“Hold it! I gotta read this story!” That’s the sort of reaction you want from every story posted in your newsletter, press release, company blog, etc.
Which is easier said than done, given the amount of legwork involved. Perhaps that’s why execs choose the easy way out by resorting to questionnaires to gather raw information for a human-angle story. Unfortunately they often stop there with dire results.
- Low cost incurred as a questionnaire can be sent out to many at once
- Respondents can consider answers carefully, without being badgered by interviewers
Unfortunately, things have gone wrong when some junior execs have tried to use this research tool. Consider the following example.
Busy marketing professional Susan is in charge of a membership club. When ordered to feature a member in their upcoming newsletter, she quickly taps out a decent-looking e-questionnaire on her shiny Kermit green laptop.
The response is a dribble of sad-looking replies. Grimacing, she publishes one. Keeping fingers and toes crossed, she prays hard that the glitzy graphics will camouflage the fact that there isn’t much for readers to chew on.
Here’s the catch with questionnaires.
Firstly, respondents have to be motivated to fill it out, i.e., most will throw you the “What’s in it for me?” question. An honest answer of “Nothing.” will result in a response rate that can sink to as low as 10%.
Motivation need not always be something tangible in the form of a reward. It could be a subtle line about important personalities previously featured or an even subtler one about influential business persons who read the newsletter.
Secondly not all respondents like to write or worse, are any good at writing. Hence, the story that pours out onto the page may be lukewarm whereas your newsletter needs something sizzling!
This is where the skill of sniffing out stories comes in handy. The writer needs to pick up the phone or schedule a meeting to tactfully elicit more information from the respondent. All of which would have given Susan’s story the oomph it badly needed.
Don’t totally write off the questionnaire as it does help in narrowing down storylines and identifying potential articles. Just don’t stop there. Explore, investigate, and expand on it. The questionnaire is a fav tool for researchers. For newsletters, it works well when you wish do a spot of quantifying. Amongst the advantages of using a questionnaire are:
Some first-time conversations over the phone leave you feeling happy and upbeat, whilst others make you cringe. Which experience would you like your customers to have?
A few weeks ago, I had tried out for a voiceover (my first time ever!) Whilst I put the huge headphones on, the technician moved a stand aside so that they could see my face clearly. That particular script needed a lot of emotion in it.
Whatever I felt as I read the short script would be reflected on my face. Which in turn, could be heard in my voice. The truth that we sometimes forget is that our voices can easily convey emotions such as happiness, irritation, joy, hope and nervousness.
Half the time we are not even aware of how much our voices are telling the world about our emotions.
What does this mean for you as a businessperson?
It means that no matter how you feel deep down inside, you’ve got to pretend to be happy, energetic and excited when you speak over the phone (unless it’s a negative situation).
On a bad day, say when you are overwhelmed with bills, you need to hide the frowns and chase away the feelings of depression that hangs over you. Instead when the phone rings, be prepared to:
- Sit up straight & think of energy flowing through every one of your cells
- Put a big cheerful smile on your face
- Be ready to help the other person on the line
This is the first step towards communicating your enthusiasm and interest in doing business.
Try it now. To be seen as a businessperson who is energetic, vibrant and upbeat, put your acting hat on each time your phone rings.
Tips for improving your level of English. That’s what today’s piece is about.
It all came about during a session with an inspiring group of adults in KL. I shared some of the tips that I had successfully used over the years with other students.
There was one request to have them written out. It shows how serious the person is in improving himself, and I do admire him for it.
So, here are five simple tips that just needs an investment of five minutes per activity. Good luck!
1. Write for five minutes each day
Write on any topic that you like. It could be about what you did yesterday, your plans for the weekend, the colour blue, your ambitions, etc.
The sentences do not have to be perfect. The whole paragraph does not have to flow well. This is just a practice session to let the words flow onto the page. You can worry about grammar later.
2. Read for five minutes each day
Read a storybook / newspaper / magazine, etc.
Look up the meanings of a few new words. Guess the meanings of all the other words that you do not know – this is called predicting and you should practise it.
3. Note five new words and phrases.
Jot down new words and phrases that you find.
It is best if you keep a special little notebook aside for this.
Write down your new words and phrases with lots of coloured pens or draw pictures to show what they mean. You could even pictures next to the words. These are all little visual tricks so that your brain will be encouraged to remember the new words and phrases (think of mind maps).
Try to have fun doing it because that’s the best way to learn language.
4. Copy for five minutes
Writers and copywriters are advised to do this. They take an article or advertisement that they like and copy it out by hand.
This way, they can easily remember the words and sentence structures used easily. Pick something that’s useful for yourself.
5. Speak in English for five minutes
When we first start on a new language, some friends or colleagues may not be very encouraging. Ignore them.
Instead, make it a point to speak for at least five minutes in English every single day.
The more you speak, the quicker you will become at forming sentences and you will also find it easier to pronounce words that you once found difficult.
Now, if you can think of other easy tips, please add them on!
Printed newsletters chucked heartlessly into rubbish bins. A scenario repeatedly witnessed at Malaysian road shows & exhibitions. Time to examine one reason why this useful communication tool is failing to serve its purpose.
The Silent Boss
Do you consider what the ever-silent boss of your newsletter wants to read? That’s the end reader, by the way. The most important person in the process of producing a newsletter who only “speaks” when the final product is in his/her hands.
If you’re responsible for a newsletter, you’ve got to have a finger on the reader’s pulse to obtain a high readership.
