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NOVEMBER 2005
The Wonder of Words
 to this month's edition of M45 Momentum, a monthly e-newsletter for the business community featuring tips, trends and trivia from the experts at M45 Marketing Services.
Only about 20% of your marketing copy is going to be read, according to Karon Thackton, President and CEO of Marketing Words. The rest will simply be scanned or skipped altogether. So you might wonder why we believe that 100% of the words used in your business communications are important. We know that certain sections of your copy are practically guaranteed to be read by your target audience. Obviously they're important. We also know that each reader may have their own hot buttons and reading preferences. So we don't know which parts they'll read. So we have to make sure it's all good! Whether the project is electronic or printed, the wordsmiths at M45 Marketing Services will guide you in the "write" direction. 
Consumer-focused Brochure Conveys Concise Message
Stephenson Service Company has been serving customers in northwest Illinois for over 75 years. Their high-quality products and services, including FS Comfort Pro™ propane, are well known in the area because of the company's dependable  delivery, contracting options, expert advice and information, and full-time service department. They wanted to make sure their message was clear—not all propane suppliers are equal. So, they contacted M45 Marketing Services to develop a new brochure to help current and potential customers clearly understand their capabilities.
M45 helped them focus on their key strengths and translate them into customer benefits. Then we refined the information into a concise promotional tool using straightforward language. The result? A flexible, consumer-focused brochure with the right words to help the client meet their business objective.
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 Remember those elementary school spelling bees complete with sweaty palms, dry throat and nervous stomach? Well, you're all grown up. Surely you've mastered the most 25 misspelled words in the English language by now—haven't you? If you're not sure all of your business writing samples are as perfect as they should be, take the test at BusinessWriting.com. You probably did so well with the top 25 that you'll want to check out the top 100 misspelled words at YourDictionary.com.
But just spelling things correctly obviously isn't the whole story. Writing web documents, for example, is a different kind of "spelling bee" altogether. Web editing is not the same as writing for print, and simply moving print documents onto web pages is not using the medium to its best advantage. Web readers typically do not read a page from start to finish on the computer screen. Instead, they scan a site for relevant items and drill-down for topics, or print out pages containing the information they seek. As with any type of writing, web writing works best when you apply a style and method to your web documents that accommodate this type of reading.
Or maybe you have a specific writing challenge in a more specialized area, like technical documentation or completing an application for ISO certification, or maybe writing a speech (no, you should NOT "wing it!"). These types of writing also have their quirks, and we can help you tame the English language (and some others too, if needed!) so that it works for you, not against.
So whether you need a little polish on your business writing and some spelling bee assistance with your grammar and usage, development of a style guide for your website, or assistance with a specialized type of writing such as technical documentation, M45 can help. You won't "bee" sorry you gave us a call!
"The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.”
—Edwin Schlossberg
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Words are powerful tools
"For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change."
—Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944- )
 Words work hard. We use them to communicate what we want, what we need, what we feel, what we think, even who we are. In a business context, just a few words—whether written or spoken—can make the difference between winning and losing a contract, keeping or losing a customer, even making or breaking a new product introduction.
Written words are especially powerful. Once something is down in "black and white" it cannot really be taken back. Its meaning will be construed by its reader, and later words of clarification (or back pedaling!) do not bear the same weight. As such, it is imperative that content is clear and convincing, because within a few seconds an impression is formed—an impression of you and your business.
Spoken words are also weighty, and sometimes the most memorable. From words as powerful as "I have a dream" to a catchy coined expression like "three-peat," the right turn of a phrase can move a nation to action or create a cultural icon. Learning to speak using the right words for your audience can create common ground, convince, motivate and entertain.
We love words. We understand their power and use them to help clients meet business objectives. We get to know a target audience—their buzzwords, their educational levels, their hot buttons. Then we use our skill set and experience to create attention-getting, benefit-oriented verbiage that communicates clearly and effectively. So whether you need a brochure, a PowerPoint® presentation, an advertisement, a speech, a DVD/video, or another communication tool, you can count on us to choose "your" words very carefully. 
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Even seasoned wordsmiths need a little help occasionally. Here are some excellent online sources for help when you're puzzled by punctuation, stymied by syntax or vexed by verbs:
Writing Tip of the Minute
Reading sentences backwards can be a great way to proofread your documents. You're more likely to catch duplicate words and other errors that way.
And for the pundits of punctuation among you, test your skill with the online game based on the hilarious British best seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
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Since 1982, the English Department at San Jose State University in California has sponsored "The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest," a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest is named in dishonor of one Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a Victorian novelist whose claim to fame is being the author of the much maligned phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night."
And the "winners" are:
"It was high noon in the jungles of South India when I began to recognize that if we didn't find water for our emus soon, it wouldn't be long before we would be traveling by foot; and with the guerilla warriors fast on our heels, I was starting to regret my decision to use poultry for transportation."
"The rising sun crawled over the ridge and slithered across the hot barren terrain into every nook and cranny like grease on a diner's grill in the morning rush, but only until eleven o'clock when they switch to the lunch menu."
"She was independent and impetuous and winning her heart would be like capturing lightning in a bottle, not the plastic kind that is prevalent everywhere today but the glass kind that I used to buy crème soda in at the service station, when they were actually SERVICE STATIONS, two blocks from my house back in the '50s and early '60s and I would return them for two cents' deposit, which was a quick source of income back then because my allowance was only ten cents a week."
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