Frontline Perspectives

This is a little tale about the influences in my life and my choice to become a designer.

First off, neither of my parents are designers, but they both work with their hands, and have an acquired skill set and have taught me a lot about being creative. My mom was a hairdresser whose salon was a little place my dad built for her — yes, with his own hands. When I’d come home from school or on the weekends I would pop into the shop, say hello to the ladies and start sweeping up, washing hair and making tea. My parents taught me about humility, creativity, business and people skills. Read more »

As a consumer, there are days when I wish it was. As a marketer, I know that it’s not.  In fact, I know that e-mail can be highly effective and have seen it create powerful lead and sales results for clients.  But many of us can think of e-mails that are textbook examples of what NOT to do — and these are the ones creating a high level of frustration for consumers.

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At MarketSense and MarketEffect, we keep a copy standards manual for every client. We reference these standards whenever we write and refer to them while proofing, to make sure we stay consistent in our messaging. Beyond grammar and spelling, we check for things like hyphen and comma usage, trademarks and special phrasing around products and services. Whenever a client doesn’t have a preference on a particular style issue, we defer to the AP Stylebook. Read more »

A smart, fast and fun viral campaign can do wonders for a product or a brand — if it can really turn viral and pull your target audience into action. But how many viral campaigns are actually successful?

Right now, a Facebook viral campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month is putting innuendos in the forefront and the cause on the backburner. It hides the tie to breast cancer itself, which is questionable in my mind. Read more »

When you sit down to write something like a business letter or an e-mail for some particular purpose, it can be hard to convey the point you’re trying to make in the body of your piece, especially if you use long introductory clauses; words that don’t actually commute what you think they do; extra, unnecessary, superfluous words that only add clutter to the sentence you’re writing; lots of semicolons that drag out your sentences and make them hard to read; or metaphors and similes that are as out-of-context and difficult to understand as the spacetime continuum. Read more »

Business writing is a lot like housebreaking a puppy. I came to this conclusion at four o’clock this morning while standing outside, coaxing my Wheaten Terrier, Red, to do his business. I filed the idea away for later, thinking there’s no way it would make sense during the decent hours of the day, but even now I think there’s something to it. At a basic level, business writing and potty training are both arts of persuasion.

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When the current hot item of the month is launched, the first thing people will react to will be the photography. You may have a great product with amazing benefits and capabilities, but if you can’t capture the audience with the photo or imagery first, how can you get them to read or want to know more about the product? Read more »

What Leonardo DiCaprio reminded me about my brain.

First, a clarification on the definition of “creativity” as intended in this post. I do not use the term narrowly, to only describe the work of designers and copywriters. I use the term “creativity” broadly here — it’s what every person (or at least every businessperson) must use every day to overcome the most unique challenges. Read more »

Consider visual thinking to simplify a complicated sell.

Of the many unique challenges in b-to-b advertising, one in particular seems to come up all the time in discussions with my team and clients alike.

How do we satisfy the need to educate as part of the sales cycle while staying compelling, concise and on the path to close? After all, it is a sales cycle.

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Speeding prevention promotion.

I got a speeding ticket on my way back from visiting my daughter at Indiana University. I was more than a little ticked when the officer pulled me over- as I was convinced that the “other” cars on the road were going faster than I was (which they were).

Before the officer handed me my ticket, he handed me the paper shown at left and waited for me to read it. “In the United States alone, there is a death related to a traffic crash every 12 minutes. That adds up to nearly 44,000 deaths a year.” I made the connection to my speeding – what if I had caused one of those fatalities? As I looked back at the officer, he handed me my ticket ($125). Read more »