Five Ways to Prevent Costly BloopersWritten by Heather Reimer
Classic bloopers: In a cocktail lounge in Norway: "Ladies are requested not to have children at bar." At a Hong Kong dry cleaner: "Drop your trousers here for best results." In a Nairobi restaurant: "Customers who find our waitress rude ought to see manager." Bloopers are such a hoot - until, that is, your business promotions wind up saying something you never intended and YOU become a laughing stock. Here's how to prevent those little slips of keyboard from generating giggles instead of conversions: 1. First and foremost, have somebody else read what you've written before it goes out. If you do nothing else to improve your promotions, do this. You'll be amazed at bloopers and gaffs they catch. Remember, even famous writers have editors and there's a good reason for that.
| | What Writers Can Learn From Internet Marketers Written by Mary Anne Hahn
OK, I admit it. I've developed a great fascination with and respect for Internet marketers. The good ones, at least.If you subscribe to any marketing ezines, you become familiar with their names soon enough. Terry Dean, Yanik Silver, John Colanzi, Jim Edwards, Lee Benson, Dave Balch, Marlon Sanders, Jan Tallent- Dandridge and Jim Turner, to name a few. And a there's a whole slew of up-and-comers on horizon, men and women who have studied masters and are trying to follow in their footsteps--or create paths of their own. I can see some of you out there, wrinkling your noses as you read this. Internet marketers? Aren't they a bunch of hype-driven shysters whose sole reason for existence is tricking unsuspecting Web surfers into giving them their credit card information? Well, no. Not good ones, at least. What are they, then? 1. First and foremost, they're writers. Every one of them. They write books, articles and reports by dozens. They develop e- courses and publish ezines. Internet marketers don't talk about writing, or dream about it, or hope to do it someday. They *write* prolifically, and best of them are darned good at it. And they're not starving writers either, living in unheated garrets and subsisting on stale bread. These writers make money. Some of them make plenty of it. 2. They're entrepreneurs. You might even call them pioneers. They took one look at text-based Internet, saw its potential, seized its opportunities and built mini-empires on it. They boldly published ebooks long before rest of us thought of electronic publishing as a viable outlet for our work. Success didn't happen to them overnight, but they believed in medium and, more importantly, in themselves and what they had to say. 3. They're motivators and motivational. You'll never meet a more upbeat group of people online than successful Internet marketers. Powerful words and positive phrases make up bulk of whatever they write. They constantly urge their readers to set lofty goals, be willing to make sacrifices, persevere in face of adversity and eschew any doubts expressed by people who supposedly have our best interests at heart. Just like any "regular" writer, they know that their loved ones might not understand it when they prefer to be at their keyboards instead of Uncle Harry's birthday party. But hey, they need to finish that chapter first, or work on that Web copy before they take time to socialize.
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