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Casual Articles - Getting Results from Your Writing & Speaking
Veteran business writing teacher, Rudolph Flesch, used to tell this story:Each year, he and his wife would exchange presents with some old friends. One year, the Flesches subscribed in the name of their friends to a magazine they knew they would like to read. The couple duly received a card notifying them that a gift subscription in their favor had been entered.A month or two later, the intended recipients menti
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have objec
You might think it’s completely random how they come up with your credit card numbers. But, oh, how wrong could you be! There’s a very complex, and very exact method that credit card companies use to come up with those 10 digit numbers. It’s called the Luhn Formula, or the modulus 10, or mod 10 for short.The Luhn formula not only helps the credit card companies come up with your numbers. It also allows them to double-check
To put it another way, the effectiveness of communication can be measured by the responses it gets. It's not measured by how well we wrote or how eloquently we spoke, although those can help us get the responses we want.
Good writing and speaking help us get a response because they help get the message across. As I've argued in my book, A Manager's Guide to Newsletters, a newsletter that doesn't get read cannot get a response from readers.
So, writing, designing, speaking, and all those other creative activities matter. But, in the end, responses are what count, and effectiveness means getting the responses we want.
That's true for all types of communication, and not just marketing campaigns. Managers who send messages to employees, for example, want employees to respond in a particular way. Maybe they want the employees to do something differently, or maybe they want to reinforce existing behaviors.
For a couple of employee newsletters I published, effectiveness meant greater awareness of health and safety issues. If the newsletter worked, then they should have helped reduce the number of plant accidents and helped employees lead healthier lifestyles.
One more point: Effectiveness cannot be achieved without articulated objectives. As the old adage goes, "If you don't know where you're going, any road with do." Or, as the inimitable Yogi Berra put it, "If you don't know where you are going... You might end up someplace else."
With that, let’s create a quick and easy checklist that takes us through the basic steps required for effective communication:
1. What is your objective, what do you want to happen? Do you want more sales, reduced employee turnover, renewals by members? Be specific about your objectives, and if you can attach time and dollar values to them so much the better.
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have object
Have you ever played on a serious sports team or worked in a management position? Have you ever been on a committee where everyone had to pull their weight to pull off a rather large project to insure success? Have you ever noticed that there invariably in the group was a weak link and it just really made things tough on the rest of team?You probably thought to yourself how unfair this was. Perhaps you had a talk with them
So, writing, designing, speaking, and all those other creative activities matter. But, in the end, responses are what count, and effectiveness means getting the responses we want.
That's true for all types of communication, and not just marketing campaigns. Managers who send messages to employees, for example, want employees to respond in a particular way. Maybe they want the employees to do something differently, or maybe they want to reinforce existing behaviors.
For a couple of employee newsletters I published, effectiveness meant greater awareness of health and safety issues. If the newsletter worked, then they should have helped reduce the number of plant accidents and helped employees lead healthier lifestyles.
One more point: Effectiveness cannot be achieved without articulated objectives. As the old adage goes, "If you don't know where you're going, any road with do." Or, as the inimitable Yogi Berra put it, "If you don't know where you are going... You might end up someplace else."
With that, let’s create a quick and easy checklist that takes us through the basic steps required for effective communication:
1. What is your objective, what do you want to happen? Do you want more sales, reduced employee turnover, renewals by members? Be specific about your objectives, and if you can attach time and dollar values to them so much the better.
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have objec
Have you seen this happen to a woman you know?She gets very close to success - then turns her attention in another direction.She has an opportunity to "shine" at a meeting, but turns it over to someone else.You compliment her on what a great job she did and she gives credit to the team instead.She has a million-dollar idea, but decides to take the safer route and get a steady job and pursue the idea "l
For a couple of employee newsletters I published, effectiveness meant greater awareness of health and safety issues. If the newsletter worked, then they should have helped reduce the number of plant accidents and helped employees lead healthier lifestyles.
One more point: Effectiveness cannot be achieved without articulated objectives. As the old adage goes, "If you don't know where you're going, any road with do." Or, as the inimitable Yogi Berra put it, "If you don't know where you are going... You might end up someplace else."
With that, let’s create a quick and easy checklist that takes us through the basic steps required for effective communication:
1. What is your objective, what do you want to happen? Do you want more sales, reduced employee turnover, renewals by members? Be specific about your objectives, and if you can attach time and dollar values to them so much the better.
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have objec
One of the American Dreams is Home Ownership! But just how achievable is that dream for the ordinary Joe in the street?I would say these days that the Home Ownership dream is more achievable than ever before.We are more financially aware than our grandparents which gives us an advantage when it comes to Home Ownership. For them it would be something other people did, for us we can all do it.A home loan is a l
With that, let’s create a quick and easy checklist that takes us through the basic steps required for effective communication:
1. What is your objective, what do you want to happen? Do you want more sales, reduced employee turnover, renewals by members? Be specific about your objectives, and if you can attach time and dollar values to them so much the better.
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have objec
Advertising online is really important for the online business. It is also very effective. You can use different types of online advertising methods to get the desired result.Place all your online advertisements in a website that has the maximum visitors a day. This is important because more visitors will ensure that you get good numbers of visitors to your website and business through the online advertising program.
2. What response of readers or listeners is necessary? What action should they take? What thoughts do you want them to keep in their minds? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviors? What do they need to do in terms of your objective?
3. Why would they respond to your message? It's all very well for you to have objectives, but you'll also have to offer something that provides value in their terms. Think of commercial broadcasting, which combines free entertainment with advertising messages.
4. What message content will motivate them to act? What subjects will provide that value to them?
5. How will you present that content? You can entertain, inform, consult, challenge, solve problems, and more.
6. How often will you have to repeat the message? In many cases, you'll need to make multiple contacts to get the response you want. Stockbrokers making sales calls, for example, figure on an average of five to seven contacts before a prospect becomes a potential client.
7. If you quantified your objectives, does the value of meeting the objective exceed the cost of communicating? In a marketing context, for example, how many sales do you have to make to pay the cost of your advertising campaign?
Going through these steps will start us on the right foot, because it pushes us to think about responses. And, when we're focused on responses, we're much more likely to communicate effectively.
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