Entries from March 2009 ↓

Recently I was asked to do a video for BT Tradespace. I have been using this service for quite some time now, in fact probably from the very start of my freelance copywriting days. It has been a great tool for me to attract business as it provides an extra web presence.

By the way, that’s not my living room!

Follow this link for more details about how your business can benefit from BT Tradespace.

More often than not, puff or hype and copywriting go about as well together as oil and water.

But hype can atually be good. You see there are 2 types of hype:

• hype that will always convert
• hype that will NEVER convert

The piles of junk mail waiting to be recycled are full of the latter type. They are stuffed with words such as biggest, fastest, easiest, greatest, amazing, unique, etc., and unblievable claims such as “Your skin will be transformed overnight”.

These examples stand out as hype because they are recognized as less than believable and are quickly discounted and ignored by most consumers.

But there is nothing wrong with using these words if they are accurate descriptions.

Turn bad hype good

If you are writing an ad and used this either in the headline or body copy:

All your wrinkles will miraculously disappear overnight!

The chances are it won’t believed and it won’t convert.

It won’t matter if the rest of your add can actually prove the claim – by kicking off with it ruins any chance of getting a sale.

If you are going to use a claim such as the one above, you need to place it wisely within your ad.

Avoid the ad-killing claim

How? Simply by making it an unavoidable conclusion.

Before making any claim to unparalleled excellence—prove it first.

Assemble and present your evidence; this proof will lay the groundwork for what is to come by creating a strong and overwhelming direction and momentum.

In other words…

Turn hype into an undisputed conclusion

So when you finally do present your hype it will be seen as a descriptive and accurate statement of the obvious and the proven (hype of the good kind). If executed skillfully, your hype will also have the added benefit of becoming sustainable and actionable.

If there is one method guaranteed to get your articles and blogs read, then it would have to be to fill them with emotive content.

Before you say thanks for the tip, sit down at your desk as usual and start to write – STOP.

Emotive content doesn’t come from calm, well thought out writing. Emotion comes from within you – something has to stir you up and get you riled before it will come out in your writing.

The best time to write is when you are feeling:

• happy
• sad
• so angry you could punch the next person that looks at you

How do you get to feel like that? Read or talk to people.

Start your day reading a few blogs, even working through your email inbox can do the trick. How many times have you read something and thought what the **** are they going on about! Well when it happens write about how it makes you feel.

When our beliefs are challenged or questioned we become so wound up we need an outlet – let articles or blogging be yours.

Write about whatever has got your blood boiling – forget structure for now and just let it flow. I’ll guarantee that when you’re done, not only will you feel a whole lot better but you will also have one of your best articles in front of you.

I am willing to bet that if you had tried to sit down and write about the same subject from cold you would never have come up with an article that was so damn good.

This is because you are letting your emotion do your talking – you are holding a conversation so your writing is more relaxed and therefore more accessible to your reader.

So next time you see red, start typing or pick up a pen. Let it all pour out and before long you’ll have a stack of fantastic blogs and articles which will spark new debates, articles and blogs…

I was recently asked by the Twitter Guru, Mark Shaw (@markshaw) to do a Twitter Business Interview.

Follow the link below to see how I use Twitter

Twitter Business Interview – Sally Ormond | Twitter For Business.

Guess what – one style of copywriting doesn’t fit every requirement.

Not ground-breaking stuff you may think, and I would have to agree with you. But you would be amazed at the number of people who firmly believe that one style suits everything and everyone.

I touched on this in an earlier post Become an Effective Copywriter: Lesson 2 – Short Copy vs Long Copy. It really doesn’t matter whether you are writing for B2B or B2C, not every reader will want to be faced with exactly the same style of copy. There are a huge number of factors that are going to affect your writing style, for example what the product or service is, how familiar the product or service is to the market, the target customer’s preferred communication style etc.

There is really only one way a copywriter can get their styling right for their chosen market – by using their own judgement. Think carefully and decide on whether what is being suggested really makes sense for everybody.

News flash – not everyone across the entire globe respond in the same way.

Look around you. We are all different, we all think differently, we all make decisions differently, we all have different tastes – above all we make decisions based on different criteria; criteria that are important to us.

Writing copy takes time, research and little understanding of your market. There are no magic forumlas that will win over every reader.

I never said it would be easy.