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shurman81
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771138
Mon, 08 Jun 09 08:46 PM
Thank you again.
 Mr Wordy"] General point: don't use CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis; it's bad style and seems as if you're shouting at them. You can use italics or bold for emphasis, if required. I'm not sure whether all the text you've capitalised actually needs emphasising though. For example, I would not put "exchange" in bold every time you mention it -- it would get very tiresome. (My bold below shows things that I changed, not things I think should be emphasised, but I'm sure that's obvious!) ”
Actually, I agree with you. But sometimes we use capital letters to emphasize thoughts. I do trust you at this point, so I will change the emphasis method, because I would like to highlight some important (as they seem to me) points. The 'EXCHANGE' term has been written in capital letters just to let you recognize it amoung the text and not to mix it up with the common 'exchange' word.
[quote user="Mr Wordy “ It seems slightly odd to me to present a list of "options" without having first given at least a brief overview, in general terms, of the nature of your business. Sorry if I'm beginning to sound like a cracked record! ”
Never mind  I will certainly add a piece of such kind of information. Thanks for the valuable advice.
Mr Wordy “Option 1. Connection of [Advertising Company] to our [I'm assuming it's yours; you need some word here, anyway] all-Russian [since you later say it's planned to be "international", do you want to say "all-Russian" here?]”
As you have seen 'international' is for the second phase, so just all-Russian is for the first one.
Mr Wordy “Only actual data [I don't understand what you mean by "only actual". As opposed to what other sort of data?]”
Maybe it's not a good term for this case. By 'actual' I mean 'up-to-date' here. In other words the 'latest' information. So if you can see that an ad face is marked as 'available now' then it is a fact that it is available now. You don't have to obtain more exact information about the ad face, you can order it right now. If an ad face has just been ordered by someone then its status is immediately changed to 'unavailable until [date]' and you can not order it until the [date] (until it gets available).
Mr Wordy “on current and future ad face status [I'm wondering if "availability" would be a better word here]”
You are right, 'availability' seems to be better here.
Mr Wordy “Two-way real-time data synchronization is required. ["required" tends to sound like a difficulty, not a benefit. I'm wondering if there's a more positive way to say this.]”
Actually, this is a difficulty, but it is the only difficulty they have to manage with. To be straightforward we tell about it.
Mr Wordy “and order/reserve controls. [I don't personally understand what "order/reserve controls" means, except in the vaguest terms, but I assume people in the industry will?] ”
I don't know how to explain this. For instance, this web-site has a 'control' to search the site (an input box and a button to force searching). So 'order/reserve controls' can be an 'order' and a 'reserve' buttons which is placed near the detail info about an ad face. So a button, a checkbox and so on are web controls and used to perform some actions on the web-site.
Mr Wordy “If an ad place [do you mean "face"?] is sold with extra profit”
Maybe 'rent' is better to say than 'sold' here?
Mr Wordy “If an ad place is sold with extra profit, we pay you a part of it. [I don't really understand what this sentence means.]”
Let me explain. Suppose a billboard costs $1000 for month. If we have rent it out for $1100 then we pay $1050 to its owner and $50 is our profit. So $100 is extra profit and $50 is a part of extra profit we pay to owner (Advertising company). The owner (Advertising company) gets $50 extra money for its billboard without any efforts.
Mr Wordy “There is currently no similar service available through any other provider. [I suppose you're sure about this?!”
Of couse. If our competitors wont see this topic in the near future 
Mr Wordy “In phase one, the exchange will ["will" is a very definite word. You shouldn't use it unless a reasonable observer would agree that what you claim is sure to happen.] consolidate the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers.”
This is our expectation only. Do you think we should use somthing like '...the exchahge is going to consolidate...' or '...the exchahge tend to consolidate...'?
Mr Wordy “["thematic" doesn't seem to be the right term. I'm not really sure what you mean; you may mean "sector-specific" or something like that?] ”
I found the 'particularized' word in the dictionary. Maybe 'sector-specific' would be ok.
Mr Wordy “Data synchronization can be performed VERY SELDOM. [Sounds very negative]”
And what's about "You don't need to perform regular data synchronization"?
Joined on
Sun, May 31 2009
Russia
New Member
18
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Mr Wordy
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771698
Tue, 09 Jun 09 04:03 AM
shurman81 “The 'EXCHANGE' term has been written in capital letters just to let you recognize it amoung the text and not to mix it up with the common 'exchange' word.”
