What exactly is copywriting?

It may seem obvious what a copywriter does but you’d be surprised the number of people who ask me this question at networking events.

The Macquarie Dictionary definition of a copywriter is “a writer of copy for advertisements or publicity releases” which is too specific.    Wikipedia has a better, broader definition.

Today, a copywriter’s skills extend beyond writing just advertisements and press releases.  Although traditionally the objective of a copywriter is to write copy that persuades a target audience to take a form of action (eg for adverts and other sales material), the range of tactical devices that can be used to do this has changed significantly since the arrival of the internet.

A copywriter could be asked to write content for anything from an eblast to a a Facebook message.  Some copywriters have expanded their skills to write web content that is search engine optimised, ie it is written in a way that will help a website to be found by google and achieve a high page ranking. 

Copywriting can appear in a wide range of written collateral including direct marketing material, websites, social media, advertisements, press releases, letters, catalogues, posters, brochures and radio and TV scripts.

Regardless of which format a copywriter uses to convey a message, a copywriter still needs to research and have a thorough understanding of their client’s business, products and services before starting to write.  It can be a lengthy process but is worth the effort to produce satisfactory results.

Great looking website but no SEO

I recently started working in partnership with a new graphic designer who is so busy with website design work that she’s asked me to do the SEO for her client’s sites.  I’ve achieved great results with SEO and have developed a solid understanding of how a website can achieve a high Google page ranking without it costing a fortune.

There are alot of SEO experts out there and I don’t claim to be an “expert” in all aspects of SEO.  I don’t specialise in google adwords or pay-per-click advertising, but systematically work through a process to achieve great results with on-page SEO which involves editing your sites pages so that search engines find you when a user is searching a particular topic.  It’s not rocket science but does take time and patience to achieve results.  

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you have a great looking website that you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on - if no SEO has been applied it just won’t be found by the search engines.

My SEO process is simple but effective.  I research keywords and identify those that are relevant to your market and that users are likely to enter as a search term.  I write a description and a list of keywords that are incorporated into your page content in a natural way that sounds like a person has written it, not a computer - being a good writer certainly helps with this!  I then write Page Titles and Heading Tags (H1) and regularly review your website to see if it is being found for your target keywords.

It’s simple, cost effective and gets results.  The process can be applied to any website, large or small.  Check out the Services Page on my website for further details.  The prices will be increasing soon so if you need my help, I suggest you get in quick!

If your website is a few years old now and missed out on SEO when it was originally designed, or if you have a new site that isn’t achieving results, email me your details and I’ll give you a brief analysis on how it can be improved.

How good copy editing can turn a brochure around

I recently received a request from a lady who is a teacher at a Chinese Language & Culture Training (CLCT) business to copy edit a a brochure she had written to promote her chinese language and culture training courses.  

Chinese is her first language and even though her English is very good, she needed help to improve the brochure’s content and include more selling messages which would appeal to her target market - corporate companies and business owners, to encourage them to use her services.

The expression “lost in translation” came to mind when I started this project.  Even though the brochure wasn’t literally translated from Chinese to English, it was obvious looking at the “before” version that it had not been written by someone who spoke English as their first language. 

When promoting yourself to the English speaking corporate market, creating the right first impression is important.  If your brochure doesn’t convey a professional looking business because it contains poorly written content, that could immediately eliminate any chance of success.

I hope that the revised brochure helps my client generate interest in her training courses because there is a very clear niche for her services.  Anyone doing business with China should learn at least basic Chinese, partly out of respect and also because it will help you establish great relationships and build trust, key success factors when doing business with the Chinese.

To view “before” and “after” versions of the CLCT brochure, visit the clients page.

12 timeless writing tips from literary great Mark Twain

I received an email last week from Online Universities promoting a blog post on their site which I found interesting and thought I would share with visitors to my site.

The blog post lists 12 writing tips the literary great Mark Twain offered to writers in his lifetime that still hold true today.  Click here to read the blog.

Read and enjoy!

What does an editor do?

Editors work on other people’s writing to prepare it for publication. 

Whether it’s a book, feature article, website content, annual report or training manual an editor makes it clear, appropriate for the reader, logical and well organised.  

An editor can help get the words right, target your publication to it’s intended audience, effectively structure your information, check facts and figures, check spelling, grammar and punctuation and prepare a document for design and layout.

