Entries Tagged 'copywriter' ↓

Anyone who has hired a professional copywriter to help with their sales and marketing materials will understand the collaborative process that lies behind a successful relationship.

Once you’ve briefed your copywriter and told them all they need to know, they’ll go away and create a first draft.

So what do you do when that first draft pops up in your inbox?

Reviewing the copy should be done in three separate steps.

Here’s the first.

1. Get to know it

First of all you have to get to know the copy. That means reading in through to get a sense for the writing.

Reading it out loud is a great way to get to grips with it. As you go through it, make a note of any places where your attention slips, or areas that you find confusing, or that simply don’t seem to flow well.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for step two.

2. Soft edit

A soft edit solely looks at the spelling, punctuation and grammar. In theory, as you’re using a copywriter, there shouldn’t be too much to do here, but typos can be notoriously hard to spot, so one or two may slip through.

Once that’s done, you’re ready for the final step.

3. Hard edit

This is where you need to look at the content itself and highlight areas that may be incorrect or where information should be expanded.

In theory, your brief should have been comprehensive enough for your copywriter to add all the detail required, but sometimes things get missed.

This is the point where you have to place your trust in your writer’s abilities and trust their professional instincts, which have been honed over many years.

Put your feelings aside and forget about how you would have written it – that means word choice, sentence structure and use of rhetorical devices.

If you just wade in changing things willy-nilly because ‘you would have written it differently’, you might as well have just written it yourself.

You hired a copywriter because:

• You don’t have time to do it
• The materials you were using simply weren’t working
• You don’t have the necessary skills to produce great copy

They’re not going to write like you; they’re going to write like a professional writer who has a lot of experience in what they do – so trust them.

The art of website copywriting is a complex one.

Many website’s that have been written in-house tend to make the same mistake.

No, we’re not talking about bad grammar or blaring typos (although that may be true in some cases), the problem is with the actual content itself.

You see, although your website exists to bring your company to the attention of your market place, it isn’t there to shout about you.

Confused?

Think about it this way. Imagine you’re out looking for a new pair of shoes. As you walk down the High Street you spot a gorgeous looking shop with oodles of ‘must have’ shoes in the window.

Its upmarket feel and the immaculately displayed shoes, boost and sandals seduce you. Before you know it you’ve walked through the door and an assistant is approaching you.

You expect them to greet you, ask how you are and what you’re looking for – are you looking for shoes for a special occasion….really, a Ball? How wonderful, what’s your dress like? You know, niceties like that.

But what they actually do is tell you all about the company, how long they’ve been trading, what car the MD drives and how they believe they are the most unique shoe retailer in the country.

I don’t know about you, but I would be out of there faster than a fast thing.

The same thing goes for your website.

Your Home Page is likely to be the page that most visitors arrive at, so it’s the first impression they’ll get of your company. But rather than reading about how amazing your company is, it needs to be focused 100% on the needs of your customers.

Why should they buy from you?

No, not because you’ve been in business since 1889….They should buy from you because you offer unique shoes, shoes that will make them feel special, shoes that people will stop and stare at, shows that will show the world how successful they are, shoes that will make people stop and stare wishing they could be just like them.

OK, a bit OTT, but you get the picture.

The copywriting on your home page must be all about the benefits your customers will enjoy if they buy your product (or service). It must communicate to your reader that you’re a company that puts its customers first.

Over to you

Take a look at your Home Page – who is the main focus on, you or your customers?

If it’s you, it’s time to change your copy – if you need a hand, get in touch with a professional copywriter and get your copy working for you.

Invisible?

Why on earth would you want to make your copywriting invisible? After all, as a professional sales writer, you’ve spent hours crafting your carefully chosen words – you want people to love them.

The problem is, if that is your motivation (wanting people to love your words) your copy is unlikely to perform as it should.

Why?

OK, let’s look at it this way. If you are a fiction writer you want your readers to marvel at your prose. You would expect them to tell their friends about your amazing writing ability and story telling prowess. But that’s ok, because you’re writing fiction: a story that must entertain and enthral.

However, as a copywriter you are not writing for yourself. As a copywriter your role is to take on the voice of your client and to sell their products or services. Your writing becomes secondary to the sales message it conveys. In short, your writing shouldn’t distract your readers; they should just be able to concentrate on its message.

Copywriting aims

Your copy should convey meaning and connect with your readers. It has to satisfy their needs, influence, empathise with them and persuade them into taking a specific action.

There’s no room for your style or views in your copy; to be successful, you must immerse yourself in the style and views of your client – nothing else matters.

Yes, you must bring your persuasive writing skills to the table, but you must remember that you’re not writing for yourself. Keep that for the unfinished novel that’s sitting under your desk.

Copywriting qualities

To succeed in your copywriting career there are a few qualities that you must possess:

• Flexibility
• Ability to work to strict deadlines
• Excellent research skills
• Ability and willingness to learn from your mistakes
• Being able to think and write like someone else
• Being able to empathise with and understand different markets

But above all you must have a very thick skin. Sales writing is difficult and often clients won’t ‘get it’ straightaway, so you must be able to explain why you’ve taken the approach you have and give examples how it has worked for other clients.

So remember, your writing skills are secondary when it comes to writing great copy. The most important thing is the message; it must connect with your readers and get them to take an action.

If they are left admiring your writing instead, it’s time to switch careers!

Ask any professional copywriter and they’ll tell you it’s much harder to write short copy than long.

