High quality picture

What is very important for a video tutorial is its picture quality. Make sure picture resolution is high, with maximum clarity. Good finishing at the editing table is important too.

Subtitles, thought bubbles, supers

A video tutorial is never complete unless it has texts in forms of subtitles, texts in between scenes, thoughts bubbles, supers (text on screen) supporting the audio-visual input. People may think even a voice over (VO) can do the job, but it’s more effective and memorable when people read the same on screen. These supporting texts can do wonders.

Add some value to it

Don’t make just another video tutorial of no much substance in it. Make a video tutorial if you have enough knowledge of the subject, know it in-depth and have done enough research on the same before making the video tutorial. If you do not add something new to your video, no one will be interested in it.

Script has to be strong

No video tutorial comes out well, unless it has been developed on rock solid script. Don’t start a video tutorial without any script in front of you. It is the first step towards video making. Just special effects can’t do a magic to your video tutorial with no strong script in it.

Checklist at the end

Don’t forget a video tutorial remains incomplete unless it has a checklist at the end, summarizing the content communicated in the video. Checklist helps the audience to complie the entire content, to recall and memorize the main points and feel enriched.

Don’t make it dramatic

Always remember video tutorials are not films, or daily soaps. They don’t need acting skill or screen presence. Don’t develop a dramatic script, with twisted dialogues and pretentious moves. Keep it simple, straight on face, clear and substantial. At the same time, it shouldn’t be boring. Maintain the pace, neither fast nor too slow. Keep it conversational, interesting. Remember, it’s not entertainment, it’s information transmitted through interesting video with aids like live examples, demonstrations. Don’t forget its objective behind.

So what are you waiting for? Start with your video tutorial. Just follow these simple tips while making your video tutorial.

Too much of text

We are often tempted to overstuff our PowerPoint slides with too much of text and long paragraphs. Don’t forget presentation is all about putting points on slides and narrating or elaborating them in detail verbally. Don’t suffocate your presentation with too much of text. No one is interested in reading long texts. So write in bullets or points. Elaborate those verbally. Make sure you leave blank space in your slides.

Too much of animation

Many presenters love to show off their technical skills by animating each line or graphic of the slides. Remember, simplicity always sells. Don’t let the whoosh sound of your presentation distract the audience. It’s highly annoying when repeated. Keep slides simple, minimalistic, and elegant. Don’t animate each and every text or header or graphic element in it. Too much of rotation, blinking, floating, swinging of elements worsen a good content. Don’t use those animated sounds which are highly disturbing.

Baseless data

Presenters often put factual data, without mentioning the source. It’s a strict ‘no no’. Never put facts and figures, graphs without mentioning its source. No data seems authentic and valid without the source mentioned. People may doubt credibility of your presentation.

Reading out from the slides

Often presenters are seen doing nothing, but simply reading out whatever is there on the PowerPoint slide. It not only bores the audience, but also doesn’t add any value to the entire presentation session. You can add substantial value to a presentation only when you give your valuable inputs besides reading out from the slides alone. It also shows presenter’s lack of confidence, public speaking fear and lack of knowledge.

Make sure you avoid these mistakes.

Your copy or content has to perform in this chaotic world. Wouldn’t it be too much to ask your content to do without providing it the weapon necessary to cut through the clutter? Those weapons are scannability, keywords, and short paragraphs. You need to keep following things in mind when writing for the web:

1. Keep the paragraph short. You are not creating a literary piece, so there is no need to make the paragraphs long. 3 to 4 sentences long paragraphs are enough.
2. Divide your articles using headings and subheadings.
3. Use important items as bullet points.
4. Use keywords in H1, H2, H3, and other heading tags.
5. Use primary keyword as early in the title as you can.
6. Use important keywords in the first 50 words, or at least in first 100 words.
7. Use headings and subheadings to communicate key ideas.
8. Use standard font in the blog or article you post on your website, so that most of the people can read the items.
9. You can also insert images and tables in an article or blog post to make the article scannable.
10. Keep the sentences shorter.
11. Do not confuse your readers by addressing too many issues in a small article. Keep it simple.

