Award-winning journalist and freelance copywriter, Susanna K. Hutcheson, presents news, thoughts and ideas on the world of business, marketing, copywriting and much more.

AP Stylebook Update Announced

The following is an update for your AP Stylebook.

Editor's Note: An entry on vegetative state has been added to say that the term refers to a condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

vegetative state

A condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious. The patient is unaware of himself and others. He can't be aroused. He can't think, reason, respond, do anything on purpose, chew or swallow. He may react when startled by a sound or a sight, but this is reflex. He may seem to focus his eyes on something briefly. He does not communicate and shows no emotion. He breathes on his own.
Terri Schiavo was a Florida woman in a vegetative state whose care triggered national controversy before her death in 2005.
A vegetative state is labeled "persistent" if it lasts more than a month. If it came about because the brain had been deprived of oxygen, it is generally considered permanent once it lasts longer than three months. If it was brought on by traumatic injury, it is considered permanent if it persists longer than 12 months.

Susanna on 01.24.09 @ 01:50 PM CDT [link]

It's a New Morning In America and We ALL Are Overcoming!

Forgive me for leaving my marketing topics this day and returning to my journalism roots. But today and tomorrow is a special time in my country. I'm watching, as you are, a new day dawning in this great land of opportunity.

I was a high school girl in the early sixties and in college in the middle sixties. I heard my high school teacher tell a young black man that "you people don't know how to talk." I saw bathrooms in the Union Station in Kansas City that said "Colored" and "White" and I say Blacks shut out at the downtown drug store. I asked my mother why that was. She honestly didn't understand either.

I can't pretend to know how that must have hurt black people. I can't pretend to know how it must hurt deep into their old age. I do know that, as a woman, I have suffered a second class placement by society. I do know how that hurts. I do know the tears and pain of not being accepted and of being judged by how you look or from where you come.

But my friends, today in America we are celebrating Martin Luther King and his dream. Moreover, we are celebrating the fulfillment of that dream. A strong, beautiful black man and his brilliant wife will be living at the White House. Oh, how wonderful that is! How truly American that is.

We get to see their darling little girls and their love and their lives unfold before us. And now the Blacks are getting their opportunity at the great power. And yes, they'll know the defeats that the white presidents all have known too.

Blacks have worked by our sides. They have worked hard in jobs to produce the goods that have made this nation great. And yet, they have had second class status for most of that time. Well, no longer.

Yes, I wish a woman had been elected. I want to see women get through that god-awful glass ceiling during my lifetime. But whenever one of us breaks through, it will break for the rest of us.

Mr. Obama may not be able to live up to our expectations. Few people do. But what we feel now is a wonderful, powerful sense of hope. We've been down so long that we couldn't see up. Now, we can. And hope is a very important thing to have. We need it now more than ever.

Yes, I have some doubts. I didn't like his politics. I'm not a Democrat. That doesn't matter. I hope we can all hold hands and love a little bit. What we need now is to come together and fight for each other. We need to forget black and white and all the in between colors. We need to forget male and female. We need to remember we all have dignity and rights and hopes and dreams.

In the sixties, as a young radical, I used a Marxist saying. I'm sorry. But it applies right now. So I'll say it now at this advanced age, "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" We must never give our power to others. Let's use this day and tomorrow to extend love and respect to each other. Let's make this truly a new morning in America. We shall overcome!!

Susanna on 01.21.09 @ 07:59 PM CDT [link]

People Want To Buy. Give Them a Reason and They Will.

I notice when I write a favorable five-star review for a book on Amazon, I generally get mostly positive responses. That translates into more votes for me and a higher score. (I'm number 251 as I write this.)

On the other hand, when I write a less than glowing review, I get lots of negative votes. That is, people voting against my review.

It does not matter one whit whether or not my review is spot on and accurate, people want to have a reason to buy, to believe. This is especially true when I review a book by Suze Orman or Ann Coulter. A negative review pits you against these folks in the eyes of the reader and they want to believe in their beloved author, their friend.

