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.

A lot of people still regard blogging as the realm of geeks and teens who use it as a personal web site. However, blogging has changed its perspective.

Blogging for business is the newest trend to promote another site – your main money site.

Blogging for business is the easiest way to connect with your customers and other prospects. With the help of blogs, you can make announcements and let everyone know about your message. You can also recommend some of your personal links and favourites.

Regular business advertising – newspaper ads, brochures, flyers etc., – lack the ability to spread news to everyone. This is the reason why blogging for business is becoming so popular.

Entrepreneurs have discovered that blogging for business helps increase sales because their services and latest information is spread easily. With consistent updates, their customers are well-informed.

Of course there are many social marketing tools available to today’s businesses, such as Twitter. I have already sung the praises of this particular communication revelation in my post Do Copywriting and Twitter Go Hand in Hand? And it is an excellent tool to complement your blogging activities.

By setting up an RSS feed from your blog to your Twitter account, your message will gain extra exposure through your Twitter followers.

So my suggestion is, if you don’t already have one, get a blog. Start writing articles about your products and services that will add value to your readers. Not only will they feel as though they are getting something for nothing – that’s a great feeling isn’t it? – but you will also be helping yourself by making yourself more visible to the search engines.

Everyone wins!

Frequently, when it comes to article writing, the end result can be pretty mundane. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve started reading an article in anticipation of being entertained and enlightened, only to be bored to tears.

I hope you won’t feel that way about this particular article! But if you struggle to be creative here are some pointers that will be helpful to you. By understanding these tips, you will end up making your article writing more useful and powerful.

Words

Yes I know, articles are made up of hundreds of words, but it is the choice of words that can make all the difference. Don’t stuff your article with big, impressive words that no one understands when something more concise will do. Also try to use interesting words whenever possible.

Structure

The structure of your article can also have an effect on its interesting-ness. Long blocks of text can be a complete turn-off. Go for short sentences and paragraphs to create an article that is compelling. Don’t use five words when one will do.

The simple way to achieve this is to write a ‘How to’ article. This way you are specifically dealing with exactly what the title indicates, and you are meeting a need of your reader. As long as you stick to the topic and teach them how to do it, you will succeed at writing an interesting article, well, for them at least.

Tell ’em a story

Another to generate interest is to include a story of how what you are writing about has helped someone else. Everyone loves a story or anecdote so exploit it, use it and entertain with it.

Offer information

Finally you can keep your article interesting by offer information that is rarely found elsewhere and quite possibly information that you alone can offer.

There you go, now you can go forth and be creative with your articles.

When you think of copywriting services, what springs to mind?

Web copy – newsletters – direct mail – brochures – press releases – articles – blogs – white papers…

Some businesses spend a lot of money hiring freelance copywriters, but they don’t consider doing the same for their email copywriting needs.

Why?

The customers won’t want those emails unless they’re well written. And if they don’t want them, they’ll just unsubscribe and then they’ll be gone – forever.

Having good email copywriting will help your business in the long run, so here are a few tips.

Tell them what to do next

This is vital no matter what form your copywriting takes, but rather than a strong request for a direct action, you require something a bit more gentle. The more information you reveal in your email, the less response you’re going to get. You want your readers to get just a taste of what you’re offering, so they’ll click on your link instead of the delete key. But it still has to be specific enough so the recipient will take action.

Avoid the Spam

You may not be writing Pulitzer Prize novels but you must still pay attention to spelling and punctuation because nothing turns off a reader more than silly typos. You also need to avoid spam filters so watch out for phrases like “risk free” and “order now.”

Don’t go it alone

These very simple steps will help you have more success with your email marketing, but don’t consider getting your freelance copywriter to do the work for you. Your business is well worth the investment, particularly when it comes to excellent email copywriting. Besides, using the services of the same copywriter for your marketing materials will also generate a consistant voice which will help generate a feeling of trust and credibility in the eyes of your customers.

I was asked by Nikki Pilkington recently to write a guest blog for Business on Twitter. So here are my ramblings about how a copywriter (or any business owner or individual for that matter) can use, enjoy and get the most out of Twitter.

Twitter appears to be a marmite application – you know, you either love it or you hate (probably because you can’t see the point of it all).

Personally, I love it – it’s great on a personal and business level.

As a freelance copywriter, it allows me to broadcast my news, views and opinions to a huge audience so I can reach the parts that other copywriters can’t.

Twitter – a two pronged tool

From a marketing perspective, Twitter is a fantastic micro-blogging tool. There has been a lot of debate about whether Twitter will kill off blogging but for me, it complements it. With an RSS feed from my blog fed into my Twitter account, every new blog post appears as a Tweet giving me the opportunity of casting my knowledge far and wide.

A whole new readership has now opened up for me. Twitter will help you push your name out into the Twitterverse – and who knows where that will lead.

But it’s not just all about marketing and using Twitter as a business tool – after all, no one likes a Tweeter who constantly bangs on about their business all the time.

Twitter is also a gold mine of information. It is all about sharing knowledge. If you find something of interest on the web, tweet about it.

By following people within your industry you will be able to keep abreast of all that is happening. I use Tweetlater to receive daily emails updating me about who is talking about certain keywords. Then I have the option to follow those I find interesting whilst catching up on the latest happenings and goings on.

Basically for me Twitter is a wonderful vehicle through which I can broadcast my message and receive information to keep me updated with new ideas and new ways of thinking.