Ever made a decision that you really wish you hadn’t? Relax. You’re not alone - at some time or another, we all have. So, you’re in good company, but when it comes to copywriters, what company do you want to keep?

There are a lot of writers out there. The strange thing is that there are an awful lot of inexperienced writers out there who have:

- An over inflated sense of their own value
- A severely impaired sense of their own ability
- A wholly inadequate business knowledge
- A plain daft charging structure!

I can see you’re smiling! That tells me that you’ve either met them, come across them, or worse - you’ve actually hired them!

One that I’ve heard of used to be a hairdresser until he ‘saw the copywriting light’ just a handful of years ago and having read a book and touting a series of minor successes now tries to charge a $5000 fee … for doing anything. Another, a young girl with less than three years experience in an industry that is a white-hot proving ground, tries to bill herself out at $1000 a day. What’s worse and daft as it is - there are people, enterprises, companies and organisations that are prepared to hire these people to write their copy.

After 25 years as a copywriter covering the whole spectrum literally from A-Z, I think I have earned the right to ask … why?

Bill Bernbach, legendary boss of an agency that I once worked for, penned this mighty truism: “A principle isn’t a principle - until it costs you money!”

How right he was and you should make it a principle from here onward not to hire or work with hot-aired charlatans who claim to be masters of the art of copywriting.

But how can you spot them and avoid them? How do you judge what’s good, bad and simply awful?

1. Read their website… carefully

Is it littered with spelling mistakes, or does it make daft claims about having to support their wives’ expensive habits? Does it ring with hyperbole - ultimate, fantastic, superb, unbelievable - and other such claims that are simply hard to swallow? If their claims are empty and hollow, what sort of copy do you think they’re going to write for you?

2. Are they promising results?

Does the writer promise results? If they do, run away, as fast as your fingers can get you elsewhere. Nobody, but nobody, can guarantee you any sort of result, with any sort of conviction. You just don’t know what will happen, or why. All that you can ever do is make intelligent decisions based on the best evidence. If everything has been justified, for all of the right reasons, you have every right to expect success, but no one can quantify what that success is likely to be. Not in terms of figures and profit.

3. Look closely at the structure of their website

What they are presenting and how they sell themselves is exactly what you are hiring them to do for you. Does their website work? Is it easy to navigate, easy to read, clear, concise and precise? Does it ask the right questions from you and tell you what you have to do? If it’s confusing, there’s every chance their thinking will be just as muddled and every bit as confused too.

4. Is it easy to communicate with the writer?

The art of communication is exactly about what copywriting is all about. Through well-chosen words that present a well-reasoned rationale you want somebody to do something. If the writer can’t get you to respond and doesn’t make it easy for you to respond, what chance does your product, service or solution stand in this writer’s hands?

5. Take a long look at the writer’s headline

This is where the initial promise is made and it has to hit home hard. In a few words - and not more than 8-10 - you have to know what this writer is offering. And in that offering you have to make an almost instant decision about whether this writer can help you to reach your goals. If writers can’t write great headlines to sell themselves they are not likely to be able to write one for you, either!

6. What sort of experience is the writer offering?

Does the writer have a broad span of experience that covers pretty much everything? If they are freelance and offering to sell you a service then they should be offering the wealth of experience that justifies the price they are looking to charge.

What sort of experience? Big company, blue chip is, I believe, essential. That tells you that the writer has learned his or her craft writing to the demands and restrictions of corporate expectation. They’ve learnt voice, tone, structure, succinctness and clarity in writing for very demanding audiences who don’t have a minute to waste on waffle!

Outstanding writers, even with minimal experience, can often hit the ground running and get right up to speed with the intricacies and nuances of your unique requirements. Most junior writers and beginners cannot and their copy is little more than soft waffle! All the words are there - they just don’t say anything!

Solid experience on the other hand means that the writer can usually offer a good working grasp of the principles and dynamics that govern the market(s) that you are working in. Their experience means that they can add a whole host of extra dimensions and different angles to what you are trying to do and intend to achieve. Working with such writers is fun, challenging, interesting and different! Their minds work fast and their words are often just as quick.

7. Take a look at their testimonials

Do they have famous big name companies endorsing them, or is it merely Charlie Farley and No One in Particular. It might not tell you much, since most testimonials are merely ‘irrelevant niceties’, but if the quality of their experience isn’t there, their work is unlikely to be up to the mark either.

