Comments on: “Free Gift”, and other poor grammar that boosts your sales

By: Will Swayne

Will Swayne — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:38:07 +0000

@Louise I draw a distinction between consciously using “bad grammar” to achieve an outcome (“Free Gift”), and ignorance of correct grammar in the first place (which is the category into which most apostrophe sins would fall).

By: Louise

Louise — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:04:17 +0000

What about the use of the apostrophe? How often have you seen that incorrectly used?

By: Will Swayne

Will Swayne — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:56:47 +0000

Hey Chris. Touché. If your copywriting is as sharp as your proofreading skills, you may be the next John Caples!

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:21:16 +0000

Hi Will,
Elipsis is spelt with two l’s… ellipsis.
It comes from the Greek word élleipsis which directly translated to mean “an ommission”. Appropriate.
If you ever need an affordable copywriter (is that an oxymoron?) please feel free to flick me an email.
Chris.

By: Trying New Things | Continuing Education Journal

Trying New Things | Continuing Education Journal — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:18:36 +0000

[...] wrote an article yesterday and was trying something new. I had recently read a post on marketing and the use of intentional poor grammar as a marketing tool, and wanted to give it a [...]

By: Will

Will — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:50:04 +0000

Hi Liara – I agree with your comment that WOM can be very effective. But what is WOM than other people “selling” the value of your product/service to others for you. In other words, some type of value transfer has taken place. Free Gifts are just one way to tranfer value, but they do achieve the objectives of (1) making it easier to say “yes” than “no”, (2) demonstrating value upfront and (3) instigating reciprocity.

If you test 2 ads, one with a premium (gift) and one without, and the gift wins, obviously you’d run the one with the gift.

By: Liara Covert

Liara Covert — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 04:17:23 +0000

Free gifts can serve as appealing perks but offering them can also make it seem like you need to “buy” customer loyalty. Prove your worth in ways other than ‘perks’ and these won’t really be necessary to attract new customers. Word-of-mouth can be very effective.

By: Vickie Britten

Vickie Britten — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:36:01 +0000

Hate to be pedantic DMC but "asterix" is a cartoon character which used to be in books when I was a girl but has inevitably made it on to YouTube. Thanks for the great blog Will.

By: Graham Bannister

Graham Bannister — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:15:18 +0000

Great to see this thread evolving.

I surmise that the Catering Expert’s Asterisk Exception said something like:

You probably can’t believe how good this offer is so give us a call on 1800 888 140 so we can reassure you.

By: Will

Will — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:13:26 +0000

Oops – missed a few additional comments there. I just saw Graham’s post about the “Asterisk Exception”. Some marketers seem to think that the asterisk is a valuable involvement device. More split tests anyone?