What makes you ding-worthy?

May 17, 2018

Filed under: Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Social Media, Effective Communication — @ 8:54 am

So…I feel a bit like a soulless drug pusher on this one, but hear me out, ok?

A growing issue is causing serious angst in today’s society: people are addicted to their phones and they know it…and they don’t like it. There’s a movement afoot for these addicts to “resist the ding” and wean themselves from craving the need to keep checking their phone. And the psychological battle cry of “how to take back control” is a hot topic at business conferences, therapy sessions, family dinner tables, relationship counseling, and in mainstream media. If this is news to you, here are two useful articles on the subject from NPR and Psychology Today.

But it’s a marketer’s mission to cut through clutter and get attention. And so we ruthlessly hunt for standout ways to infiltrate their phones: emails, text messaging, location-based promotions, social media (organic and paid), social media direct messaging, and <insert shiny marketing-tool-du-jour here>.

We WANT to be the ding that gets their attention. We WANT them to stop what they’re doing and embrace our message.

But think of the psychology: more and more people are taking control of their own “ding dial,” fiercely curating which dings (if any) get their immediate attention, and – whoa – even turning off the dings completely in order to neutralize messages that masquerade as urgent.

Worse (for us)…in an effort to reduce the overwhelming daily assault of information through intrusive dings and silent accumulation, they are more discriminating in scrubbing their access points. This means YOU (soulless, message-pushing marketer) are being judged continuously, and you are always just one frivolous ding away from getting banished.

So here’s what you need to ask yourself, marketers: what makes you ding-worthy? And you can’t do this effectively by looking at a single message’s value (i.e. this post, this email). You need to respect your role in the relationship with people’s phones and your value in their overall information landscape. What earns you the right to continued access? How do your dings foster Pavlovian-level satisfaction?

I’ll tell you the answer: always-relevant content, and choosing frequency wisely. Quite simply…don’t waste their time (or mental bandwidth) and make every ding meaningful.

Is this harder for you? Yep. Does this mean you have to care more about THEIR needs than YOUR sales goals? Yep. Is this annoying because now you have to think more, and sometimes resist sending messages you REALLY REALLY want to send? Yep.

But here’s the alternative: would you rather be banished? Because that’s what’s at stake now more than ever.

Marketing was never effective when it was too frequent or too frivolous. Desensitization and annoyance have always been at risk. But back in the day, those risks just wasted your money and time. People may have gotten annoyed, but they hadn’t yet – en masse – felt empowered to do anything about it.

But these days, technological assault has made people feel like victims and addicts, so when you annoy them, they not only feel empowered to banish you…they do it with a sense of righteous justice. Kicking you out of their phone grants them a joyous feeling of liberation.

And so yay for you, marketer! You created a positive encounter with your target. The downside is that it came from them slamming the door in your face…and locking it.

So what’s the moral of this story? Don’t ignore this growing social phenomenon, and adapt your approach accordingly.

In short: Please ding responsibly.

Five opening lines that sabotage your email’s success.

March 16, 2018

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 1:15 pm

You want people to read your emails, right? Then be mindful of these two powerful words:

PREVIEW PANE.

That little teaser allows people a glance at your email’s content before they open it, which makes your first sentence vital. It can either hook interest and make readers want to open it instantly, or it can say nothing worthwhile and prompt them to triage its importance for another time (if ever). This actually holds true even if the recipient is NOT using preview pane… who gets jazzed about reading an email with a boring opening line?

Here’s a hard truth: most people begin emails with boring sentences simply because they’re being lazy. It’s a crutch for warming up to writing what they REALLY want to say… a way to get their fingers moving on the keyboard. But the fact is, you’re doing your email a huge disservice by overlooking the importance of your opening line.

Here are five of the most common “wasted” opening lines:

I hope you are well.
My name is (x) and I’m the (x) of (x) company…
I wanted to write you today to…
I am pleased to attach the document…
Hope you’re enjoying this weather!

