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…
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…
How do you define content strategy? If you’re a digital copywriter like me, you’ll probably define content strategy very differently to a web designer or a user experience architect. For example, a copywriter will focus primarily on how his words appear, in context. While a designer might be more interested in the context — how his design fits around the words.
Fellow copywriter Leif Kendall recently wrote a blog post attempting to define content strategy. He said:
Content strategy is a process used by organisations to define and plan
…
A client came to me recently and asked me how they could make their digital agency stand out from the crowd. I looked over their elevator pitch. It contained the following sentences:
- “We help people connect to the brands they love.”
- “We look at the world differently.”
- “We’re driven to help people genuinely connect.”
Sound familiar? That’s probably because you’ve seen these phrases everywhere already. So how do you stand out?
The answer’s simple: if your message is the same as everyone else’s, be different. If your message is too generic, be more specific.
It’s unlikely two people…
In my previous post, I talked about why I felt digital was the way forward — and how an emphasis on sites that work, that inform, and that sell the product directly to the customer are replacing “big idea” campaigns. I said that, in order to be a competent digital copywriter, a copywriter should have a broad understanding of digital skills beyond idea generation and actual copywriting. The skills I suggested were:
- Conversion rate optimization
- User experience (UX) testing
- Metrics (stats like bounce rates, etc)
- Web design and development
- Content marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media integration
…
I started my first blog, a Livejournal, in late 1999. Back then, the word “blog” didn’t even exist.
Twelve years ago, I never could have predicted I’d have a successful career using the same techniques I learned while writing teenage ramblings for my friends. Yet here I am.
I guess I’ve always been an early adopter. Yet it never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there who still don’t understand the value of digital.
The ad industry is changing, whether you like it or not.
I read this fascinating piece on…
I’ve spoken before about how much I rate Tom Albrighton’s work as a copywriter. I’m also a fan of Ben Locker, in Colchester (Glad you’re not in London, Ben!). What have these two guys got in common? They’re both big fans of the “father of modern advertising,” David Ogilvy. So much so, in fact, that Ben recently produced a long-copy print ad in Ogilvy’s style as an experiment, testing whether or not long copy works. Well, I’ve decided to put my money where my…
Though they say you should never give your competitors the oxygen of publicity, I have to admit I’m quite fond of Tom Albrighton’s copywriting blog. While his site’s a little cluttered for my tastes (I’m sure he’d say mine is too brash), I’ll give him this. The man knows how to write. But luckily for us both, we’re not in direct competition. You see, I market myself as a “creative” copywriter. Tom, on the other hand, is proud to be uncreative. Let’s look at what that means:
With a publishing background, I’m much…