Your article or blog post should be constructed in such a way that your audience gets the central idea in the first 30 seconds. This is the amount of time one has for any online item. The visitors may stay longer if you succeed in retaining the audiences’ attention within this time limit.

Before you show your loyalty to one and thrash the other one calling it a complete waste of money, I must tell you that neither of the two is wrong, and either of the two could be dangerous. It all depends upon your approach, and how you handle the tool. Let me throw some more light on the two schools to help you make informed decision on the marketing tool to use.

“Long sales page is what cut it for us”

This is the view of old school of marketing who believes in the power of mass media advertising, long sales letter, and multiple direct mail copies. Marketers subscribing to this school of thought believe in handling all the customers’ objection through a elaborate sales page. They are of the view that they get only one chance and limited opportunity to influence customers’ decisions, and they should use it to maximum.

Sales cycle is often shorter here. People either buy or they don’t from marketers of this school.

“We are close buddy. We will not sell you”

This is what the other camp of marketers believes in. Marketers swearing by “relationship first” maxim often lead you in believing that they have your best interest in their hearts, and no matter what they will not try to sell you anything. It is only when you have spent some time with them that they start recommending (read selling) products to you.

Sales cycle for this kind of marketing ranges from long to very long. People, because they trust this group, often buy more than one product from them.

Which side are you on?

So, which group of marketers do you belong to? The “long sales copy” one or the relationship one? As said earlier, there is nothing right or wrong about the either of the two. It all depends upon how you use it.

For me, I believe in both of them.

What are the tools of cold prospecting?

Ideally, any tool that connects you with your audience could be uses for cold prospecting, but practically, many of those tools cannot be used because of the expense involved. Typically, a business will use one or more of the following communication tools for cold prospecting:

• Call on cell phones
• Call on landlines
• Text messages
• E-mails
• Direct mails on home or office address

Each of the above tools are also overused (read abused) tools, and that is why all the unsolicited attempts to get in touch with your future market are considered spam or junk. This perception is not too far from reality. It is such perception that renders these tools useless?

Then how to use any?

This is a natural question that springs out in the mind. But the good news is that there is a way to put these tools in use, which I going to outline below.

• The very first rule of cold prospecting is moderation. Do not go on steroid. Everyone equally hates, and some hates more, cold callers. But not all the time. At times people are receptive to the messages they receive. Do not bombard users with multiple calls or multiple variants of your message. They are already too bogged down by such messages.
• Once a user expressed his unwillingness to buy your product or services, strike out his or her name from your database. Your database software should have a list of out of bound contacts, whom you should never contact.
• Instead of cold calls, send emails, text messages, and creatively done postcards to suspects. These are less intrusive mean of communication.
• Never call in the peak time or the peak season when your suspects are busy doing their important works.

Take the above precautions, and you will increase your chances of acceptance. Your cold calls will not remain as mindless.

It has never been easier to pursue building your own online business, but there are some common pitfalls you want to avoid to shorten your road to success.

1. Determine your products and market.
These days nearly every form of product and service is being sold online with the ability to reach millions of potential customers all over the world. Before you start your online business, you need to decide exactly what you would like to offer to consumers. Ideally, your choice should be mainly based on your own interests so that your heart is in the business even if sales are slow in the beginning. You should also check the market to ensure that there is a demand for the products or services you intend to offer.

2. Develop your unique selling point.
The key to a business distinguishing itself apart from its competition is to have a unique selling point. Your unique selling point concentrates on the uniqueness of your business and how you will help your customers. Consider what is special about your business, as well as the needs of your customers, in order to develop a quality unique selling point.

3. Build your marketing strategy.
Prior to contacting any ecommerce hosting company or purchasing shopping cart software, it’s vital that you ask yourself how you will promote your new business. Depending on your targeted audience of potential customers, you may want to focus on advertising online more than offline. Online marketing can prove to be highly effective even with a tight budget. You should also factor in future costs for search engine optimization to ensure your site ranks high.

4. Research available shipping methods.
If you are selling an actual product then you will need to decide on which shipping methods you will use to fulfill orders. It’s important to choose shipping methods that are fast and reliable, whether you are maintaining an actual stock onsite or you have chosen to drop ship with a manufacturer or wholesaler.

