Remember this guy?

Our old English teachers may have taught us a lot at school, but for many the ghost of English lessons past has curbed their ability to write compelling and powerful copy.

Why?

Usually it’s because as soon as their writing starts to flow, a little voice mutters in their heads. It’s the voice of their old English teacher – “No slang! No sentence fragments! No Contractions! No colloquialisms!”

Well I’ve got news for you Mr English Teacher, these are all perfectly acceptable in the copywriting world.

Here are a few examples to illustrate:

Sentence fragments

Apparently all proper sentences should have a subject-verb-object construction. But in my opinion,  if they communicate complete thoughts, they are a perfectly acceptable tool for a writer.

“Get your copy of About the Home today. Full of tips and secrets. Why miss out? Buy yours today.”

Contractions and slang

Why can’t I use contractions? It’s perfectly acceptable in my book. As for slang – why not? If it helps communicate a particular message to your audience, go for it. Obviously, over doing it isn’t a great idea, but if you are writing to a particular market that readily uses slang, incorporating it within your copy will help you build rapport.

And…But

If you thought you couldn’t start a sentence with the conjunctions “and” or “but” – hogwash!!

I was interested to read in Fowler’s Modern English Usage that this particular prohibition had been ‘cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo Saxon times onwards’ (Fowler’s Modern English Usage, Third Edition, p.52). Even Shakespeare used it in King John.

If it’s good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for me.

Talking of Shakespeare, he also paved the way for splitting the infinitive:

Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows

Thu pity may deserve to pitied be

(Sonnet 142)

And of course, another famous example will be known by all the Trekkies out there:

To boldly go where no man has gone before

(Sounds a lot better than “To go boldly where no man has gone before”)

Ending a sentence with a preposition

If you still believe this, you don’t have a leg to stand on. If you did, you’d have to write “I you still believe this, you don’t have a leg on which to stand” – I prefer my version!

It is perfectly OK to end on a preposition provided it’s not redundant – so you can ask “Where are you going?” but not “Where are you going to?”

At the end of the day, if your aim is to write great copy that will get your readers’ attention and sells products – write conversationally. This will immediately build rapport with your audience, gain their trust and their cash.

One last thing, ditch your Thesaurus – over use could mean leaving behind good, clear English in favour of gratuitously overblown hyperbole.

Simple is the copywriter’s friend.

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Psst. Come here – did you know there are millions of adverts everywhere you look? They’re on websites, in brochures, newsletters, emails…

Do you want to know how to make yours stand out?

Take a look at what your competitors are doing…and then do something completely different.

I bet if you were to study the adverts in your industry you’d see a common theme running through them. It might be in the copy, it might be in the design, it’s probably in both. The problem is you are all selling similar products and services so if you want yours to be noticed, you have to be different – you have to stand out from the crowd.

When you run a business, it becomes your life. You live and breathe it every day so it’s not surprising that you become blinkered in your marketing approach. Which is why. sometimes, it pays to get an outsider in to write your sales copy for you.

Once people realise that, my phone rings. As a freelance copywriter I can come into your business with a fresh pair of eyes. Whether I have experience in your industry is neither here nor there – in fact, having no experience is often an advantage. An outsider will look at your product or service in a totally different way and bring a fresh, unbiased approach to your sales message that eye-catching.

If your budget doesn’t allow for a copywriter to be brought in, I’ve put together a list of 10 ways you can be individual in your marketing approach:

1. Put a handwritten letter on your advert to make it stand out.
2. If you have well known and respected clients, put their names on your ads (of course, you must get their permission first) as endorsees.
3. Before and after pictures send a strong message.
4. If you’ve had an outside review or feature written about your company, use it in  your copy. This will add credibility to your advert.
5. Throw in a free bonus offer.
6. If possible, a famous name endorsing your product will always grab attention.
7. Put your own picture and contact details on your advert. This adds a personal touch.
8. Perhaps consider donating a percentage of profits to charity.
9. Use closed questions in your copy to make them think about your product and what it will do for them.
10. How about a competition. If they can find the 5 spelling mistakes in your add they can enter your free prize draw. This will keep them reading your ad and the longer they read, the more likely they are to become customers.

You don’t have to use all of the above, just one or two will make you stand out from your competitors.

Are you already using these techniques? Do you have one that works particularly well for you? If so why not leave a comment and share it with us?

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Creating copy for your marketing materials can take time. Getting your message just right takes thought, skill and a lot of practice.

You marketing materials have to sell for your company without being able to speak. Their copy has to engage the reader instantly but without eye contact.

That’s quite a tall order.

But your marketing materials are not designed to stand the test of time.

