it’s a family site I don’t care about rankings for, maybe a thousand different things that mean his service is not relevant
  • what does he mean by ‘top of a search engine listings’ anyway? Top of page 10 in Google is still top but not something I aspire to! Top for an irrelevant or obscure keyword won’t help me either. By not being clear, he missed an opportunity to show me he knows what he is talking about and starting some trust.
  • where is he located? Yes, we could deal via email which means his location isn’t too important, but knowing he is overseas helps understand time differences. Further, I would be more likely to hire an Australian as they understand my market better and I don’t have to deal with the dollar value.

Whilst I hope you don’t send out spam to get business, the above tips will hopefully help you avoid answering spam like this and help you write better sales emails.

Use your words wisely!

 

 

Posted in bad writing examples, web content, writing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The value of clear communications!

Published 5 July, 2008 | By TashWord

I have recently being working through a training book (as a student, not a writer) and found various bits hard to understand. Luckily, I have a group of people around me who have been able to help interpret some of the questions – and I have interpreted other bits for them! I would hate to be struggling through it alone!

One question I thought I understood and prepared an answer for – it took me half an hour or so to get it finished and involved someone else getting some restricted information for me.

At the training course itself, my tutor read through my bookwork and pointed out that the question above was not correctly answered – it was asking for something else entirely. With that knowledge, I could just see what the question meant but it was a struggle! So I rewrote my answer – taking another two hours to do so.

A simpler example from the same training weekend was “Collect the names, titles and contact details for everyone in the training team.” I therefore wrote a list of names, titles and email addresses for the other  members of my team on the course (we worked in teams throughout the course.) I then realised what they really wanted was a list of the names, titles and contact details for the trainers themselves – THE training team, rather than my training team!

Clearer questions would have saved me the stress of worrying I knew what to answer, the confusion of having no clue what to answer at times and the time of having to rewrite some answers. So a very concrete example of how useful clear communications are!

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Survey/feedback questions

Published 4 May, 2008 | By TashWord

Pointing out clear choicesIt’s unlikely that you have never done a survey or filled in a feedback form about a seminar or such. Unfortunately, it is also unlikely that everyone of those questions you answered was clearly written or easy to understand.

If you are involved in preparing any surveys/feedback forms, it is important to think carefully about how you ask questions. Obviously, the first step is to know what answers you need – do you really want to know how old people are or just the difference between adults and teenagers?

Here are three recent examples I have come across where the question is not going to get the right responses:

“1. Please list as many soft drink flavours you can think of”
“2. For each flavour, please select A, B or C where A is ‘yes, I knew it was a flavour but forgot it’, B is ‘I didn’t realise it was a flavour’ and C is ‘I’ve never heard of it’. {and then list every flavour whether or not the person listed it in question 1}”

So if you had written orange as a flavour in question 1, how can you select A, B or C for orange in question 2? As it was an online survey and answering was necessary, people would guess an answer so the final results mean nothing.

“Were you satisfied with the course handbook?

  • excellent
  • very good
  • good
  • ok
  • poor”

The options do not answer the question – was I satisfied can only be answered with yes/no/partially. To offer those choices, the appropriate question would be ‘How would you describe the course handbook?’

“Which of the following have you ever given your child?

  • brand X vitamins
  • brand Y multi-vitamins
  • brand Z mulitvitamins
  • brand XY kids calcium”

Personally, I hadn’t given any of them to my child but there was no option to say ‘none of the above’ or even ‘other vitamins’.

So once you have written any questions, go back and read them in order to see if they make sense and are complete. One way to check multiple choice answers make sense it to add each one to the question so “were you satisfied with the course handbook? excellent” quickly shows an issue.

I’ll go through some tips on writing useful questions soon! In the meantime, what poor survey questions have you noticed or had trouble answering?

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Making links useful…

Published 29 April, 2008 | By TashWord

I have been to two websites today that reminded me of the post I wrote back in February about linking to relevant information.

The first one (and as tempted as I am to link to the page, I will only say it was a government information site!) had a whole page about a particular form – what it should be used for and when to use it. At the bottom of the page, it read:

For a copy of this form, visit our website at www.url or call us on 12345679.

Given I was already on their website, a link to their homepage really didn’t help me! It took me another five minutes to actually find the form on their site.

The second site had a similar message but the link itself at least went to their form. This obviously helped me find the form, but I nearly didn’t click on the link as I expected it to go the to homepage.

And that is a reminder to make the text of any links meaningful, too. How hard would it have been to write something like “For a copy of this form, click here”?

So from personal experience today, I request you always think of what will help your readers when you add links to anything you write.

Use your words wisely!

Posted in bad writing examples, blogging, newsletter content, web content | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments
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