5. Pick your domain name.
Selecting the domain name for your business is one of the most critical decisions that you must make when selling online. There are different ways to approach choosing a domain name. If your company name is not too lengthy, then one idea is to use it as the domain name. Another strategy is to use a phrase consisting of one or more core products you intend to sell so that when consumers search for this item your website naturally has a better opportunity of ranking at the top organically. Regardless of which method you use to select your domain name, make sure that you purchase it with a .com domain extension. It’s also useful to buy other top level domain extensions, such as .net, .org, .info, and others, to prevent anyone from trying to steal or ruin your brand.

6. Decide on an ecommerce hosting company.
Once you’ve chosen your domain name, it’s now time to pick an ecommerce website hosting company to use for hosting your online business. You’ll want to shop around and look for genuine review websites to find a reliable host that offers ecommerce hosting plans. Compare between companies to make sure you’re getting the best deal out there. You want to make sure that the company you decide on is able to handle websites that run on ecommerce platforms.

7. Select the ecommerce software for your online business.
After choosing an ecommerce hosting company, you now need to determine which software you will use to power your online business. There are a multitude of ecommerce solutions available, both free and paid, and you should research online and ask others to help decide which software is best for your store.

8. Get a professional design for your website.
Although the ecommerce software you have decided to use may work just fine out of the box, it may be necessary to have a design made for it to increase your online store’s uniqueness and personality. Based on the software you are using, you will have the option to choose from ready-made themes or hire someone for a completely custom design.

9. Locate a payment processor.
Before you can actually process any orders you will need to sign up with a payment processor. This is a company appointed by a merchant to deal with credit card transactions. Payment processors verify payments and help prevent fraudulent transactions. You will need to compare between different companies and look closely at the various fees that can be hidden at times.

10. Provide remarkable customer service.
Once your online store is up and ready to accept payments, the final point to keep in mind is to guarantee that you provide outstanding customer service. If your customers have a terrible experience shopping at your store then you should never expect them to return as they can easily shop from your competition that is only a click away. Consider whether or not you can provide a customer service telephone number, or at least an email service that responds promptly.

These are ten things that you should remember when starting your own ecommerce business so that you can be on your way towards success without any regrets.

How much should one write?

This is an important question to ask. And the answer to this lies in the understanding of your consumer mental makeup because customer in every category has different expectation from the stuff they find during the research. You need to find for yourself how much your customers are going to read.

Provide them less

Do not give your customer everything she wants. Create a craving for more information by providing only what she needs at the moment is one way to keep your prospects coming back for more. Do not just go over and spill all you know on the face of the audience, your audience may not be ready for that. He may never wanted to get all those information in one go.

Do not outstay your welcome

As there is an entry door, there is an exit door as well, and a smart person knows that, and he uses both doors at appropriate time. He understands that no matter how smart, cool, entertaining, or “fun to be with” guest is, people get bored if he does not leave at the appropriate time.

You should learn to do the same with your words. You need to teach them how to leave and at what point. Your words and the wisdom you are sharing with your audience should not outstay the welcome.

Take, talk, and talk, and people will die of boredom

This happens in a party, it happens at home, and it happens in copywriting as well. People cannot stand a constant chatter — not unless you are the most hilarious or knowledgeable guy in the whole universe who knows one thing and everything — therefore, you need to learn to keep your paragraph shorter, and paragraph way shorter, which should culminate in making the whole piece an inch shorter than customer wants.

Always remember, the only way to keep your customers engaged is to keep them craving for more. This could only happen if you know how much to speak and when to speak.

A write should only include details that take the story forward or which add to the understanding of the story. Rest of the things should not be included. Do not add even a single extra word that does not add to the development of your story or article.

Howe much details

Imagine you are driving a car through the country. What do you see? Do you see entire countryside, or just the thinks visible from the driver’s seat?

Do not force your audience to look sideways, walk behind, and go round and round, just to see every aspect. Your audience does not wish to see every aspect of a situation. She only wants to see what naturally will be visible from where he is standing in the context of story (driver’s seat).

