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STOP AND READ THIS!
Oops, PLEASE STOP AND READ THIS!
We don’t usually give orders or make such emphatic suggestions, but the reality of it is that copywriting is SUCH an important subject and service, we had to grab your attention.
We know you have a message to convey, and we’re here to help your message get out effectively in a way that will capture attention and create enough intrigue that your prospects are more likely to take that oh-so-important next step. Don’t disable your message by distracting your prospect with typos, inconsistent style or punctuation, or making him or her feel uninformed because you used too much insider lingo or jargon or an alphabet soup of abbreviations! We have extensive experience in a broad array of industries and operating areas within those industries, with the food industry being one where our roots run deep. Marketing, advertising, public relations, human resources, operations, sales, and more, big budgets or small . . . they’re all on our can-do list!
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GOOD TO KNOW
Do you know the difference between the two different types of abbreviations: an acronym and an initialism? They are not interchangeable and are often misused. An initialism is pronounced letter by letter, such as IBM, U.S.A., or WWW. An acronym is pronounced as a word, such as PIN, ZIP, or SCUBA (which many people don’t realize actually stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). It’s kind of a fun trivia question to ask if there’s a lull in the conversation.
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If you’re a creative agency, graphic-design firm, Web developer, an entrepreneur, or a corporate marketing, advertising, or public relations department—we’re your objective, qualified resource that can make you look good while you’re making your company or clients look good. It’s hard for even the very-best writers and journalists to copyedit or proofread their own work. There’s not shame in it—and sometimes a fabulous new approach or positioning can result from our combined resources!
Long and Short Form Writing
We have extensive experience in both long- and short-form writing, which really means that we can research and write long articles for publications or detailed marketing collateral or create short, punchy headline and body copy for small ads or clean, “copy-light” Web pages or virtually anything else. When hiring a copywriter, it’s important to know if he or she has experience in or excels at just one or the other or both to properly match the skills and style to your project.
On the Web or in Print—Equally Important!
We are equally skilled at writing your message from just a rough conversation or doing a substantive rewrite on your existing copy or a few bullet points in a way that still sounds like you but a newer, better you. One common error made by many companies is to labor over their printed materials and refine the message beautifully but then just toss up some unedited, inconsistent content onto their Website. We will help ensure that your message and image are consistent—and consistently correct and clear.
Use a Consistent Style Guide
We also build a custom style guide for you to help make it easy for you (and for us) to keep you consistent in all of your written materials whether printed collateral or Web content. It’s in a simple, easy-to-read format that will help ensure that any items used in your printed pieces where discretion can guide the choice, such as whether you’re going to list your phone numbers in the more-contemporary XXX.XXX.XXXX format or the classic (XXX) XXX-XXXX or whether you’re using serial commas before ands and or (definitely recommended TO use them, by the way). Some older, “whiskered” styles may not convey the impression you want, such as a phone number that includes a 1- in front of it all or all dashes—1-XXX-XXX-XXXX.
Here we’ll record which of the four acceptable choices you might make with regard to Website, Web site, website, or web site or whether your style is to use e-mail or email (e-mail is the recommended form to better match other, similar terms, such as e-commerce). All are considered to be acceptable at this time, with the high-technology firms migrating to the lower case, but at least we can keep you consistent. We’ve given seminars on the subject of being correct AND consistent as it’s so important to getting across the message that you’re accurate, quality-oriented, and buttoned down in your work as your readers will notice typos just as human resources specialists will notice typos or poor grammar on a resume as they’re looking for reasons to rule out an applicant. As noted on our Resources page, we consider McGraw-Hill’s The Gregg Reference Manual to be the definitive style guide to use for business communications. It also has an amazingly detailed and easy-to-use index, which makes it quick to find what you’re looking for. Don’t allow inconsistent or even sloppy writing make your first impression a bad or questionable one.
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