Entries Tagged 'Copywriting' ↓

My one-year-old Airedale Terrier knows how to get to the point. She’s much better at it than most people I know running businesses, teaching classes, or even some people who write for a living.

If she wants you to do something, she has a way of telling you. If she wants the door opened, she lets you know by hammering on it. If she wants some of your lunch, she gives you the big brown eye treatment. You’re not left in any doubt.

She doesn’t get bogged down in corporate jargon. She doesn’t think you have to use “sophisticated business language” to impress people. She doesn’t try to hide a simple idea behind pompous academic nonsense.

A quick bark, she picks up the tennis ball, gives you a glance and invites you to play.

She knows a lot more about effective communication than most people in business. And just about everyone in academia.

She knows how to tempt you into playing ball.

She can persuade you to rub her belly just by rolling on her back and offering it to you.

And she even knows that it’s not all about her. She has to give something back. She has learnt that the humans have to enjoy the game too, or they won’t play next time. She has learnt not to bite your hand, or there won’t be any food offered in future.

It’s a pity a few more companies couldn’t learn that lesson: don’t bite your customers for the sake of an easy biscuit because they won’t come back - and you could be hungry by meal time.

And if you want someone to play ball - show them the ball.

A simple idea. A simple message. Perhaps that’s one reason dogs are so much more popular than business people.

If you’re briefing a copywriter, one of the most important things they need to know is:

Who is your audience?

Are we talking to existing customers? Or prospects? Or both?

Or is this for an internal audience - such as staff or shareholders?

If it’s going to new prospects, will they be familiar with the company? What about the product or service? Will they be familiar with the basic offer?

A copywriter needs to be able to visualise the person they are speaking to. They need to know who they are - not just through some dumb marketing stereo-typing along the lines of ‘C2s’ or ‘empty-nesters.’

A copywriter needs to know who they really are - what they are like, how they talk, what they care about. Ideally, the copywriter needs to be able to draw on personal experiences and friendships - so that they can picture someone they genuinely do know who might fit the audience profile.

That way, the copywriter really can find the right tone of voice.

This is not a precise science. Your audience is likely to be wide and varied. Even if the audience is very precise, these people are still individuals and there is no magic bullet when it comes to the right tone of voice.

But an experienced copywriter will have an idea of how to write, the kinds of language and levels of familiarity and slang to use, depending on the nature of the audience.

Often clients forget to tell copywriters the most basic essentials in a brief. If so, it’s up to the copywriter to make they know the audience as clearly as possible before getting too far into the project.

This really can be as basic as finding out if the communication is aimed at customers or an internal audience such as staff or shareholders. If it’s aimed at customers, are they prospects or have they bought before?

In my experience, a lot of marketing departments and agencies are too quick to fall back on stereo-typing of customers and prospects, lumping them into generalisations. A copywriter needs to see beyond these. Because the generalisations are nearly always insulting, arrogant and immature.

A copywriter can’t afford to be these things. He has to talk to people in a language with which they are comfortable. This means not talking down to them but treating them with respect.

It’s not generalisations about their habits and lifestyles that you need. It’s solid information about what they already know; whether they are likely to be familiar with the company or product; whether or not they already source a similar product from a rival. Or will they have heard bad reports about the product from another source? Or good reports?

If you’re briefing a copywriter and you neglect to tell them these things, then you won’t get the copy you really want (although you possibly will get the copy you deserve).

And if you are a copywriter or aspiring copywriter, then you had better make sure you know these things before you start writing.

A lot of what makes a copywriter effective is the ability to visualise the person you are writing for, to such an extent that it becomes second nature.

Sometimes seeing copy produced by less experienced writers (for example clients) is a sharp reminder that other people either don’t know how to do this or can’t. That’s possibly one reason why they’re not professional writers.

I’ve been working on (read: not getting around to) a post on ‘how to brief a copywriter.’ But that got me thinking about all the things that all too often go wrong in the briefing process. I thought I’d let off steam and dump it all here onto the blog. That’s what a blog is for, isn’t it? So, these are some of the ways NOT to brief a copywriter.

