Issue No. 2, December 2005

Dear Reader,

Leverage your assets – or not – with this month’s edition of EC Buzz.

Thanks to everyone who sent in feedback on the first issue (overwhelmingly positive!) and suggested buzzwords to banish. Keep them coming!

Have a safe, relaxing holiday!

Elizabeth Cockle
Copywriter and Buzzword Banisher

In this issue...

• Three Simple Ways to Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines
• Buzz Off : Leverage your assets
• Parting Words

Three Simple Ways to Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines

1. Ask a question. What keeps your target market awake at night? Turn their biggest concern into a question, then provide your solution in the body copy.
2. Use a statistic. A dramatic statistic will automatically attract attention. Choose a statistic that relates directly to your target market.
3. Keep it short. Short text is much easier to read than long text. A short headline also lets you make effective use of highlighting devices, such as:
   • centring
   • using a larger font
   • underlining, bolding or italicizing
   • capitalizing an important word

Buzz Off : Leverage your assets

Both “leverage” and “asset” have turned into business buzzwords. Any phrase with two or more buzzwords becomes abstract and virtually meaningless.

• “We’ll help you make the most of your resources.”
• “Trying to make the most of what you’ve got? We can help.”
• “Your strengths + our expertise = your success.”

Thanks to subscriber Raymond Helkio for nominating this month’s buzzword.

Which buzzword is your pet peeve? Send your suggestion to writer@ecwriting.com, then look for your buzzword and name in an upcoming issue.

Parting Words

“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’ otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

–  C.S. Lewis, British author