by Mike Garner on 15/06/2009
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Business South-West was an important event for Convalis Software last year. They decided to launch their new customer relationship management and email marketing programme Convalis CRM at the exhibition. Both the launch and the event were a great success as they reached potential customers they would never have been able to meet otherwise.
They are now keen to show off the new enhanced version at this year’s event to be held at the Westpoint Arena in Exeter on 15th and 16th October 2009.
So why choose Business South-West as a showcase for your business?
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by Mike Garner on 01/06/2009
HP sauce bottles no longer carry French text, it was dropped in 1984 to howls of protest apparently. Not least from teachers of French who said it introduced young people to real non-classroom French for the first time. The decision inspired one of those bastions of British middle class outrage, a letter to the Times:
Sir,
Am I alone among your readers in deploring the loss of that much loved and most piquant of French primers – the label on the HP Sauce bottle?
If unfortunate circumstances decreed that there was nothing else to read at the breakfast table one could always turn to the HP Sauce bottle for a little French revision. It will be sadly missed.
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by Mike Garner on 06/05/2009
Doffing my cap to the great John Simmons, these are lifted directly from his book We, Me, Them
& It about how to write powerfully for business. Why use a long word when a short one will do?
It’s clearer, less pretentious and saves air! [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 25/04/2009
We haven’t spoken in a while. You let me go one evening last summer. The goodbye was a bit long and protracted, mind you. You took your time leaving on account of being more attached to me than you thought.
In the meantime, life’s been quite OK. In fact, it’s been getting a lot better. I need crutches to get around and sometimes when I feel lazy, I get in a wheelchair. Yes, I do miss you and so does your twin brother, but we make the best of things. Well, you have to, don’t you? I don’t know what happened to you and I’m not sure I want to know. I would like to think you’ve been treated well. I don’t suppose it’s much fun for a foot like you without me, the rest of the body
by Mike Garner on 24/04/2009
If you’re struggling to find the right direction for your advertising, here’s a quick and dirty guide to the fundamental questions to ask yourself.
What do you want to say?
This means determining your starting point. Identify what is the most important part of your product or service. What is your proposition? What is the promise? And most importantly, what is THE BENEFIT? [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 21/04/2009
Innocent Drinks is a brand close to my heart as it has a strong basis in writing. Their cartons tell amusing little stories whilst getting the boring compliance information across. They engage with their customers even inviting them to drop in to “Fruit Towers” for a chat. I don’t know to what extent that’s a relic from the early days, but it’s a sign of how they create a dialogue with the people that buy their products. In the same way, their web site gives the impression that they’re just cool, regular guys. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 16/04/2009
With the greatest respect to designers, people don’t just look at Web sites because the pictures are pretty, it’s because they want to find something. Whether you want to provide information, a product or a service, words are still the best way we have of telling people what we do. So here are a few hints to organising those words so that they are read and understood.
1 – Write a strong headline that solves a problem
I see so many web pages that use “Welcome to my Website” as the headline. Polite, but lame. Your headline is a unique opportunity to stand out and grab your reader’s attention
2 – Talk to your audience
You do know what your target audience is don’t you? Talk to them and address their concerns.
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by Mike Garner on 13/04/2009
It started on a whim. I was bored one day. I wanted some fun. The rain was pelting down so I had no real desire to go out. I was a long way from my deadline for the work so I found myself meandering across the Internet. I don’t know what inspired me to play the lottery. I don’t do it very often and in my more lucid moments I think of it as a tax on the aspirations of the poor. But then again, I’m a money tart just like anyone else.
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by Mike Garner on 13/04/2009
So Birmingham City Council can’t work out what to do with its apostrophes:
A lot of fuss is made about these little building blocks of English grammar, but they are quite simple to understand really. When should they be used and when should they not be used? [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 11/04/2009
Years ago, I met a little old man on a train in Bulgaria who told me he spoke 7 languages. He said he had learned them by picking up an Agatha Christie novel in translation and reading it with the help of a bilingual dictionary. By the time he’d made his way through the first 20 pages or so, he had the basics of the language.
More recently, I interpreted for a Russian engineer in a Toyota factory in northern France. He also spoke 6 or 7 languages and he was just as methodological. He told me that when he learnt a language he developed a grammatical matrix which he memorised. Then it was just a question of filling this gaps with vocabulary.
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Business South-West was an important event for Convalis Software last year. They decided to launch their new customer relationship management and email marketing programme Convalis CRM at the exhibition. Both the launch and the event were a great success as they reached potential customers they would never have been able to meet otherwise.
