Copywriter?

Go to this blog post.
The ability to write well is a wonderful skill to have, but it doesn’t take you very far in and of itself. (Hey, even Norman Mailer had to have moxie in addition to talent). Sure, a lot of writers become writers because they don’t really want to be business folks – which is fine in theory, but at this point in our societal development kind of like becoming an accountant so you don’t have to deal with numbers.

In Which I Lionize the Newsletter

The simple newsletter gets a very bad rap. Despite the fact that newsletters, and particularly e-newsletters, offer a simple, cost-effective way for business owners to keep in touch with their networks, the newsletter is often derided as being – well – boring. “But!” I argue, “this is not the fault of the humble newsletter!” The real problem is that, all-too-often, people write their newsletters without being quite…sure…why. This leads to lack of focus, to confusion of tone, and to – you guessed it – boring writing.
As with any other piece of written material, the newsletter should, first-and-foremost, strive to educate, enlighten, or entertain. There’s really no excuse for writing that doesn’t do at least one of these three things, because even writing that’s intended to fuel sales works much more effectively if it also incorporates one of the 3 Es. So before you press send, ask yourself:
Did I write this to educate, entertain, or enlighten my readers – or to make a sale?
Does this newsletter further my brand identity – or is it generic? (If you’re a small business owner, you are your brand…so the question becomes: did I bring something of myself to this newsletter – or not?)
Did I really have something to say in this newsletter – or was it just “that time of the month”? Did I express myself clearly and well – or is this convoluted, impenetrable, and full of typos?
Be honest now – because a bad newsletter is better than no newsletter but a good newsletter is better still.

In Which I Talk Taglines

A fair amount of the work I do involves creating taglines for small businesses, or recreating the taglines of existing businesses. This process appears to be a dark mystery for many people…they don’t know how it’s done, and often they quite frankly have no desire to know how it’s done. For those of you who do want to know – maybe you’re just starting in business and don’t have a lot of capital, or maybe you just want to exercise your creative impulses – here are a few tips to get you started.
1.) Do your research. Take a gander at the taglines others in your field are using. This will save you potential embarrassment down the line.
2.) Take some time to sit with your business. Hunker down in a comfortable spot, and give yourself a couple of hours to really consider what it is you do, how you do it, and what separates you from your competition. Jot these things down…in fact, you may want to consider this a freewriting exercise where you just keep writing, no matter how inane you might feel the things you’re writing down are.
3.) Discover your tone. Create a list of the adjectives – the descriptors that indicate how you want clients or potential clients to feel when they think of you. Not what you want them to think…really shoot for the core underlying emotions. Do you want people to feel secure? Happy? Supported? Amused? Winnow your list down until you’ve decided on the single core emotion you want to inspire.
4.) Create! With this background information, begin drafting potential taglines. Remember, taglines should be three to five words long, be memorable, and get people interested in knowing more. They don’t have to say everything, they just need to be compelling, captivating, and memorable. If possible, they should contain a play on words (i.e. – Easy is Good).
5.) Edit. Take you top five choices and see if you can generate another twenty new possibilities from them. Narrow down to five again. Take these top five choices to your business group, your trusted friends, your coach, your therapist, your adviser, your little old granny in Poughkeepsie. You may hear that the line you like the least is the line everyone else likes the best. It’s a great idea to take this feedback into consideration…but also remember that at the end of the day YOU have to live with that tagline. If you hate it, or you can’t say it with a straight face, or it just doesn’t inspire you, you’ll never use it…and then it won’t do you any good.
Now get to work!

In Which I Dispense Copywriting Advice

Ten Commandments of Copywriting
1.) Keep your sentences short and punchy. Six to eleven words. Of course, you’ll want to mix it up a little—add variations in cadence with the occasional long sentence and the odd fragment. But the bulk of your sentences should be concise.
2.) Make your pitch early. Repeat it as often as you can without being obnoxious.
3.) Address your reader as ‘you.’ Never use the stilted, formal third-person for copy. Calling the reader ‘you’ makes your sentiments immediate and personal. One should avoid the third-person like the plague.
4.) Know your grammar. While it is fine to occasionally violate rules of grammar—to use fragments, for instance—a copywriter should know, internalize, love and respect all things grammatical. Then, any violation is clearly intentional.
5.) Talk about benefits, not features. Your reader is interested in the ways your product will make his or her life better, easier, or more enjoyable. So cough up this information right away! The copy isn’t about how great your product is. It’s about the great things it will do for your reader.
6.) Tell a story. People like to read about other people. So if you can give a real-life example of the benefits that your product produced, and make it into a good story, your sales will increase.
7.) Less is not more. More is more. Give your reader as much benefits-focused information as possible. The more information you give consumers, the more likely they are to select you product.
8.) Define your terms. Your readers aren’t idiots, but they aren’t saturated by the language of your business, either. State technical concepts in the clearest possible language, and don’t give your readers more than they need. The technical details will be of great interest if you’re marketing to a tech audience, but will bore Joe Schmoe to tears.
9.) Make your pitch early. Repeat it as often as you can without being obnoxious.
10.) Close with a call to action. Tell people what you want them to do, and say it in such a way that they feel compelled to do it. If you can offer some sort of incentive, so much the better.