8. What is their commitment to you?

If it’s take-it or leave-it attitude, might I suggest you leave it! Copy is (at times) a (cruelly) subjective discipline and what I think is truly wonderful copy may totally miss the mark with you. No one looking out of the same window ever sees precisely the same view. So it is with copy. You and the writer need to work as a team to refine the copy until you are certain it covers all the bases and says exactly what you think it should.

You would expect the writer to offer you a first draft and allow for a substantial revision, post review, in the price quoted. To me, that’s a minimum. After the second draft, the writer should be prepared to do 1-2 further edits within the cost quoted. If it takes more than 5 iterations I think you’ve got problems. Either you’re not communicating what you want clearly, or the writer is simply missing the beat and you will need to talk it through together.

9. Ask for samples

Do not make the mistake of believing that just because writer hasn’t written on jewellery he or she can’t do it! Good writers are extremely versatile specialists who can pick up the reins and run with practically anything. I’ve never been an IT expert, but I’ve written IT for the world’s biggest companies for over 10 years! Names such as Cisco, Computer Associates, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Fuji, Microsoft and Sun still hire me for their words. Believe me, a good mind has no limits and a great writer can write anything, on just about anything at all.

So, if you ask for samples, don’t be too disappointed if they don’t send you exactly what you wanted to see. The samples reflect their versatility to write and each sample masks the restrictions that were placed on the writer by the product, service or solution, by the company and by the audience they were writing for. Samples serve to affirm a writer’s ability to write and that’s all you should expect of them. They won’t tell you if the writer can write for you. How can they? They were written for someone else!

10. Sort out a sensible price!

I have heard some barely believable figures bandied about by people who simply bought rubbish! £4000 GBP for a webflow. $5000 for a letter. Are these clients mad? You’d have to think so, but if the results pulled in from the writer’s work made millions of dollars, yen, euros or pounds, then you’d have to conclude that it was money well spent.

Trouble is, many didn’t pull very well at all! And I have spent many hours talking to and working with people that have been ripped off, trying to put right what they have been scorched by. I can tell you, it isn’t easy. When they’ve overpaid, clients lose trust in and belief in what can be done and lose sight of what is actually achievable. Then it becomes a really hard road. They’ve lost money so they’re down to begin with, but they’ve also lost faith because they’ve been burned so badly.

If you’ve got the time, get a price from 2-3 copywriters and ask each one to specify in their quotation exactly what they will do for you. Better still give the writer an exact brief of precisely what it is that you want, with examples where possible. Then you can compare prices and get a meaningful reality check.

If you don’t have the time, ask a business associate, colleague, acquaintance or supplier if they can point you in the direction of a good copywriter. A personal recommendation can save a huge amount of heartache!

If neither option is practicable, ask the writer for a referee (or two) that you can email for a testimonial. You can usually tell from the reply whether what is being said is genuinely sincere or false puffery!

Then it’s down to price. You know what you can afford to invest in your business, but can you afford to get your sales messaging wrong? Pictures are one thing, but in DR it’s the words that propel action. It’s how you say what you have to say that makes a reader respond and that truly is a craft.

Copy is both a skill and a saleable service, just like any other. Just like you, a copywriter is in business to make money - to cover costs and make a profit. There is nothing wrong with profit. That’s what business is all about. But there is a lot wrong with obscene profiteering. You should be able to hire the services of a really good writer for £250-350 GBP ($450-650 US) a day.

However, most would be reluctant to take a chance on your business decisions and would reject the idea of payment by results. Different matter if you are selling high quality diamonds or executive cars, but I think you know what I’m saying. Few will ever do speculative work, either.

Words that work

Clever copy is wonderfully crafted! It bounces along in a style that is pacey, imaginative, expansive and interesting. It tells news, invites opinion, prompts corroboration and sometimes even courts controversy. It isolates readers and makes them feel special and unique by making them believe that you are only talking to them. It explains clearly and succinctly what’s in it for the reader and it delivers on every promise that it ever makes.