I personally find it distracting and somewhat irritating, but it is, of course, entirely up to you. Perhaps a compromise would be just to capitalise the first letter: "Exchange".
shurman81 “Maybe it's not a good term for this case. By 'actual' I mean 'up-to-date' here. In other words the 'latest' information. So if you can see that an ad face is marked as 'available now' then it is a fact that it is available now. You don't have to obtain more exact information about the ad face, you can order it right now. If an ad face has just been ordered by someone then its status is immediately changed to 'unavailable until [date]' and you can not order it until the [date] (until it gets available).”
I think "real-time" would be suitable then. You could say "real-time information about ad face availability and prices" or something like that. I'm wondering if "prices" might be better here than "costs".
shurman81 “I don't know how to explain this. For instance, this web-site has a 'control' to search the site (an input box and a button to force searching). So 'order/reserve controls' can be an 'order' and a 'reserve' buttons which is placed near the detail info about an ad face. So a button, a checkbox and so on are web controls and used to perform some actions on the web-site.”
Oh. In that case I didn't understand it at all. I didn't realise that you meant controls in that sense (though I'm familiar with that sense). This is a somewhat technical usage, and here I think it might be better just to describe the business functionality without worrying about how it's actually implemented on the website. You could say something like "... clients/customers can place orders and make reservations ...".
shurman81 “Maybe 'rent' is better to say than 'sold' here?”
Yes, could be. If advertisers are paying for a billboard (say) at a monthly or weekly rate for a fixed period then "rented" seems appropriate.
"ad place" isn't clear (and doesn't seem like natural English). You could say "If advertising space is rented/sold..."
shurman81 “Let me explain. Suppose a billboard costs $1000 for month. If we have rent it out for $1100 then we pay $1050 to its owner and $50 is our profit. So $100 is extra profit and $50 is a part of extra profit we pay to owner (Advertising company). The owner (Advertising company) gets $50 extra money for its billboard without any efforts.”
Hmmm. The possibility that you might be able to get them more than their "list price" seems worth making a point of (some sort of bidding mechanism?), but you've already spoken about "commission" (well, that's the word I suggested), so I wonder if you need to explain this charging mechanism separately. Could this reasonably count as "commission"?
shurman81 “This is our expectation only. Do you think we should use somthing like '...the exchahge is going to consolidate...' or '...the exchahge tend to consolidate...'?”
"going to" is just as definite as "will". "tend" isn't right. Provided it's a reasonable expectation that has a reasonably good chance of being fulfilled, you could say:
"In phase one, we expect the exchange to consolidate the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers."
Actually this sentence is not great in other respects. It seems slightly odd for an exchange to "consolidate" the leaders. I'm not sure what alternative to suggest because I don't fully understand what you mean by "consolidate". If you mean that you expect all these leading companies to sign up to your service then it would be clearer to say this.
I think you might also need to say which region(s) "leaders of the advertising industry" and "50%" apply to.
shurman81 “I found the 'particularized' word in the dictionary. Maybe 'sector-specific' would be ok.”
"particularized" is not right here.
Joined on
Tue, May 27 2008
Senior Member
2,359
Native British English speaker
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Mr Wordy
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771713
Tue, 09 Jun 09 04:26 AM
A couple of additions to my last post:
shurman81 “
And what's about "You don't need to perform regular data synchronization"?
”
Yes, this is much better.
Mr Wordy “I'm not sure what alternative to suggest because I don't fully understand what you mean by "consolidate".”
Sorry, I think what you probably mean is something like:
"In phase one, we expect the exchange to consolidate information from the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers."
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shurman81
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773087
Tue, 09 Jun 09 09:24 PM
I agree practically on all your points.
Mr Wordy “Hmmm. The possibility that you might be able to get them more than their "list price" seems worth making a point of (some sort of bidding mechanism?), but you've already spoken about "commission" (well, that's the word I suggested), so I wonder if you need to explain this charging mechanism separately. Could this reasonably count as "commission"?”
As I understand 'commission' implies expenses while the case when we pay implies benefit. So I think it's wrong to make these two cases equal. I agree that the way I said it was too confused. But it's a good point of our offer and I wouldn't like to exclude it. But unfortunately I don't have any idea about how to tell about it, even in Russian.
Mr Wordy “ Sorry, I think what you probably mean is something like:
"In phase one, we expect the exchange to consolidate information from the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers." ”
Yes, you are right here.
Now I think it's time to go to the conclusion. Here it is:
The resources mentioned above are being developed now. But taking your status, experience and professionalism into consideration we are applying to you with this offer now in order to be able to take your requirements, conditions and technical aspects into account. Any participation and help from your part will be invaluable contribution to development of services for you and your customers. If you are interested in collaboration with us then please e-mail to us in order to get more details. Hope to fruitful cooperation on the road to achieving our aims.