If you commission copywriting, this might give you some insight into how to make life easier for your writer.

If you’re a copywriter, you might recognise some of these. Please feel free to add more in the comments.

1. Email a bunch of PowerPoint slides in the firm conviction that they contain useful information.

2. Telephone out of the blue and, without introducing yourself, start gabbling about your bounce rate.

3. Call up and ask: “How much would it cost to write a website?” Give no indication what kind of website you want, or how large it will be.

4. Deflect that tricky question: “Why should customers buy this product?” Reply along the lines of: “Because I need to meet my sales targets.” We know sales folk are self-obsessed, but come on…

5. Send an email with the mobile phone numbers of various sales executives that the copywriter is to contact for information. Make sure these are people who never answer their phone because they are in ‘meetings’ and who are far too busy and important to reply to voicemail messages.

6. Send the copywriter contact details for a ’satisfied’ client who is to be the subject of a case study. Don’t bother to contact the client yourself to find out if everything is OK. And don’t waste the account manager’s time with such a tiresome and unprofitable after-sales task either. Leave it to the copywriter to discover that the software didn’t work, made life worse for them, and is no longer used. Let the poor writer take the flak for your appalling product and service. Then, when they can’t write a case study because all the feedback is so negative, you won’t have to pay them for the time they wasted.

7. Don’t bother putting a brief together. Let the copywriter figure it out themselves from all the ‘background information,’ you send. Email over lots of design work that is totally irrelevant, along with every conceivable document and case study you can find even if it’s barely related to the project in hand. Dump everything you can find on the copywriter to totally confuse them and waste as much of their time as possible.

8. When asked a relevant question by your copywriter, but you don’t know the answer, string a bunch of clichés together and finish with the phrase: “You’re the wordsmith, I’m sure you can do something with that.”

9. Contact your copywriter and ask them to confirm their availability for an exciting and ever-so important new project. Don’t tell them what the project is. Don’t tell them when it will start. Or what it entails. Or the deadline. Or what copy is needed. Or if any physical meetings are required. Or how much money you’re offering to pay. Just ask them to confirm their availability anyway.

10. Call your copywriter and tell them, in your most stressed out voice, that you have a crisis on your hands. You need copy right away. Can they drop everything and get it to you? There’s not much budget - but tell them it could be the start of something big. You’re sure there will be lots of work to put their way later if they get this one right. They’re sure to believe you, as they’ve never heard this one before. See if they’ll do the job for free, right now, for a very demanding client who expects perfection and more. Then moan about copywriters in general when they don’t return your calls….

All right, that’s out of my system. I’ll get back to working on the much more positive post: ‘How to brief your copywriter.’ Watch this space.

How much does it cost to have such-and-such written? It has to be the question I get asked the most by prospective clients.

It’s a very good question, because lots of people who would benefit from the services of a copywriter aren’t familiar with how it works. They don’t know how expensive it is. They need to get a good idea of this before they can decide whether or not they can afford professional copywriting. Or whether they should do it themselves.

Of course, asking how much copywriting costs is the classic ‘how long is a piece of string’ question.

Clients are usually, understandably, a bit vague about how much they want doing. Often, they don’t really know. They want you to sort it out. That’s why they’re paying you.

But recently I’ve had requests as vague as “how much would it cost to write a letter,” with no information about the nature of the product, the audience, what they want to achieve, how the letter would be used, whether it would be long or short….

At this point, the experienced copywriter starts to talk their client through some of the options available. What you have to do is somehow get a brief out of them.

But this can cause significant problems for the clients themselves.

For example, you may have identified a copywriter you think would be ideal for the project in question. But if the copywriter is very busy, they may not have the time to talk you through all this information.

It may be clear that you’ve never used a copywriter before - so you’re probably not going to be a very important long-term client for them. The project will probably be quite small; you’ll need a fair bit of hand-holding; and at the back of his mind, the copywriter is possibly wondering whether or not you’ll be good for the payment at the end of it all.

