Business Writing – Content Services Provider, India

12 Aug

Use Short Videos to Promote your Business

We have come a long way when it comes to using ways to promote a business. It used to be billboards, magazines or newspapers a lot time ago. Today, the best way to attract and engage the customers could begin with a short video to promote your business by leaving an impressive message, quickly. Use of short videos to promote your business can get magical results for you.

Use of short videos for advertising picked up with Television ads when we could see people getting hooked on to get the message that was dying to reach them through other media. Whether it is an elevator pitch or a sales pitch, any message can be beautifully delivered through a video with catchy phrases, punch lines, colorful fonts, impressionable imagery, and a dialogue form.

In the initial days of television advertising, people tried to avoid the ads by lowering the volume but today, most people enjoy watching them. With popularity of new media and the booming young population using them, videos have become a powerful tool of communication. A sample video can be seen below.

The video inserted above talks about the business writing services offered by Ascezen Consulting. There can be videos talking about how to use a product or a tool. You can create one for anything you would like to demonstrate or use in training. This one has been created using a pretty simple video creation tool but there is good deal of thinking, planning, and design work before you get that short video to say it all.

It is challenging indeed to keep your message short enough to be covered in a video. As an entrepreneur, you might have volumes to say about the products or services you offer but your audience has limited time. You can’t have their full attention for more than 2-3 minutes. An instructional design professional or an e-learning developer knows the finer points of creating an appealing and effective video.

At Ascezen Consulting, we are capable of creating short videos such as the one above that we did for ourselves. Drop a line to know more about the type of videos we can do for you.

By admin Business Writing, Creating Videos, e-learning, Entrepreneurship, Instructional Designing Ascezen Consulting, business writing, Content, learning, short videos for business, training videos, videos 0 Comments

23 May

How can a Case Study help in Selling?

A case study is a piece of writing that highlights a problem faced by an individual or an organization and elaborates how it got solved. All the business decisions inarguably stem from a problem at hand with the decision being the best feasible solution. A case study defines the entire course of action from identifying a problem to implementing a solution and getting desired results.

Picture showing the names of the parts of a case study: Background, Problem Statement, Alternatives, Solution, and Result.

Anatomy of a Case Study

Case studies demonstrate the problem-solving capability needed to address similar problems for other people as well as organizations. When presented to a potential customer, case studies form an impression that the vendor or the service provider has proven expertise in resolving the particular kind of problem.

Typically, the anatomy of a case study includes sections such as Company Background, Detailed Problem Statement, Possible Alternatives Considered, The Best Solution, and The Results – positively impacting the bottom line.

The best case studies would mention the names of the organizations, products, place and time to make it look real and verifiable. The icing on the cake happens to be a client testimonial that corroborates the claims made in the case study document. It helps a company pitching for assignments prove to its prospects that it has the required experience and expertise to solve their problems.

From the above sections, it can be made out how convincing it can be to use case studies in pitching for sales. No argument or claim can be better than saying it through past work. All this makes case studies a very potent, though silent, weapon to win over your competitors in battle of achieving sales targets. Despite all this, there is a very important aspect to case studies, which has to do with how well they are written.

At Ascezen, we create convincing and compelling case studies to help you boost your sales by strengthening the sales pitches. Our business writing team can do it for you at rates that mean nothing when compared to what they help your organization achieve.

By admin Business Writing, Case Study Business Content, Case Studies, Case Study, case study writing, Company Background, Detailed Problem Statement, Possible Alternatives Considered 0 Comments

01 Feb

Business Content Writing Needs of a Start-up

Business Content Writing Needs of a Start-up company may include a variety ranging from website content to promotional content. Let’s try to create a rough sequence of activities and stages during the early days of any business setup.

An infograph showing the names of content deliverables required by a start-up company- business plan, website content, presentations, brochures, proposals, training content, case studies, and process documents.

Content Needs of a Start-up

Create a Business Plan
It all starts with an idea to create and sell. Identifying the needs of a large customer base or a niche market that was not being served adequately becomes the point where an entrepreneur begins the journey. The first document that needs to be created is a business plan—a document that gives details of the business idea, expected profitability, associated risks and mitigation plans, phase-wise implementation plan, milestones, and the required resources as well as funds. The first objective to create a business plan is to achieve clarity of purpose and goal setting. Next, it can be used to convince prospective sponsors, investors, and other stakeholders. While some entrepreneurs may have desired skill to create a business plan but many of them may want to seek expert advice. Hiring a business consultant with knowledge and expertise in creating business documents may be a good choice.

Create a Website with Good Content Appeal
Today it is unthinkable to start a business without a website, irrespective of your type of business. Any entrepreneurial venture will need to have an impressive website. Apart from the visual appeal, your website should effectively communicate with your prospective partners, vendors, or customers. It should have content that speaks about your services, convince the visitors about your capabilities, and evoke a positive response. Quality content on your website and regular content updates will make it popular in web search, resulting in high search engine rankings for the website. Fresh and original content will help get business leads and this is a vital requirement for a start-up company.

