Straplines, headlines, taglines, slogans. Call them what you will, they’re what make the advertising world go round. It’s rare to find a good headline writer. That’s because headlines are hard to write. Anyone can fill a page with four hundred words, but how many people can catch an audience’s attention and sum up the product they’re selling in four or so words?
It’s more important to sound natural than to be clever.
F Scott Fitzgerald famously started out in advertising and came up with the slogan “we keep you clean in Muscatine” for an Iowa based laundry service. While he…
I’ve written before about the difference between professional copy, and copy you’ve just written yourself. “Everyone who can speak English and read and write thinks they can be a copywriter,” I said. But they can’t. The question is — why? What does a professional copywriter do that you don’t?
A good copywriter writes sales-focused copy.
What does that mean? Well, here’s an example. Client A comes to me with Product A, and it’s the best product ever (so he thinks). He’s already come up with a great description of Product A to use on his website. But nobody’s buying.
Let’s…
What with email, chat and social networking, who sends letters any more? Arguably, the long-letter format is a dying art. At most, we can expect the occasional postcard from family members abroad. But there’s one day of the year when you might want to say something a little more personal than ‘wish you were here’.
Love it or loathe it, Valentines Day is the mandated time of the year when we’re supposed to make a pitch for our lover’s heart. Some say it with flowers, with a special breakfast… or even a special ring to surprise their loved ones. But…
I thought this week I’d weigh in with some professional advice for my rivals. I’ve been doing a lot of editing work, so I thought I’d boil it down to a few quick pointers. There’s a lot of bad copy out there. Hopefully, after you’ve read this, there’ll be a little less.
Keep it simple
It’s not Shakespeare. Nobody wants Shakespeare, either. He’s old and nobody understands him. But I guess if you’re writing copy for a living rather than plays about kings and murder, you’ve figured that out already.
But what you might not have worked out…
There was a good post on copyblogger this week about the power of the creative writer. Apparently anyone who can combine their “killer” advertising instinct with lyrical precision is on to a winner. In short, copyblogger thinks that there’s still room for the poet in the altogether more day-to-day world of copywriting. The key to success is creativity.
Sure, I’m a freelancer. I can (and do) spend quite a bit of time writing at home, in the garden, in my shorts. But it’s tough out there at the minute. If the work’s not there, the work’s not there.
On…
I’m one of those writers who can’t abide clutter. Before I start work, I have to clean up everything around me. Even an untied shoelace distracts me.
There are plenty of exceptions to this of course. Sometimes I love nothing more than grabbing a cup of coffee and writing while I watch the world go by — the busier the cafe the better. I’ve even been known to take my laptop out to the woods and work sitting on an old felled tree. You never know when or where inspiration might strike. Changing your surroundings really can change your frame…
I’ve been brushing up on my new media skills. I started out copywriting for blogs and websites a few years ago when SEO as we now understand it was but a glint in the web developer’s eye. Now in new media, it’s the undisputed king.
Yet times are changing. Already it’s being argued that Facebook is killing SEO. Essentially, ‘linkbait’ is what’s going to drive hits to your website in the future. It’s another one of those fancy buzzwords, but it’s nothing new. It’s just a modern form of a technique that has worked for generations — in…