Professional copywriting tips
Copywriting tips for March 2007
Writing copy that sells
There is a mountain of information to conquer in this section, which I plan to tackle in stages over the coming months.
If we look at things in a very simplified way, it’s possible to break down any piece of writing - whether it’s a webpage, article, brochure or letter for the milkman (well, perhaps it’s not necessary to try so hard with the milkman) - into three basic parts; namely the headline, the body copy and the conclusion, sometimes called a call to action.
This month we’ll start at the top with the headline.
Hit them with the headline
The purpose of the headline is to entice the reader to read the first line of your body copy. The purpose of the first line of the body copy is to encourage them to read the second line and so on.
It’s a concept that applies to the headline of an article, a press release or even a paragraph.
Just think about your own reading habits when you pick up the morning paper. Do you start on the first page and, as if it were a book, diligently read through every single word on every single page in turn?
Or, like me, do you skim read the headlines and if something catches your eye take in the first few lines of body copy and, if it appears to fulfil the promise of the headline, keep on reading?
I’m guessing that the majority of you would agree with the second habit, which just goes to show the importance of the headline when your copy is competing with so much other information.
What should the headline say?
The headline should provide enough information to give the reader a fair idea of what to expect if they read on.
It should also appeal to your target audience, three quick ways to achieve this are:
- Indicating how they will benefit from reading the article – see features v benefits from last month
- Providing an offer which they can profit from
- Delivering news that they would find of interest
Budding tabloid headline writers should beware. If you are applying for a job at the News of the World or The Sun, then best of luck, but for marketing purposes quirky headlines will only work if they appeal to the audience’s self-interest.
Have a go
Try skim reading your daily paper and seeing which headline first catches your eye. Try to work out why it stopped you in your tracks. Why did it appear interesting enough for you to want to read on? Was it an offer? Did you think it would benefit you? Or did it appeal to your curiosity?
Try applying the same principles to your own headline writing.
See you next month
Due to a request from one of our readers, in April we’ll be looking at writing search engine optimised copy for websites. So, if you want to give your website the best chance of ranking high on search engines, log in next month.
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