Over on Copyblogger, a great reminder about getting back to basics by focusing on writing great paragraphs, something that also happens to make copy more translatable. In French to English translation, two of the things that can easily throw me off track are redundancies (which are often disguised in French by using a variety of [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the translatability of corporate mission statements here. Over at Marcomments, the discussion continues with some tips about how to write a good mission statement in the first place.  Corporate mission statements would be easier to translate into other languages if they followed a few of the tips [...]

Over at Bad Language, you can now download Matthew Stibbe’s new e-book on business writing. It is set up as a 30-day course with step-by-step tips on how to approach and improve your business writing. I’m very excited about this — so excited in fact that I have decided to kill a few trees and [...]

The mere thought of a corporate mission statement coming across my desk for translation is enough to make me cringe. This month’s issue of Fast Company (Nancy Lublin’s « Do something » column) talks about why most mission statements are « dumb » and what can be done about it. According to Lublin, it all comes down to having [...]

Over on Copyblogger this morning, a little headline inspiration — just what the doctor ordered for my case of acute writer’s block (the homepage, remember?). So I thought I’d try some of the suggestions to see if I can get my creative juices flowing… Inspiration source 1 — the Digg front page (Incidentally, I am [...]

I am trying to write the homepage copy for the English version of my new Website, and I’m grappling with a serious case of writer’s block. Maybe I am putting too much pressure on myself to write something so brilliant and irresistible that every single potential client that stumbles upon my homepage will magically be [...]

Earlier this month I blogged about Matthew Stibbe’s article on writing case studies. With all of the great tips Matthew offered, I no longer had any excuse not to cross « rewrite case studies » off of my to-do list. Especially now that frugal blogger Kelly Rigotti is helping me re-do my website with WordPress. As promised, [...]

I’ve been thinking about case studies lately and how I can use them more effectively to drive sales via my website, which, incidentally, Web Marketing Consultant Kelly Rigotti is currently helping me redo using WordPress. The idea that my case studies should be written as articles has been floating around in my mind for months [...]

Would you rather have customers or clients? Interesting discussion of the topic going on now on the Duct Tape Marketing blog. I have always leaned toward « customers » over « clients » and now I am convinced!

The Creative Group recently polled advertising and marketing executives on the « most annoying or overused industry buzzwords ». You will find a partal list here http://www.creativegroup.com/PressRoom?LOBName=CG On the list is my personal favorite from 2006, « low-hanging fruit ». The conclusion? Keep it simple. For powerful, persuasive communication, concrete, direct statements are usually the most effective.