In the book industry, the process of editing begins with a critical, constructive reading of a work in progress, which is what a text remains right up to the moment it is sent off for printing.

The different stages of this process are regarded as a series of readings and revisions.  With a book, the various stages of editing falls into the following phases:-

• Developmental editing.  This is done before a work has been accepted for publication and the main aim is to identify publishable manuscripts that take them through to submission stage
• Content editing.    This begins after a manuscript has been submitted and accepted.  Content editors address the big issues of structure, coverage and pitch 
• Copy editing.  Follows on from content editing and is the detailed process of checking the manuscript for consistency and correctness
• Proofreading.  A proofreader checks work that has been typeset, ie it looks like the finished product when it is printed.  Final checks are done to ensure editor’s corrections have been implemented and any new errors are identified that may have occured during the typsetting process
• Final correction.  This is the last stage before a book goes to print.  It involves ensuring the typessetter has accurately made proofreading corrections, checking the index and double-checking the front cover, contents page and any picture captions.

Proofreading is excellent training for editing.    A good proofreader has a very good eye for detail, is thorough, has an excellent memory and an intelligent, logical approach.  All of these are prerequisites for an editor and need practice to develop and proofreading is one of the best ways to practise.

If you have any questions about the role of an editor, or need help editing any of your written material, send me a message via the Contact Us page.

Writing tips - when to use capital letters

This blog post has been inspired by my daughter who last weekend was writing thank you letters to family in the UK and who kept using lower case “i” when referring to herself and mixing up her “mr” and “Mrs” and “melbourne” and “Australia”. 

I know the teacher will be back on the case now that term has started, but in the business world, it’s surprising the number of people who don’t know when to use a capital letter in their writing.  Maybe this blog post will help.  This information has been summarised from the Style manual, published by John Wiley & Sons.

• Let’s start with the obvious - sentences should always begin with a capital letter.
• Initial capitals should be used for proper nouns and proper names, for example, Ruth Barnard, Purple Chameleon Communications, Melbourne, Australia
• In quoted speech, the first word should be capitalised, eg:  The doctor said ”I don’t administer drugs on the premises”.
• In direct address, a capital letter is used to make titles and honorific names used as a form of address:  “  Yes, Minister, I agree that is correct”.
• Nationalities and distinct groups of people, ie Queenslander, Christian, English
• Titles and modes of address.  The official titles of the principals or chief executives of many Australian institutions are capitalised, eg the Governor-General, the Prime Minister of Australia.  In modes of address, initial capitals are always used, eg Her Majesty the Queen, Dame Judi Dench.
• The official names of countries are always capitalised as well as any commonly used shorter forms.  Names that form a group of nations geographically or politically are always capitalised, eg South-East Asia, the Balkans. 
• The names of days and months are always capitalised but the names of seasons are usually left in lower case.
• Holidays, religious days and public events are given capitals, eg Australia Day, Easter Monday, the AFL Grand Final.
• In commercial terms, trademarks, proprietary names and brand names should be capitalised, eg Band-Aid, Kleenex, Coca-Cola, Thermos.  Brand and model names should also be capitalised, eg a Harley Davidson, a Boeing 767
• The names of items of computer software and hardware, which are usually proprietary names, and related terms are capitalised and sometimes even fully capitalised, eg IBM PC, Microsoft Word.  Some more general words also have initial capital letters, eg Internet, the Net, but there appears to be a growing use of lower case for these word, eg web site
• Titles of books and other publications:  these generally begin with a capital letter.  Whether you choose to use a capital letter after that is a matter of house style or individual preference.  You can either go for minimal capitalisation where only the first word of a title and any proper nouns and names are capitalised, eg Style manual, or maximum capitalisation eg Style Manual.

If you have a question about the use of capital letters that is not covered here, please leave a comment or send me an email via the Contact Us page.

Are your social media marketing campaigns bringing in sales?

This is the question posed at the beginning of an interesting article posted on the Social Media Examiner website, a new information source I recently discovered. 

According to a recent Social Media survey conducted by R2Integrated, if you answered “yes” to the above question, you’re part of a very small group. 