Best Regards,
My Name
Managing Director
Our Organization
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Mr Wordy
+
773535
Wed, 10 Jun 09 03:21 AM
shurman81 “As I understand 'commission' implies expenses while the case when we pay implies benefit. So I think it's wrong to make these two cases equal. I agree that the way I said it was too confused. But it's a good point of our offer and I wouldn't like to exclude it. But unfortunately I don't have any idea about how to tell about it, even in Russian.”
I see what you mean. Without understanding the precise details of how the charging works, I'm not sure how best to word it. I was imagining that you plan to charge commission even if the advertising space sells for the original asking price, but from your explanation I can't quite see how you avoid earning less if the space sells for slightly above the asking price. This seems illogical, so I don't think my understanding can be quite right.
Some suggestions/comments on the last paragraph:
The services outlined above are presently [simply to avoid faintly awkward repetition of "now"] being developed now. But taking your status, experience and professionalism into consideration, we are applying to you with this offer now in the hope that we might [I thought "in order" sounded a bit like you were already assuming their cooperation] be able to take your specific requirements, conditions and technical aspects [I think "requirements" covers it all really] into account. Any participation and help from you would be an invaluable contribution to the development of these services for you and your customers. If you are interested in collaborating with us then please e-mail to us and we will be glad to send you further details. We look forward to fruitful cooperation on the road to achieving our aims.
As an alternative to the penultimate sentence, you could say:
We very much hope you will be interested in collaborating with us on this proposal. Please contact us by email at the address shown above/below and we will be delighted to discuss it further and provide any additional information you may require.
To me, this sounds slightly more encouraging than "If you are interested...".
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shurman81
+
774539
Wed, 10 Jun 09 10:05 PM
Mr Wordy “I see what you mean. Without understanding the precise details of how the charging works, I'm not sure how best to word it. I was imagining that you plan to charge commission even if the advertising space sells for the original asking price, but from your explanation I can't quite see how you avoid earning less if the space sells for slightly above the asking price. This seems illogical, so I don't think my understanding can be quite right.”
I think it can be explained by the following sentence: "Comission is X% of extra price but not less than Y% of initial price". Of cause X is rather greater than Y. For Instance X might be about 50% and Y about 5%. So we earn in any case, and the [Advertisement Company] might as lose from Y% of initial price as profit to X% of extra price. If to use the example above ($1000 initial price) then in the worst case (when there's no extra price) they lose $50 (get $950) and in the best case ($100 extra price) they profit $50 (get $1050) and we earn $50 in the both case. I hope it makes sence.
Please have a look at the corrected text. How does it look now.
Dear Mr. Brown,
The desire of [Advertising Company] to remain a leader in visual communications is well recognized by our company. We understand your commitment to service quality as well as your desire to be ahead of your competitors. Although you are already generally recognized as top performers in your industry, we would like to offer you an opportunity to take one more step on the road to achieving your mission-statement goals. Having a lot of experience in IT area, [Our Company] is glad to provide you with a set of modern Web services and tools for your business.
If you are interested in:
• Reducing the amount of time your ad faces stand unlet;
• Obtaining higher rent from your ad faces without affecting demand;
• Improving customer awareness of your company and the services you offer;
• Extending your range of services and enhancing their using the latest technologies and tools;
then we are glad to offer you and your customers a set of unique services that will solve these problems efficiently and with minimum effort and cost to you.
The following service options are available:
Option 1. Connection of [Advertising Company] to our all-Russian ad face exchange. Real-time information about ad face availability and prices is published here. Two-way real-time data synchronization is required. Ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company] and customers can place orders and make reservations. This information publication service is provided free of charge, and no charge is applied if clients place direct orders with you. A small commission is charged on orders placed via the exchange. If an ad face is rented with extra profit, we pay you a part of it. The exchange has many unique features which make it an irreplaceable tool for the planning, realization and analysis of advertising campaigns. There is currently no similar service available through any other provider. In phase one, we expect the exchange to consolidate information from the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers. In phase two, it is supposed to become the main access point to a unique international ad face database which functions in real-time. We will be glad to send you further details of the service at your request.
Option 2. Publication of detailed information about [Advertising Company], the ad faces you own and their current availability and prices on any of our 20 sector-specific web-sites. One-way data synchronization is required. Ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company], allowing direct orders to be placed. This service is provided free of charge.
Option 3. Publication of detailed information about [Advertising Company] and the ad faces you own, as in option 2, but without details of current availability and price. You don't need to perform regular data synchronization. As in option 2, ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company], allowing direct orders. This service is provided free of charge.
