On Words and Business

In business writing, it’s okay to occasionally break the rules. This type of writing usually is supposed to be more formal that other kinds, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mix it up a little bit.

• And start a sentence with a conjunction, for example.
• Or end with a preposition–the kind your English teacher told you never to end a sentence with.
• Or to deliberately split an infinitive.
• Or let the passive voice take over for a few sentences.
• Or just go crazy. With. Punctuation. And sentence structure!

Within reason, of course. The line not to cross is probably a little farther than you usually go, but not as far as some of those horrible examples we all have in our heads. Have fun with it.

A very smart man just told me about his belief in successive approximation. He was talking about manufacturing, but the concept holds true for a lot of things, like some aspects of marketing and communications.

You do or create something based on the knowledge you have at the time. It might not be perfect, but that’s okay. Later, you gain more knowledge, so you are able to create something better. It might not be perfect either, but that’s okay.

The point is that you do what you can, you create the content you can, with the knowledge you have at the time. Don’t worry if the idea or concept isn’t perfect (the spelling and grammar should be, though!). You can fix it later if it needs fixing or replace it with something else.

If you’re like me, you sign up for all sorts of RSS feeds and email newsletters. You read them for a while. Then start only skimming them. Then maybe read the headlines or subject line to decide if you even want to skim. Then simply delete when you see the return address in your inbox. Then finally get around to unsubscribing.

Then you start up again with an entirely new set of blogs and newsletters.

If you are like me, there are only a few stalwart sources that don’t end up in that cycle. You may not read ever word of every issue or post, but you continue to find value in them.

What are those writers and publishers doing to keep you engaged?

Have you ever tried to write content in a vacuum?

• Without knowing who your target market is?
• Without knowing what other marketing efforts were on deck?
• Without coordinating with the PR department?

How’d that go?

Have you ever tried to write a marketing piece for multiple audiences?

It can be a big challenge, no matter who those audiences are.

There are examples of success in creating two levels of information from the field of entertainment.

Who is the primary audience for any of the animated feature films of recent times, like Toy Story 3 or Up? The adults who buy the tickets and accompany the children. The children are effectively the secondary audience.

Think about the pop culture references or moving and rather complicated stories being told in both of these films. Stories clearly written to keep the adults interested–the little ones in the audience for the most part don’t understand or care about that stuff. To oversimplify…the children care about the pretty colors and the action and the talking animals and toys. The adults are crying and sighing while the kids are laughing, because we are watching different movies. And we both like what we see.

How can we translate lessons from movies like that like into creating marketing materials for more than one audience? Is it even possible? Or desirable?

On January 1, I woke up early to join a bunch of people I don’t know to jump into Boston Harbor. I waited in line (much shorter than last year), signed a release form, and paid a couple bucks for the honor.

Why?

If I really want to jump into the cold water of the harbor I could do that any day at any time without waiting in line.

In part it’s because I wanted to be part of the crowd, part of an event, part of something bigger than me: the annual L Street Brownies Polar Bear Plunge on  New Year’s day.

What does your business offer that people could get in another way, but they go out of their way to get it from you? And do you know why they do?