Although many marketers recognise the value and potential of social media marketing, most have yet to translate that into sales.  According to the report, 65% of respondents said that their companies have not increased revenue or profited using social media, with the main reason given that there was not enough data to devlop a ROI (return on investment).

With social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn increasing in popularity, any business without a social media presence is missing out on opportunities to generate exposure for their business and build relationships that could eventuate in sales for their company. 

Read the article here and the comments that follow to discover more on this topical subject.

More top tips on writing brochure copy

Following my blog last week about tips on writing copy for a product brochure, this week I am going to focus on sections that can be included when writing copy to promote a service.  The outline is similar to the product brochure with a few differences.

• Start with an introduction which summarises the services you offer, the types of customers you have and lists reasons why readers should be interested in YOUR services rather than Joe Bloggs down the street
• Then provide more detailed descriptions of the various services you provide and how these could satisfy your reader’s needs
• Describe the benefits these services provide and why the reader should use your services rather than the competition
• Provide background information which discusses the problems the service is designed to address.  This section can offer advice to the reader on how to evaluate the problem or how to select the right professional help
• Provide an outline of how you do business with clients and include a list of well-known companies who have used your services
• Testimonials are great.  Create a list of the best testimonials from select clients
• Outline the fees for each service, your terms of business and methods of payment.  This section includes whatever guarantee you offer your clients.

Finally, provide instructions on what readers should do next if they are interested in using the services your business offers.  This is the call to action and should contain relevant contact information.

I hope you find this information and tips from the previous blog post of interest.  Please contact us if you have any questions or need help writing copy for your next product or service brochure.

How good are your writing and numeracy skills?

A recent report published by the Australian Industry Group (AI Group) revealed that more than 75% of employers say their business suffers because of workers’ poor writing and numeracy skills.

I came across this interesting yet alarming statistic on a news item on the optus zoo website.  You can read the article here.  According to the report, the group found that literacy and numeracy issues across all levels in the workforce lead to time-wasting due to work needing to be repeated and “poor completion” of workplace documents.

Older workers, school leavers, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those recruited via hire companies were more likely to have insufficient literacy and numeracy skill levels. 

But even employees with a reasonable level of literacy could still not complete workplace communication tasks at the required level.  And technically competent individuals such as engineers had problems translating technical documentation into commercial language.

Whilst this news item doesn’t delve into solutions to such fundamental problems, which are no doubt covered in the full report, in many ways I’m not surprised at these alarming statistics.  The number of basic grammatical errors and inconsistencies I come across on websites I look at each day is quite surprising and most of them can be easily fixed, if only people took the time to read what they have writen before making the content live.

Ok, I know I’m only talking errors in website content here which are relatively minor issues compared to the findings in the AI Group report, but my point is that if people don’t have the skills required to do the job, get some help from those people who know what they are doing.  Sloppy writing, spelling and grammar mistakes and lack of attention to detail create the wrong impression.  A great looking website, well laid out with beautiful graphics is all well and good but if the content is up the creek, that initial wow factor leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Don’t fall foul of poorly written content for your website or any of your marketing communications material, there are plenty of good copywriters out there (myself included) that can help you.  Just do your research and shop around until you find someone you are happy with.  You’ll be thankful for the help in the end.

Appreciating the importance of networking

Recently I attended a SMART 90 day networking event run by Networking World. 

Whilst I fully appreciate the importance of networking to make contacts and grow my business, I learnt a few wise tips that are essential for successful networking.  And the one tip that resonates most with me is to approach a networking event with the goal of not finding sales or customers, but to connect with other business owners in order to create win:win alliances and mutually beneficial relationships.

Like many people, I hate being blatanty sold to - it’s such a turn off.  I prefer to meet people who genuinely want to find out about me and my business and discuss ways we can perhaps help each other.  Out of a room of 100 people, most of them will not be relevant to your business but you only need to connect with one or two to form a potential strategic alliance with that could generate plenty of leads for your business.

A booklet I was given at the event listed seven questions to help business owners identify the right people to help them achieve their business objectives. 

The question that applies to my business asks ”Who are the businesses in your supply chain?”  I work in partnership with graphic designers - without their skills I cannot create a website or brochure or any other type of design work.  At the same, these designers may have clients that need help writing content for the design work they are doing for them.  This is an example of one type of strategic alliance that achieves a win:win situation for both parties.  