The services outlined above are presently being developed. But taking your status, experience and professionalism into consideration, we are applying to you with this offer now in the hope that we might be able to take your specific requirements into account. Any participation and help from you would be an invaluable contribution to the development of these services for you and your customers. We very much hope you will be interested in collaborating with us on this proposal. Please contact us by email at the address shown below and we will be delighted to discuss it further and provide any additional information you may require. We look forward to fruitful cooperation on the road to achieving our aims.
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Mr Wordy
+
774759
Thu, 11 Jun 09 01:56 AM
shurman81 “I think it can be explained by the following sentence: "Comission is X% of extra price but not less than Y% of initial price". Of cause X is rather greater than Y. For Instance X might be about 50% and Y about 5%. So we earn in any case, and the [Advertisement Company] might as lose from Y% of initial price as profit to X% of extra price. If to use the example above ($1000 initial price) then in the worst case (when there's no extra price) they lose $50 (get $950) and in the best case ($100 extra price) they profit $50 (get $1050) and we earn $50 in the both case. I hope it makes sence.”
In that case, I'm not sure the current wording is strictly accurate. As far as I can see, if the space sells for just a little above their usual price then you won't pay them any part of the "extra profit"; in fact they get less than they were asking. Perhaps you could say:
A small commission is charged on orders placed via the exchange, but because [insert a few words of explanation about how your service makes this happen] you may still earn more than [insert appropriate term, such as "your usual rate"].
Some comments/suggestions on the full text follow. Don't be disconcerted if I've suggested changes to things that I didn't comment on before, or to wording that I myself suggested. This inevitably happens when you read, edit and then re-read a piece of text (as I'm sure you're well aware!)
Dear Mr. Brown,
[add blank line]
The ambition [to avoid repetition of "desire"] of [Advertising Company] to remain a leader in visual communications is well recognized by our company. We understand your commitment to service quality as well as your desire to stay ahead of your competitors. Although you are already generally recognized as top performers in your industry, we would like to offer you an opportunity to take one more step on the road to achieving the goals of your mission statement. Having extensive experience in IT area, [Our Company] is glad to provide you with a set of modern Web services and business tools that will, with minimum cost and effort, enable you to:
• Reduce the amount of time your ad faces stand unlet;
• Obtain higher rent from your ad faces without affecting demand;
• Improve customer awareness of your company and the services you offer;
• Extend your range of services and enhance them using the latest technologies. and tools; [just because you already said "tools"]
then we are glad to offer you and your customers a set of unique services that will address these issues efficiently and with minimum effort and cost to you. [I changed the structure here because what you had was kind of repetitious. You already said you're glad to provide these services, so you don't need to now say you're glad to offer them.]
The following service options are available:
[add blank line]
Option 1. Connection of [Advertising Company] to our all-Russian ad face exchange, where real-time information about ad face availability and prices is published here. Two-way real-time data synchronization is required. Ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company] and customers can place orders and make reservations. The information publication service is provided free of charge, and no charge is applied if clients place direct orders with you. A small commission is charged on orders placed via the exchange. If an ad face is rented with extra profit, we pay you a part of it. [see earlier comment] The exchange has many unique features which make it an indispensable tool for the planning, realization and analysis of advertising campaigns. There is currently no similar service available through any other provider. In phase one, we expect the exchange to consolidate information from the leaders of the advertising industry and cover about 50% of all ad face offers. In phase two, we plan to develop it into the main point of access to a unique international ad face database which functions in real-time. We will be glad to send you further details of the service at your request. [You said this at the end too; not that it's necessarily wrong to say it here too... just not sure if it's intentional]
Option 2. Publication of detailed information about [Advertising Company], the ad faces you own and their current availability and prices on any of our 20 sector-specific websites. One-way data synchronization is required. Ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company], allowing direct orders to be placed. This service is provided free of charge.
Option 3. Publication of detailed information about [Advertising Company] and the ad faces you own, as in option 2, but without details of current availability and price. You do not need to perform regular data synchronization. As in option 2, ad face details are accompanied by information about [Advertising Company], allowing direct orders. This service is provided free of charge.
The services outlined above are currently being developed. But taking your status, experience and professionalism into consideration, we are applying to you with this offer now in the hope that we will be able to take your specific requirements into account. Any participation and help from you would be an invaluable contribution to the development of these services for you and your customers. We very much hope you will be interested in collaborating with us on this proposal. Please contact us by email at the address shown below and we will be delighted to discuss it further and provide any additional information you may require. We look forward to fruitful cooperation on the road to achieving our aims.
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shurman81
+
776139
Thu, 11 Jun 09 07:49 PM
Thank you very very much. Your help was very valuable for us. I believe that this offer just can't be refused.
I'm so glad to have found this website and I will recommend it to my friends . Thank you.
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