(This is true of any business relationship based largely on trust. Most copywriters do work in advance and get paid later in expectation that the client will honour their side of the bargain.)

So if you want to know how much copywriting costs, and you need a fairly accurate answer to this, from a good, reliable and experienced copywriter, then you are probably going to have to meet them halfway. You need to give them as much information as possible, so that they can make an informed estimate of how much to charge.

Most copywriters will base this on how much of their time is going to be used up. They will likely have a day-rate they work to, and will price a project on that basis. This is not a stunningly accurate process. They might think “that’s two hours” or “that’s two days” but often there is no way to know for sure.

As a copywriter, the less you know about a project and about the client you are working for, the more you will err on the side of caution, to make sure you are covered.

So again, providing a thorough brief for your potential copywriter will help keep the costs down. It also makes it much more likely that your prospective copywriter will respond to your request quickly and with enthusiasm.

So, the answer to “how much does copywriting cost” is: “what do you want writing?” And for that, you need a brief, either verbal or written.

Check back later this week for: “How to brief a copywriter.”

So you’ve written an advert, a direct marketing piece, a sales spiel. How good is it? Will it work? These are seven questions to ask before you show it to the client or publish it:

1. Is it on strategy?
It may be brilliantly creative, it might be downright clever, but is your advert or marketing copy communicating the right messages?

2. Does it talk to the right people?
Who is the audience for the product (or service)? You did know this before you started work, right? Now, is it clear that you are talking to these people? Does the copy get this across, does it haul them in?

3. Is it compelling?
Is the idea interesting enough? Is the copy? Or is it, in truth, just a bit dull? Be ruthless with your own work.

4. Is it instant?
People don’t linger long over adverts, so you’d better get your idea and message across pretty fast. Remember that if the headline doesn’t grab them, then they will never read that finely crafted body copy.

5. Is it credible?
Are you making claims that people will believe? If they don’t believe you, they are unlikely to buy from you. It’s always tempting to make promises about the huge benefits a product will deliver. But simply changing your underarm deodorant won’t really make you irresistible to beautiful young women. It won’t really turn them into slavering sex slaves. And deep down, everyone knows it.

6. Is it striking?
Has your idea and copy got punch and pizzazz? Is it unexpected? Does it stand out from the ads and marketing of the competition? If not, then it isn”t really good enough, is it?

7. Have your proved your sales argument?
You are trying to persuade someone to part with their hard-earned. You have made big claims for your product. Have you convinced them? Is there any proof? Or will they be left feeling flat at the end of it, still unsure? If that’s the case, you still have more work to do.

Providing your copy passes these seven tests, then using these criteria can be a good way of defending your work when you have to show it to clients or account executive types, designers and so on.

It shows that you are not just being creative for the sake of it, but that you are working hard, and thinking clearly. That there is method to your creative madness.

These seven rules of effective copy were adapted from the book The craft of copywriting: How to write great copy that sells by Alastair Crompton. It’s highly recommended (although somewhat hard to get hold of, these days).

The Ferengi would make excellent copywriters. Because they know how to sell the benefits, and how to close a deal.

For those that don’t watch much TV sci-fi, the Ferengi are a fictional race from Star Trek, a people obsessed with trade and profit.

They spend their whole lives doing deals. Or, as Wikipedia, puts it, the Ferengi are:

characterized by a mercantile obsession with profit and trade and their constant efforts to swindle people into bad deals.

Of course, as virtuous copywriters, we don’t want to ’swindle people into bad deals.’ But we do need to sell the products and services of our clients. So maybe we can learn something from these Ferengi, and their Rules of Acquisition.

The rules are numbered guidelines and aphorisms that govern business, and serve as the religious canon of Ferengi society.

So, just for fun, I decided to look through the list and see which ones might apply to copywriting: Continue reading →

Some people think repetition is a sign of bad writing.
Some people think it’s poor style.
Some people think it doesn’t work.
But some people think it’s a key weapon in the copywriter’s toolbox.
What do you think?

