Who’s your perfect customer? You don’t need to be an FBI profiler to pin down the kind of customer you want.

Now consider: What kind does your marketing actually attract? If there’s a disconnect between the two, you have a serious marketing problem. As Seth put it:

“Many of the products and services we use are now about our identity. Many small businesses, for example, won’t hire a coach or a consultant because, ‘that’s not the kind of organization we are.’ Wineries understand that the pricing of a bottle of wine is more important than its label or the wine inside. Price is the first thing that most people consider when they order or shop for wine. Not because of perceived value, but because of identity.”

One of the most fundamental jobs of your marketing communications is to identify and attract the right kind of customers, i.e., the ones who can relate and identify with what you offer.

If your marketing consistently attracts the “wrong” kind of customers, it’s past time for a marketing makeover.

Thinking of doing a little freelance writing or graphic design work? Or maybe you’re thinking of hiring one.

The Freelance Switch blog has compiled an amusing Guide to Freelancers. It zeros in on 13 common character flaws — oops, breeds — the highs and lows associated with each type, and a glimpse into the impact each type has on clients.

Chances are you’ll see yourself — or someone you’ve hired — in at least one of them. All except me, of course: the “perfect” freelancer

Hype is always a temptation when talking or writing about your company or services. Puffing up your features and benefits may seem like a good way to set yourself apart from the competition. But too much hype hurts you in the long run, when people realize that their expectations — the ones you set with your marketing — haven’t been met.

The role of marketing is not to jack up a prospect’s expectations, but to manage their expectations realistically. We’ve all seen those breathless sales letters — online or in print — that promise the moon but inevitably disappoint. (Here’s a very funny spoof of them.) You don’t want to be one of those businesses, do you?

Personally, I believe that honesty always trumps hype in the long run. A University of Georgia study confirms that people really notice when they feel worse than they expected to, i.e., when the outcome doesn’t quite meet your blue-sky promises.

The moral: Make sure you (or your copywriter) don’t set customer expectations so high that you can’t meet them. After all, hype might help you close that first sale, but profit comes from renewals, referrals and ongoing purchases. Think about the lifetime value of your customer — not just the quick buck.

As Guy put it, “It sure looks like ‘under promising and over delivering’ is the way to go.” Amen.

What’s your opinion of hype? Has it worked for you?

You should, you know. Everyone is busy, distracted, only half-listening. They’re quite likely to miss your marketing message the first time (or two).

Business Week’s Michelle Nichols says offering your customer the same information in different ways can help get your message across and close the sale.

Her sales tips (paraphrased by me):

• Listen for repeated complaints from customers. Then zero in on those pain points and how your product or service can solve them. Ignore the other great benefits you deliver — they’re not that important to this customer.
• Repeat your benefits. After you’ve heard your customer complain several times, it’s time to create a pitch that repeats how your proposed solution solves their problem.
• Repeat your prospecting calls. It’s more effective to call repeatedly on a smaller, targeted list than to make only one sales call each to a larger audience.
• Encourage repeat customers.
• Repeat and reinforce the benefits that will mean the most to this customer. (Oh, did I already mention that?)

“You know the really hard thing about writing? You not only have to think up all the words, you have to put them in the right order.”

Should “blog” be capitalized? Does the title of a blog go in italics (like a book title) or inside quotation marks (like a magazine article)? Is “login” one word or two?

Are you sure there’s no period in Dr Pepper?

Nagging little questions like those can really slow down anyone’s writing or editing. But there’s an easy-to-use reference book that answers those questions quickly and easily, and helps you write with more authority and confidence.

With over 5,000 A to Z entries, the Associated Press Style Book is one of those indispensable resources for writers of all kinds — including business people who write proposals and reports. It defines usage, spelling, and grammar, and makes the difficult job of writing a little easier.

It will be reissued (or should that be “re-issued”?) in a new, updated edition in July. If you write or edit anything from a company newsletter to a blog, keep one of these 400-page reference treasures at your elbow. For less than fifteen bucks you’ll quickly finds answers that will let you get back to churning out the words. (Oh, and keep you from looking like a doofus.)

Dan Santow thoughtfully listed some AP-approved standards of spelling and usage in his “Word Wise” blog, a portion of which I will shamelessly reproduce below, along with a few parenthetical comments of my own:

• blog
• broadband
• byte
• CD-ROM
• cyberspace, cybercafe, etc. (One word, no hyphen)
• dial-up (So that’s where the hyphen went)
• DVD
• e-mail, e-book, e-commerce, e-business, etc. (Yup, still hyphenated after all these years)
• Ethernet
• GIF
• Internet (A proper name, so it’s capitalized)
• intranet (A generic term, so it’s not)
• iPod
• Java
• JavaScript
• JPEG
• Listserv
• login, logon, logoff (nouns)
• log in, log on, log off (verbs)
• megabyte, megahertz
• podcast
• screenshot
• the Web
• URL
• VoIP (Lower case “o”)
• Web-based
• Web log (Two words, although”blog” is one. “Web” always gets an upper-case “W.”)
• Web site (Not “website” or “Website.” Two words.)
• webcast, webinar, webmaster, webcam, etc. (Only one word. Go figure.)
• Wi-Fi
• World Wide Web
• Yahoo (not Yahoo!, no matter what the Yahoo people say)

Thanks, Dan!

PS: Another favorite of mine is the Wall Street Journal’s Guide to Business Style and Usage. Many corporate clients seem more impressed by citing, “This is how the Journal does it.” And now I see Amazon is selling used copies of this 2002 gem for as little as $1.50 each. Go get one!

Everyone know what a writer does. But what is editing? What does an editor actually do for (or to) your book, article, newsletter? Who needs an editor?

Everyone who writes needs their worked edited — even famous journalists and novelists, says Dan Santow, a former magazine editor and now Edelman PR type. In his new blog, Word Wise, he shed some light on the mysterious subject of editing, including WHY we all need some:

“After all, it’s hard to look at your own work objectively, just as it’s hard to tell if those low-rise jeans look good on you.”

An editor, Santow notes, is basically a dispassionate reader whose goal is to improve your work while leaving it essentially alone. “They’re not out to get you!” he adds reassuringly.

Editors not only correct things like grammar and spelling, but cast a detached professional eye on crucial elements like organization, flow and tone.

“(S/he) looks at the overall document and for ways to improve its style, content, structure and flow by, among other things:

• reorganizing information
• ensuring (or questioning) accuracy
• improving clarity
• enhancing readability.”

Of course the best editing, Santow concludes, “is a collaboration between writer and editor that results in a document of which both are equally proud.”

If you write, or you’re attempting to write, or you’d like to improve your writing, his blog and especially this post, are definitely worth a look. After all, as Dan points out, bloggers may be the last unedited writers around!