Give your company a voice
An article in The Times newspaper this week highlighted the importance of keeping up with changing attitudes. A leprosy charity has criticised the Church of Scotland’s official magazine over a crossword clue that it claims fuels “archaic, derogatory and harmful” attitudes.
Readers were asked to solve “Outcast (5)” for the puzzle in the Church’s Life and Work magazine. The answer was revealed to be “leper”.
Changing attitudes
Linda Todd,
Do you rely on an accountant to produce your business’ annual accounts? If your business suffered a catastrophic IT failure, would you get out your screwdriver to fix it yourself? And if you had a legal problem, would you try to resolve it yourself or contact a solicitor?
In all these cases, I’m guessing you’d call in a professional.
It should be the same with copywriting. Because what you put out there matters.
2020 has seen a growth in sales of surveillance technology. What happened to trust between employer and employee?
What are your views on business cards and business card holders? Have they become redundant like CDs in this age of streaming or relics like the typewriter ribbon now we all use PCs or Apple Macs?
I’d welcome your opinion because when my daughter landed her first proper job, I proudly presented her with a beautiful silver business card case to mark the occasion. To me, this symbolised my confidence in her at the start of what would undoubtedly be a stellar career climbing the corporate ladder.
Having been running successfully for 22 years, my copywriting business has just had a long overdue facelift. The catalyst for change was somewhat prosaic – a dwindling stock of stationery. I could have simply gone for a reprint but recognised this presented a valuable opportunity to update my brand image, which over the years had become outdated.
Being in the marketing game, I was surprised to find that an image revamp wasn’t the straightforward process that I’d expected but instead caused me much angst and soul-searching.
Poor spelling pushes you down the search rankings
In today’s online world, typos sometimes come with a hefty price tag. A BBC report[3] suggested that a single spelling mistake on an e-commerce website can harm credibility so much that online revenues are cut in half.
If that doesn’t convince you, consider that search engines look for strings of characters in sequence so if your website contains misspellings, it is unlikely to rank highly in search results.
All businesses, whatever their size, should care about correct spelling and grammar because they create a professional, credible first impression. Think they’re unimportant in this day and age? Just look at the ridicule heaped on US President Donald Trump for his repeated mistakes – and not necessarily only from people who disagree with his policies. When President Trump branded Jeff Sessions, still his attorney-general at the time of writing, as “beleaguered” on Twitter, perhaps the most surprising thing was that “beleaguered”
Standing out from the crowd is vital to business success. Yet very few businesses are in the enviable position of providing such a unique product or service that they have no competitors. Most of us must compete with others in our field who provide a very similar offering, differentiated only by price, features, location or quality of service, if that. So what makes your product or service stand out?
As a marketer, it’s easy to make lots of noise and generate press coverage for a genuinely unique product or service that is bursting with innovative features and unparalleled customer benefits.
…but how did the word come about?
The word ‘Brexit’ has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary within five years of being coined, a timescale the dictionary describes as “highly unusual”. The speed with which it became widely used and recognised was impressive, fuelled by the fact it filled a huge empty space in our language, and the growing importance of the phenomenon it described. But who created it?
According to BBC News,
Poor crisis communication makes airline laughing stock
United Airlines’ shares fell more than 4% in April as outrage over Dr David Dao of Kentucky being dragged off an overbooked flight finally caught up to the stock. The incident, exacerbated by poor communication, meant United’s shares were among the worst performers in the S&P 500. According to Andy Swan of LikeFolio, which monitors social media for financial applications, United’s chief executive Oscar Muñoz poured fuel on the flames with his insensitive and,
