Ready for a writing challenge?

I just learned that Robert Caro, Pulitzer winner and LBJ biographer, writes the last sentence of his books first. He said in a TV interview with Chris Wallace, it gives him something to write toward. I think I want to give this a try ... although it probably won't be the last sentence of a book that I'll write.  More likely a direct mail letter or blog post.    

Word of the Day:

Journey.  I've been hearing this word a lot from clients in the way they describe either the product they are marketing or their customer's interaction with their product and their reason for using it.  Journey.  For me, the word has previously been cumbersome.  Not as much fun as a vacation.  Nor nearly as engaging as an adventure.  I'm thinking I need to learn more about journeys.  Today, I attended a conference at which one of the speakers used it to describe the marketing of Google Fiber.  So, the word of the day is: journey.

Would some talented direct mail designer puleeez ...

... design direct mail wafer seals (aka tabs) that look engaging and become part of the mailpiece design as well as meet USPS regulations?  Right now, the 3 tabs you're required to use to qualify for cheaper postal rates are difficult to rip open and look tacky (no pun intended).  They're annoying, ugly and do NOT encourage people to open their mail to read what's inside.  I know this from personal experience.  Today's mail delivered two pieces that were darn-near-impossible to open thanks to these tabs.  Six of 'em.  One mailpiece was even from Hallmark.  HALLMARK.  The social expression people who know all about designing greeting cards people love to open and read.  Embarrassing.      

Thank you ...

With healthy doses of patience and nudging from Ethan-My-Editor, my new e-book The Cross-Channel Copywriting Handbook is out.  I'm grateful to Ethan and to my first book buyers ... Thank YOU!  By the time the book was put to bed, I realized how much my direct mail experience has influenced the writing I also do for digital media. Today, I'm prepping for a direct mail copywriting webinar and 99.9% of what I'll be talking about applies across channels.  Call it copy, content, blogging or haiku, words are fascinating.

The refrigerator magnet that delivers pizza ...

I just read this story about The Best of Show winner in the 2012 Caples Awards.  It's a tasty example of what happens when creativity and technology team up. Look at the results, the budget and the YouTube video ...

Red Tomato Pizza needed an inexpensive way to take on the mega pizza chains, enhance customer loyalty, and increase and improve its delivery service. So the pizza shop teamed up with TBWA\RAAD to create Red Tomato VIP refrigerator magnets.  Sound ho-hum?  Hardly.

Besides decorating the fridge, these magnet act as VIP pizza “emergency delivery” devices for loyal pizza lovers. Customers push the magnet’s button to automatically place their pizza order of choice. The ordering process is set up using Bluetooth technology via customers’ mobile phones. Customers can update their pizza of choice online, which adjusts the magnet order accordingly. Red Tomato also created a YouTube video to help spread the word.  http://bit.ly/W5aY5U

 

The service delivered delicious results. By keeping to a marketing budget of $9,000, deliveries skyrocketed 500% within four weeks. Red Tomato Pizza received 3,240 requests from previous customers and 97,133 from new ones. Whoa! The VIP magnet also experienced a publicity boom with more than 12,000 mentions, 9,400 international news stories—worth more than $8 million in free media. The success of the program also opened the door for global franchise opportunities. 

Just because you're American Express ...

 ... that doesn't mean I'm going to invest a lot of time and energy in trying to read your extremely difficult- to-read letter I just received offering me your Business Gold Rewards Card.

Here's what I saw at a glance:

The opening sentence started with your name and offered me no reason to continue reading -- both are immediate indicators this letter is all about YOU and not about me.

The typeface was too dense to be inviting to read and the line length made tracking from the end of one line to the start of the next challenging.

Your key benefit copy was in a type color that receded rather than emphasized.  Seriously, make things hard to read and you guarantee they won't get read.

Dense, dense, dense copy.  Think boring ....

No P.S.  (Hello .... did you know that 30% of the people who read letters read the P.S. first ... and you don't have one.)

The only message on the page that caught my eye was at the very bottom.  It read:
You can choose to stop receiving "prescreened" offers of credit by calling toll-free, etc., etc., etc.

Which is is exactly what I'm about to do.

Shame on you, American Express.  You can do better.

Two of my favorites things are ...

Word(s).  And chocolate.  So, that's the story behind the name for this blog.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to write about more than just the words that create copy and content AND See's amazingly decadent chocolates, but I'm also pretty sure words and chocolate will get mentioned.  Repeatedly.

Write like you mean it ...

Enough said about that.

The adventure continues ...

I've been writing since someone--probably my mother-the-teacher--put a pencil in my hand.  Then my father-the-postmaster introduced me to stamps!  So in the last 30+ years, I've become a cross-channel copywriter/content developer whose goal is to engage readers in responding to direct mail, email, websites, blogs, twitter posts and a whole lot more. I love to write and look forward to exploring this love for writing with others who appreciate words. Stay tuned.