Why are these lines wasted? Because they’re either stating the obvious or making irrelevant small talk. You may indeed truly hope the person is well, and you have my blessing to say that… at the end. And you may indeed be pleased to attach that document…but who cares? Perhaps instead, say why the document is/should be important to THEM.

Yes, it takes longer to come up with a compelling opening line (and please, for the love of Pete, please don’t start with the word “I”). But it’s worth it. I may not know you, or anything about you and your email recipients, but I’d bet the ranch that you’d rather have folks open your emails than glaze over them or just hit delete.

Bonus writing advice: also be wary of the word “great,” using exclamation points, and the request to have things sent to you “ASAP.” Check out these and other quick writing tips here.

The key to making a business announcement successfully.

June 28, 2017

Filed under: Effective Presentations, Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 11:26 am

Say you’ve just overhauled your guest service program. Or completed a design renovation. Or created a new HR program in response to staff issues. Or launched a new brand. Or website.

And then you sit down to write the email, press release, or speech to unveil it to your key audiences. Here’s the one vital tip you need to make it effective and powerful:

No one cares how hard you worked.

Think about it. How many times have you heard a brand or company representative say

We’ve worked tirelessly to…
Our team has worked long and hard to…
We’ve been working day and night to…

Does that make their message any more meaningful to you? Nope. In fact, here’s a few hard truths about human nature conspire to subtly undermine the successful reception of your announcement:

What’s In It For Me?: Saying how hard you worked is blah-blah to the audience. Your dedication is irrelevant…what’s the result that impacts them? Wasting air time with blah-blah just risks losing their attention.

Skepticism Trigger: The moment someone draws attention to how hard they worked, we subconsciously doubt it. If you truly worked hard on something, the results would prove it. Proclaiming it just makes the audience wonder why you’re trying to hard to convince them that you did your job.

Soliciting Gratitude is Resented: Revealing how hard you worked – especially when you’re fixing a negative situation – only makes it look like you’re seeking a head pat. And only adorable dogs can credibly get away with begging for head pats. In humans, it usually just inspires exasperated eye-rolling.

Instead…just share your news straight up, including the benefits to them. Like so:

On the new Redpoint website, you can explore our expertise with easy one-click case study sorting relevant to your needs, sign up to get tips and trends from our wildly popular industry newsletter Tickled Red, and listen to music from our office live concert series. Go check it out…we hope you find it fun and useful.

See? Straight up. No plea for head pats.

Your belly button is a marketing tool.

November 5, 2015

Filed under: Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 9:56 am

Consumers suck, don’t they? They need to be rewarded for everything…liking things, sharing things, buying things, answering things. It’s maddening.

Well marketers, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We’ve conditioned people to chase carrots and respond to hoopla…which means we’ve ALSO conditioned them to ignore stuff that’s boring, predictable, trite, and unrewarding.

Where does this leave email subject lines? At the top of your “spend brainpower here” list.

Think about it…all the time and energy you spend creating the perfect email content is 100% for naught if people don’t open it. And when sifting through the barrage of daily incoming emails, consumers use three main criteria to determine which ones will get their attention:

How much they care about you vs. how much they care about the rest of the senders sitting in their inbox.
How much time they have available when your email arrives.
Is the content going to be worth their time?

And #3 is why subject lines should get your brainpower. If your marketing email subject lines are things like “August Newsletter” or “News from (company name)” or even something a little more specific like “Winter Packages at (company name)”… you are relying on the first two criteria – which are beyond your control – to supply the magic open sesame of consumer response.

But if your subject line is something like…

We don’t make linen. (Chilewich, a textile company)

I hate purple. (Also from Chilewich)

The ecosystem of your belly button. (American Museum of Natural History)

Have you ever wanted to create a chocolate sculpture? (South End Kitchen, VT)

Get serenaded by Harry Connick, Jr. (Hotel on North, MA)

…you’re using the subject line as a lure to snap desensitized recipients to attention. It’s likely that 80% or more of the emails they receive each day have boring subject lines. Make yours interesting and you’re one notch closer to seducing them into hearing your message.

