Table Of Contents
Writing Strategy
Walking down the narrow path walk, a woman was few steps ahead of me conversing er, quarreling with someone.over the phone.
Overheard conversations:
Woman: Never again. I won’t let you do it for the third time.
Man: But… you’ve just said you love me.
Woman: Yes, but loving myself more is better than loving a man like you.
Man: Then, why are you calling me this very hour, you knew very well that I am busy.
Woman: Busy with what?
Man: Work.
Woman: It’s Sunday!
Man: Oh.
Silence. Something I feared that time might happen. For the storm was brewing.
Woman: What a flimsy excuse. How could you lie to me like that? You’re busy womanizing.
Had just passed by her few steps away when, to my great surprise, she threw the phone few steps to where am heading. It shattered to pieces.
What if I accidentally stepped onto the cellphone shattered pieces, and got myself hurt from what she did?
What if an innocent kid got hurt from such?
What if… too many possible scenarios. Yes, a writer like me has this fondness to playing what-if every time there is a chance to. For, the ambient or setting, action-reaction of people or what around can be a great story gem need polishing, good insinuating incident to my soon to be written novel and slated to be published this coming year.
Well, I was in awe to the gentleman who chose to pick those destroyed cellphone and returned it to the woman who had just raised hackles at that time.
Yes, endless is the possibilities of getting ideas out of daily people-watching while you’re also busy on things adulting. We are, oftentimes, being side-tracked with different stimuli around; yes, almost all our scenes or dialogues were products of overheard conversations, seen movements of people doing daily grind, and the like.
Making this people-watching as one way toward getting gem for a story or what, the easier the journey becomes toward fleshing out a character, dressing up a scene, and giving thought-provoking statement to the readers who are open to absorb wisdom from all corners of the book, either in printed or e-book form.
I did not give longer attention for I was preoccupied with other matters like having to feel the ambience of being surrounded with different faces, reactions, due to different motives, either eking out a living wishing such could have been given to them instead of throwing it away, or just passing time waiting for someone, hours before dawn.
With the different thought popping up my mind, say possible cliffhanger to a given chapter need to be written when I am home, the conflict needed for a scene where the protagonist has to confront the antagonist, things like that.
A writer’s mind is full of characters competing for attention. So when you see me unmindful of the ambience around, well, am between characters shouting at me at length for a chance to grace one of my future novels.. Don’t bother bothering me.
Yes, a writer is a slave of his characters vying for attention and all. Please don’t compete with them. Just kidding.
Boost Your Email Open Rates
About a dozen email marketing studies into email open rates have inferred that Tuesday is the best day to send emails.
Emails are undoubtedly the most widely used medium of communication across the world. When it comes to winning new customers, emails are 40 percent more effective than social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, based on a study by McKinsey.
As a business entity you use a series of email marketing campaigns to attract potential customers. However, to get your target customers to open your email is a major challenge.
Here are the most effective tactics to escalate your email open rates.
- Your subject line is the maker or breaker
Your subject line is the alpha and omega of your email marketing campaign. It is the first thing that can induce attention and the last thing that can push your campaign effectively. You can’t afford to phrase it loosely.
Why would someone open your email?
Are you giving enough reason to do so?
Does your subject line entice the reader?
If not, then perhaps your subject line is weighed down with one of these commonly made mistakes:
Too long
Use of full caps
Use of multiple exclamation marks or other punctuations
Absence of urgency
Unclearly composed
No personal touch
Lack of action-prompting keywords
Your subject line is the face and identity of your email and the most urgent calling of email marketing. Doing it right is breaking the ice.
- Personalize and Customize
One of the most critical, effective and important tactic for identifying potential customers is through personalized communication. After all, the one question that every customer asks for is “What’s in it for me?” Using data science and predictive analysis to tailor and customize your email to best suit the customer’s requirements and preferences is a good way to persuade opening of your email. When you engage customers with personalized recommendations, there is a higher likelihood of getting them on-board.
Take a quick look at these subject line examples, each of which adds a personal touch in its own unique style.
Janice, here’s a guide for your survey data
Hey Megan, find your diet plan inside
Justin, book a free demo
Hi Miley, grab this deal before tomorrow
Now take a look at the examples below. The personalization here is inside the email, not in the subject line. These emails are targeted at retaining existing customers.
a) Offering a guide to improve performance through newsletters
Subject line: “Newsletter – June 2018”
survey-result
b) Giving personalized reminders on missing activity
Subject line: “Hi it’s Duo! It’s time for your daily German lesson. Take 5 minutes now to complete it.”
missing-activity
c) Generating customized weekly progress reports Subject line: “Your weekly progress report”
weekly-progress-report
- Highlighting your reason for existence “We Exist for You” kind of messages
Telling your potential customers that you exist for them and that your presence in their lives will fill a need gap, is an effective tactic to get them open your email.