Spread the Word – Promote your Products & Services
As a new entrant, what you would really need is to have your prospective customers know about your products and services through internet advertising, print media, and product or service brochures. You will require convincing business proposals targeting each prospect specifically. You will need to create crisp and appealing presentations to take along in business meetings with future clients.

Train your Staff
You will need professionally skilled and trained staff to conduct business. As a start-up, your budget may not allow hiring many experienced professionals. It will be more feasible to hire fresh talent and train them. Needless to mention that you will need personalized training content and possibly resort to e-learning for saving costs and providing a consistent, standardized training to your staff.

Strengthen your Position
After you have taken off by winning a few deals, you need to gear up for bagging bigger projects, clients, or accounts. You need to build a reputation that breeds trust on your capabilities. You will need to demonstrate that your company follows standard processes by maintaining proper process documentation – particularly for functions like HR and Operations. To prove your capabilities on delivery front, you will need to take about past successes through some convincing success stories in the form of case studies. This will be an ongoing activity as you get more experience and process maturity of your organization increases.

There you go… You need good content all along—whether it is building up, winning business deals, or showcasing your strengths.

To know about the business content writing services provided by Ascezen, please visit the services page or send an email to biz at ascezen dot com.

By admin Business Writing, Content Writing brochures, business plan, Case Studies, e-learning, entrepreneur, HR, original content, presentations, start-up, training content 0 Comments

06 Dec

Who Needs a Content Vendor?

It is as early as toying with the idea of a start-up that the wannabe entrepreneurs would need a good hand at content. Be it an impressive pitch to raise venture capital or funding through a bank loan, all entrepreneurs need to sell their ideas that must also be presented beautifully. And this selling must persist to get different potential stakeholders such as business partners, the founding team, and the first customers. An entrepreneur needs to communicate through various mediums such as the corporate website, blog, product or service brochure, online or print ads and anything else that’s thinkable. Most entrepreneurs are ripe with great ideas but not all of them can put them across a wide outreach. Why just entrepreneurs, even established businesses are also among those who might need help with corporate communication.

Let’s go deeper to find out more about who needs a content vendor…

You have an excellent idea and want to create a convincing business plan: You need someone who can organize your thoughts and ideas, and present them in words as well as statistical visuals. A business plan becomes compelling when it has everything thought out and planned. It flows in a sequence and answers questions as they come up. All this can be done by professionals who understand business as well as excel in the art of communication. So, it will help if you hire a company that can trusted enough to keep your well-guarded secrets and help you put in all on paper.

You have a product ready for market and need help with branding and advertising: Your team might believe that they created the best product for a certain market but the word needs to go out as well. You need to inform your prospective customers and distribution networks about the unique features of a great product. Who can help you better than communication specialists who can understand the technology and explain it to the world in a lucid manner? You certainly need a business content writing services provider—a content vendor capable of creating compelling business collaterals such as presentations, demonstrations, and brochures.

You have a product that can’t go without documentation: You were so busy developing a wonderful application or product that you completely overlooked the support documentation angle. Now when the product is almost ready, you find out that it must be supported by some user documentation such as a user manual, product guide or help videos. Assisting the users in installing, deploying and using a product or application is a vital part of customer relationship management.

You need to engage with your customers intelligently: Today, nobody might disagree that it is increasingly becoming crucial to engage in a constant dialogue with one’s customers. It helps you understand their changing needs, shift in choices, issues with one’s products and what’s being talking about the most. Most importantly, you get a chance to tell your loyal and about-to-leave customers about your future plans, product enhancements and new releases. A blog or social media campaign might be the first thing to start from. Again, you would need communication experts who think like your users to interact with them and find out what’s on your customers’ minds.

Your company needs content to support some products but that’s not a round-the-year requirement: Let’s say your organization doesn’t have much of regular content production needs but once or twice a year you need someone to spruce up the corporate website content or update existing product and process documentation. It might not be feasible to hire and retain a content team through the year but hiring a content vendor to provide a periodic fixed-cost service might serve the need.

Your company needs to produce and edit content through the year: There are fair chances that your company would already have a content or technical writing team in place. It is also likely that workload might at times go out-of-proportion if there aren’t a good number of people sitting idle. Maintaining a good bench strength helps handle the extra work but it isn’t a cost-effective or lean strategy. Those aiming for optimum resource utilization might consider having some content vendors shortlisted for seasonal spikes in workload. The cost would be lesser than having an unproductive team with a downward learning curve.

The competitive business scenario would leave no room for a product or service not marketed well. An excellent idea or product must not die a premature death for the want of fair publicity. It must be talked about to get its fair share of limelight. Every product needs a voice to announce its arrival. Once the product or idea takes off, it marks the onset of life-long quest to support the product to sustain in the market. This is where fresh content will always be needed and it is not a bad idea to invest in a content vendor.free translation greek to english

By admin Business Writing, Content Service Provider, Content Vendor, Content Writing brochures, business plan, Case Studies, content writing services provider, customer relationship management, demonstrations, entrepreneur, help videos, presentations, product guide, social media, User Manual, white papers 0 Comments

28 Jun

Editing versus Writing

All editors are writers but all writers aren’t editors.

