Why you might rather hand it over to a professional

This blog site is all about helping you to writing your own marketing campaigns, websites, blogs, brochures, newsletters and more.

There comes a time though when you might prefer to call on a professional.

That's because a seasoned professional has experience of a wide range of businesses, markets, customers and the skills to create words that really sell a business.

By investing in professional help you are:
- focusing your time on your own core business
- bringing in expertise that you may not have
- making yourself accountable to someone else to get your marketing done and out there

On the other hand, the cost of professional help can be confusing. Is it by the hour - and if so how many hours will you need? What's included? What are you expected to do? How long will it all take?

To give you a clear picture of what you can expect, I'm developing a series of packages for smaller businesses.

First up is a service called Review and Refresh for the content of your website. Once you've been in business a while the chances are you'll be more aware of who your ideal market is and want to reassess your marketing to reach them more easily. With this package we'll work together to examine who that market is and how you can answer their needs and desires. And then I'll create content to fit into your current design of up to five pages or any new design you're planning.

That's just one option. If you've a website that's larger than five pages, we can cost that for you without any commitment.

And I'll be developing easy-to-understand packages for newsletters and more over time. Don't let the fact that the package isn't already there stop you talking to me about your marketing writing though. Drop me a line to start the ball rolling at kathy@wrightwell.com.

Are you being a bit too random with your CAPS?

Once upon a time, when I was the editor of a technology magazine, I would receive a daily mountain of press releases about new products and services. We were short of space for this sort of news and short of time to put those pages together. We had to find a way of quickly sifting the wheat from the chaff.

I will admit now, many years later, that one of our criteria became the speed at which we could turn a press release into a decent news story. So all those companies who insisted in throwing random capital letters into the middle of their organisation or product names were some of the first to hit the bin. It was just so hard to type them accurately in a hurry.

There are other reasons to consider carefully how you use capital letters.

First, where do you start and stop? At school we were taught that job titles should have initial caps. But if you're going to write Managing Director or Sales Manager, will you also write Teacher and Gardener? Consistency is important in making your writing credible, so decisions will have to be made. Personally I don't consider any job title important enough to warrant caps (even queen).

Second, caps are nowadays considered to be shouting. So if you've decided to name your company NewSOLUTIONS, you risk your readers feeling like they're under attack.

Finally, business writing is about making your messages clear and easy to read. Sprinkling capital letters throughout your text really breaks up the flow - making your content far less accessible.

So think hard about your capital letters. The beginning of sentences and the start of real proper names may be all you need for speed.

Rules that confuse

There are some rules in English language that are hard to understand and remember, but can really annoy your knowing readers if you get them wrong. These are a few that people have asked me about recently. Please feel free to add or argue.

Some of this is simply about whether you use UK English or US English.

Less and fewer Less of one thing. Fewer of several things. Less cheese. Fewer slices of cheese. That's why people complain about “Less than 9 items in your basket”.

: and ; The colon : is the one to use if you're introducing a bullet list. Use semi-colons ; for the middle of sentences. Even better, avoid using semi-colons at all. They’re just joining up two thoughts and in marketing writing you want to keep your sentences short.

-ise and –ize on the end of verbs Check if you’ve got a house style and go with that. If you haven’t just be consistent. Common practice is –ise in the UK and –ize in the US. On the other hand I was once told that actually –ize is the original old English, so just make your choice and keep to it.

Apostrophes It’s not easy. There's absolutely no need for an apostrophe if you’re just making a word plural. If you’re missing out some letters to join two words together, that’s the right time to use an apostrophe (it's, that's, you're etc). The tougher one is if you’ve got one thing owning another – the cat’s mother or even the cats’ mothers if you've got several cats.

More apostrophes On the same topic, there’s no need to put an apostrophe in a decade. The 1970s is fine.

Programme Where are you? If you’re in a US English territory, you may be perplexed by this spelling of the word because you probably always use program. If you’re in the UK, you’d use programme for a series of events, the brochure at the theatre and just about everything else - except a computer program.

Say “comprises of” out loud. Ugly isn’t it? Best to say “consists of” or “comprises”, especially as they’re grammatically correct.

Unless your products are actually being extraordinarily nice to each other, the likelihood is that they're complementary, not complimentary.

And here's one I've just seen at Hallmark, which really should know better. Baby stationary has come to a standstill, while baby stationery is something to write home about.

Honesty and good service promote more sales

When you're writing sales copy, be it your web site content, direct mail or advertising, it's very easy to get carried away with singing your own praises.

Today's customers are pretty sharp though, and will recognise hype when they see it. If you want to impress, respect your customers, be honest and give great service.

That means:

• Not over-stating what your product or service can do. Don't even try to give the impression that your customer will get more than you can offer. Not only will you lose any chance of repeat business, but you'll risk facing the wrath of trading standards, advertising standards and the law courts.
• Not asking for more information than you need. Demanding that customers provide all sorts of details about themselves online before they buy your item may be useful for your marketing, but is an invasion of privacy. And if it takes too long to buy, your customers will abandon their efforts and you've lost the sale. You wouldn't make customers in a shop give you anything more than cash or card details, so serve them with the same speed and politeness online.
• Making every word count. Don't write fluffy or needlessly lengthy descriptions of what you sell. Explain clearly and succintly what your product and service does and the benefits it can bring. Respect your customer enough to let them decide if they need it or not. 
• Helping your customers to share what they've found. They might want opinions from friends, or even to recommend your products to others. So don't forget to add "share this" links across your web site. Word of mouth - or viral marketing - is proving to be a very powerful marketing tool, so make the most of it.
• Enabling your customers to tell you what they think, so you can improve your service. Provide feedback options on your web site, and track any mentions of your business or products on social sites such as Twitter. Today's customers are quick to spread good and bad news about a business, so it's worth finding out and addressing what other people are saying.