October 11, 2010 · Filed under Tips of the Trade · Tagged advertise, advertising, all, article, ask, blog, blogging, book, books, business, call, career, college, confirm, confirm receipt, consequences, conversation, costs, cover letter, cruise, dates, decision, detail, dfw, discount, discount offer, discussion, doing, doing business, event, facebook, Falcon, follow, follow up letter, follow-up, follow-up notes, free, freelance, good sales cover letter, good sales letter, google, hallowed ground, halloween, home, home-based business, how to, how to write a follow up letter, information, interest, ladye, lax, letter, literature, mail, meeting, meeting or event, message, metallica, movie, movies, music, net, notes, Obama, offer, opportunity, oral, oral agreement, original, original message, pagan, penthouse, people involved, person, photo, pic, pics, plans, playboy, pleasure, plinky, porn, presentation, product, product information, product or service, products, quantities, query, read, receipt, religion, request, richbydesign.wordpress.com, ritual, sales, sales cover letter, sales letter, sales presentation, samhain, school, service, services, substance, telephone, telephone call, text, text message, texting, thank, time, times, tips, travel, unanswered request, vacation, verify, Wiccan, work, work-from-home, write, write a good letter, write a good sales cover letter, write a sales letter, writer, writing
In a general Follow-Up Letter, refer to the key idea (the meeting, your last letter, the unacknowledged gift) and mention the reason for writing the present letter (“as I hadn’t heard from you” or “I wanted to remind you”). If you are asking your reader to do something, say so clearly (“Please call me,” “Let me know if it arrived,” or “Send your payment now”).
When following up a telephone call or face-to face conversation, begin by referring to your meeting or telephone visit. Recap the conversation, repeating accurately the details of your talk: what decision was made, dates, times, quantities, plans, costs, people involved, and so forth. Ask the person to verify that this was the substance of your discussion. State what you expect next of the other person. Express appreciation for their interest or pleasure in the forthcoming meeting.
When you must write a Follow-Up Letter to an unanswered request, query, or letter, repeat your original message (or include a copy of it, even). You may want to go into a little more detail this time on the need or importance of the person’s response and what consequences for you or for the other person might arise from a failure to respond.
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When following up a Sales Presentation, your letter is primarily a good Sales Letter, but you also thank the person for the time and opportunity to explain your product or service and you emphasize the one or two features that the person seemed most taken with during your presentation. Express your appreciation of their business, office, plant as well as your pleasure in the possibility of doing business with them.
When a meeting or event has been scheduled many months in advance, it’s sometimes necessary to send Follow-Up Notes reminding people. Repeat all the information along with a pleasant remark about hoping to see the person.
What NOT to Say:
• Avoid implying that your reader is thoughtless, negligent, forgetful, or impolite when writing about an unanswered letter or unacknowledged gift. There is always the possibility of mail going astray. Even if they have been lax in responding, they won’t like you any better for pointing it out to them! Try to keep your irritation and frustration from showing through.
• A Follow-Up Letter should not be a simple repeat of an earlier communication (except in the case of confirming an oral agreement or discussion). It should have some specific (even if thin) excuse for being written – to confirm receipt of something, for example.
Punching It Up A Notch
Tips on Writing
When you receive no response to a Sales Letter and you send a Follow-Up, you begin by referring to your previous letter (“I wrote you several weeks ago to tell you about…” or “Did you receive the certificate we sent you, good for…?”). The rest of the letter is primarily a good Sales Letter but should emphasize a different benefit or aspect than your first letter did (tell them something new). This letter should also be shorter or perhaps, longer than the first and with all likelihood, a different tone, all together.
When a customer requests product information or literature, you fill the request and write a good sales cover letter to accompany the material. It is customary to write a Follow-Up Letter several weeks later. Refer to the earlier letter, thank them for their interest, offer further information, and then either mention a representative who will call on them, give them an order blank with a first-order discount offer, urge them to call a toll-free number to order, or make some other action-oriented proposal.
Too often, communication ceases once the customer has paid for the product or service. However, aggressive businesse s will keep in touch with such customers, sending Follow-Up Letters to see how things are working out, to inform customers of new product lines, to remind them that you appreciated their business in the past and hope to serve them, again.
Also See Article: Follow-up Letters
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October 4, 2010 · Filed under Tips of the Trade · Tagged advertise, advertising, adword, all, article, blog, blogging, book, books, business, career, college, cruise, Falcon, follow up letter, follow-up, free, free movies online, free music online, freelance, google, home, home-based business, how to, ladye, movie, movies, music, news, Obama, pagan, penthouse, photo, pic, pics, playboy, plinky, porn, read, religion, sales letter, school, tips, travel, vacation, Wiccan, work, work-from-home, write, writer, writing
“Don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!”
