Your marketing writing doesn’t need to be all sell, sell, sell.  Your writing can speak to your customers pre-sale and then post-sale.

I’ve mentioned before the differences between marketing writing and technical writing. You can use both on your web site, in your newsletters, and in various communications to customers and potential customers.
Think “Post-Sale”
After you sell your product or service to a customer—the work was performed and paid for—he still needs to hear from you.

Depending on your business, your customer needs instructions or opinion. If you sell garage door openers, provide installation and how-to-use instructions. If you sell mortgages or cosmetic …

If you use the Web to market yourself, you probably think in terms of marketing writing. But there are ways in which technical writing has its place within your Web presence.

Today, let’s consider the definitions of,  and differences between, marketing writing and technical writing.

Pre-Sale and Post Sale
Marketing writing helps you communicate pre-sale to potential customers, to get their business.

Technical writing helps you communicate post-sale to existing customers, to reduce training time, customer support time (and avoid lawsuits).

Of course, an existing customer—let’s say she hired you to renovate her kitchen– is also a potential …

I belong to a few groups on LinkedIn. This last week, I’ve been amazed to see group members pose questions written using initial capital letters. Here are a couple of examples, altered slightly to avoid too explicit finger-pointing:

What’s A Reasonable Hourly Rate For…..?

Best Service for Access to On Line Publications?

Not only are initial capitals incorrect within a sentence, they are not easy to read. And (not that there are correct places to write incorrectly), this was on LinkedIn, where a professional should want to appear at her or his best!

So let’s review the …

Yes, I’m a professional writer. Nonetheless, there are words and constructions that still confuse me. Fortunately, I remain aware that I goof up when using some of them—so I turn to my trusty Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words for guidance.  I bought it brand new in 1984 but it hasn’t let me down yet.  And I always get a chuckle out the cover, which considers variations on this famous split infinitive:
Boldly to go

To boldy go

To go boldly
Troublesome Words
Let’s look at three word pairs that confuse me—because I’m sure I’m not alone in my puzzlement.
Affect, effect
Affect, as a verb, …

Football. The word is universally understood. Even in the States, to see the word spelled futbol,  is to see a little soccer video in one’s mind’s eye.

The Stanley Cup games finished up last week, so I turned to the FIFA World Cup for new sports action. I love a good game!  I don’t know much about soccer—obviously, the basics are easy to grasp—but two years ago, I didn’t know much about hockey. I relied on sports-savvy fans to tutor me in the finer points of the sport.

Even when we speak different languages, we speak. We humans are extraordinarily equipped to …

For generations, English speakers used he, him and his as the unnamed agent in written examples.

No longer. We strive for gender neutrality.

Please don’t strive too hard.
He? or She? Pick one.
Do not shy away from using he when it helps you  make your point.  That said, do not shy away from using she, if that helps you make your point.

(I once worked for a company that gave conferences for nurses, at which 98% of registrants were women. Yet when I drafted instructions such as Hand the registrant her name badge … my boss would correct it to Hand the registrant his …

Here is a writing tip:  Don’t rely on your cell phone in an emergency. Write down phone numbers and carry them with you.

I was in a car accident two weeks ago. Crunchy, smashy 6-car pile up on 101-south bound near SFO.  It was just like in the movies—tires squealing, horns blaring, horrible metal-on-metal bang and clang—except that, unlike the movies, I was actually in one of the cars.

After the thudding and praying stopped, and my traveling companion and I realized neither of us were badly hurt, we reached for our phones.  When I called another friend to come help us, …

Call them memory crutches or call them mnemonic devices, they can help you remember to turn right at Maple Street, and which planet is closest to the Sun. Don’t we all need that?!

Most mnemonics are verbal—a word, phrase or rhyme—but they can be visual, auditory or kinesthetic: I still move my right hand if I want to double-check left from right.
Why do mnemonics work?
We could just learn the order of the planets:  Mercury Venus Terra Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto.  But it was easier for me to learn them by remembering: Mother Very Thoughtfully Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Protest.

That …

Often enough, we use the word don’t and do not in our writing.  They’re real words, they convey clear meaning, I’ve got nothing against them.

Yet, often enough, your reader will skip over the “not” part, and think you’re saying “do.”  Here are some tips to help you say No and be sure your reader hears you.
Vocabulary choice
Replace don’t with a precise and unambiguous word. Here are just a few excellent candidates for the job of saying No: Avoid, ban, block, delete, exclude, forbid, hinder, obstruct, omit, prevent, prohibit, reject and stop.

Avoid submerging your toaster in water.    is …

Throughout my recent series of postings, Build a Better E-Mail Message, I spelled e-mail with a hyphen.

While writing those three articles, my fingers kept typing email. I got so tired of having to go back to insert missing hyphens, I paused to research the correct spelling of e-mail. My usual resources confirmed e-hyphen-mail, so I conscientiously kept inserting hyphens.

However, since …