Good copy makes an impression. Out of the 500+ sales messages that a person sees every day it’s clever copy that delivers the big idea and that hits home hardest and earns response. Take the AOL campaign about children’s safety online that was poignant, purposeful, simple and brilliant. All it said was: ”Your children are upstairs, but do you know where they are?” Sure, they’re safely online - but are they safe, even though they are in your own home? I’ll bet that ad pulled a huge response for AOL’s online safety program. It certainly should have hit home hard in the mind of every caring parent.

And, in the end…

You want a writer with great experience, an inquisitive mind and huge talent with words. You want someone who understands the human psyche and knows just what triggers to pull and in what sequence. You want someone with whom you can build a longterm relationship. Someone that understands your business and, to a degree, understands you too! You want someone that can bring something different to the table - innovation, imagination, creativity, flair, style, experience and knowledge. Preferably, it’s someone with solid DR experience under their belt that can help you to drive things through.

Treat them with a proper professional respect and ask no more of them than you would ask of yourself and your business will have uncovered a real gem and one of the very best allies it could ever hope to find.

It’s really not such a tall order - if you know exactly what to look for!

John Beavis is an international copywriter, whose word skills and marketing experience could help your business to find more customers.

You should be aware that there is no “standard” blog approach and that what really counts is how effective you are at communicating to your selected audiences the messages or news you want to get across. From personal diary to magazine-style there are a lot of approaches that can be effectively used to make blog-software become a powerful PR, marketing, or online publishing tool.

Though, there are no hard and fast rules on how to blog, I can safely say that Sharon Housley (ironically a non-blogger by choice) ten-point advice on what to pay attention to when blogging online is a good and well-updated summary of some of the most important things to pay attention to.

Though Sharon is not an active blogger herself, she spends most of her time studying and experimenting with the latest and most effective online publishing tools in order to make the promotion and marketing of her own products and services more effective. In this respect Sharon’s advice is even more valuable as it comes from an external researcher seriously dedicated to identify what works from what does not.

1) Stay on topic
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won’t care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

7) Quantity matters
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

8) Frequency
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

9) Spell checking and proof-reading
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so.

10) RSS
RSS will increase your blog’s reach. It is important that you include your blog’s content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say.

———————
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds.

Brought to you by:
Williams Copywriting Services UK

If you want to present your business in the best possible light, you must be able to communicate your ideas clearly. You don’t want potential customers to misunderstand what you have to offer. Your written materials and web copywriting needs to be well-written so there is no reason to doubt your credibility.

Poor grammar, spelling errors and awkward phrasing can defeat your purpose. Visitors to your website may not take you seriously unless your website copywriting is well written and compelling.

When you hire yourself to write, if you are not proficient or skilled as a writer, you waste your hard earned dollars and take time away from other projects that you do well.

Solve All Your Writing Problems - Have Your Own Professional CopyWriter On-Call

I have the background and experience to help you manage your business writing better. I can show you how to do it yourself or, I can develop your written copywriting for you. Get in touch and let’s get started on your project.

If you need help from a copywriter experienced in copywriting for your website and all forms of business management experience, I can help you focus your marketing efforts. I guarantee that even in your free consultation session, you’ll go away with at least three new ideas to market more effectively. As a creative idea person I can also help you find new revenue streams for your business.

Linguistics and translation are sciences in their own right demanding due respect or - at the very least - professional handling. One thing the non-expert shouldget rid off - the sooner the better! - is the fond myth that familiarity with your mother tongue implies that you know all about language and its social ramifications. And it’s not about lack of command of a foreign tongue either - more often than not, it’s the basic concepts which are flawed, such as the belief that a word-by-word translation, though admittedly not very elegant, will at least give you a “general idea” of the source text’s content. While this may actually be true to some extent within the very limited context of highly specialized technical fields (academic papers on chemistry rich in formulae and procedural descriptions being a case in point), the old law school adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” rules even here. Needless to say, relying on imperfect automatization can make matters even worse.

Translation bots tend to reflect this faulty reasoning, and their backing by popular opinion - uneducated in these matters as it usually is - is no great help either.

Here’s just one example of what can happen if you opt for less-than-professional (read: usually free)”translation services”. Let’s take a real life German site rich in textual content and have a look at what the most popular translator bot makes of it.

UGLYQUOTE

“Welcomely tsigaan soft systems tsigaan news Software and computer services, also very good, give it meanwhile like the proverbial sand at the sea. Thousands of companies and Hirnen compile world-wide daily the most refined solutions, and although within this area - like everywhere in the life - all gold is long not, which probably shines there, then the standards and the requirements of the users in the last years nevertheless ever more rose.”

