Professional copywriting tips
Copywriting tips for January 2007
Happy New Year!
Not the most original of greetings for the beginning of January I’ll admit, but at least it’s descriptive and gets to the point quickly.
Keeping with the theme of unoriginal thoughts for this time of year, let’s move on to those New Year resolutions.
Forget the personal ones, they usually go straight out of the window when, if like me, you visit the in-laws for a New Year’s Day party complete with champagne, chocolates and a tantalising selection of deep fried nibbles.
In this column, I think we’ll stick to the business resolutions, like:
I will manage my time better
I will become proactive in promoting our company
I will revise our company’s website
I will start that company newsletter
I will write my hints and tips section on time… (Okay I suppose that I’m the only person affected by this one)
Anyway, to keep up with my resolution and to help you keep to your New Year promises, I’ve put together the first copywriting hints and tips lesson of 2007, which you might find useful.
As always, if there are any areas of copywriting that you would like us to look at in more detail, email the subject or your questions and queries to info@cwrite.co.uk and we’ll look at them in this section.
Write for your audience, not for yourself
Whenever I’m asked to review a company’s existing text, one of the most common problems I encounter is that the words are written for the company and not for its customers.
Take the example of the following statement. To protect the names and identities of the guilty I’ve made it up, but it is typical of many websites, brochures and advertising copy that I’ve come across over the years.
“At JD Brown and Sons, we’ve recently invested £5 million in our new purpose-built, state-of-the-art premises.”
As a sentence, it’s fine. It’s factual, it emits a certain image about JD Brown and Sons, but as a promotional piece of work, there is definitely room for improvement.
I would argue that all the statement does is provide JD Brown and Sons with the opportunity to show off – look at us, we’ve spent millions on our offices nah, nah na-nah, nah.
The ‘so what?’ factor
From the customer’s point of view, you could say that it gives them a sense of the size and financial stability of the company which could be beneficial knowledge. But then again, it may indicate that the company is mortgaged to the hilt and you can now expect product prices to rise to pay for the boss’s new luxury office.
Apply the ‘so what?’ rule and it becomes easier to look at the statement from the customer’s point of view.
‘So what if JD Brown and Sons, has recently invested £5 million in its new purpose-built, state-of-the-art premises?’
Who really cares? Probably not the customer.
What does the customer want to know?
To make the statement really mean something to your customers, put yourself in their shoes. What would make you care if JD Brown and Sons had spent millions on its premises? Perhaps if the company told you how the investment affects you as a customer?
Change the sentence to…
“At JD Brown and Sons, we’ve recently invested £5 million in new, purpose-built premises to improve our service to customers. This state-of-the-art facility has allowed us to streamline procedures and improve quality control, providing all our customers with an even quicker and more effective service.”
…and suddenly, now I care. Now I know that they’ve invested all this money for my benefit and, as a customer, I will reap the rewards of a more efficient service.
Small changes – big difference
It’s not difficult to make your text more customer-friendly; it’s just a case of looking at things from a different viewpoint.
When you start to write and during your writing, ask yourself a few simple questions, for instance:
If I were the customer, what information would I want to know about this company?
What information is most important to me?
Why should I use this company and not another?
And always test your statements for the ‘so what?’ factor.
See you next month
They’ve just called time on this month’s lesson but in February we’ll look at benefits versus features and how, by focussing on them, your company can reap the benefits.
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