Making them know and understand what you can do for them and what difference you can bring to their lives will be full of meaning to them. Knowing that your service was developed out of a latent need and that it would empower a whole industry, is a strong reason to know more about you and your offer.
Take a look at this campaign by Burst telling how their purpose is to empower developers, bloggers and entrepreneurs.
empower
- Automated Emails
Emails that are triggered as a result of any of the below reasons are known as triggered or automated emails.
A Download
New Subscription
Purchase
Subscriber Becoming Inactive
Unordered items in a cart
Renewal, refill or replacement
Automated emails ensure that you respond to the customer immediately after he has taken an action on your email campaign and has your attention.
E.g. If you download a whitepaper here, you will get an immediate response with a link for you to download.
Studies on email marketing have proved that auto- responder and triggered emails have a much higher open and click rates
Automated-Emails
- Discounts, deals and sales notifications
Emails with an urgent subject line alerting potential customers to act on an offer of discount, sale or exclusive deal catches the eye more than other emails. Therefore, higher are the open rates of such emails.
Ensure that the subject line categorically emphasizes the offer. Else, you are losing the plot
Subject line: “Best Quality Marketing Material| Design Yourself”
deals-and-sales-notifications
- Underlining an apparent problem
Subject line: “Have you protected your home?”
Underlining-an-apparent-problem
Emails with a solution to a generic problem have a tendency to create genuine curiosity and are clicked more often.
- Invitation for free trials and demos
Subject line: “Kimberly, here’s a 30-day free trial to help you advance your career”
free-trials-and-demos
Emails inviting customers for a free trial or demo have a far higher open rate and click-through rate. This is where the user is convinced that they don’t have anything to lose in the proposition and there is a psychological push to take up the free trial. Leverage on this aspect to improve your statistics.
- Personal event
Subject line: “Birthdays Coming? Best Gift Ideas”
Personal-event
Finally, emails that personally wish users on their birthday and offer exciting benefits stand to gain significant clicks. Remember that your subject line must state the benefit/offer as exclusive for the user specific event such as Birthday.
The above example is a precursor to family events and offers discount for gift shopping in advance.
What Personal Details Should Be On Your CV
This section is straightforward, but it’s important to start with some don’ts before we get on to the dos. Where people often get this section wrong is to put too much detail in.
Sadly, in the ageist society we live in it is not advisable to put in your date of birth if you are over 40. If you want to add any more details about yourself, why not add them to the additional information section.
There are a few options in this section. If you think it would help you get the job, you could also mention whether you have a clean driving license, for instance.
Remember though, you don’t want to take up too much space with this section, and you want to make a crisp start with your CV and get onto the stuff that will get you that all-important interview.
Education
The debate is where to put your education. Maybe the simplest answer is to decide how important the person reading the CV will think it is. If you have been Managing Director of a multi-national company, maybe your seven GCE ‘O’ level passes aren’t that crucial?
Traditional CV advisers have always stressed that education should come up front in a CV. However, the more experienced you are the more likely you are to relegate your education to almost the last item on your CV. Of course, if you are just leaving school or college then your education is very important and it should be at the beginning of your CV.
The judgement on this is really yours. The main problems people have with putting together their education sections are: how much detail to put in about the education how to set this section out.
The detail
In this section don’t be shy to put all your qualifications at school. You don’t need to give the grades for GCSEs if you went on to do ‘A’ levels. Don’t give details of exams you failed. The key here is to put down all the qualifications you have, because it’s likely to impress.
You may then want to add a separate section where you list your training. All too often people tend to downgrade the value of training, but to many employers the training you have received is every bit or even more important than your formal education.
After all, the employers who trained you thought it was important enough to spend money on, so why shouldn’t other employers?
So put down here every training course you have attended and any certificates you have. Today’s modern organization values training, so use this opportunity to tell them about what courses you have done. Do try to leave out irrelevant certificates and awards like the fact you earned a fire-lighting badge in the scouts or passed your cycling proficiency test.
The layout
This section often looks messy because people are left with a large block of text with both their place of education and their qualifications.
A way of counteracting this is to break the section up into easily definable chunks. So, you might have a section headed Places of education, which lists the schools or colleges you went to, and where they are. Don’t mention your primary school here.
You can then have a separate section headed Qualifications. Again, contrary to normal advice, we think a good idea is to start with the most recent qualifications you have. So if you have a degree, start with it and then work backwards.
