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Would You Like to Make a Donation to Breast Cancer Today?

By on October 14, 2009 in freelance copywriter, healthcare copywriter, website copywriting
"No"

"No"

The word “no” has to be one of the crummiest words in the English language. “Would you like to go to dinner sometime?” “Um, no.” “Did you get the job?” “No.” “Is there a cure?” “No.” “Will you marry me?” “No.” Did we win? “No.”

The only good thing about the word “no” is its shocking finality, its absolute clarity. There is no ambiguity about the word no at all. No, wait, scratch that. No isn’t so clear after all.

In the cat and mouse game of boy meets girl, “no” can often mean “no, absolutely not” or, “not right now” or “yes, but I’m not supposed to so, um, no, I think” and so on. For teenage boys and girls “no” is like an inkblot test designed by M.C. Escher – its meaning changes every time it shows up.

So there I was over at my local Safeway/Starbucks the other day getting a mid-afternoon latte and a brownie. (I should have “just said no” to the brownie but I digress.)

Anyway, when it came time to swipe my card, I swiped away. And as I punched in my pin number I was asked a very simple question with two possible answers: “Would you like to make a donation for breast cancer today?”

“Yes” or “No.”

I felt like a teenage girl with a cute, panting boyfriend. “No” in this case was really more like a, “maybe yes, but not right now.” But I wasn’t given that choice. It was “yes” or “no”. Which is really a bummer because I have said yes to a breast cancer donation again and again and again at that very same Safeway. But not being independently wealthy, I can’t indulge my altruistic leanings every time I am prompted. So “no” it was.

The problem is that I felt like a cheapskate. If I choose “yes” I’m a good guy, if I choose “no” well, I walk out feeling tight and a little cheap. How about if instead of “yes” and “no” the good folks who design these campaigns gave us “maybe next time”.

That way, if I decline, I’m not made to feel so small about it, and I’ve made a small promise to donate next time.

What do you think? Yes or no?

If YOU would like to make a donation to help in the fight against breast cancer, you can do so here>>

Update: From the great minds think alike department. One day later comes this post on the word “no” from Christopher S. Penn. I found it at Chris Brogan’s New Marketing Labs website, but the author is Christopher S. Penn, author of the blog Awaken Your Superhero. Here’s an excerpt from his piece called The Power of Not Yet:

There’s a little too much no out there.

No, you can’t.
No, you don’t have that.
No, that’s not affordable.
No, you’re not good enough.
No, you don’t know how to do that.
No, you can’t reach those customers.

The problem with no is in the finality of its tone. No cuts off possibility, especially inside your own head. Are you good enough to get this job? If your mind says no, then you move on – but chances are, you don’t come back, and that door of opportunity closes forever in your mind.

Read the whole post here>>

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The Importance of Being Earnest

By on April 18, 2009 in healthcare copywriter, SEO Copywriter Portland, OR, seo copywriting, website copywriting

One of the challenges that many businesses face is increased competition. That’s probably the understatement of the century. I think our current financial meltdown is a textbook case of how ‘too-big-to-fail’ entities mismanaged the competitive environment. How companies respond to increased pressures is revealing – and not always in a good way.

This gets even trickier at smaller companies who may not employ the kinds of checks and balances and LEGAL oversights/constraints that larger companies routinely employ. So let me segue into copywriting and how competitive pressures and copywriting can, like a pretzel, get twisted and baked.

Smaller company “A” chooses, out of short-sightedness or budgetary constraints, to have  “Joe” the head of sales, write the copy for the company website. Joe is an average writer and is known as a top salesperson, but Joe is also known for “inflating like an air mattress on steroids” the claims he makes for his company’s products.

Joe believes that no one ever checks the claims that are made — especially the ones on a company website. “Who the hell is going to call us and ask us to prove something? What loser would do that? No one does that.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe no one will call. But they probably won’t call for anything else either because people have a way of sniffing out poseurs. And the other problem this creates is that Joe, by writing things that are simply not true, has made his company a liar. And if the company’s website has on its homepage a claim that everyone in that company knows is not true, then how does that impact the rest of the employees?

What a given company says about itself in the public domain has deep and lasting consequences. Taking shortcuts with the truth for short term tactical advantage is a great way of deep sixing your own prospects.

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