I had a meeting this week with a printing and graphic design company called Worldwide online printing.   It was an interesting and useful meeting that could result in some mutually beneficial business.  One positive outcome to the meeting is that I found out about another networking event that the franchise owner invited me to which could be productive for my business.   So not only did I do some good networking with the printing business, they’ve put me in touch with another networking opportunity.  Another win:win situation!

If you’d like to find out more about how to form SMART networking partnerships, visit the Networking World website.

When was the last time you reviewed your website?

Last month I completed a number of website reviews for businesses who responded to an MCEI offer. 

Of the 9 websites I looked at, 3 had good SEO, 2 had minimal SEO and the remaining 4 had no SEO at all.

The reviews covered the following areas:-

• navigation, specifically how easy it is to move around the site and find information quickly and easily
• page design, looking at layout, font, use of colour and images
• on-page SEO: does the website contain the exact terms within the title, description (including keywords) and heading (h1) tags that people who are looking for your product or services would type into a search engine? 
• google page ranking - does the site have a high ranking?  If the SEO isn’t right, there’s no chance of this happening
• USP - does the website have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?  Is it easy to find out what the site is all about and what it is trying to do?
• Target Market - is it obvious who the site is aimed at and is content written in a way that will appeal to this target market?
• Links to a blog page and other social media - are these in place?  They are important to improve SEO and drive more traffic to your website
• Opt-in box - is there the option for visitors to leave their details so that you can follow them up and engage in some relationship marketing?  Offering a free newsletter or other incentive from your website is a great way to do this.

Some of the websites I reviewed were created a few years ago and I think that many people presume that by simply owning a domain name, building a website and publishing it on the internet will result in people magically finding it, visiting it and buying in droves.  But that’s not the case. 

SEO is something that a business needs to be committed to for the long haul and even after a website has been built, continuous ongoing refinements are needed over time to ensure that the site is performing well and delivering on expectations.  

Maintaining a website and regularly reviewing its performance is not that hard to do and needn’t cost a fortune, as long as you shop around until you find the right person to do the job.

I’m doing a special offer this month which is valid until 31 May.  For the first five people who email me their details, I’ll do a website review covering the above areas at the special price of $99 - that’s a saving of over $140.  But you’d better get in quick as I expect these 5 places to be snapped up in no time!

How to write great direct mail letters

I recently started work on a series of direct mail letters promoting a wedding videography business.  They approached me because they felt their copy was dry and boring and lacked that certain something to make it stand out from the crowd. 

Whilst the facts were there, the content needed some creative treatment to encourage readers to read the letter and take action.  Not only did the text need livening up, it needed a better structure with a clear beginning, middle and end.

Compared to email promotion, writing a direct mail letter is a bit like taking a step back in time.  The postal address, date and salutation need to be included, together with a headline or “hook” at the start of the letter.  What’s the best sign off to use?  Yours sincerely?  Yours faithfully?  Or just “Best wishes”?  Do you include an enc. at the bottom for an enclosed item?

Here are some suggestions on how to structure the content of a great direct mail letter. 

1.  Gain the reader’s attention.  An eye catching headline should do the trick.

2.  Engage the reader’s interest by identifying a problem the reader has or a need that must be filled

3.  Position your product, service or company as the solution to the reader’s problem

4.  Offer proof to convince skeptical readers that your claim you can solve their problem is true

5.  Invite the reader to take action toward implementing your solution.  This might be to request more information or to order the product or service.

Consider the length of your letter.  Whilst business buyers will read alot of copy and consumers typically pay more attention to pictures and headlines, in both cases it’s important to keep copy concise and tell the complete story in the fewest possible words.  Get to the point and don’t waste the reader’s time by saying in three paragraphs what you could say in one.  Keep content interesting and relevant - the more interesting and relevant it is, the more likely they’ll read it.  And make sure that the letter makes sense as a standalone piece - this is particularly important if you are enclosing a brochure or sample with it that could get missplaced.

Finally, don’t forget to spend time carefully checking content looking for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.  Read your work carefully and if you’ve got time, put it to one side and check it again the next day - your eyes will be fresh and may spot something you have overlooked.

If you need help giving your direct mail letters or other marketing communication material the “wow” factor, contact us - we’d be happy to help.

