What’s for dinner tonight? Will it be “beef, potatoes and vegetables” – or Orange Teriyaki Marinated Flank Steak with Herbed Oven Roasted Potatoes and Grilled Zucchini Ribbons? Quite often how you present something makes a big difference in how it is perceived.

This concept applies to many aspects of your marketing program. For example:

How you make use of graphic design – Never underestimate the value of good graphic design. I can write absolutely brilliant text for your tri-fold brochure. But if the end product looks like your six-year-old designed it, the message will not be well-received.

How well you proofread your materials – A few mistakes can be overlooked. But if your marketing materials are full of typos, grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes and other problems, this will not reflect well on your company. If you can’t be bothered to pay attention to the details in your own marketing materials, you probably can’t be trusted to get anything else right, either.

How you gloss over the negative – For example, in our society, death is a very negative subject. That’s why estate planners will say “you really want to avoid probate” instead of “you really want your heirs to avoid probate after you die.” After all, whether you do estate planning or not, you will avoid probate. You’ll be dead.

The order in which you list things – Studies have shown that items listed near the end of a list are the easiest to recall, followed by the items at the beginning of a list. The things in the middle are most likely to be forgotten. Which means that in a bulleted list of the benefits your firm offers, you should consider putting the most important ones first and last.

How you deliver your service – For example, there’s a local company that comes out once a year to service our home’s heating and air conditioning units. In addition to calling the day before to remind me about the appointment, they also send a text when the service person is on the way, complete with this person’s name and photo. It’s a nice touch that makes it more comfortable to let this stranger into my home.

How you refer to your products – Are you selling “used cars” or “pre-owned vehicles”? “Sales meetings” or “free consultations”? A “gold buying service” or “a way to turn the long-forgotten jewelry that you haven’t worn in 20 years into always-useful cash”?