I am quite sure most editors will agree with what I said above. Editing is different from writing and it is much more than proof-reading or reviewing. Those who don’t agree with that opinion, may be actually editing the content under the garb of reviewing and it’s time they start calling themselves Editors. With time, experience and bigger responsibilities, writers are poised to assume the role of an editor. It begins with prolonged exposure to a particular genre of writing, subject matter and the writing style followed. Obviously, when you know your content’s context in and out, you become an authority and can visualize the result of the smallest variations in tone and verbiage. With that, comes the attitude required to become an editor. You start looking at “drafts” and start making “edits” to make the copies read better and explain everything precisely and correctly. You begin to identify and remove the excesses. You look at documents from readers’ perspectives. You are the biggest critic.

Let’s try to answer this – How do you plan your editing?
I think you have to be pretty sure about the expected outcome. You try and match the content drafts with your visualization, make edits, rephrase, paraphrase, reorganize to get an edited version. An editor essentially intends to ensure the following:

Correctness of information
Accuracy of language
Logical flow of information
Ability to grab and sustain readers’ attention
Conciseness of content
Adherence to style guidelines

A point of caution for wannabe editors is that you should respect a writer’s style of writing and expression if it doesn’t come in the way of delivering the right quality. All of us know that we can say one thing in so many ways. However, some editors may want to stick only to their style of writing. This can hamper creativity and leave the writers with little motivation to do something new.

On the other hand, writers need to study the edits, make notes, ask questions, and prepare a personal review checklist. Using the checklist would help reduce the number of editorial changes that writers see in their future drafts.

Editing is also Mentoring
Editing is at best a feedback mechanism for writers. It tells them how to put it better and make it pleasure-to-read. When editors explain their edits either by entering descriptive comments within documents or explaining verbally while being respectful, they are bound to influence the writers positively and they are likelier to see rewarding results soon.translation english to french

By admin Business Writing, Content Writing, Creative Writing, Documentation Process, Technical Communication, Technical Writing Editing, Proof-reading, Proofing, Reviewing Documents, Technical Writing, Writing 0 Comments

18 Apr

Creating an Effective Presentation

Presentations make a powerful medium to share information or sell products and services. Have you ever wondered what makes a PowerPoint presentation effective? Most of us are unsure when asked to make one. What makes a PowerPoint presentation become effective? Is it about the appealing visuals or catchy phrases? Or has it got to do with jazzy animations? Naturally, we end up asking experts for their inputs to reach some conclusions. Honestly, there isn’t a single thumb rule to achieve that but there surely are a few best practices widely acknowledged and accepted. There are certain do’s and don’ts to be followed while making PowerPoint presentations. Some tips to create an effective presentation are as below:

Get hold of the viewer’s attention

This is one of the most important aspects of a presentation. At the beginning of a presentation, one has to attract the attention of their audience. Grabbing their attention does not mean to overcrowd your slides but instead make them look effective. If your presentation is not able to retain the audience’s interest, all your hard work may go waste.

Keep it simple and clear

A good presentation is easy to follow. One must always keep in mind that the content should flow smoothly without confusing the audience. There shouldn’t be conflicting ideas or contradictory statements within a single presentation. The content should use simple, clear words to reach the audience.

Do not overcrowd the slides

Every slide should cover a uniform number of points, for example, limit the number to 5 or 6 points for each slide. Considering the font used, we must keep in mind how many points can be accommodated on each slide to avoid the clutter on the slides. Keep the points short and brief. To make your presentation effective, always filter unnecessary information.

Maintain the word limit

Effective presentations generally deal with the right words, at the right place, in the right tone. We must always take care of the number of words used in each point or sentence. Always try to convey the message effectively in the least number of words possible.

Be careful with images and animations

To make your PowerPoint presentations appear catchy and appealing, always try to use images related with the topics covered. The use of animations should be judicious such that it shouldn’t distract the audience.

Choose right fonts, sizes and colors

The latest versions of Microsoft Office offer a variety of options when it comes to choosing the fonts. An effective presentation should contain font sizes which are legible for a large audience. Avoid using light font colors as it might not be clearly visible to viewers at a distance. Instead, the use of contrasting colors is recommended. Fonts and their sizes should be chosen keeping in mind that they do not appear blurred or pose any difficulty to the audience.

Maintain consistency and flow

It is vital to ensure consistency within and across all the slides to create an efficient presentation. For example, a presentation should have carefully designed slides to mark the beginning, main content and a logical end.

By admin Business Writing, Content Writing, Technical Writing Business Content, effective presentation, Microsoft Office, Microsoft PowerPoint, presentation 0 Comments