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Booklet Tips From Paulette

Writing, producing, and promoting tips booklets for marketing, motivating, and making money.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Paint Word Pictures in Tips Booklets

Several reminders lately of the importance of giving the client, reader, audience member the *experience* -- the benefits, not the features. For instance, when you're car breaks down on the road and you get towed to the garage, you really don't care that the mechanic will use a particular size wrench, turned three twists, carefully removing the widget that's connected to the ... Uh, you get the idea. All you care about is how soon can the mechanic get you back on the road, and what will it cost you.

Even with writing a tip, yes, I suggest after telling the person what to do, that you add 1 or 2 sentences explaining "why" or "how." It's been effective to see some booklet authors naturally go that extra mile, even within the formula structure, in mentioning the experience the reader is likely to have: "Move things one or two inches closer to you on your desk. You will save time and have less stress throughout your day." In those few short words, there is a direct instruction, followed by describing the probable outcome, without any reference to the muscles used in moving those things closer.

In many cases (though definitely not all), the number of pages in your booklet, the dimensions of it, the number of ink colors, the font size, the number and type of graphics, the kind of paper -- these don't matter. What matters is how your booklet will make someone's life more, better, or different.

Until next time,
Paulette - sharing the reminder to focus on benefits rather than features

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