Observed

Want more client-facing marketing materials, including your newsletters?

The Hollywood-based BIRD branding agency recently celebrated 20 years of terrific work in the entertainment and lifestyle sectors. They excel at theatrical promotions (including this 2005 poster), logo design and branding for some of the biggest names in the business. AND, they're fun to work with! The kind of client I love.

Looking for ways to make your biz dev more about the other person?

Then consider…

• Invite a client or referral source to contribute a guest column.
• Showcase a client, recent in-the-news mention or something.  Write about something they have accomplished, not about something you’ve done for them.
• Fix your ego-centric copy.

Remember:  250 to 300 words is plenty long and engage your reader with a picture…a mugshot, product, corporate logo, etc.

Plus, whatever I’ve suggested for newsletters also works for Web sites, presentations and probably anything else of which we can think.  In fact, leverage something client-centric you’ve created for one platform by recycling it somewhere else.

That Rolling Stone cover behaves like a billboard.  It will get your attention at 70 mph.

Write copy accordingly.  For example, titles and headlines?  Absolutely no more than seven words.

Just like a billboard.

There’s a vast literature on the psychology of images.  About how, for example, we learn from birth to read faces.  About the gender differences in how visual stimuli are processed.

I’ve already offered the short version of how this relates to newsletters and other marketing communications.  How an arresting image will be the first thing the reader’s eye will land on long enough to process it.

Here’s a bit more… (more…)

Some things are better left long. Most business writing is not one of them.

Long is hard, and hard doesn’t get read.  Period.

So…

1. Four pages is the max for hard-copy. If you’re one of the smart ones still in print, delete something if you’re on-line and further tighten what you do post.  Studies have shown that we read 25 percent slower when something’s digital.  If you have more to say than four pages, save it.  Or, re-purpose it somewhere else.  Over four pages is a waste.  Or worse.
2. 250 words is really long. At least for anything you expect to get read by the busy business person.  Especially if it’s in a newsletter or on a Web site.  300, maybe…if what you have is RFG.
3. Captions. I’m getting ahead of myself.  Pictures (lots of them) are essential because they are what we go to first on the page/screen.  They arrest the eye, particularly if it’s a (pretty) human face.  The next place your reader will land is on the caption you’ve written for whatever shiny thing grabbed their attention.  Use this.  Use it judiciously, with a super short cutline.  It’s OK to stretch grammatical conventions.  Partial sentences?  No sweat.

Need help?  Read a really good newspaper.  Pay attention to how tight good writing can be.  Emulate it.

FYI:  This post is 224 words.

If you’re Who cares, don’t bother reading further.  If you think newsletters are a good way to communicate with clients and prospects, I can tell you how to do that better:

1. Be really brief.
2. Use lots of pictures.
3. Make it about someone or something other than you.

I’ll tell you what these look like in the next few posts.  Plus some other things to think about.

Stick around.