Source:
http://www.confidenz-depesche.com/cgi-confidenz-depesche/optimiert.htm
“Translation”:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/cgi-bin/translate?

/UGLYQUOTE

Seriously - would you really want to see your site represented in this manner? Welcomely, indeed!

And don’t try to argue that this is, after all, “better than nothing” - it’s the seeming familiarity of the language presented, the fond illusion of “at least getting the gist of it” that’s the really nasty part. Because it can (and most certainly will!) lead you astray in ever so many subtle ways, and in the end you may be worse off by a long shot than if you hadn’t understood a single word in the first place. Simply ask yourself if you would sign a million dollar contract of this linguistic “quality” …

With the current US dominance of the WWW clearly waning (as all major studies and analyses will show), getting linked internationally will become ever more critical. World wide, surfers aren’t content with sticking to local or localized search engines in their own language: rather, the English language is rapidly gaining ground everywhere, even in the former communist states, not mention in formerly French or Spanish dominated regions. These people, more and more of whom are well educated, bilingual and fairly well versed in English, are increasingly making use of stateside search engines. It is only a question of time until even All-American engines will have to adapt to this situation, if only to accomodate their international advertisers. Hence, it stands to reason that only link popularity based on real world web demographics (as opposed to mere wishful thinking and established political and cultural prejudices) will be able to satisfy advertisers’ and users’ demands.

So do it right or do it not! Either employ a bona fide professional translation service or get someone to revamp your online copy to accomodate all those international clients whose command of English, while fairly well informed, is not quite up to par with your US or UK biased industrial lingo, er, parlance.

This holds true vice versa for non-English sites as well, of course: don’t even dream of relying on one of the translator bots doing a good job and permitting you to cut one single sale! And while your English teacher at school may have lauded your enthusiasm over and again, don’t delude yourself that this makes you a native speaker.

If you are interested in English or American or Australian or New Zealand clients at all, don’t give them the impression of amateurish incompetence by refusing to acknowledge the fact that your command of English may be less than perfect. This is, after all, nothing to be ashamed of - whereas trying to get by this problem on the cheap very well should be! If there’s one thing you want to avoid in marketing it’s getting laughed out of court.

The following sites offer “translation” services or, rather, pretend to do so - use at own risk:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
http://translator.go.com/
http://www.dictionary.com/translate/
http://www.voila.com/Services/Translate/

Copyright 2000 by fantomaster.com

Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using this information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger greater sales response — often far beyond what you could imagine.

I recall a time when I applied one of these subconscious devices by changing just one word of an ad, and response doubled. I refer to these subconscious devices as psychologal “triggers.” A psychological trigger is the strongest motivational factor any salesperson or copywriter can use to evoke a sale.

There are 30 triggers in all, some of which I will reveal to you in a moment. Each trigger, when deployed, has the power to increase sales and response beyond what you would normally expect.

There are triggers, for example, that will cause your prospect to feel guilty if they don’t purchase your product. Let me give you an example. Whenever you receive in the mail a sales solicitation with free personalized address stickers, you often feel guilty if you use the stickers and don’t send something back — often far in excess of the value of the stickers. Fundraising companies use this method a great deal. You receive 50 cents worth of stickers and send back a $20 bill.

Another example are those surveys that are sent out asking for you to spend about 20 minutes of your time filling them out. Enclosed in the mailing you, might find a dollar bill included to encourage you to feel guilty, and entice you to fill out the survey. And you often spend a lot more than one dollar of your time to do that.

Guilt is a strong motivator. I have to admit that I’ve used guilt in many selling situations, in mail order ads and on TV — with great success, I might add.

I call one of the most powerful triggers a “satisfaction conviction,” which is a guarantee of satisfaction. But don’t confuse this with the typical trial period you find in mail order, i.e., “If your not happy within 30 days, you can return your purchase for a full refund.” A satisfaction conviction is different. Basically it takes the trial period and adds something that makes it go well beyond the trial period.

For example, if I were offering a subscription, instead of saying, “If at anytime you’re not happy with your subscription, we’ll refund your unused portion,” and instead said, “If at any time you’re not happy with your subscription, let us know and we’ll refund your entire subscription price — even if you decide to cancel just before the last issue.”

