Stop, Look, Listen and then Copywrite

The copywriter’s green cross code

When writing sales and marketing content, many people make the mistake of diving straight in. Creating content is frequently one of those jobs that’s endured and squeezed into an already hectic day.

But content creation is vital for your business. Not just from an online SEO point of view, it’s all about getting your message out to your audience effectively.

Stage 1 – Stop

Stop when we haven’t even started?

Definitely.

You can’t write anything until you’ve stopped and thought about what you are doing. Every piece of copy must have a purpose. Ask yourself:

• What is going to be the best platform for your message?
• What do you want to achieve from your copy?
• How do you want your audience to react?
• What do you want to tell your audience?
• What end result do you want to achieve?

There is a lot to think about before you pick up a pen or go anywhere near your keyboard. If you want your copy to be powerful and compelling you have to do your homework first. If you don’t you’ll produce something disjointed without any real direction.

Think of your content creation as developing a new product. You wouldn’t sit down and cobble together a new product without doing any research and development, so why just throw out half hearted sales copy?

Stage 2 – Look

When creating content, although your message is vital, the way your content looks will also have a lot to do with its success.

If your copy doesn’t look appealing, no one’s going to read it. And if they don’t read it it’s not going to have the desired effect.

Make your writing accessible by using headings, subheadings, bullet points and images. If someone is faced with a solid page of text they are not going to read it. But, give them a page with plenty of white space, bullet points and small chunks of text, and they’ll be more inclined to take time to read it.

Stage 3 – Listen

This takes many forms – you have to listen to your audience and your business. Your content has to tell your reader what’s in it for them but it also has to represent the voice of your business.

But listening doesn’t just relate to your business and audience, it is also something you should do before pushing your content out into the marketplace.

When you’ve honed your message read it out loud. Whether its website copy, brochure content, email content or a case study you have to hear it to make sure it flows, makes sense and will provoke an emotional response in your reader.

Hopefully you’ll now see that writing content for your sales and marketing is much more than just stringing a few sentences together. A lot of thought, planning and shaping has to go into every piece of content you produce.

So remember, next time don’t just churn out any old thing – stop, look and listen before you pucblish.