The Marketing Professional

How to take your readers by the arm and haul them into your article

Any good writer will tell you that if you don’t capture your readers attention in the first sentence, or at least within the first paragraph, you’ve lost your audience.

It doesn’t matter what you’re writing. Be it a magazine article, short story or ad copy. It’s essential to get your readers attention quickly, and then keep it.

Being able to write well is not something you’re born with. Even “Natural Talent” has to be nurtured and developed over time. All great authors had to learn about grammar, spelling and punctuation at some point.

In fact, I would like to show you exactly what I’m talking about…in a real world situation. There is a website I’m aware of that posts stories from both armatures and professionals. The amateurs think their stories are well done, but, the truth is, they need plenty of work. They look and read like amateur writers wrote them. There are plenty of grammatical and punctuation errors. In fact, some of the stories themselves just don’t flow well.

On the other hand, the short stories written by published authors, look like they have actually learned their trade. Yes, I did say, “learned their trade”, and yes, you can do the same.

After looking at the examples from the links in this article, you find yourself in the category of “amateur writer”, there are a few things you can do right off the bat to improve your writing skills, especially your grammar and punctuation skills.

The first is, analyze published authors. Pick up any professional publication or go back to one of the links in this article and study their work. Look closely at their grammar skills. See where they put their comma’s, their quotation marks. Look at how they set up their paragraphs and the sentences within those paragraphs. This stuff isn’t natural talent it’s learned talent. And like I said earlier, you can learn how to write like a pro just as well. So look closely at what professional authors do and learn from their experience.

My second suggestion would be to get yourself a good writing program. You may have to pay a few bucks for one, but it will be well worth it. Find one that will help you with both grammar and punctuation.
If you think you can get by without a good writing program, well, maybe you can. But if good help is available, and it’s only your pride or ego holding you back. Why not put those things on the back burner for now and save yourself some time and effort. Writing programs do work.

The third and final thing I would tell you is to, as the old Nike slogan goes, “Just Do It”. Start writing. This is something that is done by both professionals and armatures, and it’s vitally important. It doesn’t have to be a ad copy or anything in particular. Use your imagination. Make something up. Just start writing. And then check it for grammar and punctuation errors. It’s a guarantee you will improve.

What’s the added bonus to all of this? If you get good enough, you might actually be able to make a few bucks with your new talent.

To your ad copy success,

The Marketing Professional

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Is Your Website Designed To Sell?

Why do some websites sell better than others? Do you need a marketing degree to create a website? Does design have much impact on sales?

You may not realize this but many of the successful internet marketing businesses realize that design, or layout of the website should be as much of a marketing decision as the ad copy. Why is that?

Web designers can do some amazing things with graphics and colors. You will also have a much more professional looking site when an expert applies his handiwork. However, it is very important to understand some of the key elements that smart marketers will make certain to appear (or NOT appear) on their highly profitable sites. If you are aware of these you may be able to select a designer who is knowledgeable in marketing as well as design. Visit Internet Marketing for more information

COLOR:

Designs with a dramatic color can make compelling choices for setting a mood. But reading on a computer screen demands as much contrast as possible, otherwise the reader will develop vision fatigue. You do not want to irritate or tire your visitors in any way or they may leave, so be certain that the main body of your website copy is black writing on a white background – or as close to that ideal as possible.

Colors also change appearance on different monitors, so what looks cool and calm on one monitor may be bright and glaring on another. Simple works.

GRAPHICS:

Striking, bold graphics can be a real eye-catcher for visitors. Still, successful internet marketers are pretty much unanimous in stating that you should avoid flash graphics as much as possible. Again, they tend to tire visitors eyes or create a distraction from the written copy. Even if they are initially impressed by the work it may subconsciously annoy them. Simplicity is again the best way to go. Visit Online Marketing for more information

LAYOUT:

The first ‘fold’ of your site is similar to opening a tractional paper letter. If you remove a letter from an envelope that is folded in three, you will obviously view the top ‘fold’ first.

This fold is what individuals will see without scrolling down the page. It is CRUCIAL that important elements like descriptive headlines, your contact number, newsletter subscription form etc. all show in the first fold. Do NOT place banners here unless they are the main element of your business as you will be giving prime space to other websites and your customer (which you fought hard to get in the first place) will be gone just as quickly.

These are just some of the important elements you should be aware of when designing your site.

Visit Marketing for more information

Always to Your Success,

Mark Edward Brown

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