Entries Tagged 'copywriting tips' ↓

Direct mail is a very effective sales weapon, if you get it right.

There are 3 elements to direct response advertising that make it so successful:

• Appeals to a specifically targeted audience
• Written to inspire an action or response
• It can be measured to assess it effectiveness

Target your audience

Some methods of marketing involve sending out generic advertising to the general populous. This may achieve a wide distribution but much of the information will be wasted.

Why?

Because your sales pitch won’t be targeted at your ideal market.

The beauty of direct mail is that it is targeted to a specific audience. Your mailing list is the single most important aspect of your whole campaign. In fact, in order of importance, your direct mail campaign top 4 elements are:

1. List – you can either buy this in or use your own which would have been built over time from past customers, newsletter sign ups etc.
2. Offer – this will depend on what the desired response to your mailing is. It could be a free report, free shipping, BOGOF etc.
3. Format – email, letter, gift, radio ad, TV ad etc.
4. Copy – this must be customer orientated with a strong call to action

Get them to take action

The whole reason behind your direct mail campaign is to get a desired response from your prospects.

Whether that is to buy, sign up or make an appointment, your mailing should be designed to get the reader to make that response immediately.

Therefore you need to make it as easy as possible for them – provide a free phone number, enclose an SAE for their completed order form, give them a web address etc.

Always provide them with everything they need.

How did you do?

The only way to discover how effective your campaign has been is by measuring it.

If you are doing an electronic campaign your analytics will show you how successful your marketing drive was. But if you are sending a physical mailing you will need other methods of monitoring it.

Try a 0800 number specific to each campaign. If you are driving traffic to your website provide an offer code that has to be keyed in so you can track your website visitors. If you have sent SAEs mark the envelope with a code so their source can easily be identified.

If you make sure your direct response advertising covers all the elements shown above you should be well on your way to a successful marketing campaign.

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter

Hands up all of you, who have been writing so long about your product, service or company that you’ve completely exhausted your sales copy repertoire.

It happens. Sometimes, try as you might, you find it impossible to come up with a fresh angle from which to sell your product. Even professional freelance copywriters can suffer from this especially when they work with clients over long periods of time.

So how do you overcome this particular nuisance?

Flip it on its head

Frequently a 180 degree rethink is all that it takes. Look at your offer from an angle other than the one you are used to.

Still scratching your head?

Perhaps an example will help. Your company makes washing powder, normally you market it by showing a glamorous model walking down the street with a huge smile on her face in a brilliantly clean white trouser suit – showing your product not only cleans brilliantly but it can also enhance your confidence and attractiveness. A bit of an extreme example but it illustrates this point.

Now look at it from a different view point – this time your viewer sees a shabbily dressed woman in stained clothes, her hair is a mess and she appears very introvert and practically invisible to anyone who walks passed her. The message – drab whites lead to a drab life…

So if you usually market a product from a pleasure angle, try and think how to sell it from the other side of the fence and visa versa. This should help you discover a whole new way of marketing your product, service or company.

Give it a try.

For many people, the ghost of English lessons past tends to curb their ability to write compelling and powerful copy.

Why?

Because as soon as they get taken over by the wondrous writing that flows from their finger tips a little voice pops into their heads; the voice of their old English teacher.  At times slang, sentence fragments, contractions, colloquialisms etc., are perfectly acceptable.

Here are just a few occasions when you can ignore the voice:

Sentence fragments

The rules state that all proper sentences should have a subject-verb-object construction. But if they communicate complete thoughts, they are a perfectly acceptable part of your writer’s tool chest.

“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 you 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.

And…But

Hands up everyone who was told they couldn’t start a sentence with the conjunctions “and” or “but” – hogwash!!

If you refer to Fowler’s Modern English Usage you’ll be told 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 another overruling of the grammarians – use of the split 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

Ending a sentence with a preposition

Those that believe this don’t have a leg to stand on. If they did I would’ve had to write “Those that believe this don’t have a leg on which to stand” – I don’t think so, I prefer my version!

It is perfectly alright 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?”

Basically, if you want to write great copy that gets your readers attention and sells products – write as you would speak. By adopting a conversational style you will immediately build rapport with your audience gaining their trust and, with a bit of luck, their cash.

Just one other thing, ditch the Thesaurus – if you use that too often you’ll be in danger of writing with gratuitously overblown hyperbole instead of plain language.

Simple is the copywriter’s friend.

Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting – Freelance Copywriter

The headline, body copy and call to action are all vital elements within the freelance copywriters marketing arsenal – but they are not the be all and end all of copywriting.

To help you get your message across strongly you’ll need to utilise various tools such as:

• Subheadings
• Captions
• Call outs

Sub headings

There is nothing worse than being faced with a solid wall of text. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid and had to choose a new reading book, what I found inside the cover was a big factor in making a choice. If I was immediately presented with page after page of small solid print, I’d put it back on the shelf and find something easier.

Well the same thing happens in your readers head. If they visit your website or open your brochure and hit a wall of text – they ain’t gonna read it!

Your sub headings should act like a sign post. At a glance your reader should be able to see what your web page or brochure page is about. They can then use the sub heads to read the sections most relevant to them.

They help break up the text and add that all important white space into your pages.

Captions

I’m sure you know what a caption is without me pointing it out to you – but I will anyway. The caption is the brief line of text that accompanies a photo, graph, drawing etc.

You caption should serve 2 purposes:

• Identify what the illustration is
• Link the illustration to your copy

By the second point I mean if it is a photo of someone using your product, describe to your reader what it is showing. If it’s a chart, again explain what it means i.e. 85% of people asked expressed a preference to Miracle Clean compared to the leading brand.

Callouts

At times you’ll have information you want to stand out. The use of callouts comes into play when you don’t want to interrupt the flow of your text or the information is so damned important you’ll want to draw special attention to it.

This can be done using:

• Bursts
• Callouts
• sidebars

What’s the difference?

A burst is generally a colourful graphic that attracts your readers’ attention to a particular point. It can be for a special offer or to emphasize a special feature:

A callout is usually a section of text, in a different font or colour, often designed to come across as a ‘stage whisper’. They are not quite so in your face as the burst and can be used to give customer quotes, important information, or important reminders:

A sidebar is a column or box of copy set to the side of the main text area. They can be used to house longer sections of copy which may be a list of features, a case study or other information that couldn’t be shown in the main text area (such as shipping details):

A copywriter has a number of tools they can use to create interest and hype around a product. By utilising these 3 features you can compliment your text to produce something that is powerful and compelling without being overly wordy.

Thank you to Work at Home Info for voting this blog as one of their Top 100 Blogs For Working From Home under the Freelancers section.

That is great news and I’m pleased you have found my blog posts of value.