When to forgo overly proper grammar
When was the last time you read an advertisement or marketing piece and thought to yourself:
"How they organized all those words is simply extraordinary. I have to tell all my friends about the amazing grammar!"
Crafting your event advertising and promotions, specifically online marketing, is one place where painfully polished grammar and strict academic vernacular should take a back seat.
It is not to say that you should intentionally use lousy grammar, because that won't serve you very well.
Just don't focus so much on grammar that you lose your reader in the process. Ironically enough, losing the reader's attention often happens with overly polished and "corporate speak" writing.
Of the millions of emails clients have sent over the years, not a single ticket buyer (to the best of my knowledge) has complained about the less than ideal grammar. All of the emails sent are written in a conversational tone. The result was tens of millions of dollars in event ticket sales, directly attributable to "unprofessional" writing.
New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss summed it up like this: "The highest goal of writing is NOT to have good grammar; it's to have meaning and impact!"
Make sure that when you tell people about your event through advertising and marketing, you do so with impact!
Get the reader so interested in your event that they have no other choice than to buy a ticket.
Crank up your event promotions. Check out the links below:
- The Most Powerful Form of Online Advertising (Part I)
- The Most Powerful Form of Online Advertising (Part II)
- David Ogilvy's "Secret Weapon" for Advertising Success (Video)
- Advertising and Marketing that Sells
- Get Your Audience Involved Through Their Emotions
- Web Copy Argument: Short or Long?
- Promotional Headlines for Your Event Marketing
- Is Your Text the Right Color?
- Two Amazingly Powerful Event Survey Questions
- Proofing your Work On Paper