Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Proud of Myself
I just posted my new web site. I’m not a graphic designer, so it took a long time to create. But I’m happy with the results and I sure learned a lot.
One phase of the design was to come up with a signature image for the site. I searched and I searched for a stock photo, but I couldn’t find one image I could just buy and use as is. So I ended up buying two – and then tried to figure out how to use Adobe Photoshop to combine the two images.
Read More...
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Stress-Free Direct Mail
I thought this was an excellent example of a highly creative use of direct mail promoting “Stress-free business communications by BlackBerry” in the UK.
The concept is right on target, but I have no idea what it cost to produce. It was probably expensive, so the question remains: Did it generate enough leads and sales to make it worthwhile?
Happy New Year everyone!
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Monday, December 26, 2005
Long Copy vs. Short Copy
According to a 2004 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of Americans read literature for pleasure. That’s a drop of 10 percent since 1982. For younger people, the drop was 28 percent.
Reading, it seems, is no longer a pleasure. It’s become a chore.
Does this mean long copy is dead? I think in many cases, the answer is yes. But much depends on the mindset of your audience and the value they perceive in reading about you.
Read More...
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Let's Talk Trash!
I know I said my next post was going to be about long copy vs. short copy (and I’m working on it), but I just got finished reading the very informative newsletter, Let’s Talk Trash!
No, I’m not making this up. Let’s Talk Trash! is evidently regularly mailed to me by my trash collection company. I say “evidently” because I never really noticed it before. I guess this is because trash isn’t a subject that exactly holds my interest.
You’d think they’d just insert this into my bill, as is the practice of my power company, phone company, cable company, and water company. Then it could ride along free – and probably get higher readership.
But no, my garbage collection company is evidently flush enough with cash to gladly pay the extra postage for a solo newsletter. Of course they’ll plead poverty when it comes time to raise my rates again.
Anyway, the whole reason I even noticed this issue of Let’s Talk Trash! is that the article featured on the back panel caught my eye. Get this – it was on best practices for tipping your trash collector.
Uh-oh. I’d better stock up on a few more fruit cakes.
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Faster and Faster
This was originally the introduction to another post, but it got so long, I decided it deserved its own article. Later, I’ll post the article I originally intended to write.
The fact that I wrote a long introduction is a bit ironic, because what I want to discuss is the ever-quickening pace of life, our ebbing attention spans, and what it all means for marketers.
Read More...
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Web Site Euphemisms
I found Philipp Lenssen’s “Top 10 Web Site Euphemisms” rather amusing.
For example:
What the site says: Under Construction
What the site means: Check back in a decade. Or later.
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
V-factor: Adding Believability to Your Copy
One of the tools in my arsenal for creating effective copy is to make sure it contains a healthy dose of verisimilitude.
Before you go off running to your dictionary, here’s the definition of verisimilitude from dictionary.com:
1. The quality of appearing to be true or real.
2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.
Note that verisimilitude doesn’t mean that something is true – just that it appears to be true. Something that’s false can have a high degree of verisimilitude, while a truthful statement can have little or none.
Because I get tired of typing verisimilitude, I call this aspect of marketing communication the V-factor. Making sure your copy has plenty of V-factor makes a big difference in getting people to respond to your offer.
Read More...
Posted by Richard Bloch
Permalink
Monday, December 05, 2005
Ready…Set…Go!
At first I thought “My First Blog Post” would be an appropriate headline here. After all, this is my first post.
But that headline is just a bit too trite – especially for a copywriter. In fact, a Google search of that headline (in quotes) comes up with tens of thousands of listings. And I’m sure many of those blogs have been abandoned by now.
You see, lots of blog start out with good intentions, but there’s a constant pressure to post interesting material – especially for bloggers who update their sites every day.
I won’t be posting every day. About once or twice a week is more my speed. Quality, after all, is more important to me than quantity.
The major topic of this blog is marketing and communications. I know that’s a vast area to cover, but my interests in this subject are wide and diverse. Specific areas I plan to write about include marketing, communications, advertising, copywriting, direct mail, email, Web design, and probably many other ancilliary topics I haven’t even thought of yet.
This first post kind of reminds me of the first day of school each semester. There wasn’t much planned except for meeting your new teachers and getting an overview of how they planned to run their classes. Real learning began on the second day.
So get ready for my second post. That will give you a better idea of what you can expect from this blog.
