ITList Information Technology Blog » Curiosity

How to Write an Effective Newsletter?

bikram — Sat, 28 May 2011 03:10:17 +0000

An effective newsletter is not just flawless English, error free grammar and mechanical style. It’s a lot more. A newsletter has to be interesting, relevant, and informative. Here are some useful tips for your help.

Content has to be powerful

Newsletter is totally dependent on its content and its relevance. Know what you wish to say, followed by the art of saying it. Know what you wish to convey in a specific month of the year. Suppose you are a restaurant owner and you wish to promote your mocktails during summer, then convey the same in that month’s newsletter. Pick up a topic each month and relate it to your product or service.

Know your audience

Define you target audience before starting with your newsletter. Know demography, psychographic construct of you audience. Knowing more about them will help you to develop content of the newsletter while keeping tone, manner, and mood of the newsletter apt. Suppose you are selling an anti-ageing crème to the middle aged women, you should know how to approach them, what should be your style of communication and the like. You can’t afford to lose their interest because of inappropriate style.

Claims come with research

Don’t make big claims without supporting source of facts. Do ample research before making statements. This way you will not land up into problems too. Include facts, statistics, graphs, expert opinions, quotes supporting your research. Such data always build credibility. But don’t forget to mention the source.

Interesting heading

It’s good headlines which instantly draw attention towards the newsletter. Make sure the headline is extremely hard hitting and catchy, evoking curiosity. To make newsletter easy to read break the content into few paragraphs with sub headings.

Audience friendly lingo

Make sure your newsletter has audience friendly, easily comprehensive language, which people can relate to. Avoid technical jargons, too long sentences.

Proofread is important

A newsletter filled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes is highly avoided. Apart from the writer, ask someone else to do the job. Mistakes show writer’s lack of concern, interest, and unprofessionalism. If a brand is laughed at, it is hardly taken seriously. So avoid this.

Now get started with it.

5 Tips to Nurture Creativity

bikram — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:44:04 +0000

Are you trying hard to be creative and prove the creative spark within you? Don’t try so hard, we all are creative in greater or smaller proportion. At times it’s latent, so we don’t realize its power and consider ourselves not so creative. Don’t feel that way. All you need to do is stir the creative juice flowing within your mind. It will make you conceptualize ideas, innovate things. A creative mind and its output not only draw materialistic gain, but also immense mental satisfaction and physical well-being. Sharpen your creative side, today.

Here are some tips to evolve as a better creative person.

A pair of thirsty eyes

Change your vision, change the way you look at things with a pinch of newness. Get rid of pre-occupied ideas and notions. Look at things like a child with sheer enthusiasm, curiosity and eagerness. It will definitely help you to overcome your bias, see the world from a new perspective and develop a creative mind.

Stay active

Stay fit and active. An active mind only nurtures creativity and helps creative ideas to evolve. Exercise daily, fresh ideas can evolve anytime. Physical activities will also sharpen your mental acuteness.

Break the rule

A creative person can never be average and conventional. Challenge rules, conventions. Don’t make your life as like others. Try to be different. Break the monotony. If you normally go to movie every weekend, this weekend indulge yourself with a puppet show. Challenge your own understanding and see how you perform. Variety is the key to creativity. Don’t restrict your mind. Explore the world. Don’t follow route, create your own route.

Question everything

A curious mind always learns new things, cultivate creative ideas and innovate new things. Question everything around you. The answer may lead to some creative ideas.

Study things, read more

Learning is the key to creativity. Experience of life is enriched with studying the surrounding, studying art and music, voracious reading etc. It will expand your horizon and help you to evolve as a better creative person. Study people around you, their lifestyle, places, nature. It will give you many ideas. Reading will sharpen your vocabulary power and command on language. It will also help you to come across with better ideas.

Just go with the flow. Nurture your creative mind.

How Important is the Cover of Your Book?

bikram — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:07:00 +0000

Who says beauty lies in the eye of the beholder? Would you get attracted towards an ugly looking man without knowing he is a real genius within? Would you buy a pathetic necklace unless you know it’s a heritage necklace belonging to princess of the land? You won’t. Right? Definitely inner beauty, inner self is important; but it’s discovered only when the thing is explored and we explore things only when it looks nice and attractive apparently. That’s the strength of appearance. Similarly a book sells more when it looks nice, when its cover looks really interesting. We have often been told not to judge a book from its cover, but in reality it doesn’t work. Among a shelf of all unknown books we pick up the ones which allure us and grab our attention. The cover should be unusual, mysterious, timeless and memorable. It should evoke curiosity and interest to flip through the pages.

Book covers not only attract attention, but also build emotional attachment with the reader. People connect to it even after years and get nostalgic. That’s the power of book cover. It’s unlike a flashy poster, hoarding or road blocker.