Basically you’re saying to your prospect that you are so sure that they’ll like the subscription, that you are willing to go beyond what is traditionally offered with other subscriptions. This in fact gives the reader the sense that the company really knows it has a winning product and solidly stands behind the product and your satisfaction.

Is this technique effective? You bet. In many tests, I’ve doubled response — sometimes by adding just one sentence that conveys a good satisfaction conviction.

I received an e-mail from a company, a subsidiary of eBay, requesting my advice. They had an e-mail solicitation that wasn’t drawing the response that they had expected. What was wrong?
Looking over what they had created, I saw several mistakes, many of which would have been avoided if they knew the psychological triggers that cause people to buy. Let me give you just one example.

In the subject line of most e-mails that have solicited me, I have been able to tell, at a glance, that the solicitation was for a specific service or an offer of something that I was clearly able to determine. Examples such as “Reduce your CD and DVD costs 50%,” Or “Lose weight quickly,” pretty much told me what they were selling. Was this good or bad?
The problem with those subject lines is that the reader was able to quickly determine: 1) that it was an advertisement; and 2) that it was for some specific product or service.

Most people don’t like advertising. And most people won’t make the effort to open their e-mail solicitation if they think they are getting an advertising message — unless they are sincerely interested in buying something that the advertisement offers.

The subject line of an e-mail is similar to the headline of a mail order ad, or the copywriting on an envelope, or the first few minutes of an infomercial. You’ve got to grab somebody’s attention and then get them to take the next step. In the case of the envelope, you want them to open it. In the case of an infomercial, you want them to keep watching, and in the case of an e-mail, you want them open up the e-mail and read your message.

The key, therefore, is to get a person to want to open your message by putting something into the subject area of your e-mail that does not appear to be an advertising message — one that would compel them to take the next step. And the best trigger to use for this is the trigger of curiosity.
There are a number of ways you can use curiosity to literally force a person to take the next step. You can then use this valuable tool to put a reader in the correct frame of mind to buy what you have to offer.

Once again, all the principles apply to every form of communication — whether it be advertising, marketing or personal selling. And to know these triggers is the key to more effective communication and most importantly, the avoidance of costly errors that waste time and money.

Copyright © by Joseph Sugarman

http://www.williamscopywriting.co.uk

He holds the singular distinction of having sold an average of six cars a day over his career. Recently, Joe Girard told me:

“Joe, I can sell in person to individuals in a personal way - in fact, I can sell more cars per day than anyone else. Yet, I can’t do what you do — you sell millions of products to masses of people through the sheer power of print.”
Salesmanship in Print

When you look at it from Joe Girard’s perspective, it’s hard to deny the awesome power of writing good sales copy - which I call “salesmanship in print” — a power that anyone can take advantage of. You don’t need good looks, a charming personality or even great intelligence. In fact, you don’t even have to pass English.

This is why it baffles me when people desperately rack their brains trying to find ways to make money — when the greatest opportunity is staring them right in the face. What’s even more mystifying is that those very same people, when presented with ingenious approaches to writing copy that sells, take the skill for granted and don’t use it to make personal fortunes for themselves.
Flunking English

Not many people know this, but I almost flunked English back in high school. In addition, I don’t know many big words, unlike the rest of my advertising and marketing colleagues — and my writing style is quite unsophisticated to boot. Yet, by learning to incorporate into my sales copy all the things about how the human mind reacts to certain words and phrases that I’ve learned over the years, I have made millions of dollars for myself.

The most important lesson you must remember is this: If you learn nothing else but the proper use of psychological principles in writing sales copy, you will always make more money than you’ll ever need.
The Million-Dollar Grapefruit Farmer

If you’re one of those people who believes that you’re not a good enough writer — and that you couldn’t possibly learn to write ad copy that sells — I want to tell you the story of a man who attended one of my seminars. This man was a grapefruit farmer who had never written sales copy prior to attending my copywriting seminar. In fact, he expressed his doubts that he would get anything at all from the copywriting lessons he learned. Yet, by the end of the seminar, he was able to write direct mail copy to sell grapefruit by mail which, over a period of ten years, has earned him millions of dollars.
Success Leaves Clues

For many years I specialized in “space-age” products, and my claim to fame was in building and selling “the better mousetrap” — from state-of-the art smoke detectors to chess computers to new-fangled calculators — and more recently — to BluBlocker® sunglasses.