The importance of branding in your marketing communications

This week, Bree Cleal of Imageffect shares with us some useful branding tips and demonstrates how important branding is in all aspects of your business, including marketing communications.

Some of you may not be sure what the word “branding” really means.  It involves every component of your business and is tied in with a customers ‘perception’ of your business.  It deals with the ‘feeling’ a customer has and their ‘direct’ emotional response when they think about you and business.  This includes the tangible items of your business -the ones you can touch, as well as the intangible items, the ones you can only hear or see.

Tangible items of your brand include:-

• your logo
• business stationery
• promotional material
• signage

Intangible items are things like the manner your staff use when talking to your clients, and the presentation of your office - is it messy or organised?

The following five tips are useful reminders for how to make the most of your branding in all your marketing communications:-

• Be consistent.  Stick to your logo in its original form and throughout all branded business items.  It’s one of the most important aspects of your brand and a solid foundation to build your brand upon.  Consider using signage, even if you share offices - make sure your brand is recognised and your clients know who they are visiting.  You might even like to paint feature walls in your office using the corporate colours of your logo
• Get webbed!  Make sure your online presence and e-marketing strategy is consistent with your brand.  How is your website working?  How do you think your clients ‘feel’ when they visit your homepage?  Excited?  Curious? Today, the web forms a large part of successful brand strategy, so it’s important to get it right!
• Look!  See every aspect of your business including yourself as part of your brand.  Make sure your phone is answered in a consistent manner by all your staff.  Check out your wardrobe - are you reflecing the image you want your clients to have of you?
• Have a great business card.  It’s your calling card and first point of contact.  Make sure each card you hand out is clean and in mint condition.
• Work with a professional graphic designer.  One that you get along well with and who understand you, your business brand and … your budget!  This way you can keep any future projects or re-print work consistent with the first to further strengthen the future of your brand.

About Bree…

Bree Cleal, owner of Imageffect is passionate about logo and brand development.  She has over 12 years experience working in advertising, design and marketing for clients including Matell, Royal Melbourne Zoo and Autism Victoria, to name just a few.  Bree believes that the way you present your business says everything about you so it’s important to make sure you look good.  To find out more about Bree’s services visit the Imageffect website.

Did you take part in Earth Hour last night?

My house was just one of thousands in Victoria and millions worldwide who switched off their lights during Earth Hour on Saturday 28 March in a bid to highlight environment concerns and to collectively make a stand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Some 4000 cities in more than 120 countries voluntarily switched off their lights including many of the world’s greatest landmarks: Big Ben; the Eiffel Tower; Rome Colusseum, Sydney Opera House and Beijing’s Forbidden City. 

Whilst our lounge, dining room and kitchen were glowing with light from candles inserted into empty wine bottles, we reminded our children of the reasons for taking such action.  We taught them that if everyone in the world took part in Earth Hour what impact such a collective gesture could have on a global scale.

There are many ways we can reduce our carbon footprint.  Your footprint is an indication of the demand you are placing on the planet’s living resources.  A footprint is made up of many things including the things you eat, where you live, how you get around and what you buy.  The Earth Hour website has a footprint calculator where you can work out for yourself what your footprint is.

The Earth Hour website also lists the many ways you can reduce your footprint from saving energy, conserving water, reducing waste and mininising dependence on transport.  Any change you make, big or small, will help to make a difference.  For more information on reducing your footprint, check out the Earth Hour website.

Outsource your Website or DIY?

I read an interesting article in the March issue of the Nett magazine yesterday.  How to: Decide how much of your website to DIY by Kate Hennessy discusses the pros and cons of producing your own website versus using the services of a a professional.  With cost being a major factor, what should people expect to pay to use a professional?  And will you get more for your money? 

Off the shelf templates are commonplace today and many website packages come with hosting, search engine optimisation (SEO) and technical support.  Because there are so many templates to choose from, it’s easier to find one that closely reflects your company’s branding. 

But do these whizz-bang templates mean the death of the bespoke website for SME’s?  Not necessarily.  However, if you want to be different and have an attractive and functional website that reflects your branding and looks nothing like your competition, you have to pay for it.  Using the services of a professional needn’t cost an arm and a leg.  It’s important to shop around, get quotes from say three suppliers and ask to see samples of their work before choosing who you want to use.