In this age of computer graphics technology book cover ideation and creation has been treated as a daily practice, merely mixing and merging stock photographs, adding colors, highlighted by stylish font. They may look nice, but not memorable. But the art of book cover designing is much deep rooted. Very few publishers are still into it, brainstorming and creating unique and fresh book covers. There’s no rule of book cover designing. It just has to be arresting, innovative and memorable. It should echo the sentiment down the years. It may or may not even contain an image. It may be colorful or mono color. It may carry stylish or traditional conservative fonts. It has no set rules.

With a good book cover, you can definitely make the most of its sale. A well thought-out, classic book cover carries its glory down the ages, remains eternal in heart of people, echoing its grandeur.

What are the various parts of a Print Advertisement?

bikram — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:33:00 +0000

Print ads are of various types, shapes, sizes and most importantly they are crafted in various ways. It’s the concept, visual and copywriting of an ad which makes it draw thumbs up or face thumbs down. All advertisements strictly work on the principle of AIDA – i.e., it grabs attention first, generates interest slowly, as reader moves towards end of the ad his desire to purchase is stimulated and at the end he is convinced to take action i.e. purchase decision.

Print advertisements typically involve several parts.

Headline

Headline is the most important element of a print advertisement. If it fails to grab attention of the reader rest of the things just go unnoticed. Headlines may appear on the topic or mid or side of the advertisement. Most of the times it is used above the picture, as it’s believed that pictures grab attention faster than the text. The headline may be the strongest part of the advertisement or may be secondary to a strong visual. A perfectly crafted headline could entice lot of interest and excitement about the ad. Headlines can be of many forms – statement, question, issuing warning, testimonial, news sort etc. It should relate to its target audience. It may use emotional or rational or moral appeal to convince the target audience.

Subhead

Generally, subhead comes just below the headline. It is an answer or support to the question or curiosity that the headline evokes. The subhead ideally talks about the product benefit, carries the mood set by the headline and expands upon the headline idea.

Bodycopy

Bodycopy follows the subhead. This part generates the detail information about the product, highlights product features and key benefits, rationally provides supporting facts or quotations, convincingly establishes superiority of the product and stimulates the desire to purchase.

Artwork

There are various types of visual elements of an advertisement. It can be in any form – photograph, hand-drawn illustration, graphics. An ad may have a single strong self explicit visual or many pictures instead of one. Some advertisements may have no visual in it, but carry few visual elements like decorative border or bullets or a shape. Often visuals carry captions below them like ‘Before’, ‘After’, ’20 years ago’. Such captions help the illustrations to put the message across.

Closure

End of the advertisement is not to be ignored either. This is the part which provokes action that is purchase decision. Closing idea should be striking. It should put the motivation to buy. Several closing ideas can be used like – ‘act now’, ‘visit our dealer’, ‘send enquiries, ‘buy now’, ‘hurry before the stock ends’, ‘limited stock, rush now’ and the like.

Contact information

An effective ad should always carry contact information like – logo, brand name, address, phone numbers, road direction, website url etc. Such details are generally furnished towards the bottom of the ad.

Extras

Certain promotional advertisements may also carry extras like – tear-out coupon, free sample attached, business enquiry form.

Print advertisements have always remained a major tool of communication. Print ads have great impact on the target audience as it brings along credibility, long life and detail information.

How to Impress Your Boss (Part 2)

bikram — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:28:00 +0000

In the last article I shared some of the insiders’ tips that will help you find a prominent in the good book of your boss. Taking the discussion forward, in this article I will share some more tips on the topic.

Learn to impress your boss

Always be pro-active. Don’t wait for order to work. Find solution to problems even if not assigned to you. It will unveil your potential and dedication too.
Always attend the training sessions. Broaden your horizon. It will help you to learn and grow. It also shows your interest.
Take good care of your health. A bad health could run down your productivity and all career dreams.
Know your boss’s priorities. If he judges quality by quantity, quantify your result. If he is inclined towards client satisfaction, treat client as the sole purpose of your work. Customize your working style as per your boss’s attitude towards work. No boss likes contradicting employees.
Follow your boss. If he is more comfortable with telephonic conversation that email, follow the same. Study him or her for a while before grasping and adopting his style of conduct.
Always ask questions. It will reflect your interest in work, curiosity towards new things. Ask unexpected questions reflecting your intellect and deep analytical skill. Your boss would flaunt you everywhere then.
There’s no problem in seeking or providing help. When you need help ask for it. If you are capable of lending a helpful hand, don’t hesitate either.
Do everything with a personalized touch of yours. That’s what makes you different from the rest. Do the same job in your own style. But don’t let the logic fly off. Within given limitations try to add your own style. It could be your superb style of writing or even just a small entertaining act before the big presentation.
Be punctual throughout your career life except few emergencies. Always come on time. You could reach earlier too. Reach meetings on time. It reflects responsible behavior. Don’t be absent often.
Always meet deadlines. Make sure you complete your task before the due date. At the same time quality shouldn’t be compromised.
Don’t be afraid to voice your thoughts and ideas. Your observations and ideas could be very important for the company. Speak up with confidence. Raise new points. He will definitely appreciate your concern and interest. It will also set a good tuning of yours with your boss. If he sees good potential in you, he may consult you every time when he needs to decide upon new things.
Last but not the least, always be his fan. Every boss needs a little stroke of his ego, little appreciation, little admiration and lot of flattering. Following his examples could fetch him great compliments.