When adding details to a story do not go on writing anything and everything about the subject that comes to your mind or everything that you know, just write what is relevant, and what you see from where you are. Put your blinkers on. The detail that does not add to the progress of story is not worth including.

Avoid adjective shorthand

How many stories, memoirs, articles, or novels have you read that contains adjectives like amazing, wonderful, or spectacular, etc.?

These are useless word that does not say anything. Write “you will not believe how amazingly wow that birthday party was,” and guess what, they will not believe it. Describe the situation, but do not use adverbs or adjectives that are empty of any meaning.

No cliché or dead metaphor please

It holds true for cliché as well. Cliché is called cliché because it is cliché, and people have moved away from it. A phrase or word becomes cliché when there is no emotional juice left in the phrase. Similarly, you should also stay clear of dead metaphors. I would recommend creating your own metaphors — metaphors that say something.

The golden rule here is to not include any dead metaphor, cliché, and unnecessary adjectives and adverbs in your writing. Instead of taking these shortcuts, try to describe the situation or thing in a bit detail for audience to make sense of it, or to get amazed, scared, or astonished. At the same time do not add too many details. It gets boring, after a while.

Guide to a perfect speech generation:

Map the audience

Find out whom you are going to deliver your speech to, how old they are, and which part of the country they are from. The better you analyze your audience, the easier it will be for you to prepare the speech. It will help you to develop the perfect style, set the mood, and connect with the audience by including relevant jargons. Most importantly, it will help you to pick up the apt topic, as per the interest of the audience. It must add value to their lives whether by solving a problem or setting new goals and vision. Develop an emotional connect with the audience.

Pick a relevant topic

Topic should relate to the audience. Don’t pick up a topic you are not comfortable with. You can turn spontaneous only when you have some command on the topic. Pick up a topic of interest. It can be an outcome of your personal life, general topic, current topic, or a browsed topic from Internet, magazines and newspapers. Unless you are passionate about the topic, don’t pick it up.

Set the objective and time frame

Every communication has a set objective. Speech is not an exception either. Set specific objective like what you want to achieve or want the audience to do. It will help you develop the structure of the speech, limit the content, streamline your thoughts, and march towards a desired outcome. Make important points and elaborate them, but don’t stretch too far. Too much elaboration bore the audience.

Use your imagination and build story

Hues of imagination instill life into a speech. Stretch your imagination and let it fly high. Grab attention of the audience right from the beginning. Use vivid examples while explaining the points you put across. Talk about personal experiences. Make it dramatic and personalized.

Relax and speak

Don’t appear as if you are rushing. Relax while you speak. Don’t talk in too high pitch. Don’t get too nervous, little bit of fear is okay. If initially you are to scared start practicing in front of family, friends, and mirror.

Last but not the least, enjoy!

Confidence oozes when you enjoy the session. It shouldn’t seem like a burden but an enjoyable activity. Make eye contact to appear confident and bold. Be yourself. Don’t get tempted to be like someone else.

And soon you’ll find you are the master of speech delivery.

In this article, I am going to share some “too-obvious-to-notice” e-mail marketing tips that will help you maximize your ROI.

3 E-mail marketing ROI maximization tip

Do not sell what you don’t trust

Selling crap is the fastest way to push audience towards the “Unsubscribe” link. You should not push the products to your list that you have not used, or you have not seen other using it. If you are not sure about the success of a product then do not push it.

Alternatively, you can do a research to find out how the product has worked for the people who have used it. If you are still not sure, but want to push the product as it is backed by some big shot then write so in the mail. Tell your users that you have not used it, but you think it is good, and provide the reason why you think so.

Be honest

We have been told many times in our schools that honesty is the best policy, but seeing the world around, we found it hard to believe. It is time now to believe that maxim, and even to adopt it. In fact, there is no other way to make a killing through e-mail campaign than being honest with your list. Start selling lie, and soon you will have a list of absolute zero subscriber.

Build expectation and stand true to it

At the time of subscribing, or before they get the first mail, your subscribers should know about the frequency of the mails they will receive. You can also talk about the quality of the mails. Building expectation does not end here. It continues to build up with the mails you sent out in the first week. Afterward it is about meeting that expectation.