According to the Nett article, if you use the services of an SEO specialist, you should expect to pay around $250 for a site analysis and recommendations to improve your rankings.  You can then opt to get keywords identified and pay for a managed link-building campaign.  For around $300 per month, you’d get ongoing dedicated support and monthly reports. 

Basic SEO recommendations can be implemented relatively easily but ensuring your entire site is search engine friendly requires an expert eye.  For all the websites Purple Chameleon has built, we employ these SEO techniques.  Whilst it’s important to have a site that looks good, easy navigation, incorporating SEO friendly content and adding keywords are important if search engines are to find you.

Another area the article addresses is why people should use a specialist copywriter rather than write their own.  The professional copywriter will take into account a number of factors when writing web copy, including the following:-

• Visitors scan rather than read and skip from place to place: they don’t read in a linear fashion like they do with a newspaper or magazine
• Reading on the screen is slower than reading the same information in printed form.  It’s important to give visitors minimal directions so that they can locate the information they want with the least effort
• Write clean, clear and concise copy with the audience in mind and provide content with a purpose - whether it’s information, education or entertainment
• Deliver copy in small chunks and remember that less is more
• Good grammar, proper punctuation and correct spelling apply as much to websites as they do to all other media
• Minimise the use of adjectives and adverbs and make sure you spell-check your document.  Spelling mistakes on websites are too numerous and simple errors make visitors wonder abou the reliability of information in the whole site

I’ve also been amazed at what people have paid for their websites, with some paying thousands of dollars for a fairly basic site.  It really needn’t cost that much which is why it’s worth shopping around.  If you are looking for a new website or revisions to an existing one, send us an email.  You’ll find our prices reasonable and our professionalism, customer service and attention to detail second to none.

Training has started for the 2010 Mother’s Day Classic!

Last year I took part in the Mother’s Day Classic and walked 4km with a friend.  This year we’ve upped the stakes and decided to run the 4k’s.  I love walking but when it comes to increasing the pace, I get a bit nervous about being fit enough to get from A to B in one piece.  So I set myself a training schedule and over the next 8 weeks or so, I’ll be going for regular jogs and gradually increasing the distance and pace until I’m on target to run the 4k’s in less than 30 minutes. 

Talking of schedules, this morning I spent an hour or so working on a new time management practice to help better organise myself, increase productivity and monitor exactly HOW I spend my day so that I can identify any areas that need improvement.  It’s all courtesy of some business coaching that will help me identify goals and get from A to B in once piece!  I’m a bit of a spontaneous person and have a tendency to react to things and deal with them immediately rather than plan where they fit into my weekly workload.  Hopefully the new schedule will stop me from doing that.

One exciting thing that is happening on the weekend is I’m going to Speaker Sports, an event run by Deanna Roberts at Think in Pictures.  On Saturday I will “breakthrough my personal barriers that prevent me from becoming the exquisite presenter I desire to be.”  I blogged about public speaking last year and I really do want to avoid trembling knees and embarrassing stutters and actually enjoy the experience of presenting to a large group of people.  I’ll blog all about it next week.

Check out the Mother’s Day Classic website for more information on taking part in the event.  Enjoy the rest of your week.

It’s my birthday tomorrow - here’s a free report to celebrate!

I’m taking the day off tomorrow because it’s my birthday.  Not going to reveal the milestone I’ve achieved suffice to say it’s time to start counting backwards!

So to celebrate, I’ve just uploaded a link to a free report called “How to Write a Feature Article and get Published” for all new newsletter subscribers.  You just need to enter your name and email address in the “Free Newsletter” section on the homepage to access it.

Because I don’t want all current subscribers to miss out, if you’d like me to email you the report, just go to the Contact Us page on the website and enter your request in the enquiry details box, not forgetting to include your email address, and I’ll send it to you.

Have a great day!

Been MIA for a while - now I’m back!

I have finally climbed out of a sea of paperwork and finished editing a 100 page catalogue.  It was a fun job, a bit different to the regular work I do and was a good challenge that really got the creative juices flowing. 

The catalogue is produced by an overseas publisher and promotes their range of childrens books.  The text I edited had been translated from French into English by a native French speaker.  Hence some of the words had been translated literally and lost a degree of meaning in the process. 