Follow the tips I have shared in both the articles, and you will always make a place in the good book of your bosses.

Things to Consider While Writing for the Web

bikram — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:29:22 +0000

The Internet has changed the way we produce, consume, and process information. The way we interact with the online media is entirely different from the way we interact with print media. While going through any printed material we are relaxed, composed and at ease. We are more or less in receptive mode, but when it comes to the online media we are more into doing mode. We want to get the information quickly so that we can use it in our project or assignment at hand.

It will not be wrong to say that the online media is more or less an action media from where we gather information and put to our day to day use. Therefore, the content produced for this media should be different from the content produced for any other media.

Nature of online content

Instead of reading each word people tend to scan through the material they see on the screen. Hence, the article should be easily scanable. We need to break an article into sub-headings and supply bullet points to make the article easy to read.
Do not use impersonal pronouns like one, someone, they etc. Use ‘you’ instead of he, she, or one.
Use conversational language, and do not beat around the bush. Be direct.
The attention span of individuals surfing net is quite divided; therefore, supply images, tables, and lists to make the article easy to read.
Holding readers’ attention is the key. And the lighter the article will be to the readers’ eyes the more time they will spend scanning the article.
You just have ten to fifteen seconds to grab the readers’ attention. So the opening sequence should be powerful.
The title of your article should build curiosity, which the content of your article should satiate.
Do not use close- ended assertive questions in your titles which could be answered in ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

The web is a participatory medium. And your article is a way to start a conversation. Do not provide all the answers, leave scope for discussion. The more people will interact with you, the more involved they will become. This is how we build community on the web.

How to Write Crowd-Pulling Headlines Part -I

bikram — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:32:01 +0000

Headlines are the most important part of a blog post or an article. It works as an interest generator. If a good headline persuades the visitor to read the complete article, a bad one pushes the reader off. There are certain principles you need to follow if you want to increase the reading rate of your articles.

KISSS it!

Keep it short, simple and sweet. You do not need to be cryptic to sound profound or useful. Simplicity is brilliance. Remove ambiguous words from the headline, and try to limit the length of the headline to 5-6 words.

Which of the following headline makes the article look more useful?

X has slashed its shirt’s price by 30 percent.
30 percent off on X shirt!

What in it for me?

This is the question every user asks when confronted with anything that asks for his or her attention. Your headline should provide a definite answer to this question. Talk about the big benefits you have to offer.

Example:

Learn to Enhance your Pictures in 3 Steps.
Get the Subscription FREE

Announcements

Announcements seed curiosity in the reader. Instead of some incremental advancement, people like to see some groundbreaking innovation, and announcements give them the feeling that something new has come along, which is radically different from what they already have. Announcements satiate the readers’ psychological need for newness.

Example:

Introducing All-New iPhone at Never-Before Price.
Finally, Life Has Been Found on Mars!

Ask Questions

Ask relevant questions, questions breed involvement. A question offers an entrée into the mind of the reader as it forces the reader to think, and the more your readers will think, the more involved they will become with the article.

Example:

Is Your Home Safe?
Are You Getting What You Deserve?

Share Secrets

The word “Secret” suggests the reader that some insider information is being shared, so they pay more attention to the article following the headline starting with “Secret”. Everyone wants to be in the inner circle and no one likes to be an outsider. Tap on it!

Example:

Secret of Monetizing Twitter
Insider’s Secret of Money Making

Cold Calling: How to?

bikram — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:59:14 +0000

In the last article on cold calling we discussed about the efficacy of cold calling techniques, and when we can use it. In this article, we will discuss about the structure of a cold call. Indeed, given the brevity of time that we get in a cold call, we need to structuralize the communication we have in order to create interest. You can consider using the following structure while making the cold call. These are the crucial steps that must be followed while making a cold call.

1. Begin with telling your name and company’s name, and do it as succinctly as you can.

2. Use this brief moment to gain access to more time, may be 45-50 seconds more. This can only be done, if you address the client’s problem in one single line. You got me right. You will need to do some research before making the cold call. No blind cold calls please!

3. Once you got the time you asked for, get directly to the point and build the case, so that you can get a chance to have a face to face meeting.

4. Give some detail about the problem you seek to address and hide some details. The idea is to build curiosity.

5. Let the client take the lead. Your objective is to get to the meeting table, not to practice the one-upmanship.

6. No one likes pushy sales person, so hang up if the person is not interested.