Stop Complicating Your Communications September 27, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, marketing , add a commentSee if you can figure out what this means:
Lessor shall be entitled at its absolute discretion to vary the proportion of the Service Costs payable by the Lessee as defined in clause 1(n) in the event of rights being granted pursuant to the terms of paragraph 5 of the Fifth Schedule hereto Provided that such variation shall not result in the said Service Charge proportion being increased
Even if you understand it, would you read it if you didn’t have to? Of course not. While this is an extreme example, many marketers continue to use similar language to:
- Sound intelligent
- Be grammatically correct
And…possibly the worst reason of all…
- To make an inferior product, service or idea sound better (we all know by now that good marketing starts with a good product, right?)
Matt at 37signals has some great thoughts on this:
Einstein’s scientific writing may be tough for the layman to understand. But it’s interesting to note how he could tone down his ideas for mass consumption too. He often used simple words that both physicists and regular people could understand.
Keep the language used in your copy to an 8th- or even 6th-grade reading level. Not because your prospects are stupid, but because your job is to get the desired reaction—a sale, an inquiry, an understanding of your idea—with the least work on the part of the person you’re communicating with.
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REAL 1-to-1 Marketing September 25, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, marketing , add a commentSometimes, in this technology-filled world, it’s easy to forget how important live contact is. While e-mail, mail, blogs, websites and other media are great, the best way to get your message out (while not the most efficient) might be face-to-face.
Seth Godin gets right to the heart of this important point:
Small organizations have the privilege of looking their customers in the eye. Small doesn’t necessarily mean small in numbers. It’s an attitude. Does your organization require a form to get something done, or does one human choose to interact with another? Does bad news come in the form of memos that obfuscate the truth, or is it delivered face to face?
He (and now I) challenge you to “try to do as much as you can in person. Or by phone. Especially the hard stuff.”
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Trouble Selling That Haunted House?
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, real estate , add a commentWhy not hire a psychic? Well, she claims she’s a “communicator”, not a psychic. But real estate agents in Virginia are calling B.J. Wall to cleanse properties from spirits that keep homes from selling.
From dailypress.com:
Peggy Binford, a Richmond agent for 28 years, says she uses Wall’s clearing services if she feels something isn’t right in a house.
“Sometimes clients know, sometimes they don’t, depending on how they would take it,” she said.
In one situation, Binford sold a property to a couple who spent two hours in an uncleared house during a home inspection. The woman got so agitated sitting in the house that she couldn’t go through with the deal, Binford said.
Binford called Wall for a clearing, then sold the house to someone else.
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UK Politicians Turn Up Heat on Credit Offers
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, finance, marketing , add a commentOur sister site, Direct Tips on Direct Marketing, has an interesting post regarding tricking your prospects and customers.
Here’s a repost:
Unsolicited credit offers are irking politicians in the UK, some of whom are calling for increased regulation. Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: “Junk mail selling washing powder is irritating and wasteful. But junk mail that encourages people to make decisions that can lead to losing their houses is altogether more serious.”
From this article:
[Capital One] has mailed an estimated one million fake £100,000 cheques to households to entice them to borrow up to that sum. The loan is secured against their property even if they have a mortgage.
Official-looking reply addresses, checks and other tricks may get your direct mail piece opened, but then what? You’ve attempted to start a customer relationship under false pretenses. Is that the image you want your customers (and, worse…the 90% plus prospects that do NOT respond to your offer) to have of your company?
Put your best foot forward in your marketing efforts. Just make sure it’s the truth.
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Could the Economy Really be OK? September 11, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, government, finance , add a commentWhile most are trying to determine if the economy’s landing will be soft or hard, at least one economist thinks there’s another possibility: no landing at all. According to Edward E. Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Oak Associates, if the Fed holds interest rates steady for their next meeting, the economy may get the chance it needs to avoid a slowdown, let alone a recession.
From the New York Times:
“One of the Fed’s objectives a year ago was to take the froth out of housing, and it has significantly done that,” Mr. Yardeni said. “It also set out to keep energy from affecting core inflation. There is evidence that that’s the case.”
The benign numbers that he expects are consistent with 3.5 percent annual growth in economic output and 2 percent core inflation, which he described as “the kind of growth you get when the economy is expanding at trend pace.” It is a set of conditions that should be good for the stock market, he said.
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USDA Invests in Alternative Energy
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, agriculture, government, public utilities, forestry , add a commentThe U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding $17.5 million in grants to develop renewable energy and increase energy efficiency. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced 375 recipients in 36 states, according to this article.
“These grants will directly promote energy savings and increased energy production in rural America,” Johanns said. “The Bush administration is committed to providing more energy from within our nation’s borders, especially here in America’s agricultural heartland and these grants will help accomplish this goal.”
Rural Development grant funds can be used to pay up to 25 percent of the eligible project costs. In addition, the program provides loan guarantees up to $10 million to fund up to 50 percent of eligible projects.
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Homeland Security Funds Not Being Spent
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, government, manufacturing , add a commentNearly five years after the Office of Homeland Security was established, the U.S. government is struggling to spend the $169 billion of funds appropriated by Congress.
For example, according to this article:
The effort to defend against bioterror attacks illustrates the difficulty. At Bush’s urging, Congress established Project Bio- Shield in 2004, setting aside $5.6 billion for new vaccines and antidotes such as the one being developed by PharmAthene.
Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Health and Homeland Security in Baltimore, says Homeland Security Department officials have been slow to decide which chemicals and pathogens pose the greatest risk, which would clear the way for meaningful research.
“They’re not only doing nothing, but they’re interfering with the development of technology,” he says.
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Real Estate Prices to Bounce Higher Soon
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, real estate, finance, architecture , add a commentAccording to David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, the recent fall in residential home prices should be short-lived. According to this article, Mr. Lereah expects prices to jump higher in a few months.
“This year sales are slowing, homes are plentiful and sellers are negotiating,” Lereah said. “Under these conditions, we’ll probably see prices dip temporarily below year-ago levels as the market works through a build up in housing inventory.”
More than half of economists surveyed by The Wall Stree Journal, however, expect little or no growth in the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s home price index in 2007.
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Designs for Freedom Tower’s Neighbors Revealed September 8, 2006
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, construction, real estate, architecture , add a commentThe new look of the New York skyline is taking shape as the developer of the new World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein, revealed designs of some of the buildings that are slated to take their place next to the Freedom Tower.
According to the New York Times:
Each building has a different renowned architect — Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, both of London, and Fumihiko Maki of Tokyo — and the result is entirely unlike the monolithic uniformity of the original trade center.
The office towers, designated simply Towers 2, 3 and 4 for now, would occupy three sites between Church and Greenwich Streets, along the eastern edge of the trade center site. Together with the winged PATH terminal and transportation hub, they would form the face that the trade center presents to the rest of downtown, with the signature Freedom Tower behind them.
The complex is scheduled to be completed by 2012.
UPDATE: Wired News has some breath-taking architectural renderings of how the site will look when completed.
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Credit Card Companies Join Forces
Posted by Tim Raines in: business, retail, finance , add a commentAmerican Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International announced they’ve joined forces to implement new security standards for credit card and debit card payments.
From CNet News:
The companies have come together despite being in competition with each other because they say ensuring better security will benefit everyone.
“First of all, it’s to protect the information of our mutual customers and to make the process of data security compliance easier,” said Rob Tourt, vice president of network services for Discover.
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