Presentations – be it MS Powerpoint, Google Slides, or Keynotes – help bring out the marketeer in you even if you aren’t one! So why create a boring PowerPoint deck?

The written word is a powerful tool in marketing. Content marketers use persuasive communication to sell their products or services. Creating a marketing text – including some mental hacks – that appeals to human psychology to push the consumer to make the purchase is also called neuro copywriting. While this sounds like manipulation, it is more about the application of actionable writing techniques. Few such techniques are listed below.

Keyword research is critical if you want to attract more traffic to your site; make sure that your content appears on the top pages of search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!; and that it is being read and shared on social media. However, this can also be a time-consuming activity. The good news is there are tools available online – both free and paid versions – that can simplify this task, helping companies in streamlining their workflow and improving overall operational efficiency.

We have heard many success stories of startups: an idea that started in a garage and became a multi-million-dollar entity or even a listed company. Each entrepreneur gives their startup their all to make it successful. However, there are other elements that go into creating the ideal recipe for success tales. In particular, most successful startups are built on a mix of perseverance, mentorship, disruption, and market demand.

Go/no go, deal/no deal, etc., are typical jargons we come across while reading investment notes or reports. Such terms are relevant in making or breaking an investment case. Hence, investment banking firms need to create impactful pitchbooks to attract investors.

“Content is king” holds more relevance in the current age of the internet and social media. Delivery of attractive content is key toward communicating the launch and features of a product or service to the desired audience. Accordingly, there are several types of business documents, each having a specific goal. Irrespective of the goal of the business document, the content should be interesting enough to read over a bowl of chips! The following paragraphs will provide a brief on few key types of business writing through a chips producer’s perspective.

A study conducted by World Bank has revealed signs of an impending recession in 2023. The report noted that central banks across the world have been hiking interest rates to cool inflation, which may lead to global financial crises, with developing economies and emerging markets facing the brunt.

The idea expressed by you in your writing, be it mails, reports, or proposals, must reach the reader properly. This forms the basis of effective written communication, a skill that will help you to achieve success. To create an impact, you must know your reader, write constructively, and make your document visually appealing.

Sell-side equity research is an uber-competitive space across all major equity markets. For instance, an Indian IT major like Infosys is covered by over 35 equity research analysts, including Wall Street firms and Indian sell-side brokers. All of them provide asset managers with their freely distributed research reports.

Fashion fulfills the psychological need in every person to look their best. Be it apparel, cosmetics, or accessories, users are ready to pay a premium for products that make them look good. While the fashion world used traditional advertising to connect with their customers, the new-age buyer is more influenced by fashion bloggers.

The debate regarding who is more superior - man or machine - has been raging since a long time. Latest developments in software and applications of technology have only made it more relevant. Just as words once spoken cannot be taken back, developments in technology cannot be rolled back and are here to stay. How do we make peace with this?

Entrepreneurs and established firms alike need funding. Now how do investors get to know of likely good returns or avoid potential bad investments? Through sell-side firms. Notably, while marketing their services, these firms end up influencing IPOs, secondary markets, and even institutional investor decisions.

In today’s world, digital marketing is essential for companies to stay in the game, as the preferred mode of conducting business shifts from offline to online amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, search accounts for ~30% of the total traffic a website receives.

Considered one of the best poets and dramatists of all times, Shakespeare is a household name around the world. “But that’s all 16th century stuff, who speaks old-style English these days anyway?”, you say. Then you’ll be surprised to know that the oft-used phrase to “break the ice” you keep hearing at team meetings was in fact coined by the great Bard of Avon.

That video is the king of content is undebatable today. However, it is equally true that most videos don’t have the desired impact despite the best efforts going into their production, from research to use of the latest techniques/technologies to launch on the best of the platforms.

While the art of writing may be intrinsic to storytellers and authors, business writing is an essential skill that can be acquired. Delivering messages with clarity is important in every walk of life and, hence, the need to cultivate the skill.

The global pandemic COVID-19 has created an economic turmoil across sectors. The rising number of coronavirus cases have led to lockdown in most countries, adversely affecting business and livelihood.

A well-ordered sequence of two or more sentences related to a single topic is called a paragraph. Paragraphs are considered the building blocks of articles. Formal writing requires text to be presented in well-structured paragraphs.

A well-written article keeps the reader engaged. To ensure meeting the purpose of writing, one of the most important errors to be avoided is redundancy. Redundancy in writing is when more words than necessary are used to express something, such as words and/or phrases that convey the same meaning in the same sentence.

There was a time when writing letters was the primary means of communication. I remember as a child when I got a letter (it was a subscription letter for a children’s program), I was so excited and proud to be the youngest recipient of a letter in the family, even though it was nothing personal.

