Healthcare Wordsmith

According to a December 11, 2008 Harris Interactive Poll, the three most trusted organizations influencing politics and business in Washington, D.C. are Consumer Reports, the American Red Cross, and AARP.

Congratulations to them. Good for them, right?

Well, maybe…

All three organizations are among the most well known organizations exerting influence in Washington. But two of these organizations are also viewed as among the four organizations having the least amount of power. The survey had an interesting finding, what they called an “equation.”

Trust is inversely related to power.

The organizations that are perceived as the most powerful are the least trusted. And those that are the least powerful are the most trusted.

So, where else is this equation true?

It certainly at times seems to be true in politics. How often do we see an underdog candidate get elected, and then after assuming power, the people’s trust in her falls? Sometimes it’s due to corruption or mistakes in wielding power, and sometimes it’s just due to using power.  Even with integrity.

I’ve seen it in the politics of businesses. Someone from the ranks assumes leadership, and suddenly his decisions are questioned. Not always because he’s made unpopular decisions, sometimes just because he’s made a decision. Any decision.

Which raises several questions, including:

• Where does your organization or business fall on the power – trust equation?
• More importantly, is its place consistent with its mission and values?
• And do your copywriting and marketing materials help or hurt your company’s position in the equation?

I know I’ll be thinking about the power – trust equation when I make decisions about my copywriting and marketing — for both clients and my own business. Perhaps you will too.

The full Harris Interactive Poll results are here.

Originally published December 18, 2008

This week I learned a new recipe for making cookies. And it got me to thinking about how a successful sales letter, in many ways is a recipe.

So, what do you do first when writing a sales letter? Assemble the ingredients? Instead of flour, sugar, shortening, etc., assemble the headline, lead, order form, etc.? No, that comes later.

Maybe you look at the recipe? That way you’ll know what you need. So, for a sales letter you could look at notes on how to write a sales letter, or even look at old successful and unsuccessful ones. Also an important component, but it’s a later stage of the process.

The first thing in cooking you have to do is decide what to make. And likely that depends upon who will eat the finished product. Cookies I make for my dog will be quite different than those for Great Aunt Tillie. At least I hope so!

And my sales letter should be just as customized.

Yes, it’s customized for the client. But even more, it’s customized for the audience. Finding your target audience is one of the earliest steps of a successful sales letter. And no, it’s not as easy as deciding to make Aunt Tillie’s favorite cookies. Unlike Aunt Tillie who told you her favorite cookies, your audience usually isn’t directly talking to you. Finding who they are often requires some detective work.

This time of year I get inundated with solicitations for money. So many are great causes. And just this week I opened one that wasn’t written to me. My professional interest kept me reading. Otherwise, there was no reason for me to read on … let alone give.

And that’s the essence of the first step of writing a sales letter: [Read the rest of this entry...]

Your marketing message should be consistent throughout your business.

And so should your company’s attitude towards customers.

Years ago, I attended a practice-building seminar for physicians.  The presenter stressed that the most important person in a doctor’s office is not the doctor … or the nurse … or the office manager.  The most important person is …

The receptionist.

Why the receptionist?  Because she has the day to day contact with patients.  The first impression of a physician’s office may not be the outside of the building, or the waiting room, but the telephone contact with the receptionist.  If she’s brusque or condescending with patients, you can bet they’ll look elsewhere.

Ironic, isn’t it?  Most likely the person with the least education, experience, and salary is the given the most important job as the initial face — or voice — of the practice.

In other businesses, the customer service rep may have the same job.  Not necessarily the same salary position, but maybe.

How many times have you complained or heard someone complain about trying to get customer support, and being transferred to someone who barely speaks English?  Not a good thing.  They may be the smartest person in the world about the problem, but if they can’t communicate the answer to the customer, the company loses.  Not only in prestige, but potentially much, much more …

Consider this: if you’re outsourcing your customer service to another company or especially another country, you may also just be outsourcing your customers, and losing your own job.  If not your company.

I’m all for saving money.  But when pinching pennies ends up costing customers and jobs, it’s past time to re-examine your company’s priorities.

So, what’s in your Customer Service Department — and what’s in your company’s wallet?

