March 4th, 2009 by Jimmy Sweney

People who are writing their cover letters when applying for the job often just write it for the sake of doing it. They don’t know what a good cover letter can do to help them get the job that they have applied for. Usually, these cover letters would contain unnecessary details making it pointless.

Cover letters are usually the basis of the interviewers when setting up personal interviews with the applicants. With the huge number of applicants in a certain job opening, hiring managers do not have much time to interview and screen them one by one. This is the time that a good cover letter takes action.

To say that a cover letter is good, it should give the hiring managers a picture of a person who has the potential for the position. Therefore, your letter should be brief and concise.

The function of a cover letter is to give your employers an overview about you; therefore you should make it good. Be careful with your grammar and punctuation.

When writing your letter, it is advisable to begin with a draft first. Review your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Make corrections if necessary. A one page letter is more preferred than a letter with several pages.

As much as possible, make your letter short. Do not write a long letter because interviewers don’t have a lot of time to read long and senseless letters. Make it straight to the point and do not overload it with information; leave that to your resume.

Some of the important details that can be written in a cover letter are your educational background, related work experience, and skills that are necessary for the position you are applying for. However, do not overload information leaving no room for your resume.

Your main objective is to make your interviewer interested in your abilities and what you can do for the company. Through your cover letter, you will capture your interviewer’s attention and get a personal interview.

Business, Careers, communication, cover letters, home, jobs, resumes, writing

February 24th, 2009 by Damian Papworth

Many factors have to be considered when making an advertising plan. Like the type of message to be delivered, the audience to be targeted, how they should be targeted, budget, etc.

Regarding the type of message to be delivered, try thinking from the point of the customer. What will impress him and catch his fancy. Note down points what the customer expects from the company and what advantage will he have when dealing with the company. Effort should be prefabricated to retain viewer or listener’s or reader’s interest in the advertisement until the end. This procedure is known as message selection.

After creating the outline of the picture, pick lines that will actually attract the customer. The message shouldn’t be long enough to bore the customer. Some advertisers are under the illusion that more the matter written, the better the message delivered. Usually they fear that they don’t miss out any information. This does nothing but decreases the effectiveness of the ad and customer is left unsatisfied.

For example, the heading of the advertisement shouldn’t be just “We Sell Clothes”, which is too precise. The liking of the people should be studied and the headline should be designed such that the customer feels that his needs are met. It should also take into consideration seasonal changes like If the season at that time is summer and there are lots of beaches around that area, the heading of the ad should be something like “Summer Clothes for Sale” or “Get the heat off ? Buy Swimwear”. The body of the advertisement should talk of the necessities to switch to summer clothes like cotton clothing. It should discuss the health point of view too, like cotton cannot be used as swimwear as it will cause contamination, therefore the swimwear is made of synthetic material. Also include lines about swimwear for overweight people.

Ads are either traffic builder or relationship builders or reputation builder. Suppose the budget involved is less, the target should be relationship builder. Because once the customers are established, they will start trusting the company and won’t switch to other companies. According to a research it takes ten percent less resources to retain existing customers than attracting new customer. If the focus is on brand recognition, the advertisement should be traffic building.

The next point is whether the advertiser wants quick results or long lasting results. If quick result is desired, then a time limit should be levied. Like in case of seasonal sales, the customer hurries to get advantage before the offer is over. So quick results are expected in this case. But the disadvantage with advertisement with time limit is that the customer are bound to forget about the product or the company within a short period and it doesn’t creates a deep impact on the minds of the customer.

Competing against rival company’s ad also contributes to a successful advertising plan. The power of the message should be compared to that of the competitors’. It doesn’t mean that the advertiser should use the same plan like his competitor, it would look like imitation and effectiveness will be decreased. But the advertisement should be planned smartly via a different and effective path, to out-do the competitor’s advertisement.

The description of the product is also very vital like suppose an advertisement is made for a restaurant, it will get customers immediately, if it is attractive. But if the advertisement is for a computer, it won’t yield immediate results, as it’s not every day that someone buys a computer. This is called analysis of the purchase cycle.

If targeting for a higher impact, newsletter is the best bet. But if the newsletters are sent to the real potential customers, then this approach should be adopted for message delivery. It should only be opted be after thorough analysis, no matter what the budget is.

Advertising, Business, Business Opportunities, communication, Ecommerce, Home Based Business Opportunities, home business, Marketing