A marketing copywriter changes with the times

Do you wear the same type of clothes all the time? Other than changing the way you dress to reflect the seasons, I’m sure you also change according to the latest fashions. You probably also make constant changes to your home, whether that’s redecorating or changing the position of your furniture.

So if you do all that, why don’t you review your marketing message regularly?

Changing times

When you first started out in business you would have spent a lot of time getting to know your market to make sure your message really struck home with your audience.

But market places change constantly. Today people’s priorities have changed; technology has changed so the way you do business may also have to change.

If you continue to blindly send out the same message you’ll begin to lose customers. But if you constantly review your message and keep it fresh, you’ll not only retain clients, but you’ll attract new ones too.

Don’t forget your marketing materials

Keeping your message up to date is one thing. But you must also keep your website, brochures and newsletters fresh. Does their content still reflect what your customers want? Do  the benefits still work?

Put your coffee down for a moment and take a look at your website. Read through the copy – does it really give your reader what they want today?

It’s good practice to review your marketing materials every 6 – 12 months (or more regularly if you want). This regular investment will reward you with loyal customers and new customers.

Keep your business growing; don’t get stuck in a vacuum.

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Is there a difference between when writing to a business audience and writing to a (personal) customer audience?

That is a question that frequently causes arguments amongst freelance copywriters – or at least heated discussions.

Before I begin, this is my own opinion on this particular conundrum, and one that has stood me in good stead for all the clients I have worked for over the years.

As far as I’m concerned, B2B (or business to business) copywriting should be treated in exactly the same way as when writing for a B2C (business to customer) audience. I can’t think of any reason why it should be seen as different.

After all a company can’t physically buy anything, it can’t get up and meet you for a coffee and it can’t sit down and sign a contract.

A ‘company’ can’t do those things, but people can. So when you’re writing, you’re not addressing a company, you’re addressing a person – a real, live, human being.

Some believe that because you are writing to people in ‘powerful’ positions (Directors, Managers etc.) your writing should be formal, complex and full of big words. Utter tosh! If anything, your writing should be brief and simple. Just because the people you are writing to are a long way up the corporate ladder, doesn’t mean they want to read ridiculously complex sales patter. Yes, they may be educated but no more nor less than some of your customers.

The one thing these people do have is a lack of time. They are running demanding businesses and are being pulled from pillar to post. The last thing they want to see is a sales letter that requires a super high IQ – or a thesaurus at the very least – to make sense of it.

Writing in plain language is far more likely to get their attention and keep it.

4 golden rules

When you write your next piece of B2B sales copy, you’ll do well to remember the following 4 golden rules. I have followed them ever since starting out as a copywriter and they’ll worked every time.

Are you ready?

1. Be brief

Remember, these are busy people you are writing to. If you want them to read your sales message keep it short. Faced with a single page of strong copy will be more attractive than opening an envelope to reveal a small rain forest. These are busy people, recognise that and write accordingly.

2. They are human

Even though they’ve climbed the corporate ladder, they are still human and will make decision partly for personal reasons, such as generating larger profits will boost their salaries. So, if you can tap into their emotions, there’s more chance of getting them to buy.

3. Benefits, benefits, benefits

You will save time! You will save money! You will reduce staff turnover! You will improve productivity! These are benefits, they are things that will have a direct effect on your audience. This is what they want to know, not what colours your product comes in.

4. Keep in simple

There is no such thing as B2B English, despite some of the sales letters you may have seen. Your best bet is to keep your language and sentence construction simple and steer away from jargon.

There you go, it’s as simple as that. Treat your business customers has human beings – they are real people like you and me.

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If you are a copywriter, you have to be an extrovert. That doesn’t mean to say you have to get off your trolley constantly – well you could, might it play havoc with your writing.

Your gregarious nature means you have to be personable so you can build rapport with your clients.

You also need to be a great listener – that way you’ll understand exactly what they are looking for.

And you have to understand your reader – you have to get to know everything about them.

The first two things are reasonably straight forward to achieve, but the last one is a wee bit tricky. Getting inside your readers’ heads can seem an impossible task. I mean, half the time I don’t even know what’s going on inside my own head!

But taking the time to truly understand their inner most thoughts, you’ll discover what it is that makes them buy. Which, of course, makes your task of selling to them a lot easier.

Pay attention to the little things

Although collectively known as the human race, we are all different. We have our own personalities just as we have our own dress sizes – so the ‘one size fits all’ approach to marketing isn’t going to work.

Treat people as individuals. If you’re sending out a newsletter or sales letter, take a bit of time to work out how to use the mail merge feature and make sure they are all personally addressed. Dear Mr Gerard will go down a lot better than a generic Dear Sir, or God forbid, To whom it may concern.