It’s much more difficult to get your message across when you only have a few characters to play with. That’s why social media copywriting is so tough and why so many people get it wrong.

How many times have you seen a random Tweet that’s full of abbreviations that makes no sense whatsoever? What about Facebook updates that ramble on and on?

In this post, I want to look at how to write effective social media updates that have meaning.

Twitter

Twitter is probably one of the hardest platforms to write for, purely because you only have 140 characters to play with.

As I mentioned above, the temptation is to squeeze as many abbreviations in as possible to ‘cheat’ the character limit.

But that usually ends up in a bizarre tweet that few people will bother looking at.

Writing short copy is difficult, but also a great way of honing your writing skills. After all, with only 140 characters to play with it’s essential that every word you use counts.

You can tighten your message by cutting out unnecessary adjectives (something that will also help your general sales writing) and by getting to the point straightaway.

Keep your tweet to one topic and remember to add a link if you want to direct people to an article or web page that backs up your tweet.

Keeping your updates short like this will also help your followers. If they like what you say and want to retweet it, by keeping your character count down they should be able to do so without having to go in and edit it down.

Facebook

Although Facebook gives you far more room for your updates, it is still good practice to keep them punchy and to the point.

If you post rambling updates no one is going to want to read them, so keep them short, relevant and interesting.

Also, if you want to raise your reach on Facebook ask for comments and reactions. The more reactions your post gets, the more newsworthy it becomes, which will increase its appearance in news feeds.

By adding video, polls and images you can increase your level of engagement, but what’s also important is to remember to post when your followers are likely to be online. The scheduling tool is perfect for this.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is more about business and less about personal interaction. It is a platform from which you can show your expert status within your field. That means comments about needing a coffee, what you had for lunch etc., are not really going to be all that effective.

For LinkedIn look at posting news stories that are relevant to your industry and add your comments and opinions. This will encourage others to do the same and get a conversation started.

It’s also a great place to share news about your company, whether you’re hiring new people, starting a new exciting project or diversifying.

This social media platform opens up the opportunity for longer updates, but again they must be relevant and interesting.

As you can see, social media copywriting can be a complex animal, but it is also a great way to practice your short copy skills.

That is something I am asked regularly by people who have been bitten by the writing bug and want to embark on a career as a professional copywriter.

There’s lots of advice out there and a few urban myths too, so here’s my story of how I got started.

You need an agency background

This is a common myth banded about.

Agency experience is useful and it may mean you have a few useful contacts tucked away up your sleeve, but it’s not a necessity.

Before starting my copywriting business, I had no previous experience in an agency or in a role as a copywriter. But what I did have was the ability to write clearly, powerfully and in a way that connected with my readers.

Going right back to the beginning, I started out life in the banking industry and spent a lot of time writing to customers on behalf of the branch manager (skill #1 learning to take on the voice of someone else).

After a career break to start my family, I began working for an international Leprosy charity. During that time I produced fundraising material for local campaigns (skill #2 writing persuasively with emotion to get people to take a specific action).

Then I decided to go back to school and embarked on a BA (Hons) degree in English Language and Literature with the Open University (skill #3 self-discipline and the ability to write with clarity).

After I graduated in 2007, a local businessman and friend asked for my help on a project he was working on. He knew I could write and needed some copy producing for one of his clients. I did the work, the project was a huge success and I was bitten by the copywriting bug.

Within a month, I’d set up my business, launched my first website and started learning about Internet marketing and social media.

As a result, about 70% of my new clients find me through my website with the remainder being word of mouth recommendations.

Networking and cold calling will get you clients

I’m sure for many, these options do bring in clients, but in the early days I did neither.

Cold calling is one of my pet hates; it really bugs me when people call me up trying to sell me stuff, so I refuse to do it to others.

As for networking, my initial decision to grow my business online via social media (‘virtual’ networking) came about because I am not a natural networker. Being of a shy disposition, walking into a room of strangers and striking up a conversation is my worst nightmare.

Of course, not everyone is like me and networking will get you in front of the people you need to speak with. So make sure you present yourself correctly. Don’t just way “hello, I’m a copywriter”, sell yourself by telling them “I help companies communicate more effectively with their customers through writing”.

Today, I do some networking, but I’ll never cold call.

You can only write for an industry you know about

Another myth.

Copywriting is about finding the right words to convey the right message to the right people.

Your client is the person who should know everything there is to know about their industry, not you.

As a copywriter, your role is to:

• Study the company and its brand
• Get a good knowledge of the service/product you’re writing about
• Understand their target customers
• Discover what it is that their customers want to know
• Identify the main benefits that will make the customers buy

The client is coming to you because you are an expert in your field not theirs.

You have to charge by the hour

No, no, no, no, no.

Clients aren’t paying for your time; they are paying for your experience and expertise.

You wouldn’t pay a plastic surgeon for the time it takes him to perform your tummy tuck – would you?

You are not just a writer – you are an expert in creating marketing communications that resonate with customers, compelling them to take a specific action.

Anyone can string a sentence together; not everyone can create copy that is powerful, persuasive and that gets results.

Useful links

That’s a whistle-stop look at how I got started as a copywriter, but there are numerous ways you can break into the industry.

A while ago, I was asked to participate in a couple of The Guardian Online’s forums about being a copywriter. The links to these are below so you can also read about how other copywriters started out.

Routes into copywriting

How to break into copywriting