Even though I’d had a heads-up that Tropicana has changed its carton, it still took me by surprise.

Yesterday, as I was walking through my local grocery store, the display caught my eye.  At first glance, the display looked empty.  The individual carton doesn’t look that way, but the combined effect of a couple of end shelves filled with them gave that impression.  I stopped to look, and then realized this was the new Tropicana.

I liked the old carton fine.  The instant recognition of a premium brand actually makes shopping easier.  There’s enough with checking the date on the carton and to be sure it hasn’t been opened or damaged in transit without having to hunt for the brand.  It’s nice to be able to automatically reach fro the brand, while searching dates and examining the carton.

But with this new carton, that’s no longer the case.  At least until the consumer retrains herself to reach for this new carton.  Assuming the generic juices won’t follow suit and all soon look like Tropicana.

Yes, Roberta Rosenberg (The Copywriting Maven) is right:  it looks like a generic brand.  But not generic juice.  It reminds me more of generic canned vegetables.  I’m at a loss to explain the new package.  Tropicana’s explanation left me still wondering: Why?  You can read it yourself here.

I also noticed the new Pepsi bottles and cans have a similar feel.  Which got me to thinking …

Is generic the new branding?

And what does this mean for marketing?  Will branding be a thing of the past?

With lines seeming to blur between the policies of political parties, and now between premium and generic brands, is this a step towards the universal conformity George Orwell so eloquently cautioned about in his book 1984?

I hope not.

I took down our Christmas tree on New Years Day.  But not before taking a picture of it.

Why is it here?

Well, I’m so happy I can add pictures to my blog now, that I couldn’t resist!

It’s not your traditional Christmas tree.  It’s an artificial one.  It’s white.  And it had an eclectic assortment of ornaments.  Some are store-bought, usually at reduced prices after Christmas.

Some of the ornaments have been lovingly made by hand.  Several are almost 15 years old.  And every year, I carefully re-wrap them.  The ones I’m talking about are cinnamon cookie-like ornaments, handmade by my sister and nephew when he was a toddler.  While they’ve lost their cinnamon fragrance,  not their brown color or appeal.  And every year we enjoy once again treasuring them.

We have a white Christmas tree.  No, it’s not traditional.  And I don’t care.  It occasionally loses a few needles, but not like the ones I remember as a child.  You know, the “real” trees.  And not having to remember and then climb under it to water it is a double blessing.  As are the lack of spiders.  We used to have to check the tree before bringing it in the house.  Even so, occasionally we’d miss, and some spider would come out in  the warm house.  Usually scaring one of us girls.

An added bonus of a nontraditional white tree is it’s easier for my mother to see the lights and ornaments than on a dark green background.  Something I frankly wish more graphic artists would pay attention to.  Sure the colors look nice, but actually reading a lot of small light type on a dark background is hard.  Sometimes impossible.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and 2009 is Happy and Healthy!

Well, I finally did it.

After months of indecisiveness, I decided to change my Internet web host.  Unfortunately, my prior blog is lost since I misunderstood their cancellation policy.

They cancel accounts within 48 hours, but require a 30 day notice.  So what does that mean?

It means, the site is down within 48 hours, but they continue to invoice you for 30 days.  So, essentially they have a 60 day penalty for cancellation.

My apologies to anyone who’s been looking for my site the past few days.  And to those of you who have so kindly posted comments on my blog in the past.  Unfortunately, the posts with their comments are lost in cyberspace.  Oh, I have the posts on my computer.  And may in the future re-post them, or update them.  But not today.

Today I’m thrilled to have a new host.  One with one click installation of Word Press and files.  I don’t have to fiddle with an ftp host, and try to figure it out.  Amazing!  Thank you, Hostgator.com.

My previous web host had one click installation of Word Press.  Sort of.  It was  Word Press 1.something, and they had absolutely no support for it. And the problem with that version was it doesn’t screen for spam comments.  So, I spent way too much time individually deleting spam comments.

Which is a learning experience all its own.  Some comments were gobblety gook, not just words strung together but also random letters.  Others were obviously XXX-rated, and I didn’t want to read them let alone have them on my site!

From a marketing standpoint, that web host failed several ways: [Read the rest of this entry...]