These are the things that you must care about should you wish to increase ROI of your e-mail campaign. An e-mail campaign, when done right, will significantly boost your profit.

There is only one thing that significantly affects the conversion rate of visitors into customers. No, it is not the layout or a design or cool graphics or awe-inspiring animation. It is the website copy that makes the conversion rate surge up or dive down. High-converting website copy follows a set of principles which I am going to share here.

Secret of high-converting website copy

Magic Headline

Some headlines work better than others. Most of the people err here. When it comes to writing headline for a post, all they do is write whatever first comes to their mind and use it as title. What possibly could be worse than this — not writing the copy at all?

Do not commit this mistake. Think hard before writing a headline. I will suggest you to write 10-15 versions of a headline before choosing any one.

USP

USP stands for Unique selling proposition. In the beginning, you would like to know what is that one thing that you would want to talk on a webpage. Do not build too many selling propositions in a web page. This will confuse your audience. Yes, even two is too many in this context.

Focus

Your copy should not waver. It should be laser focused on the promise it is attempting to deliver on. Do not let is waver even for one word. Keep your audience and its needs in mind when writing copy. Use your audience’s language to communicate.

Descriptive copy

Copy that builds on the promise made by the headline converts better. Do not just write anything on your web page — you can do that but you should not — as it will dilute the effect of the proposition made in the headline.

Tell story

People do not care about data and stats as much as they care about story. Tell them anecdotal tales and they will believe you. Give them data and they will yawn.

These are some of the principles of copy writing, which you should include in your writing to make your web page convert like crazy.

Well for starters, carry a notebook with you wherever you go.  Of course in the modern age of technology, a smart phone or a PDA can serve the same purpose.  Anything that enables you to quickly jot down an idea while you’re on the run.  Frequently ideas hit us whey you’d least expect, and you have to be ready to write down that idea so that you can save it for use when you have the time.  That’s one of the best ways to stay fresh and full of new concepts.

Make sure that you read as often as possible.  For a writer, reading is a great weapon because gaining knowledge influences you to think.  With that thinking about a certain piece you’ve read, comes new ideas or concepts you’ll be motivated to write about.

Try having a running dialogue with someone else in the industry, or even the audience of where you write.  See what their feelings are on your writing, or what’s going on in the common culture that relates to what you write.  That can give you plenty of ideas because you’ll see how someone else thinks.  That may influence you to write a new topic, or an old topic rewritten from a different point of view.

Always keep up on the news as much as possible.  Current events are what get the most reads, because the majority of internet searchers are looking for information regarding news.  Keeping current, and relevant to where the world is in this instant is key.  Plus all the different news stories are bound to influence something that you’ll want to write about.

Well, you have to think up a great domain name.  Your domain name is important, so you don’t want to take this one lightly.  Your domain name helps to register your unique brand with your users, and search engines, and is the beginning of the description of your website.  You want to pick something short and relevant, that’s also easy to spell and remember.  This way you’re more likely to gain memory recognition from your users, and anyone searching a web page is less likely to misspell your domain on Google.

Now that you’ve got a good domain name, you need somewhere to host that domain.  There are a variety of website companies that offer such services, for a nominal fee.  You’ll have to pay for registration, as well as maintaining that domain name every year.  While you’re purchasing the name, you’ll also want to look into data storage, as you have to have storage in order to put anything on your website.

Most companies that offer domain registration also offer data storage plans.  All have varying levels of cost, and you’ll have to factor in your companies needs when deciding which service is for you.  Factor in how much data, including photos and media you want to store on the page.  You also need to think about what sort of traffic you will be expecting.  Exceeding your traffic bandwidth is usually penalized by extra fees being charged to your account, so think carefully.

Now that you’ve got the site, remember that your engaging content is what’s really going to drive traffic.  Making the page available isn’t even half the battle.  Building a page that people legitimately want to visit is the real war.

Building an audience isn’t so much about what you write yourself, but how you communicate.  Your Twitter account, if you’re using it to sell an idea, business, or product, needs to become a community forum.  Your tweets are only useful if you can guarantee people are reading them.  The way to do that is to build followers, and the best way to build followers is getting them involved.