Do you know the most important word in any piece of copywriting?

You probably use this word all the time anyway, perhaps without even realising it. In which case, you can make your writing all the more effective by using it more, and using it with purpose.

Do you know what the word is yet?

You do?

Good, because it really is a magical kind of word for a copywriter, one that you really can’t use too often. The really wonderful thing about the word ‘you’ is the way it makes you change the way you write. And it changes what you write about.

Instead of writing “I” this, “we” that, with the focus on yourself, your company, your product or service, it forces you to start writing about the reader, about the customer and what they might be interested in.

It makes you write about the benefits of a product or service (”this is what it can do for you,”) rather then the features. (”Our company does this. Our product does that.”)

As a blogger, it makes you focus on what your readership can take from a piece, the value you can give them. It makes you think about how your readers can act on the information you are giving them.

So next time you’re struggling with how to write something, try using the word ‘you’ as often as possible. It really does sprinkle a little magic on everything you write.

For just about every kind of writing, it pays to absorb as many facts as possible before you start to write. This means doing your research.

When writing advertising copy, for example, you need to know everything you can about the product before you try to write or even start to have ideas.

Doing the reading and research is time consuming, and can seem like an arduous task. On the other hand, it’s something you can do even when you’re not feeling creative or in the writing ‘zone.’

You’ll probably find the copy writing itself.

And doing your research, getting all the facts uploaded into your mind, is one of the best ways to get into the writing zone in the first place. Continue reading →

There’s a formula for writing advertising copy with which any copywriter should be familiar. It’s useful for anyone who writes to persuade or sell. It’s also handy to know if you’re simply a consumer - so that you understand how advertisers and others are trying to influence you.

The formula comes down to an acronym, AIDA: Attention, interest, desire, action.

Attention - stop them in their tracks

First, get their attention. Photo by law_kevin

The first job of any headline, advert or piece of copy is to get the reader’s attention. And one of the best ways to do this is to focus on their problem. Continue reading →

There’s two kinds of sales copy on the internet - too long and too short. Continue reading →

Copywriting advice on the web tends to focus on direct selling. But that’s only one part of copywriting.

It’s understandable why this should be the case. The web is a place where a lot of direct selling takes place. It’s a technique that a lot or people are interested in because they have products they want to sell on websites.

But a lot of copywriting isn’t about getting people to click on a buy button. It isn’t just about getting people to ‘buy now.’ Continue reading →

If you’re paying a copywriter to do a job, you may not care about keeping them happy. On the other hand, if they are happy, they’ll do a better job and work more efficiently, which will help keep the price down.

So how can you help your copywriter to produce excellent work and keep them happy into the bargain?

Continue reading →

Writing copy that concentrates on keywords too much can become very bad marketing. Why? because it tends to focus on the features of the product or service too much, and not the benefits to the user. That’s bad marketing.

The customer may be searching for “lawn mowers”‘ but what he wants is short grass

It’s something you have to be aware of whenever creating copy for your website. You have to achieve a balance between writing for people or writing for search engine robots. Continue reading →

I’m sure there are hundreds of different ways of defining the ‘golden rules of copywriting’ - but here’s one ways, for starters:

1. What’s your proposition? You need to know the key messages.

2. Who are you talking to? You need to understand your audience, what they’re interested in, and what motivates them.

3. How are you communicating? You need to know the media. Is it print, the web, TV etc. The messages and execution will need to be adapted to suit the media.

4. Marshall your thoughts, make notes, have a plan. Structure your story or argument.

5. Create a hook. This is a theme or concept that brings the message alive.

6. Write clearly, so people understand and want to read on. Get to the point, and stick to the point. Use short sentences with active language and a conversational tone.

7. Don’t forget to sell.

OK, that last one is a bit of a tease. It’s a subject of its own. Hey, it’s probably a lifetime’s study. But it’s something some copywriters seem to forget. Everyone’s selling something, even if you just want people to subscribe to your RSS feed (mine’s up the top there, by the way), or come back to your website for another look sometime.