So it all had to be knocked into shape to create a catalogue that not only accurately summarised the content of each book using eye catching sales messages, but also got treated to all the usual editing tasks such as checking punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc.  

It was quite a challenge searching for alternative English words for some of the book titles.  One of the books is called “La Tetine” which had literally been translated as “The Teat” (as in udder).  The picture on the front cover is of a robber riding a horse and if you look closely, you can see a dummy in his mouth.   The book is aimed at very young children and encourages them to be a big kid and throw away their dummy.  So I changed the English title to “The Dummy Thief”.

The books are beautifully illustrated and charming to read, if you can read French!  If you’re interested, check out the publisher’s website:  http://www.casterman.com

Catalogue editing is just one of the many services we provide.  If you have text that needs “knocking into shape”, just send me an email via the Contact Us page.

Some useful tips on e-media releases

Distributing media releases via the Internet offers certain advantages over the traditional method of sending them by post or fax.  It is cheaper, more convenient and provides a degree of interactivity that is not possible with traditional releases.

Although the subject matter of media releases should stay the same whether they are distributed in print or electronic format, there are some differences in terms of how you write and layout a release for the Internet.

Here are some handy tips to follow when writing and sending releases in email format.

• Limit the length of your email release to around 200 words.  This will prevent readers having to scroll too far down the page to read text
• Include the most important information at the top of the release.  This should be a short paragraph that summarises the content of the release
• Keep company descriptions brief: journalists are busy and don’t have time to read lengthy descriptions
• Include links.  This enables the journalist to access more in-depth information throughout the release if they want to
• Avoid formality.  It’s not necessary to insert the words ‘MEDIA RELEASE’ and ‘ENDS’ at the top and bottom respectively.  Email is a less formal medium and so acknowledge this when writing and sending your releases

There are, however, some guidelines that remain the same, regardless of whether the release is send by snail mail or email.  Here’s a summary:-

• Keep headlines short
• Make sure you’ve covered all the ‘W’ questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• Include quotes
• If possible, include third party opinion as it adds value to your release and will lend more authority to what you have to say
• Don’t expect instant results.  You may not get the media coverage you are hoping for but what you have done is get your name in circulation so that next time you send out a media release, journalists will know who you are
• Check before you hit the ’send’ button, making sure you have proofread content and corrected any mistakes

Distributing the media release is straight forward.  When sending the release to a number of journalists, make sure you enter their address details in the Bcc field so that you avoid each journalist knowing the other journalists the release has been sent to.  You could use an online news wire service but would have to pay for this.

If you have any questions on e-media releases, send us an email. 

Why don’t you sign up Purple Chameleon News for the latest news and hints and tips on improving your marketing communications?  You can also find us on the Purple Chameleon Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter.

Is it time you reviewed your website?

The Purple Chameleon Communications website is approaching its first anniversary. 

Over the last year, the number of visitors to the site each month has been steady and I’ve been happy with the way things have gone.  However, there is always room for improvement and I knew in the back of my mind that I could do more with it.  I just needed to work out what to do and feel confident that any changes I make will generate more enquiries and bring in more business.

Yesterday, I spent one of the most productive hours of the last few months with an expert who shows people how to harness the power of the internet in your business.  Wendy Moore from Savvy Web Women did a review of my website and gave me a bunch of very useful tips on how to improve it that will help to generate more traffic and increase my database.

Here are a few of the useful tips Wendy gave me:-

• Include links to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, assuming you’ve already set yourself up on them.  These are great opportunities to promote yourself to a huge network of people and you never know where they will lead.  I received some work recently from a lady I worked with many years ago in the UK who found me on Facebook.
• If you do a regular blog, use the content to create articles for submission to article writing sites, or social media sites like Facebook.  This will generate backlinks to your website and increase traffic
• Have a dedicated page for testimonials.  Include a photo of the person giving the testimonial, provide a link to their website and if possible a video of what they have to say about you.
• Where you have links to other websites, make sure they open in a new window so that visitors don’t navigate away from your site

You’ll see more enhancements to my website soon as I work my way through the “to do” list Wendy gave me.  In the meantime, why not sign up to Purple Chameleon News?  If you have any questions, please send me an email.

Find me on the Purple Chameleon Facebook page , or follow me on Twitter