People really WANT to buy the book. When I give a negative review, I'm taking that reason away from them. So, they don't like me. They don't like my review.

So, what does this tell us about selling in general? Simple. If you give people a reason to buy, they will. It's like the guy who goes into an automobile show room. He wants so much to buy that really cool car instead of the sedan the family could really use. But, why should he buy it? How can he justify the purchase? If the salesman can provide that justification, he'll make a sale. If he can't, he won't.

Often, I'll be on a Web site. I'm on the brink of buying an ebook. But the copywriter (or whoever wrote the sales copy) just doesn't take the copy far enough to convince me. He or she has left one question unanswered. They have left one concern unmet. They have not given me quite enough of a reason to buy. So, I don't.

Remember my Amazon experience. PEOPLE WANT TO BUY. THEY WANT A REASON TO BUY. THEY DON'T LIKE BAD REVIEWS. Give them a reason to buy. Back everything you say up with proof, with testimonials, whatever you have.

Don't lose customers and clients because you can't give them the very thing they want that will cause them to buy from you.

Famous copywriter, David Ogilvy said, "Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything." Try to make yours part of that hard-to-achieve one percent.

Susanna on 01.17.09 @ 03:41 PM CDT [link]

The Secret of Great Copywriting

I was reading some tweets I'd missed about copywriting this morning. I read a gem penned by copywriter, Chris Elliott. In a few short words, he gave the secret of great copywriting. This "secret" has always been used by all the copywriting greats, including the famous copywriter, Eugene Schwartz.

Chris tweeted, "The Copywriting Secret: Writing Copy Is Nothing More Than Writing Down The Normal Conversation Of A True Advocate For Your Product."

Now, I don't know if that exact statement was original with Chris or someone else. But, the fact is, it's true.

If you will interview one or more satisfied customers or clients of your client, your copy will write itself. Why? Because that person gives you all you need to sell the product or service. He gives you the words and the hot buttons. He or she provides you with all the reasons people should buy from your client.

Try this with your next copywriting project. Interview one or more satisfied customers. Make sure your client supplies you with several names and gives you permission to contact them.

Then, call or email them and watch your copy write itself.


Susanna on 01.12.09 @ 04:03 PM CDT [link]

AP Stylebook Update Regarding Mortgage-Backed Securities Announced.

A new Associated Press Stylebook update came out today. It reads as follows:

Editor's Note: An entry on mortgage-backed security has been added to define the term as a bond backed by home or commercial mortgage payments.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

mortgage-backed security

A bond backed by home or commercial mortgage payments. These provide income from payments of the underlying mortgages.

Susanna on 01.09.09 @ 05:29 AM CDT [link]

How One Company Turned $50,000 into $13 million dollars and How You Can Too.

Do you want to make your advertising dollar to give you double, triple or quadruple returns? Perhaps even more? You can. Here's how.

You can't always personalize your advertising and marketing campaigns. But, when you can, you will enjoy a tremendous jump in response and in sales.

Let me explain.

The Mahoney Co., of Santa Clara, CA., recently sent out a direct mail piece that was highly personalized. They knew the upgrade schedule of their clients. So it was not hard to send them direct mail and email addressing the fact that now is the time to upgrade.

After determining customers’ upgrade schedules, the company sent personalized direct mail and email, complete with personalized URLs that led recipients to personalized landing pages.

WOW! Talk about getting personal. But, it works.

Web 2.0. You've heard all about it. Well, the entire world is now interactive. That's why personalization works so well. And that's why you should begin to develop as much information about your prospects and clients as possible.

The campaign above cost the company $50,000 and yielded 171 leads, a 9.2 percent response rate, and $13 million in sales. Not bad!

According to an article in Target Marketing magazine, "Results like these are causing many marketers to consider direct mail-to-landing page campaigns."

