Why are we so short on business writing skills anyway? Mark Twain supposedly said, “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” Obviously, he was being sarcastic because there’s a lot more to writing than crossing out the wrong words, right? But what? What are we missing? What do we not know? Well, it turns out there’s a lot we don’t know about writing…especially business writing. One study found 26.2% of employers think college graduates have deficient business writing skills—not weak but deficient.[1] As for...
We all want to spend less time on email, right? Whether you’re a typical office worker logging in the 40 hours (plus) per week, or a freelancer hustling to make money, you are working a lot. And much of that time is time spent on email. It’s not anecdotal. It’s real. You’ve probably seen the numbers, like that we spend one-third of our work hours on email. Bleh! But what if there was a better way? What if you could spend less time on email? What could you accomplish if you weren’t stuck in your inbox? What higher...
I love that so many young people are making a living as copywriters, whether working as freelancers or in-house. But…quite a few of you could use a reminder about how to capitalize correctly when writing headlines and the like! So let’s take a quick dive into the rules you need to know… How to capitalize correctly Since you’ll be writing headlines, titles, headings, subheadings and the like, let’s quickly talk about how to capitalize correctly, because details count. To do it correctly, capitalize every: Noun Verb Adjective...
Let’s get to the point: Poor business writing skills are costing businesses billions of dollars. Businesses are paying this high price due to time wasted on many back-and-forth emails, brands damaged by careless content, poor communications that bog down projects, and more. Employees aren’t doing this on purpose! Employees want to be more effective and productive, but if they lack the skills, how can they? It’s in your best interests to help employees improve business writing skills. When you improve business writing skills The...
I must be in a mood, because this example of crappy copywriting has me riled. Do you see why? Do you see what’s wrong with this sentence? For context, it’s from an Amazon marketing email: “We wanted to let you know you left something in your cart.” Answer? It’s wishy washy to the point of passive, oh my! And this is not how you write a marketing email. The email says, “We wanted to…” and I think, “OK, whatever,” as the customer who received the email. “We” is all about them. I, as a typical consumer, am all about me....
