Now
It Is Time to Tell Your Story
1. Hangtags are often referred to as the “silent salesperson”
because it accompanies your product and shares information to the customer
as well as the recipient of a gift. You have little room to include a
story, so choose your words carefully. Many hangtag stories are one to
two sentence descriptions of how the item is to be used or about how it
was made or a biography of the artist.
2. Shelf Literature gives you more room to elaborate on your story since
this type of printed materials are one-third to one-half of a page in
length. Typically, it tells about the company and the products you are
selling.
3. Brochures or Websites allow more space to tell your story. Use a story
that gives the reader a glimpse into your life. Include pictures as visual
aids.
General Rules of Writing:
1. Use a style that suits your work. If your work is traditional, use
a folksy style with traditional fonts. If your work is contemporary, use
a clean, simple style with fonts that are also contemporary.
2. Use active rather than passive voice. Example: “We make our jewelry
from…”, not “Our jewelry is made from…”
3. Run spell and grammar check on your work. Proofread carefully! An owner
of a bed and breakfast spent $250 on full-color postcards. Unfortunately,
there was a misspelled word, so she either had to reprint them in corrected
form (for a total expenditure of $500) or risk damaging her credibility
as a professional business owner.
4. Ask someone who is not associated with your business to read your materials.
They will be able to tell you if the writing is clear, understandable,
error-free, and interesting!
Website Resources for Printed Materials
www.myownlabels.com
An excellent resource for unique labels for your products.