How can you move people to act? In “Influence: Science & Practice,” Robert Cialdini shared these six principles:

• Reciprocation: We feel obligated to return favors performed for us. 
• Authority: We look to experts to show us the way. 
• Commitment: We want to act consistently with our commitments and values. 
• Scarcity: The less available the resource, the more we want it.
• Likeability: The more we like people, the more we want to say yes to them.
• Social proof: We look to what others do to guide our behavior. 

Continue reading " Writing to Sell: Six Secrets "

At 85, Charlotte Nushy, my favorite aunt, is “starting to get old.” The other day she was telling my sister and me that, though she’s not bedridden, she does spend a lot of time in bed because her back aches when she sits up for too long.

Then she interrupted herself to exclaim, “Shut up, whiner! Who cares?”

“Shut up, whiner! Who cares?” is my new tweeting motto. Tweeting about your late flight, awful dinner or bad service? Shut up, whiner! Who cares?

Pass the ‘Who cares?’ test

Before you hit “update” again, make sure your tweet passes the “Who cares?” test.

• Would the collection of strangers and friends following you find this information relevant, valuable and interesting? 
• Would you pick up the phone to share this info? 
• Would you invest a stamp on spreading the news?

If not, cancel the tweet. Then, instead of answering, “What are you doing?” recommend a great article or blog posting or share an insight others can use.

Continue reading " Social Media Writing: Pass the ‘Who Cares?’ Test "

Anecdotes make your messages easier to believe, understand and remember.

“Stories are the most powerful form of human communication.”

— Peg C. Neuhauser
Author, Corporate Legends and Lore

If you want to win the hearts and minds of your audience members, you must be a master storyteller. Stories can help you:

• Get and keep reader attention. It’s no secret that our audiences suffer from information overload. Each day, Americans face an average of 5,000 attempts to spark their interest — that’s nearly 2 million messages a year. In this environment, communicators must cut through the clutter to grab our audience’s attention. The best way to do that is through storytelling.
• Bring your mission, vision and values to life. These are arguably some of an organization’s most important messages. Yet in most companies, they’re relegated to laminated cards in employees’ wallets or to the back of the annual report — in six-point type. But storytelling can bring these defining statements to life. In fact, there is no other way to adequately communicate these big-picture elements.
• Enhance credibility. People who are cynical about statistics — and who isn’t these days? — find stories credible. It’s the Peer Principle of Persuasion: Our audience members believe that if it worked for someone else, it will work for them.
  

Continue reading " Master the Art of the Storyteller "

Engaging Elements Sell

“Nobody ever sold anybody anything by boring them to death.”

— David Ogilvy, advertising genius

 Ogilvy was right.

If you want someone to buy what you’re selling — whether you’re pitching products and services or positions and ideas — you must first engage them. And nothing engages readers quite as well as creative material.

Creative elements grab attention, communicate more clearly and enhance credibility. They paint pictures in your audience members’ minds so they understand your points faster, enjoy your information more and remember it longer.

Creative Components Are Crucial

Creative material is essential — not a luxury. Alas, it’s a necessity that many writers forget. After I presented a workshop on “Making Your Copy More Creative,” one attendee pulled me aside and said:

“The speeches I write are just 20 minutes long. I can’t afford to make room for anecdotes, metaphors and human-interest illustrations.”

I told him he couldn’t afford not to include creative elements — that those were the only parts of his speech his audience listened to!

Continue reading " Make Your Copy More Creative "

Make Sure Your Web Visitors Get Your Main Ideas — Without Reading the Text

Online, readers don’t read; they scan.

In fact, in one study, usability guru Jakob Nielsen found that the scannable version of a Web page was 47 percent more usable than an unscannable version.

That’s a pretty huge ROI for some bullets and subheads.

The key to scannability is to make sure your Web visitors can understand the gist of the page by reading nothing but the microcontent.

Microcontent is all those short bits of text that guide the user and provide an at-a-glance overview of what the page is about. Microcontent includes:

• Headlines
• Decks
• Subheads
• Links
• Lists
• Bold-faced lead-ins
• Highlighted keys wor

To make sure your page is scannable, run the skim test on your copy. That is, make sure your Web visitors can get the gist of your page — without reading the paragraphs.
 

Continue reading " Pass the Skim Test "