Here’s the best part. If you pay heed to #3 (teasing interesting content)…and then you actually ensure that the content IS interesting…over time, it’s going to positively impact #1 and #2. Remember: marketers train consumers. And the more you train them that your emails are interesting, the more that #1- they will care about you and your messages, and #2- no matter when your email arrives, they will make the time to read it.

It’s a delicious cycle of persuasive marketing goodness. And soon you will find that consumers – those picky, aloof, what’s-in-it-for-me monsters we marketers have created – will suck just a little bit less.

Four quick tips to strengthen your writing.

February 5, 2015

Filed under: Writing Tips, Effective Communication — @ 10:11 am

Tagged: effective communication, grammar, writing

Writing is a skill that needs practice, just like your golf swing or your skiing technique. However, unlike golf or skiing, very few people devote their Saturdays to grammar and phraseology.

Here’s the equivalent of installing a putting green in your office. Work these four tips into your everyday writing, and give those stagnant brain muscles a workout.

Stop beginning your sentences with “I” or “We.” You’ll be surprised how often you do it, and making this one tiny change will enhance the power of your message. Here’s why and how.

Choose descriptive words that pack a stand-alone punch. There are – give or take – a million words in the English language. It’s a safe bet that “great” can always be replaced with a more meaningful word (get some help on that here) and the words “very,” “really,” and “extremely” are unnecessary; very happy = ecstatic, pleased, delighted, and so on…extremely upset = livid, furious, incensed, and so on.

Condense wordy phrases into compact ones…or better yet, into a single word. This reduces the burden on your reader’s attention span and illustrates your point with instant clarity. For example:

Coming at the wrong time = ill-timed

Covered with decorative elements = ornate

Make this process smoother = streamline

Almost ready to put the finishing touches on = poised to complete

Hard to find = elusive

Aspire to cut your document length by a third. This measuring stick will serve you well: in any first draft, at least a third of the words are poorly chosen. That’s because it’s really hard arduous to write and edit at the same time simultaneously. Keep your thought process intact while the words flow, and then attack your phrases with a critical eye afterward.

~~I hope you find these tips useful.~~

Reprogramming your writing style using these four tips will take awareness, patience, and a thesaurus. Keep practicing, buy a red pen, and eventually new habits will form.

One “great” way to improve your writing.

October 24, 2013

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion — @ 8:35 am

Here’s a “great” way to improve your writing.

Would you rather go to a “great conference” or an “informative and entertaining conference?” And would you rather stay in a hotel that’s “great”…or one that’s charming, impeccably-run, intimate, luxurious, filled with character, chic, rustic, or a culinary delight?

Here’s the thing: often times, the word “great” is just a lazy nod to positivity that doesn’t actually do justice to a description. Saying something is great gives the reader no indication of WHY it’s great, which is actually the information most useful to them. You could tell a friend that the food was great at a restaurant you tried, but “great” to you could mean spicy and rich, and “great” to your friend could mean mild and tame. You can tell your guests that they’ll have a great shopping experience at your store, but do you mean the service is gracious, the layout is simple to navigate, the prices are easy on the wallet, or the selection is extensive?

This matters most when you’re writing a piece of communication that intends to persuade your audience, for three reasons:

Using “great” instead of actually describing what you mean is a lost opportunity to make a connection that resonates with them and engages their attention.
If you say something is “great”…and then you just have to go on to describe it using other words anyway…then you’ve wasted words with an unnecessary comment, and created a trigger that could relax their attention span (nothing sabotages attention faster than perceived “blah blah” in writing).
Relying on the word “great” too often snares you in the trap of sounding trite. And trite never rings true, so your words won’t be effective.