(Lewis Carroll, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter Writing)
A follow-up letter (postal or via email) refers to an earlier letter, conversation, or meeting and is a graceful way of tying up a loose end, reminding someone to carry through on a promised action, building on something that went before, or spreading goodwill. This little personal touch, which takes three minutes, makes an enormous impression. The ones who do it regularly in business are such standouts. They’re the ones who jump ahead.
Write a Follow-Up Letter When
· You have not had a response to a letter of yours and you need to remind someone that you are waiting for answers, information, confirmation, or merchandise.
· Your telephone messages have not been returned
· You wish to remind someone of an appointment, meeting, favor, request, inquiry, invitation, payment, or work deadline.
· A sales letter or product literature has not produced a response.
· Your initial sales letter brings a response (order, expression of interest, request for more information) and you want to amplify the material in your first letter, encourage the customer to order or to buy again, and to keep in touch with the customer for goodwill reasons.
· You want to follow-up on a sales call or demonstration.
· You want to verify with a customer that a shipping problem or missing order has been settled to their satisfaction.
· After business lunches, dinners, meetings, or other hospitality you want to express appreciation and acknowledge what was accomplished.
· You wish to sum up what was accomplished in a meeting or interview so that there is a record and so that your estimate of what went on can be verified by others.
· You need to confirm a meeting date, a telephone or other oral agreement, a message left with a third-party.
· A gift you sent has not been acknowledged and you want to know whether it arrived.
· You have visited a school, university, or college as a prospective student, or have attended a meeting as a guest and potential member, and wish to express your appreciation and impressions.
· Someone has visited your school, university, college, or organization as an applicant and you wish to express appreciation and the hopes that they are interested.
· You want to send omitted or supplemental material or to revise an earlier correspondence.
*****So, now we know when the right time is to send a follow-up letter but, how about HOW to write that letter? READ MORE HERE
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July 24, 2010 · Filed under Falcon, Tips of the Trade · Tagged article, articles, blog, blogging, business, cars, cruise, hotel, how to, keywords, music, news, porn, SEO, tips, tricks, trucks, vacation, vehicles, write
Remember when SEO was non-existent? I wish that I had learned how to reach my target audience, sooner. I am so glad that the guru’s of the internet developed a better way for us to sift through the vast information that is out there.
Keywords are one of the most important components of any successful Search Engine Optimization campaign. However, before you quickly skim your website and round up a few less-than-stellar keywords, you should invest time in performing some in-depth keyword research. Salma Jafri, online content development specialist and New Way To Work finalist, shares her 5-step guide on finding the right keywords to get your search rank jumping.
Oftentimes, buyers give you a brief description of the title of an article or its main topic and let you determine the appropriate keywords to use. Whether you’re doing an SEO article project for a client or wish to rank your website or blog higher, you’ll need to pick and find the right keyword combination to attain that all-elusive high-ranking keyword niche. This article will provide you with a primer on getting started with keyword research.
Step 1: Think Like Your Reader
When I was writing an article about buying ergonomic chairs, I started thinking about why anyone would want to buy this item. Here’s what I came up with.
People who’d want to buy ergonomic chairs:
* might be looking to buy chairs for their office, home office or staff
* might have back pain, spine problems or suffer from some other kind of repetitive stress injury (RSI)
* are probably concerned about their posture while sitting and about preventive pain furniture
This brainstorming helped me to think like my potential readers. So before you start keyword research, spend a few minutes thinking about what problem the article will solve for a reader – this will help you align the article’s focus with the keywords used in search queries.
Step 2: Brainstorm Larger Keyword Categories To Develop A Niche
I found that I could group my brainstorming session above into three distinct categories: chronic back pain relief, office furniture and chair features (such as backless, arm rest, wheels, etc). Grouping keywords in this way can help narrow the categories that you’d wish to derive keywords from. So now I can use a tool like Google AdWords: Keyword Tool to search these specific categories for keywords.
Using the tool I came up with several possible keyword combinations (executive, reclining, orthopedic, lumbar, armless, computer, posture, swivel, etc) that I may not have thought about on my own. Even if I don’t use all these phrases as my main keywords, I can still work them into my article as synonyms and alternate terms so that people searching for them will find my article.
