Insights archive
Red Pony is a team of writers, editors, Microsoft Office template developers and communications trainers. We have been writing about our areas of expertise for over a decade in our Red Pony Express newsletter.
This collection features the best articles from the last 10 years.
Four tips for writing an effective sales letter
Red Pony recently developed a simple sales letter for a small local company. We went with a direct approach that has been delivering excellent results to date. I thought I’d share some of the secrets to success.
The music of words
Most business writing is read silently by individuals. Spoken texts delivered to groups of listeners, such as speeches and conference papers, form only a fraction of the millions of sentences produced in workplaces every day. Nevertheless, the way a text ‘sounds’, even in the reader’s head, can help or hinder delivery of the intended message.
Five words you can bet the house on
What do real estate ads really tell you about a property? According to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, authors of the bestselling book, Freakonomics, the choice of wording might in fact indicate whether the agent is holding out for a high price or subtly encouraging would-be buyers to bid low.
Beware the dangling modifier
What’s wrong with these sentences?
Yesterday, after conferring with my senior national security advisers and following extensive consultations with our coalition partners, Saddam Hussein was given one last chance. (President Bush in the Chicago Tribune, 1991)
Driving home recently, a thick pall of smoke turned out to be Deepak’s bungalow, well alight.
Three tricks to writing sticky web copy
When someone visits your website, opens your newsletter or looks at your latest social media post, you want to engage their attention so that they’ll read on. ‘Sticky’ web copy keeps your audience reading and encourages further interaction: clicking a link, adding a product to a shopping cart, joining a mailing list. So how do we make our web copy sticky?
But is it in the dictionary?
People sometimes get hot under the collar when a word (or particular definition of a word) that they consider to be colloquial or offensive, or just irritating, finds its way into the hallowed halls of the dictionary. They assume that the dictionary is saying it is now okay to use that word in polite company, or in lofty literary endeavour.
Spam, spam, spam, spam
The curse of spam is one with which every reader will be familiar. It’s now just one more daily task to eradicate the emails that slip past the spam filter of our email programs, usually playing on one or the other of the top two human desires: sex and money.
Four tips for developing a content-rich website
Some readers will be aware that back in December we launched a new version of the Red Pony website. I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few of the lessons we learned from this exercise – from the perspective of both client and content provider.
Political correctness—a dirty word?
The term ‘politically correct’ or ‘PC’ is like a certain brand of Scandinavian pastry: it has layer upon layer of meaning. And between those flaky strata we find a weird melange of judgement, self-righteousness, empathy and nervousness.
Talking up down time
While there is a profusion of business advice about how to manage your time better (code for how to fill every waking minute with activity), there is precious little written in favour of stillness, quiet and uninterrupted thought.
Learning from a master
With most things in life, the best way to develop your own skills is to learn from the experts. Writing is no different.
It's a date!
Despite the globalisation of nearly every aspect of our lives, from newspaper ownership to junk food brands, there are still some basic things that we seem incapable of standardising, at least in the English-speaking world. One of these points of difference is how to write dates.
Time to get with the program/me
Under the new dispensation of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, there are going to be a few changes. But here at Red Pony we’ll restrict our discussion to the orthographical changes (that’s ‘spelling’ to you and me).
A treasure store of language
A thesaurus is a reference book that helps you find le mot juste—the exact word you need. (Obviously I need one to avoid the pretentiousness of using a French phrase to get my message across.) A thesaurus also helps you add variety and interest to your writing by broadening your vocabulary. But most importantly, a thesaurus is enormously useful for solving crossword puzzles.
These are a few of my least favourite words
Meal. Decent. Bowl. What do these seemingly inoffensive words have in common?
Keeping software a current affair
Failing to keep your software up to date can have unforeseen and sometimes serious consequences.
Red Pony client moving up the BRW Top 100
Specialist environmental and engineering consultants O2 Group asked Red Pony to establish a suite of templates to streamline their business operations so they could spend most of their time on the things they know most about.
When your number’s up
There are different conventions that you can follow when presenting numbers and measurements in a document. There is no single correct method, but observing some generally accepted principles will make your documents clearer for the reader, and will present your organisation in a more professional light.
Clichés in the news media
While the cliché can be a warm bath of convenience into which the lazy writer is often tempted to sink, a fresh, arresting image is more likely to call the inattentive reader to attention. Remember that it is far more memorable to be slapped with a fish than with the bog-standard open palm to the face.
And so it begins
‘They threw me off the hay truck about noon.’ Author Stephen King cites this opening line from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice as a great example of how to begin a book.