CONTENTS FEATURE: Apply advertising principles to your advantage SPOTLIGHT: EditPros clients in the news NET NOTES: Captivating web sites FEATURE: 10 ways to apply advertising principles to your advantage      Shrewd showman Phineas T. Barnum offered a surprisingly modest explanation for his success: "Advertising made me."      The colossal popularity of his ventures demonstrated the power of advertising to motivate the masses. Potent ads can persuade people to purchase products or services they otherwise might have ignored.      While relatively few business people are involved in creation of ads for the print or broadcast media, advertising principles can be universally applied throughout the business environment—in reports and interoffice memos, as well as in meetings and negotiations.      Advertising has a quadruple mission: to capture attention, generate interest, stimulate desire and incite action. The intended action is often, but not always, to sell merchandise or services. Advertising also can be designed to convince people to volunteer for public service, to sign a petition, to conserve energy, to visit a city, to watch a television program or to attend a company picnic.      Enterprising marketers are willing to treat just about any surface as an advertising canvas, including grocery store receipts, billing envelopes, posters, entire buses, and even the sky, using banner-toting airplanes.      These widely divergent advertising approaches share common fundamentals that you can apply in your everyday business activities. Determine your objective. A restaurant may want to reach travelers. You may want to persuade people to join a committee or volunteer organization. Identify your prospects and understand their preferences and their dislikes. The restaurant owner wants to attract families that ordinarily are lured to fast-food chains by quick service and modest prices. Your organization's best prospects want to contribute to society, but they have demanding schedules and want assurance that their efforts will be productive and appreciated. To be persuasive, you must make sure that the product or service you are advertising would be useful to the people who will be exposed to your message. Marketing snow shovels in Yuma, Arizona, is futile. Identify the benefits you are offering to your prospects. The restaurant owner must appeal to customers' desire for easy freeway access, attentive service and good food at reasonable prices. To succeed in your objectives, you have to empathize with prospective customers or decision-makers and convince them that you can benefit them. You may want to increase your organization's dues base, but that's of little concern to prospects, who want to know what satisfaction they will derive from participation. To justify purchase of an expensive photocopy machine for your department, you'll need to establish that it will not only save money but also will improve the efficiency of staff members by eliminating the need for frequent automobile trips to the copy shop. Treat the title as an integral part of your message, not as an afterthought. Newspaper and magazine ads attract attention with a commanding, benefits-oriented headline, such as the mattress ad that beckoned, "Soothe your aching back all night long." The headline of an ad is analogous to the title of a report or the subject line of an e-mail message or memo. An e-mail message with the subject "committee leadership positions available" is much more intriguing than one titled "committee report." Humor should be used judiciously because of the risk of offending readers, but a witty line can be effective in grabbing the attention of readers. A whimsical newspaper ad headline declaring "Nine out of 10 developers need more fiber" was immediately followed by an appeal that commercial property developers must incorporate high-speed fiber-optic communication infrastructure in their projects. The lead sentence of an ad should amplify the premise of the headline. Likewise, the introductory paragraph of a memo or e-mail message should directly elaborate upon the subject line or title by summarizing the most important and compelling revelations. That's in sharp contrast to the chronological sequence typical of memos: "Four months ago, the company's Office of Risk Management initiated an investigation following complaints by company employees about the inadequacy of child care facilities...." That diary approach is static, dreary and lazy; it is but a recitation of a sequence of events that leaves the reader wondering, "Where is this going?" Instead, the lead should summarize the results of the investigation and interpret their ramifications: "The company will begin construction early next month on a child care facility for employees. Company president Polly Urethane authorized funding for the professionally staffed child care facility, which was endorsed in a study conducted by the company's Office of Risk Management." Be selective in determining which information to include—and which to exclude. The body of a report certainly can describe the analytical process underlying a study, but that information is less important than the news that a child care facility has been approved. Make an outline to help you determine the hierarchy of relevant information. Use simple, clear, concise, direct language that your audience can grasp in a single reading. Don't force readers to work hard to understand your point. Tell your audience members how to respond. Well-composed advertisements ask readers to visit a store, call for a price quotation, contact a sales representative, request a brochure or place an order. Memos, posters and reports should give readers specific, easy-to-follow instructions.      Take another lesson from P.T. Barnum, who also said his shows were popular because they had "a little something for everybody." In meetings, memos and negotiations, win support for your concepts by appealing in some way to the interests of everyone you're trying to reach. Yes! EditPros can help you strengthen the persuasive power of your written materials. SPOTLIGHT: EditPros clients in the news FamiliesFirst seeks donations to repair damaged nursery      FamiliesFirst, a nonprofit social services organization that assists children and families in Northern and Central California, is seeking donations to help underwrite continued operation of its Yolo Crisis Nursery after repairs to the facility are completed. FamiliesFirst, an EditPros client based in Davis, Calif., was forced to close the nursery temporarily in mid-March after a pickup truck driven at high speed demolished one of its bedrooms. A FamiliesFirst worker and a nine-day-old infant were in the nursery building at the time of the accident, but they were not injured.      Since FamiliesFirst opened the Yolo Crisis Nursery in March 2001, it has cared for more than 200 children. The Crisis Nursery prevents child abuse and neglect for the most vulnerable children, ages 5 and under, while helping parents overcome difficult life challenges. It is the only crisis respite child abuse prevention program in Yolo County. More than half of the parents who brought their children to the Yolo Crisis Nursery did not know what alternative plans they would have made for their children if the nursery services were unavailable.      Even before the accident, the Crisis Nursery was in jeopardy of closure due to funding shortages. Because the nursery's services are not underwritten by government funds, and large foundation grants have not materialized, donations from local businesses and individuals are essential. To learn more or to make a contribution, visit the FamiliesFirst Web site or call (530) 753-0220 or (800) 698-4968. Net Notes: Captivating Internet resources Search Systems' Public Record Locator http://www.searchsystems.net/      This Web site indexes more than 14,400 searchable databases of public records, most of which can be accessed at no charge. You can search by subject or by nations, states, regions, counties or cities. Find databases listing political campaign donations, profession licensing information, property tax records, court archives, unclaimed property, vital records, fictitious business name filings, registered "vanity" automobile license plates and more. The site is owned by Pacific Information Resources Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif. Automatic Teller Machine Locator http://www.visa.com/atms/      Find locations of automatic teller machines (ATMs) throughout the world. Enter an address, cross streets or other site information, and the ATM Locator database generates a list of nearby ATMs. The site is operated by Visa International Service Association, San Francisco. Air Traffic Control System Command Center http://www.fly.faa.gov/      The Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control System Command Center displays current status of commercial airports throughout the United States, indicating general airport conditions affecting the scheduling of takeoffs and landings. The site also includes a glossary of air traffic management terms and acronyms. YOUR TURN: Ask the "grammar coach" or subscribe      We invite you to submit your questions to the "grammar coach," and we welcome you to subscribe to this monthly newsletter—which we'll send to your e-mail address at no charge. We respond to all "grammar coach" questions personally, but delays may occur because we must place top priority on assignments from our clients. We appreciate your patience and your interest.      You also can change your e-mail subscription address. For an address change, please indicate your existing AND your new e-mail address. Thank you. OUR PRIVACY POLICY for e-mail newsletter subscribers:      We do not use any commercial e-mail lists or automated mass-mailing programs, and we do not allow access to the list by anyone else for any reason. Our subscriber list is maintained by hand, and it is not for sale. We are protective of confidentiality because many of our readers are also clients of ours. Any accompanying advertising is placed by Yahoo.com in exchange for our use of the e-mail server to distribute this newsletter.