Have you and your clients given up on direct mail? If so, you're leaving the field wide open to a few smart marketers who see the value of that empty mail slot.

Once full of direct mail, it's now barren of everything. Many people even pay bills online and don't get paper bills. I'm one of those people.

The key to personalized direct response is to be relevant. You need to know your customer, client or prospect. That takes lots of data. That's something many marketers and hardly any copywriter really delves into.

They tend to throw out a net and catch whatever happens to fall into it. Well, that worked once. It won't work much longer.

The prospect and customer of today wants their offers personalized. He or she wants to know that you understand their needs.

That's why when I go to Amazon, they offer me books and products that I've shown an interest in. They don't show me books on raising children or cleaning house or fixing the car. They show me books about copywriting, marketing, advertising, economics, investing and a host of other subjects I care about. They also show me electronic products they know I care about.

That may be why they were the only online business to show a profit last year. I don't know that to be true. But, you might want to think about it.

Do you personalize your offers? Do you have a landing page for each person or, at the least, each group with one central interest or concern?

Do you send out direct mail to drive traffic to those landing pages? If not, you're throwing profit out the window.

Start now to mine data. Start now to discover the new world of marketing as it is, not as it was.

When you do, you can turn $50,000 into $13 million dollars too!

Susanna on 01.05.09 @ 06:52 PM CDT [link]

Learn To Pack a Powerful Sales Message In a Few Words.

A young entrepreneur called me about a year ago. He wanted to know if I would write a landing page for him. After some discussion, I agreed to write it.

His main request, however, was that I write "long copy" no matter what. I told him I would write the amount of copy it took to make the sale. No more. No less.

Turned out I wrote about nine pages (8 1/2" x 11" size pages) of copy. He was not happy with me. He liked the copy. It just wasn't long enough for him.

Somewhere along the way to becoming an onine entrepreneur, he determined that because all the so-called "gurus" used long copy, he should too. He believe that long copy was the only kind of copy that would make the sale.

Well, that's not true.

Long copy is fine when it's called for. But here's the trouble with long copy. Unless it speaks directly to the reader and addresses something the reader is terribly interested in (himself), he will not real all of your sales message.

So the secret of good copywriting today is to keep the copy short and simple if at all possible. At the same time, address the reader and his or her needs. When long copy is called for, use it. But don't use it just because you can.

What I've discovered about the Web 2.0 world is that readers want their messages in short, easy sentences. They want their messages short when possible. When faced with long copy, they scan. They often miss critical parts of your sales message.

So put your hot stuff in the first 200 words. And make the copy so clear a four-year-old can read and understand it.

If you hang out on Twitter (and you should), you'll discover that your messages must be 140 characters or less. Not 140 words, as in a radio commercial, but 140 characters. Can you say anything worthwhile in 140 characters? If not, I suggest you practice. Why?

Because that's Web 2.0. Short is sweet. Short sells. Learn to put important messages in short sentences and short paragraphs and finally in short pages.

When you must use long copy (and there are times you must) use it smartly. Know how your reader approaches your copy. Understand that he'll not grasp each thought you so painfully layout on the page. Learn to think like the reader.

The Web 2.0 Web browser, your prospect, wants to grab the idea fast. He wants to connect with you now, not tomorrow or next week. He wants to make a decision now, not tomorrow.

When you learn the rules of the Web 2.0 road, you'll discover that you have to do more with less. Personally, I love it.

My mother used to tell people that I could say anything in 700 words or less. Coming from a newspaper family and being in the newspaper field many years, I learned how to get the story and write it in full in the length I had in which to write.

I once was told that a man told his wife of me, "She doesn't say much. But when she does, it's worth hearing."

That's what you want in your sales message. You don't need to say much. Just make sure it's worth hearing. Make sure it makes the sale.

Susanna on 01.02.09 @ 05:40 PM CDT [link]