By using their name it will at least appear as though you know who they are. You’re not treating them as some faceless wallet you are hoping to open.

People are real

I do like to state the obvious.

Market research, data and reports are all well and good, but how well do they represent your market? If you want to know what your customers are thinking, ask them. Either face to face or survey them – offer a free gift to encourage them to take part. Just think how powerful that kind of research is.

No matter who your target audience is, you’re bound to know someone who fits the profile. Whether it’s a friend, family member or neighbour, talk to them, ask their opinion, find out what they are looking for. Then when you sit down to write your copy, you’re writing from their heart.

You have more than one customer

When you’re writing a piece of sales copy (whether you are a copywriter or a business owner), you’ll always be writing for a multiple audience. Each and every person will have a different view on things but don’t let that put you off. Aim your copy at your typical reader – the person who has all the traits of your audience.

If you try and write for everyone, your copy will end up bland, long winded and most probably muddled so don’t even try.

At the end of the day, your reader is the most important person. Forget writing about your company, or if you’re a copywriter, the company paying your invoice. Customers don’t want to read about the company, they want to know how the product will help them; what benefit will it bring to their life?

If you answer that question, your writing will hit the spot – every time.

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Can you write in such a way as to create an emotional bond with your reader?

Now there’s a question for you. You can probably guess that I am going to say “yes you can” otherwise this will be one of the shortest blog posts in history!

Building rapport with your customers is something that requires a bit of work and a lot of thought. I wasn’t born a copywriter, this was one of the many skills I have learned. It’s easy to connect with someone face to face, but when it comes to the written word things get a little trickier.

Show you care

“Hey. I’m hired to write sales copy not get emotionally involved with my readers.”

Well if that’s your attitude then perhaps copywriting isn’t the career for you. A copywriter is a sales person – they just sell through words rather than customer interaction. If your copy doesn’t sell, you’re not doing your job.

If you still don’t get it, think back to all the sales people you’ve come across over the years. Some would have been helpful and bent over backwards to help you; others would have been disinterested. I bet I know which one you bought from!

By showing you they understood your concerns they built rapport with you. You began to trust them because they could see where you were coming from. They weren’t pushy; they listened, they gave advice and they took your order when you were ready to sign on the dotted line.

Find out their concerns

Of course, before you can create sales copy that shows you understand their concerns, you have to work out what their concerns are.

Put yourself in their shoes – you don’t have the luxury of being able to ask every customer, but what you can do is research to discover the most common issues.

For example, if you are writing sales copy for a bouncy castle or soft play company you know you can tune into the concerns of parents – is the equipment safe? what tests have been done? does it come up to recognised industry standards?

It only takes three little words

The fastest way to build rapport within your copywriting is by using three small but very powerful words:

“As you know…”

For example:

Dear Mr Brown,

As you know, it takes more than a good grasp of politics to be an effective Prime Minister…

As with all aspects of sales writing, it will take practice to master this. It’s almost a conspiratorial way of writing – you are whispering to your reader, telling them that you both understand this, they are intelligent and have a good grasp of the requirements…

Flattery will get you every where – especially when you are trying to sell. Confide in them, make them believe that you understand their fears and that they know how to overcome them.

Try it out in your next sales letter – see how you get on.

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Writing a diary for yourself is one thing – the only audience is you (unless someone takes a sneaky look at your inner most thoughts) so the process of writing is fairly straight forward. But writing for other people is a different ball game. You have to make your opinions and views entertaining and interesting enough for them to take time out of their day to read them.

When writing for publication you are putting yourself forward as an expert in your field. That comes with a lot of responsibility. What you write has to be of good quality because there’s a lot of competition on the internet.

If you are serious about article marketing it is important you are aware of one of the key elements to successful article marketing – high quality articles and lots of them.

How to write articles quickly

You’ve all heard the old saying that you should only write about things you have actual knowledge of. So that seems a good place to start.

This is a good way to gain confidence and quickly gather a library of articles that can be used on various sites. But before you begin, even if you are writing about something you know well, research your subject. That way your writing will be factually correct.

As your confidence grows you’ll be ready to tackle other subjects. But if that worries you, look at your own field and write articles about every aspect of your experience, comment on industry news and other articles. You’ll find a huge amount to write about before you even have to consider another subject.

Knowing your subject is one way of being able to produce articles quickly. The other is practice.

Writing regularly will not only help develop your writing style, it will also help your confidence grow.