But you don’t need a space-age product to make a million dollars. In fact, that is the downfall of most people who enter the marketing field. They find a product, fall in love with it, and try to get the market to buy it. With an unproven product, you could lose a lot of money in the process.

Instead what you should do is find a product that’s already selling well — and use compelling copy to sell it better.
Harmonize with the Marketplace

One of the psychological principles I describe in my book, “Triggers,” is simply this: Your product needs to harmonize with the marketplace.

Here’s a tip that you would definitely find useful: When you’re looking for a product to sell, go to the library and flip through the back issues of magazines — particularly the tabloids. Note those mail order ads that are running week after week, month after month. There’s only one reason why those ads keep running — they’re making money. Those products are already proven to sell well — they’ve demonstrated that they harmonize with the marketplace.

Even if there are many companies that are already competing in those product categories (example: weight loss, hair restoration, and wrinkle products, etc.), don’t worry. If you apply good copywriting guidelines, your marketing efforts will fare better than those who are making money, despite their poor sales copy.
“Splish Splash I Was Takin’ A Bath”

Take a clue from Bobby Darin, a popular singer of the ’50s. Darin was a young singer in New York who, for a long time, tried unsuccessfully to break into the music business. He would go from record company to record company trying to convince them to make an album of him singing popular jazz oldies. He was rejected.

So one day, Darin sat down and wrote a song that fitted or “harmonized” with what the public was buying at the time. What was popular at the time was good old rock and roll sung by black artists — it was called the Motown sound.

The song he wrote was called “Splish Splash” and the words started out, “Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath/ ‘Round about a Saturday night.” It had a good old Motown rock and roll sound — and it became a smash hit, selling millions of copies.

Darin recognized what the market wanted, and he created something that harmonized perfectly with the prevailing market. From his earnings, he himself produced a record in the music genre that he really loved — popular jazz oldies. His song, “Mack the Knife” went on to become a multimillion-selling single and made Bobby Darin famous.

To summarize, you must first have a product that harmonizes with your market. If you haven’t made a substantial amount of money from your marketing efforts yet, sell only products or services that have a ready market — this is the path of least resistance. Afterwards, with the money you make, you can blaze new trails with other products of your own preference.

Copyright © by Joseph Sugarman

1 Review your copywriting. Do it over and over. Six or seven times or more.

2 Do not use long Latin words like “information” - use short Anglo-Saxon words like “facts”. These words have more punch.

3 Avoid being clever and cryptic. Sometimes I see ads that take me weeks to work out what they mean. We are all too busy to be bothering with the clever stuff. If it can be understood by a half-wit with a two second attention span you probably have a winner.

4 Do not be handicapped by thinking that everything has to be “grammatically correct”. When you are copywriting all that stuff goes out the window. Say it in the simplest way possible.

5 Use short sentences. And only contain one idea in every paragraph. Do not spend ages constructing enormously complex sentences with millions of clauses and sub-clauses. Also, be specific, state real figures, avoid things like “up to 5%” or “over 1,000″. Avoid percentages and state real sums of money instead

6 State the facts and focus on the benefits the customer will get when he buys the product. Do not waffle. Every word needs to be earning its place in your copy. Do not be worried by length of copywriting. Testing shows that long copywriting sells more than short, and long headlines sell more than short. Your copywriting should be as long or as short as it needs to be to sell the product.

7 Speak the reader’s language. Do what a salesman would do. Think about how you would sell the product to someone. The best copywriting often has a kind of speech type “you-and-me-talking” quality about it.

8 Visualise a person and write to them. Better still write as if you are writing to someone you already know who fits the target audience: Your Mum, a friend, whoever.

9 Use simple words that everyone understands then everyone will understand. Good copywriting is often criticised for having a childlike quality. This is deliberate; if a simple person can understand it, everyone can understand it.

10 And finally: read books on the subject. Study the work of the great men of advertising. Write, write and re-write. The way to get effective advertising is to test everything. Do not use full stops in headlines. And remember: good copywriting is like a river; you should be able to jump in at any point and be carried along by the flow.

©Bill Fryer 2005

Article Brought to you by Williams Copywriting Services UK
http://www.williamscopywriting.co.uk