Step 3: Analyze And Rank Traffic Potential And Earnings
If you’re looking to find the maximum number of readers for your article, then you’ll want to sort your keywords according to volume. If you run ads which relate to your article, then you’d want to choose keywords that have a high earnings potential (CPC). In most cases, it’s best to have a middle-of-the-road strategy and choose keywords that have a good amount of volume and pay well. The actual numbers that work well for you will depend on your niche and SEO goals.
Step 4: Pick a Targeted List of 2-3 Keyword Phrases
From your list of researched keywords, narrow down your main keywords to two or three phrases. These will become your main keywords that you’re trying to rank well for.
Step 5: Insert Keywords Into The Elements Of Your Article
The most important place where your primary keyword needs to go is the title. Next up is the sub-title or lead paragraph, where you can usually put your secondary keywords. Use your keywords in other prominent places of your article such as sub-headings, anchor text links, images, as well as the first and last paragraph of your article.
Using these five simple steps, you can choose keywords that not only rank well and pay well but also use those that are human reader-friendly and natural-sounding in your article. Your keyword research will hit the mark if your reader benefits from your article and your client (or your blog) benefits from targeted and relevant traffic.
~E
July 6, 2010 · Filed under Hot Topics, My Two Cents, Tips of the Trade · Tagged article, freelance, header, headlines, music, news, porn, post, tips, title, trade, write, writing
Now, that’s a conversation starter!
Lede in’s like this are designed to raise the emotional banner, right off the bat. Think about it. Whenever you hear someone say this, does it not make you, automatically, ‘straighten-up’ and ‘prepare’ yourself for what’s to come? 
I mean, if they were going to tell you about something good that had happened, they would, probably, not opt to begin the conversation this way, right? They might start off with a, “Hey, guess what?”- or, perhaps, an “OMG, I have to tell you about x,y,z” but, certainly, not “We need to talk.”
As a writer, I can appreciate this type of lede because, well…they sure do make great headlines for articles! When someone reads those words, they feel compelled to click on the link in order to read further! Isn’t that the main objective of a title (or header) – to capture your audience and draw them in for a closer view.
The internet is a huge place loaded with tons beyond tons of articles on every subject imaginable.
As a writer, you must be creative enough to title your work in such a fashion that it will stand out above the rest as well as be on target with the subject matter of your writing.
Don’t forget about the value of a well-written first sentence, either. That first line should work to KEEP the attention of your audience that the Title brought in! It’s okay to ‘just type’ your thoughts/information but, do yourself a favor by going back over your draft and ‘fine-tuning’ it so that it will work to hook your target audience, envelope some sort of emotion within them -straight away, keep their attention and leave them with a desire to come back for more.
Until next time,
~E
May 4, 2010 · Filed under Falcon, Tips of the Trade, Uncategorized · Tagged freelance, how to, music, read, tips, tricks, work, work-from-home, writer, writing
When I arrived to college, I wanted to make my presence known. I decided to write an opinions article for the Elon University student- produced newspaper, The Pendulum. My topic was new student orientation. I both praised and criticized certain aspects of the orientation weekend. You can read my article here- http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=2498
This weeks’ Harrower chapter assignment explored the different types of journalism other than breaking news. This includes profiles, reviews, investigative reports, columns and editorials. The section on editorials caught my eye because I had already explored this type of journalism. Little did I know that I had much to learn.
Essentially, the pages discuss how to share your opinion in a respectable and credible way. When writing an opinions article, its important to keep a few things in mind.
The first is your voice. What makes opinions articles so intriguing is the personality and passion that columnists infuse into their writing. It’s crucial to develop your own distinctive voice so your style is instantly recognizable.
When giving your opinions, make sure you are basing them on facts. If you make accusations without including facts, your audience will think you are hypocritical and bias. You can develop your own writing voice by supporting your opinion with facts.
The topic which you decide to write about is also important. Just because you are passionate about your topic does not mean it will captivate your readers. Pick a topic that your readers can relate to and will find interesting. Don’t pick a topic that every other writer is writing about. For example, a lot of editorial columnists are discussing the Tiger Woods scandal. Readers already know about this story, so your editorial on it will not stand out among the others. Try and come up with some fresh insights to make your writing unique.
After reading these tips I decided to analyze my own opinions article. My topic was certainly relevant and of interest to my peers (and probably to the Elon Orientation staff), and I did include facts to support my opinions. This chapter stresses the importance of developing a distinctive writing voice, which I think is an area I was lacking in. Now that I’ve read examples of other editorials, I hope to improve my own writing style.
This was an article that I spotted on another blog and thought it was just perfect for you guys! I hope you enjoy this as much as I did/do. The author of this fantastic piece has a great blog that you can link to here: karafrasca.wordpress.com
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