I caught up with another freelancer this week and we got onto the subject of “danger words” in client enquiries. The classic is the phrase “it’s only a little job” which usually means “it’s an ordinary sized job but I have very little money”.
It’s also worth counting the number of buzzwords a client uses in their enquiry. One recent enquiry opened with “we’re looking to engage with a copywriting solution”. This solution politely rejected the client’s offer to get engaged. Knowing in my heart of hearts we were incompatible, I was sure I’d be jilted before invoice day.
My…
In the ongoing quest to improve my work, I recently finished reading Robert P Cialdini’s classic book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, looking for tips. Cialdini suggests there are six different ways to influence people / close a sale, and he lists them as follows:
- Reciprocity (People tend to return a favour, e.g. giving out free samples leads to greater sales)
- Commitment (Once people have already decided to buy, it’s much easier to raise prices with ‘extras’ at the last minute, a common technique used in car showrooms)
…
There are a lot of copywriting brief templates out there. Personally, I don’t rate any of them. Most of them focus on facts, figures, times, schedules, costs. Most clients will naturally include this information in their initial contact with their copywriter anyway. And most technical information is as easy to find as a quick google search.
Unfortunately, this information isn’t enough to help your copywriter do a good job. It’s only enough to help them do a generic job. If you want truly personal copy, you’re going to have to be prepared to get personal.
Can’t meet your client in…
Don’t worry about the dictionary definition. The Oxford Comma is simple. It separates out separate things. Without the comma, things are combined.
Here’s a simple, concise, and definitive argument courtesy of shortee.tumblr.com –
How often do you use the word “solution” in everyday speech? Probably very little.
Your car isn’t your transport solution. Your phone isn’t a communications solution. And I’m willing to bet you never refer to dinner as a “foodservice solution” or even a “hunger solution”, do you? What about your girlfriend? Is she your loneliness solution? Or is that what you call the bottle of whisky you drink alone, late at night? Is paracetamol in a glass of water your hangover solution in the morning? Or would you prefer another swig from the bottle?
Blimey! I just used…
Having just read Tom Albrighton’s Top ten tips for freelance copywriters, I find myself agreeing with every one of them. But here’s three tips Tom left out…
1. Get a 50% deposit up-front, every time.
If the client can’t or won’t afford this, what makes you think they’ll pay up on time, or at all, once the job is done?
2. Sometimes, you’re being hired to give your opinion, as well as your words.
You can’t argue with every client, but not everyone likes a yes man. If you’ve got different ideas (and you can express…
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I seem to get asked for advice by freelance copywriters who are just starting out an awful lot these days. Much more than I used to, anyway. I guess this means that, after a few years in this game, suddenly I’m the voice of wisdom and experience. Funny, because it doesn’t feel like all that long ago I was just starting out myself.
Of course I’ve been writing for ages. But I only…
When I joined Tumblr in 2009, I thought I was pretty late to the party. But the microblogging platform has only gone from strength to strength to strength. But although I hang out there all the time, and have even made a few friends there (although not as many as my livejournal days) I don’t use it for business.
Tumblr started out a little like a cooler version of Twitter. I’ve often said that Twitter feels like a water cooler for us bored, lonely freelancers who don’t get to enjoy the simple pleasures…
Like many others, I visit Guido Fawkes, the UK’s most widely read political blog, for my daily fix of news. Guido is in top of his game. His short, simple editorial style (which has a lot in common with my favourite red-top, The Sun) and knack for sniffing out a story (or turning a small story into a much bigger one) has made him the UK’s foremost political blogger. He’s mass-market, and proud of it.
But when you’re at the top of your game, how do you…
Yesterday, some friends and I had a go at guessing what today’s headline in The Sun, the UK’s leading red-top tabloid newspaper would be. Bin Laden’s death was a historic moment — how would the paper that’s read by over 1/10th of the population every day cover it?
Of course, The Sun is known for its outlandish headlines, often involving a pun, joke, or outright shocker (“Freddie Starr ate my Hamster” being the oft-quoted classic.) So I didn’t think my guess of “Osama nails Obama in Islamabad Drama” was…
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