Yesterday Alexander’s was one of the sponsors of the 2014 Utah PR Spring Conference. We helped the organizers with the event website and volunteered to print the event invitations and program.
The entire marketing team at Alexander’s attended the conference to polish up our skills and learn more about everything from social media to media relations.
Ann Wylie delivered a morning workshop and the lunch keynote address where she taught us all to Think Like a Reader and to Cut Through the Clutter.
Here are three of our takeaways from Ann’s presentations — three steps to better writing:
1. Provide valuable information or entertainment value
When deciding whether you’ll read something, according to Wylie, you only care about two things:
- Information you can use to make your life better, or
- Entertainment.
We did a quick litmus test and think she’s pretty close to hitting the nail on the head, unless you’re a student or in some other role and are required to read something. But even then, the hope is, if you’re paying for your education, what you’ve been assigned to read will indeed help make your life better by assisting you in your quest to develop a career and make bank.
2. Put ‘you’ in your writing
We did a short exercise using this tip to craft a sentence about the Alexander’s booth-in-a-box trade show solution. Here’s what we came up with:
You can explore the city during your next trade show instead of spending hours setting up and taking down your booth by using Alexander’s inexpensive, disposable booth-in-a-box solution.
She pointed out that we should probably add some clarifiers about how much time our solution can save, something like “you’re done in less than 12 minutes instead of more than an hour.”
The point is: Write so that the reader (the ‘you’ in your copy) can see the benefit and value to them that can be achieved as a result of devoting time to read what you’ve written.
3. Lead with the benefit, not the feature
An example she shared here is from a fitness center. Their headline became “Look better naked,” instead of touting the endless features of the gym. Kind of cuts to the chase, doesn’t it?
Our overarching takeaway from the 2014 Utah PR Spring Conference is that we can always become better communicators, better writers and better client advocates. There’s always so much to do that it’s nice every once in a while to devote some time to improving one’s professional knowledge, skills and abilities.
Thank you, Public Relations Society of America, for letting Alexander’s be part of the event.