Make use of Twitter’s search function.  See what people are saying involving your concepts or business, and reply to them through your page.  Ask questions, or comment on tweets that they’ve made regarding you.  Start a running dialog, so that they’ll gain more interest and also mention you on their page, which will also build interest with a new audience.

Consider how useful the ability to re-tweet really is.  By re-tweeting you draw attention to a comment someone else made, and put your own spin on the material.  This will be noticed by the original tweeter, and your audience.  Both can work to build the traffic on your page, and the more meaningful views you’ll garner.

Finally, everyone likes pictures, especially search engines.  The more pictures you use, the more people will be drawn to your page.  I’m not talking about pictures of anything.  But try to upload meaningful and visually insightful pictures that relate to your Twitter page as often as possible.  These will get more comments, and more chances for re-tweets.  Both of which are necessary to build your page.

Keep in mind that content is key.  Converting a free blog into a money making blog is a long difficult process, but one that you complete by putting the work in.  Make sure that your blog has an attractive and visually appealing template.  Something that makes a user feel comfortable, and that allows your blog to be easily read.  A safe bet is to use cooler colors, as they are more calming, instead of anything too vibrant.

Your writing will also need a little bit of an upgrade as well.  You’re not just writing for yourself anymore, you’re writing to get people to find your blog and remain interested.  That means you have to write concise, not overly long, and entertaining entries.  Let your unique voice and personality shine, and make sure not to write entries that are too long.  Readers want to be entertained, but long articles can leave most doubting whether or not they want to read what’s written.

From there you should be able to steadily build an audience.  You want to pay attention to traffic and the amount of time the average user is on your site.  You can find resources for this through services like Google’s Analytics.  See what content inspires interest, and try and build on your good stats by writing to those strengths.

Now you should be ready to make a little money.  Use programs like Google’s Adsense, and look to websites like Amazon.com which offer payment for affiliate links.  Through these you can start earning money off the traffic from your blog.  Just remember, the longer you keep someone on the page, the more impressions and likelihood of clicks you’re going to get.  You want as much as possible of both.  With grabbing headlines and engaging content, you should be well on your way.

As a writer (freelance, web or otherwise), are you doing it to yourself?

Are you stopping yourself from consuming those lovely shows and soaps that you always liked?
If you are doing this then it is a big mistake, a huge one. You need to stop at once and start indulging in movies, soaps, and plays.

Why?

A movie is a fertile ground for a writer to learn trick of the trade. It teaches you many things including:

• Character sketching
• Emotional responses
• Dialogue writing
• Scene creation
• Story telling

And along with these story mechanics, a good movie also tells you:

• How to engage an audience?
• How to make them wanting for more?
• What words to use to strike chord with the audience?
• What style of narrative to use for the problem at hand?

A movie also tells you about your market and about what words to use, what kind of sentences to construct, and how long or short sentences and paragraphs should be. One also learns the art of creating favorable ambience to get the emotional response sought by the article.

It is very important for you as a student of writing to watch movie and learn from it. Be a keen observer, and do not just consume a movie, observe it. In order to learn something from the movie, you have to dissect the various scene and emotional responses that led to the dramatic ending the movie had. You can then use it to create the experience you want in your audience.

Metaphor as described by Merriam Webster dictionary is:

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

Read the following two sentences and tell me which one sounds more compelling to you:

“He was silent, very silent, and completely motionless.”

“He was as silent and stationary as the dead.”

Of course, the latter one. The former sentence didn’t have the punch required to make us realize how much the person was silent and how much immobile he was, but once we supply the metaphor of dead, everything becomes clear, as we know how silent and motionless a dead person can be.

Metaphor helps us inject emotion in the written words. It helps us make the passage of texts relatable for the reader. The metaphor makes the read feel what has been written. A proper use of metaphor transforms the text making it meaningful for the readers.

Caution

Metaphor is a cultural thing. A wrongly used metaphor will push the audience far, far away. Hence, you should be careful in using it in your writing, and understand the cultural background of the users before infusing a metaphor in your writing.