Of course, article writing also calls for organisation. Make sure you adopt a cohesive structure. This blue-print will then be the basis for all your articles:

· An introduction to the topic

· Paragraphs that deal with the topic

· A conclusion to the topic

It sounds really simple but it is a winning formula that lets you convey your message properly to your readers.

Finally, I am constantly harping on about the important of keeping it simple. If your article is easy to understand it is more likely to be read so resist the urge to use complex words and sentences. Just keep it simple.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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Ask any copywriter what one of the most important aspects of their job is and they’ll probably mention focusing on your reader.

It is the reader you have to convince that the product you are writing about is the one they have been waiting for. Understanding them is vital if your writing is going to succeed. If your writing is to be persuasive you must use a convincing tone of voice and the right choice of words in punchy sentences.

So before you begin, clear your mind. Forget about your rumbling stomach, the night out or what you’ll be cooking for dinner – there is only one thing that should be in your mind when you’re planning your writing… YOUR READER

Every word you commit to paper must mean something to your reader. I’ll illustrate my point with a fishing analogy – if your line of words is taut, your fish (the reader) will stay hooked, let it go slack and they’ll swim off.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Sticking with the fishing analogy, your first sentence or heading is vital because it is the hook that will grab your reader and hold on to them.

Your reader is only going to be interested in your product if they think there is something in it for them. It has to provide a direct benefit to them that is irresistible. If you can get this in your copy at the start it will hook them and reel them in to the main sales message.

This whole post is about focusing on your reader so it makes sense that your writing addresses them directly. What better way to focus on them?

Treat your writing like a conversation. Imagine they are sitting opposite you as you write. How would you talk to them? This conversational writing will engage them and keep their interest – after all you are telling them directly how your product will help them.

Why am I telling you this?

If you don’t grab their attention and engage them you’ll run the risk of losing them. They’ll focus away from your message and on to one of your competitor’s.

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Article marketing is an excellent way to promote your business and elevate yourself to expert status within your field. With that comes trust and increased sales – but it doesn’t happen over night.

As it is one of the cheapest ways to market yourself, it seems mad that so many businesses shy away from it.

Getting started

The hardest part of article writing is getting started. How do you come up with ideas? When you have the idea, how do you start the article?

If it’s any comfort, once you’re over those hurdles you’ll get a great feeling when you’ve finished it.

One reason many people put forwards as an excuse not to write articles is that they don’t think their writing is good enough. But remember, it’s only an article – you’re not trying to bag yourself a huge advance for the next best selling novel series.

Don’t put so much pressure on yourself – no one is perfect.  Yes, I hate to admit it, but I am not perfect – pretty damn close though.

Discipline

However much you hate that word, discipline is important if you are serious about article writing and marketing as part of your marketing. Without it, nothing will get done or written. Having discipline causes any writer, especially those who write articles for the internet, to think clearly so the focus is on the output and not on the ego. Basically it helps you leave the creative writer at home so the business writer can focus clearly on  the subject and how they want their reader to react to the article.

Discipline helps to:

• Maintain focus
• Break a topic down – smaller subject chunks are easier to get your head round
• Let go – don’t force your writing, natural writing is easier to read
• Write – ignore distractions
• Stop you editing as you go along– your first draft is the place to let your ideas flow. Editing comes at the end of the process.
• Make you read and review the article
• Relax – leave the article for a while after writing it for at least a day, it’s best reviewed with fresh eyes

Discipline will help you make article marketing a regular and effective part of your online marketing strategy. Whether it is for a company blog or publishing on article sites, working on best practice will help your confidence and sales.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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You may have spent hours putting together a pretty advert which is very informative. Great – I’m sure you’re very pleased with it, which you should be assuming you weren’t hoping to make any money from it.

But I have a feeling the main reason for going to all that trouble was to make money so you may have a problem. You’ve just blown your marketing budget on a nice piece of paper that won’t sell.

The copywriting (or sales writing) on your advert is there to perform 2 functions – it tells your reader what your product is but it must also be persuasive enough to make them buy it. Not always an easy combination to achieve.

I’ve been a freelance copywriter for a while now so I have put together 7 tips to help you make your adverts more persuasive.

1. Including a picture of yourself will add a personal touch.

2. If you have any famous or well-known clients, mention them (it will increase the want factor).

3. If your product’s passed any tests (safety, quality control etc.) write about it.

4. Include testimonials from happy clients.

5. If you’ve had articles written about your product make reference to them in your advert.

6. Make sure your website looks professional – its quality will have an effect on their opinion of your product.

7. If you offer a money back guarantee, tell them – it will show your commitment to them and increase your credibility in their eyes.

Your advert is there for one purpose only – to make your reader want your product and then convince them they need it. When you’ve achieved that the sale’s in the bag.

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