Here’s how to use the word less frequently: be aware of it. Every time you start to write the word “great” in a sentence, just ask yourself…what do I really mean? Take a moment to find more suitable words/phrases and your writing will transform into richer, more sophisticated communication. This is likely to annoy you at first (flexing your vocabulary muscles takes time and practice), but soon it will become second nature. Make the site thesaurus.com your new best friend.

There certainly may be times when “great” does the job (Q: “Can we meet at 8pm?” A: “Great!”). But a heightened awareness of using the word at all will prevent you from using it as a crutch.

And if you’re thinking of cheating by just adding a bunch of exclamation points to make the word “Great!!!!!!!!!!!” seem more powerful… here’s why that won’t work.

For more ~~great~~ insightful nuggets – from how to stop using the word “I” to why you should stop asking for things “ASAP” – check out our writing tips.

Take the “No I Challenge” to improve your writing in one week.

October 11, 2011

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 12:37 pm

An image of the letter "I" overlaid by a red circle and line through it, as a symbol of the No I Week Challenge to Improve Writing.

Harder than a triathalon…the “No I Week Challenge.”

Here’s why taking the No “I” Week Challenge will improve your writing in just one week.

When it comes to communication, we humans are a selfish bunch. As writers, we strive to get our own point across…and yet, as readers, we always want to know: what’s in it for me?

This opposition is one of the key things that make persuasive writing so difficult. When writing, we sit down to pour out thoughts from our own perspective. But when you get right down to it…in the world of persuasion, unless you’re the mafia, who really cares about your perspective? Some recent examples that have crossed my desk:

In a cover letter applying for a job: I am looking for an opportunity that will help me to grow.

From a printer looking to sell his services: I would like a few minutes of your time to introduce you to my company.

From an industry colleague asking for a favor: I need this by 2pm or I can’t make my deadline.

As a reader, to all of those statements I say (affectionately)…who cares? Have you seen the length of my to-do list lately? Do you honestly expect me to grant your request just because YOU want it? A more compelling reason is needed to break through my clutter and raise your request higher up in my triage pile.

To be more effective in your persuasive writing, try this: stop using the word “I” (especially to open a sentence) as much as you can. Using that word pretty much forces the communication to have a selfish perspective. All sentences can be rewritten without it…they just need to be rephrased to adopt a different approach. A growth opportunity like this is highly appealing. With just a few minutes of time, you’ll learn how XYZ Company can save you money. This is needed by 2pm or the deadline won’t be met.

Rephrasing sentences in this way takes the “you vs. me” perspective out of the equation, and infuses some third-party credibility into the content. It’s also far less emotional, and certainly more objective. And all that combines to make the content more effective. This strategy alone won’t make your audience drop everything and do your bidding, but it definitely starts to stack the decks in your favor.

Ingrained habits are hard to break (especially selfish ones), so here’s a tip to help you jump start this approach to writing: take the No “I” Week Challenge, which will improve your writing in just one week. For one whole week, make a conscious effort to not use the word “I” at all. Rephrase every single sentence to have a more objective point of view. And don’t cheat by simply replacing “I” with “we” because that follows the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Like so…

I am hoping you will help me as soon as possible. NOT… We are hoping you can help us as soon as possible. RATHER… These answers are needed as soon as possible.

Also don’t cheat by simply dropping the “I” and writing something like: Wanted to check in with you on that project. We all feel that “I” even though it’s not there.

We’ve done periodic “No I Week” challenge here in the office at Redpoint, and even we – who write for a living! – had a hard time achieving the goal. You will get frustrated, you will feel like you’re sounding ridiculous, and there will be times when you stare at your computer screen forever just trying to reword something mundane like “I have a doctor’s appointment at 10 am tomorrow, so will be in a bit late.” Stick with it. By the end of the week, this extreme heightened awareness of the “I” perspective will temper your writing moving forward. You will certainly have cause to use the word “I” in your writing, but you’ll be far more judicious in how you employ it.

Of this, you are assured by me.

For more quick writing tips, click here.

Writing tips…but not donuts.