Which leads to the question of whether an analysis on the targeted audience was carried out before the conceptualization stage.
Or perhaps it does not bother you to see your newsletter lying all crumpled up in a rubbish bin? That would be highly unlikely, considering the hours you would have slogged over it.
Analysing Your Audience
A very basic step, that sadly enough, often gets ignored. Here in Malaysia and worldwide.
Without it, your material may merely be something that you / your bosses / top management think will interest the reader but in reality it may not concern the reader in the least bit.
Printed Newsletters vs Popular E-Newsletters
At this point, you may be saying, “Why bother about printed newsletters when e-newsletters are the in-thing?” Simply because research still proves otherwise.
In a 4,0000-respondent survey carried out for Standard & Poor’s Financial Communications (a provider of marketing communications for financial services) by Northeastern University's Consulting Program, it was found that:
· 33% preferred printed newsletters as opposed to 21% for e-newsletters; whereas 41% choose both print and e-newsletters
· 83% read most or some articles in their printed newsletters
· 84% considered the information provided in the printed newsletter to be useful
Also, some studies note that e-newsletters hold a reader’s attention for less than a minute, whereas rightly done printed newsletters have a longer life span.
In short, printed newsletters are still a useful communications tool.
Benefits of Knowing Your Target Audience
So, if you are a Marketing / Corp. Comms / PR person who has had the unenviable experience of retrieving your little gem of a newsletter from the trash (whilst sobbing hysterically), here is a look at some of the benefits of knowing getting acquainted with your audience.
· Leads to effective articles
Should you insert a two pager for a launch highlighting a minister’s presence or would your readers prefer just a quick mention of it? Would your reader want to know exactly how a new invention works or just about the awards it has won? Do you do emotive pieces for the layperson or just quick factual stuff for decision makers.
· Right mix of information & writing styles
Lengthy serious articles filled with jargon vs. breezy to-the-point pieces. One long piece or more sidebars to add in extra information to keep, lets say two separate audiences happy.
· Action by the Reader
What do you want the reader to do with the info and is it possible for the person to do so? Think of a decision maker vs. a layperson. Plus you will also know the chances of them keeping the newsletter for future reference as opposed to just skimming through it.
· Packaging It Right
Audience analysis results in effective creative decisions. For example, choosing between a really bold, bright and daring look (think Lady Gaga) for a younger audience or settle for a more sedate look (Cliff Richard, perhaps) for an older generation.
· Distribution
Turn it into an exclusive hand delivered commodity, mail it out or leave it on counters.
Audience Analysis in Malaysia
Based on personal experience, many briefings for copywriters in Malaysia still lack sufficient information on the audience. The Internet carries the same complaints from foreign based copywriters.
On the other hand, in some cases where a basic audience analysis has been done, the excited client may still insist on a course of action that fails to capture the audience’s attention. This includes trying to cater to three distinctively different audiences at one go.
There’s lots more to audience analysis that will be covered in the coming weeks. Keep a look out for more material from Write Thot Solutions.
So uninspired. That's how I felt. Worse bit is, it was only the start of the year! Which is why I sat down this morning to review my work goals.
Two minutes into the review, I thrashed the whole "Work Goals File" and decided to tackle them afresh.
First Steps to Work Goals
I started out with a couple of easy questions, you know the ones that are supposed to get your juices going, i.e.:
- What is it that I want in terms of work for 2010?
a) Disgusting amounts of mullah
b) To caught up in something new and exciting
- What would I get out of achieving these work goals?
a) Sense of security
b) An overwhelming sense of accomplishment
c) More passion for work
- How would I feel when I achieve these?
Ecstatic, gleeful, able to say, “In your face!” to critics!
Cut down on naps? Well, there’s also attending more
networking sessions and more aggressive marketing.
Hmmm. Okay, I had a bit of fun doing it but the final product still lacked that special oomph. That’s when the “quantum leap changes” came to mind. Back to the drawing board.
Quantam Leap Goals
“The beginning of anything always depends on the willingness of one person to believe in something others cannot see.” That’s from Saying It Right by Loretta Malandro, a book I had read recently.
Totally agree with her. Your head has to be overflowing with inspiring images so that it can propel you into transforming a not-so-exciting life into one that makes even Paris Hilton sit up All of which can be accomplished with the insertion of a few choice words into sad sound resolutions.
(By the way, yes, I totally disagree with that local radio station that’s been telling people to stick to “realistic” resolutions. Where is the fun in that?)
Malandro insists that some words only encourage small steps of progress. Listen carefully now, these are the lackluster words you should trash in 2010, i.e.:
improveincreaserecoveradvancebetterenhancedevelopexpanda cut aboveone step at a time.
You must be surpirsed by the list. It certainly had me doing a bit of deleting on my carefully typed out goals.
For that big quantum leap of change you want in 2010, try using phrases such as:
- No. 1 in
- dramatically change
- significantly alter
- create unprecedented
- surpass all others
- lead the market
- the courage to …..
- raising the bar
- upping the ante
- produce extraordinary results.
If you happen to be totally left-brained, throw in some numbers. For example:
I will dramatically reduce (by at least by 50%) the number of times I will snigger when my boss says “mewlion” instead of “million”.
(Okay, not the greatest example, but i'm guessing it will work!)
There you go. And I hope you noted the phrase, quantum leap.
Remember dump the old style of churning out lame goals and aim for those that shout with vigour and passion. And tell me all about ‘em.