The Indian real estate sector has been showing signs of weakness since the beginning of 2017 when demonetization was implemented. The country’s realty sector, valued at around INR8.3 trillion, as per Niti Aayog’s estimate in February, is one of the most recognized sectors in the world.

The appeal of stories will never fade. Tales of magical lands, enchanted jungles and animal kingdoms have captivated our interest since childhood. Writers, authors and bards with amazing storytelling/composing capability have always held a prestigious place in the society, earning respect for their talent.

Proficient English speakers pride themselves on having mastered the subtlest of grammar rules. However, many of them tend to miss out on an important one, the unwritten adjective rule. Although people may subconsciously use this rule when communicating with others, most cannot specifically write it out or justify it.

We use formal and informal language in different contexts. The two styles differ in relation to the choice of words, tone, and the manner in which words are put together. Informal language is more personal and casual.

More often than not we develop a callous attitude when it comes to writing a blog. The underlying approach is casual. Since we are anyways presenting what is upfront in our minds, we have the leeway to go haywire in expressing our thoughts. But wait. You are on the wrong track, especially if what you have in mind is a corporate blog.

If you are reading this, you are already aware that it takes four wheels to move a car. Not just that, all of them must move at the same speed and together. In short, the effort has to be synchronous because that’s the only way to move.

Hobby is any activity we do in our leisure time entirely for our own pleasure and satisfaction, to unwind from the daily grind of life. While there are of course any number of activities you could pursue as your hobby, there are definite reasons why writing should be one of them. If you think writing is not for you and should be left to the naturally creative geniuses, then think again.

The fourth Industrial Revolution (also called Industry 4.0) has brought in a paradigm shift in the global manufacturing sector. Advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics have increased the use of automation and brought irreversible shift in the structure of jobs.

Jargons and abbreviations pretend to be your best friends, elevating your self-esteem and morale to a grin. That was probably your side of the story. On the other side, people are still smiling because they don’t want to look like fools by exposing their inability to understand what you just said. It is a lot more common than you think.

Fillers are short, seemingly meaningless words used mostly only as part of verbal communication. They may be used intentionally or unintentionally by the speaker in place of pauses they create when determining what has to be spoken next without losing their train of thought by interrupting it with some other idea instead.

What is unbiased language? The language we use needs to be sensitive to people’s sex, physical conditions, age, race, and other categories. Bias-free language is objective and does not discriminate. This is usually easier said than done.

What is the difference between editing and proofreading? Do their functions overlap or do they serve completely different roles? More to the point, is there even a difference between them and does it matter? Hopefully, the following points will highlight the difference between two equally important job roles in publication and help you decide which service to opt for.

With the advent of social media, the definition of ‘trending’ has metamorphosed significantly. Earlier, this word was usually associated with the fashion industry, but today it spans a much wider horizon. Trends are now used to define any topic, event or news which has captured the interest of netizens and is not confined to any one sector or industry.

Weaving stories from words and creating interesting content pieces is definitely an art, and those who possess this talent are artists. Today, when an individual is being bombarded with content, designing engaging thought pieces which can captivate a reader is not easy.

A content management strategy is a structured plan meant to design relevant content for a company; it must be marketed correctly for it to effectively reach the right target audience. Although this sounds simple, it is a complex process and requires detailed strategizing and implementation.

With AI gradually taking over automated tasks in almost every industry, the writing/publishing domain is no exception. Most would say, AI applications will improve speed, efficiency and quality. True that. Publishers are working with technology firms in their bid to improve overall work flow and, consequently, customer experience.

The world’s first humanoid robot, Sophia, made international headlines, when it (she) was granted full citizenship by Saudi Arabia at a business event in Riyadh. The social humanoid robot, which was developed by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, uses artificial intelligence (AI) and face recognition to imitate human gestures and facial expressions.

Most non-native English speakers face problems in using the correct articles (indefinite and definite) in their write-ups and spoken language. Since articles (a, an, and the) are among the most used five words in English language, errors in this area are easily noticeable to native speakers.

Writing may seem a laborious task to some of us; however, it helps you to communicate and reach out to a large audience. Adopting a few simple writing tips can help attract maximum attention.

There has always been a dilemma on what changes faster, language or grammar. For that, we need to understand that a language is first spoken and then written. The spoken part is where most of the incorrect grammar lies, mostly because it is informal speech. As such, we can say that language changes faster than grammar.

The recent years have seen a phenomenal increase in the use of the Internet, social media networks, and various mediums such as blogs and tweets. These mediums have made writers out of laymen, allowing them to voice their opinions on any topic or just pen their thoughts, without having to worry about grammar, punctuation, and syntax.

The Oxford comma, or the serial comma as you commonly know it, is the final comma in a sentence with a list of things. The serial comma is usually placed before the conjunction, and. There are different schools of thought on the use of this comma. It’s common in US English, but the UK English often avoids it.

