Do you really want to know?

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: Jan 28, 2010; Category: Business Writing, Editing and Proofing; Tags: critiquing marketing materials, editing, proofreading; No Comments

Sometimes people will ask me to critique their existing brochure, website or other marketing materials. Usually they’re happy to hear how they can do better next time. Once in a while I wonder why they’re asking. You see, they really don’t want to know. 

Most people are asking for a critique because they know it’s time to update or improve what they have. There’s a minority though that really just want some sort of validation that what they did in the past is good.

Maybe they paid a lot of money for it. And maybe they themselves were involved in the creative.

In those cases, no matter how diplomatically I phrase it, those people don’t want to hear that there are things that can be better. Even though they’ve asked, and have contracted with me to give them advice, they don’t want to accept that everything isn’t perfect just the way it is.

Once in a while people who are very unlikely to ever become clients ask me for free advice. My policy, especially if the piece is really bad and the person is a relative, is to just say no. Or I suddenly have to go against my nature and become a flaky person who just never gets back to them.

In marketing pieces, many aspects can be subjective. There’s always another way to show or say something.  Maybe the designer used blue and personally, I would have preferred green. Or, in my humble opinion, the tone of the copy is a bit too flowery for the subject matter.

Other things are harder to justify; they’re just bad.

For example: 

• Type that’s hard to read
• An illogical order for points
• Inconsistency with other marketing messages and materials
• Lots of typos

You get the idea.

I was recently reviewing a client’s ad with them.  We were talking about how it could be improved next time.  In the course of this exercise, we flipped through the trade publication to see what other companies’ ads looked like.

We were discussing the good, bad and ugly when I pointed out a small ad that I felt could be stronger, if only they had focused on one photo instead of the five they included.  My client said that maybe I should contact this company and tell them how their ad can be improved. 

I said, well, maybe not. I know this is a method some people use to get new business. It’s just always a tricky thing offering advice, even when it’s solicited. But in this case, they didn’t ask and more than likely, they don’t really want to know.

What was your major?

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: Jan 21, 2010; Category: Business Writing, Message Simplicity; Tags: interviewing, notes, organizing information, translating technical information, writing; No Comments

Way back at the dawn of time, I went to college. I did not major in geology, biology or computer science. I majored in English. 

I was regularly told by my father and others how worthless this was.  Why bother majoring in English unless I wanted to be an English teacher? Wouldn’t it be better to major in something practical, like business?

Over the years, however, I’ve come to appreciate my Liberal Arts education. For one thing, it teaches you to think. Since I’ve ended up helping people with their marketing messages and materials, being able to think is a good thing.

Organizing thoughts in a way that others can understand is even better. In fact, it’s a very useful skill.  Here’s why.

Most people can tell me all about what they do. They do it well; they know their stuff and sound great.  Of course if you transcribed and analyzed what they told me, you’d see that their thoughts are scattered, and not always in a logical order.

That’s normal.Translating spoken information into written form generally takes a little work.

But here’s the beauty of interviewing someone and taking copious notes.  After the meeting I can organize the notes, grouping bits of information by topic and concept and voila, suddenly the person is not only brilliant to listen to, they also look brilliant in written form, whether it’s on the web or on paper.

Once, after a scientist told me all about his very technical product and I seemed to understand him, asking semi-intelligent questions, he asked me: What was your major? He just couldn’t believe that I was grasping this technical information without an advanced scientific degree. How could a mere English major do this?

But here’s the deal. This was our third meeting and I was going back and reading up in between each session. I was reviewing the notes and doing research. And I was grouping and organizing the information to make it easier to understand.

So the point is:  It’s not about my lack of a science degree, it’s about having the skills to organize information no matter the topic. It’s about listening and categorizing and coming up with ways to present what you do so your customers will understand it.

Word woes—homonym horrors

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: Jan 13, 2010; Category: Editing and Proofing; Tags: editing, homonym errors, proofreading; One Comment

Reading and writing a lot can turn you into a tough audience, a real critic. I notice things and am appalled. Most people probably didn’t even see them.

When I have time and am in the mood, I write emails to book publishers, small business owners and large company webmasters pointing out typos and other errors I’ve come across. Usually they’re appreciative.

A few years back I started a file called “Word Woes” and put in errors that seemed to be appearing before me almost daily. Many of these were what I would call homonym horrors—the use of a word that sounds the same as the one intended, but with a different meaning. Here are a few examples:

• From a newspaper story–The line can be difficult to tow. And the way a businessperson chooses to handle it can be as different as each denomination or religion itself.
  (How heavy is that line they’re towing? Of course the expression they mean is toe the line.)
• An email from a website payment service–We are currently aware of the website issue and are working to correct it. Thank you for your patients.
  (I’m not a medical professional and have no patients to give them, so I imagine they mean patience.)
• From a novel–“Who’re you talking about?” asked Georgia absentmindedly as she poured over colored photos in a magazine, VIP Weekly, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth.
  (Well I don’t think she poured liquid over the photos but instead pored over them or studied them carefully.)
• From another novel–Now, Will didn’t even look like the same man. He seemed rung out, his complexion sallow, and he’d lost a good deal of weight.
  (No bells in sight. I think they mean wrung out, but maybe since nobody wrings out clothes anymore the meaning, and along with it, the proper spelling, are becoming lost.)

Of course I find errors in things clients ask me to edit. But these people are asking for help before they publish something, so I’m not including any of those bloopers here.