April 13, 2011

Filed under: Writing Tips — @ 1:14 pm

So, after handing out donuts to all 300 people at the Vermont Travel Industry Conference during my keynote address yesterday, I feel as if I showed up to lead today’s writing workshop empty handed.

Happily, I had a handful of Redpoint signature chocolate mice and five copies of my favorite pocket Thesaurus to hand out to all people who actively participated in the dialogue…but it still didn’t feel like enough.

So…I promised the attendees I’d post some essential writing tips and tools here this afternoon. (And if you weren’t there with us today, you can enjoy these with my compliments.)

Here are two PDFs to download:

Self-Editing Tips

Life Cycle of Drafting a Document

You can also check out some of my favorite writing tips that have been posted on our blog by clicking here.

These may not be as tasty and exciting as donuts, but they’ll be significantly more helpful when you are trying to craft a strategic document.

Though, I admit that a chocolate frosted donut (or 2…or 3) has helped me tackle a difficult writing project in the wee hours of the morning more than once. So if these tips aren’t doing the trick, put them aside in favor of donuts and watch the creativity flow like frosting.

Stop using this phrase…ASAP!

February 24, 2011

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 10:01 am

Did you ever ask someone to do something “ASAP” and then not get what you want, when you wanted it? Here’s why that happened:

The phrase ASAP lets people choose their own deadline. It means “as soon as possible,” which – in their world – might be now, tomorrow, next Wednesday, or never. Everyone has their own to-do list and method of prioritization, so the vague direction of ASAP puts the power in the recipient’s hands to judge the level of urgency.

And this is a no-no for getting people to do what we want.

YOU keep the power, or else your own to-do list will always be at the mercy of other people’s timelines. This doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible in your deadline…but if you don’t give one as a starting point, how will the person know where it fits in their to-do list?

There was a time when ASAP implied “immediately,” but those days are over. We’ve abused the phrase too much for it to have any real meaning (see how we’ve also done this with the phrase “thanks”).

So, if you want to greatly increase the chance that your deadline will be met, be clear in your request and state the specific day/time you would like to see results.

Want to comment on this post? Do it…right now, immediately, without delay, before doing anything else, this instant.

The plight of the exclamation point.

November 15, 2010

Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion — @ 2:08 pm

Poor exclamation point. It is unmercifully abused.

As punctuation goes, the exclamation point is quite powerful. It conveys elevated emotion that transforms a sentence from a simple statement into a passionate communication. Case in point:

I am so happy.
I am so happy!
I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or how about:

I am so angry.
I am so angry!
I am so angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The very presence of the “!” puctuates the passion behind the feeling…so why do we sometimes feel like a solitary exclamation point is insufficient? And is this an acceptable solution to communicating the emotion behind our feelings in writing?

Professionally speaking…no. In business communication, multiple exclamation points can come across to the reader as juvenile and a bit lazy. Their presence says “I have not taken the time to select the rich, meaningful words that will accurately convey my emotions, so I’ll just add a whole bunch of exclamation points to compensate for the lack of feeling.”

If we are “happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”…are we not ecstatic, thrilled, or elated? And if we are “angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”…are we not incensed, livid, furious, or enraged? Seriously. Some of those words are so powerful, they don’t even require one exclamation point to communicate the strength of their sentiment. In fact, that quiet, subtle strength can often be far more influential than adding a dozen exclamation points.

There is certainly a time and place for multiple exclamation points. Believe me, I’m the first one to type “Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” to a Redpoint colleague who’s just informed me that one of our clients is going to be featured in the New York Times. It’s the perfect way to communicate my spontaneous unbridled joy. But if I got that news from the editor of the New York Times directly? No way. It definitely would be something more like “I’m delighted you found (client) of interest,” or “(client) is thrilled that you are interested.”

So, when writing professionally, take a moment to choose more powerful words and give that poor little piece of punctuation a break. It served us well when we were in junior high, but now that we’re all grown up, it’s time for us to be responsible in how we use it.