I have long held the belief that to be a good writer, you need to have amazing writing skills and a plot that can grip the readers’ attention and keep them hooked. Though all that gives you an edge over the hundred other aspiring writers, the real trick is to write effectively.

The semicolon (;) is a punctuation mark that separates major sentence elements. While terminal marks, such as full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks, declare the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon, and colon are internal elements. Thus, the semicolon becomes a ‘secondary boundary’ mark.

The rapidly-developing technology has had a major influence on our lives and provoked linguistic and cultural changes. The English language, which is increasingly gaining the status of lingua franca, is expanding every day with dictionaries trumpeting additions of new and typically very trendy words, several times a year.

Thanks to social media and online marketing, there is an avalanche of content. While this provides a rich source of information, easy access to exhaustive material has shortened the attention span and fueled a kind of impatience in readers. Any lengthy, descriptive essay is almost immediately discarded.

So you’ve written a book for the general or selected audience or your job requires you to write up articles or reports that are intended for business clients, whatever the case, the general consensus among writers is that the piece of work is ready to be published, bypassing that small but crucial step called editing.

Editing constitutes a very important step in the publishing process. It involves a lot more than just checking for correct spelling and grammar. One must ensure the end product is in line with the original intent, such that it conveys the desired message throughout, while also being compelling for readers.

When written and applied properly, white papers act as powerful tools from a company’s sales and marketing perspective. A well-written white paper has the potential to make a company credible – establishing its presence as a thought leader to their target audience.

There is no denying that social media has permeated into every aspect of our life today, even those that are antisocial. So it is any wonder that its effect is felt in our daily communication, and by that extension, on the language we use to communicate on these social media platforms?

Ensure your message is short and sweet, not time-consuming. Any mail that makes us scroll down to more than three short paragraphs is a dampener. Highlighting key points or italicizing words/phrases is a smart way to draw attention to specifics.

One of the essentials for growing business is to have regular communication with the customer. Advertisements, sales collaterals and social media content are the various modes through which connection is established.

Content related to niche products or services is more likely to be dry and uninteresting. Marketing a subject matter that is too mechanical or specialized, therefore, presents a challenge, for only that which is fresh and inspiring sells.

Content marketing is the buzzword today. You need content for your social media activities, sales collaterals and your traditional marketing vehicles. Business communication is all about using the right words to capture the attention and grab eyeballs.

For most of us, typos and punctuation errors will at most earn a rap on the knuckles, or at the very least, leave us embarrassed. However, when companies worth tens of billions blunder, the stakes could be much higher.

If your readers get distracted by grammar errors you’ve ended up making or get confused by what a sentence that you’ve written means, there is a good chance they may end up losing interest in your work. As per a research work, our country has the second highest English speaking population globally.

The success of a write-up depends on its readability and of course its content. Often we come across write-ups with well-edited sentences and near-flawless language. We read it start to end and still cannot make any sense of it.

If only I could bypass the editor….that’s more often the first thought when a researcher pushes the copy to editing. Well, the bad news is that we shrinks on the other side of the desk are going to stay for quite a while! So, why can’t artificial intelligence or AI edit language on its own? What’s the big deal?

A picture says a thousand words’ – this saying is not only popular but also true. A visual always creates a deeper impression than simple words. This is the reason for the emergence and importance of infographics in content marketing. Infographics can increase web traffic by 12%.

Powerful presentations are the key to strike the right chord with the target audience. You spend time in collecting relevant data, customer insights, and industry statistics. Your team brainstorms to get brilliant ideas, and all this needs to be captured and presented to the client.

You wrote the most thoroughly researched piece, poured your knowledge to enrich the content, yet when you posted it on online media, the response was flat. Ever wondered where you may have gone wrong? Well, if things still confound you, here is probably the question you need to ask.

You will be tempted to perceive plagiarism as a minor form of getting ‘inspired’ in corporate or artistic terms. If so, it is of primary importance to understand the concept of plagiarism in its true sense. Avoiding plagiarism is not just about following a set of rules; it is more about understanding its ethical implications.

Getting your thoughts in order is the first step towards conveying your message, exactly the way you want it to be perceived. This is of utmost importance because the subject of your message usually stems from right here. With this, you need to keep in mind the purpose of your document, the intended recipient, and the emphasis or the point you are trying to make.

A hyphen is a punctuation mark that plays distinct roles in the English grammar. Although it looks like a dash, it is used as a joiner for words; a dash, on the other hand, is used to push two words apart. Using a hyphen to join prefixes with words is becoming less common; prefixes are now combined with words to form standalone words. Sometimes, this may change your intended meaning and distort the message you want to convey.