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11 Aug 10 Why Should You Develop a Habit of Adding Details to Your Written Works?

Romeo saw Juliet for the first time and he fell for her. He now wanted to marry her, but their families’ animosity didn’t let them meet, and at the end they died, followed which both their families reconciled.

Was this narration of Romeo and Juliet interesting? Was it even one millionth of excitement that you got from reading the famous tragedy?

Why didn’t you enjoy it? It had all the key elements that were present in the original play. It told you everything that Shakespeare wanted to tell you then why didn’t you enjoy?

Because it lacked the details, isn’t it?

People like stories not because it connects with them at the level deeper than mere comprehension and consciousness, and details do exactly that. It provides fuel to emotion. Greatness of a story lies in detail. When writing a story, or an article, a feeble writer tends to wander around the subject matter using useless adjectives, dead cliché, etc. But when a great writer writes a story, he goes directly to the heart of the matter, and covers all he sees in his journey to the heart of the matter.

Photograph in outlines

If story is a photograph, details are color, texture, shades, and patterns, without which the photograph is nothing but mere outlines. And I am sure not many people enjoy outlines. A great picture is made when colors, shades, textures, patterns, and other things are added to the outline. Similarly, a great story comes to life when required detail is added.

What about articles?

An Article is a non-fiction cousin of story. It just differs in the subject matter it handles, people who are reading it, and slightly in the writing style.

There is no reason why a non-fictional piece could not be written in story form. After all, the goal of a communication is to connect and inform, and you cannot inform anyone, not with any credibility, without establishing a deep connection with he or she.

Tags: , Animosity, , , Consciousness, , Fictional Piece, Greatness, Heart Of The Matter, Journey To The Heart, Millionth, Narration, , , , Romeo And Juliet, , Shades, ,

04 Jun 10 What are the various parts of a Print Advertisement?

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.

Tags: Advertisement Ads, Aida, , Excitement, , , Moral Appeal, , , Print Advertisements, , Product Features, , Quotations, Reader Moves, Shapes Sizes, Superiority, , ,

20 Nov 09 Article Marketing Guidelines

Article marketing is a potent source for getting backlinks and traffic. This is the reason why so many article directories have come into existence. Writing for each one of these directories (I am talking about good ones) is different from writing for other good directories, and there are some guidelines that we need to follow to increase our acceptance rate. Every article directory has different guidelines, but there are some points in the guidelines that are common to all. I am listing is below:

  • Quality Content: In context of article marketing, quality content means non-duplicate, error-free, exclusive content. Do not submit a PLR, ripped-off, or any other kinds of duplicate content. The article must be informative in order to get published. Quality of your content also plays a big role in whether independent publishers will pick the article or not.
  • Resource Box: The resource box should contain a brief bio of author, and 2 to 3 links. You can also have your head-shot photograph in the resource box.
  • No Self-serving article: You should not have a self-serving, that is to say, you cannot have advertising, promotional material, press releases, or sales letter, etc., submitted in the name of article.
  • Abstain from pornography, racism, terrorism, hacking tips, violence, personal attack, etc. None of the article directories are going to publish your article, if your article contains any of these.
  • Abstain from using special characters, long dashes, curly quotes, HTML codes (some of them are accepted), hard line-break, Tabs, etc.
  • Number of articles: You should at least write 10 articles to get good quality backlinks and substantial traffic.
  • Grammar and punctuation: Though an article directory is not a bunch of strict grammarian, nonetheless, you need to use proper grammar and punctuation in order to make readers understand what you are saying.

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