A metaphor that works well in India may or may not produce the same result in Brazil. Culture plays an important role in it. If you are in doubt, use neutral metaphor. Like the one I have used in above example. No matter where you go, what cultural background you have the dead will be silent and stationary. Similarly, sky in the moonless night will be dark, stuff out of refrigerator will be cold, mid summer’s afternoon will be unbearably hot, etc.

Do not walk the cultural line while using metaphor if you are not sure.

The latest Integrated Newspaper Audience study by Scarborough Research has found that nearly three-fourth (74%) of American adults still read newspaper. Not only that, the readership of newspaper is found to be higher among educated and affluent class – indeed, this is not surprising, but despite all thee the revenue of newspaper is falling by 28% as revealed by the Newspaper Association of America in its recent data.

Findings of Scarborough Research

• 79% of adults with white-collar jobs read newspaper in print or online.
• 82% of adults that has household income of more than $100,000 read newspaper in print or online.
• 84% of people who have completed their graduation or have any advance degree reads newspaper in print or online.

According to the Newspaper Association of America total advertising revenue is down by 28% in the third quarter of 2009 in comparison to the revenue in the third quarter of 2008 (from $10.1 billion to $6.4 billion).

What does this mean?

This mean that despite users being confident about the content provided in the newspaper, advertisers are not playing ball. They are not investing. In my view there could be two reasons for that:

• Advertisers have started to believe that one who reads newspaper do not pay any particular attention to the ads inserted in it, or they are too forgetful to remember anything once they put the newspaper down.
• They have become cautious of greenery shown by Madison Avenue, as unlike the Internet, they have no way of knowing who is viewing what.

The newspaper industry needs to learn to provide measurable value, if it does not want to become extinct.

Find an audience and kill them

Well, this is known to all the fiction writers, especially poets. Nobody likes to read or listen to anyone else’s piece, until and unless he is Dan Brown or Paulo Coelho. It will take some persuading before you can read your work to anyone, even to your cat, but you must do it, in order to figure out the issues with your writing. For now, you just need listeners, not their feedbacks.

Discount 10 percent words

This is something worth doing. I know you will feel the pang as everyone of us does, but always remember your goal is not to create a piece full of sentences, but to create a beautiful work of art with only required number of sentences. Do not fall in love with sentences; fall in love with your overall piece, and attempt to make the whole piece look good.

Hear what they say

A good writer takes cues from the real life, and listening to others will give you many. Overhear others, if you need to, because you can get the best insight only by becoming invisible observer.

Observe how they talk

Not only the contents of their talks are important, but the style used to convey the message is equally important. This will tell you how to say it.

Read, read and study

To make your writing shine like the writing of masters, you will need to study the works of great writers. Do not limit yourself to reading great writers, read bad ones as well. To be able to differentiate chaff from wheat, you need to know what is what.

The first place you should start, is knowing what you’re talking about.  Having a well written presentation is all well and good, but you need to really know your stuff.  No presentation is complete without a Q&A period at the end.  If you don’t really know what you’re talking about, you won’t be able to answer those questions.  That would make you look really bad, so know your stuff!

Understand your audience, because you’ll have to tailor your presentation to them.  Are you trying to sell an idea or a product?  Are you trying to make a name for yourself and what you’ve accomplished?  Or is your presentation purely to educate somebody about a certain work related topic?  All questions you should ask yourself when preparing, as the answers should change how you decide to do your presentation.  The way an idea is presented when you’re trying to sell it, is much, much different than how you would teach.

Now plan your presentation.  Make a detailed outline of the topics you want to touch upon, and decide the best order possible for you to bring them across.  Consider your audience, and the goal of your presentation, and choose the best arrangement to serve those needs.  Try to influx your ability into this part, so that you can ensure your presentation will flow, and will gain the attention you want.

Finally, in the actual delivery of your presentation, make sure your body language is on point.  You want to appear positive, and in a good mood at all times.  Even if things aren’t going your way, stay insightful and courteous.  Dress to impress, so stay professional, and keep your body language positive.  That means good posture, and healthy gestures with your hands while speaking.  Practice your speech so that you aren’t nervous during delivery, and so that you don’t fumble across any words.  With the practice and knowledge on hand, you’re on the right path to making your presentation successful.