2) Speak to Your Sales Team Sadly, not every business can afford to invest in market research. If your budget doesn’t stretch far enough, try talking to your sales people. They’re out in field every day, talking to customers. And because their livelihood depends on their success in engaging customers, chances are they’ll be able to tell you what your customers want to know. (A word of warning, though… Be careful not to make lofty promises. Unlike your sales team, written collateral doesn’t generate a rapport with your customers. Customers won’t make as many allowances, so you can only stretch truth so far in writing before your credibility suffers. What’s more, if you do push boundaries, you’re more likely to be held to your word!)

3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In If you don’t have budget for in-depth customer research, and you don’t have a sales team, a good tip is to imagine how your customer gets buy-in from their boss. Quite often, decision maker is someone higher up food chain than your direct audience. Your audience will probably be key stakeholder – they’ll be user of your product, or recipient of your service. But when they find an offering they like, there’s a good chance they’ll have to sell it to someone further up line. If you can make this sale easier, you’ll have a foot in door. Don’t just appeal to sensibilities of direct audience. You also need to ask yourself what they need to know to convince decision maker. If decision maker is a CFO, think Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If decision maker is a CIO or MIS, think performance, technological sustainability, availability, manageability, and ease of integration. If decision maker is a CEO, think liability, risk management, and ROI. And only use jargon to prove you know your stuff. Remember… jargon will probably have ultimate decision maker scratching their head, not reaching for their cheque book.

There are many many more ways to identify benefits. This is just a very superficial snapshot of some techniques you might like to try. At very least they’ll get you thinking benefits.

In end, message is simple. Forget all fancy talk about complicated revolutionary marketing principles. Forget new-age hard-sell advertising quick-fixes. Forget looking to so-called “experts” for solutions. Just think benefits. And if you can accurately do that, rest is just mechanics. Once you know what you want to write about, you just need to put pen to paper. And that’s a whole ‘nother story!

Happy writing!

* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.

Many experts warn against using MS Word resume templates. They argue that your resume will look like many others that were also prepared using Word. But what they’re really referring to with those comments are 3 standard Word formats that come with program. It’s true, they’re not particularly inspiring in appearance.

However, here’s another option. Use an MS Word template that is different from standard ones. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using free resume templates. The key is to find unique templates. Here are some of benefits of using templates:

* They guide you in correct format and organization, with right headings and sections in right order.

* They come preset with fonts, formatting, and white space for a pleasing and sophisticated design.

* They’re easy to use. Just type in your personal information, save and go. Also, if you want, it’s easy enough to change fonts or almost anything else to get a more unique design--if you wish.

Of course, key is to spend enough time to find high quality free resume templates. There are many sites that offer sample resumes that they call templates, but you’d have to cut and paste them into Word to use them. Other sites, such as www.Powerful-Sample-Resume-Formats.com, provide true "click and type" templates that are all set up for you to start filling in content.

Ultimately, how you prepare your resume is a personal decision. But, if you’re looking for an economical solution that still gives you a measure of control, think about free resume templates. If you choose template wisely, it’s still possible to have a standout resume that is uniquely yours.