May 07 2011

What It Takes To Make It Big In Copy Writing

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Selling is a very daunting and yet very interesting job, but it is not the same thing for every guy with a bag in the sling. Can you imagine how the brokers, underwriters and insurance agents are instigating people to invest in this or that? They sell a product no doubt, but they persuade the clients that they are getting something more vital and meaningful. For instance, when you invest in a property, the broker convinces you that you are getting peaceful living with free education for children, foreign holidays etc. In fact, they don’t sell you a product or a service, but an idea underlying it. You get the hang of it and you are ready to pen down a compelling content for a promotional campaign.

So, still wondering how you can become a good copywriter? Let’s deconstruct the idea.

Focus on what it means for the client: When you are going through the ordeal of forging a good piece copywriting, do think why the clients pay attention to your campaign, what your product means to them, how it can make a difference in their lives. Don’t rope on a mission statement such as “we are driven by blah-blah-blah”. Your audience is no longer interested in what your philosophy or thought is. Instead tell them that you are offering something which they badly need. Even if they don’t need, convince them that they do.

Address the client directly: Marketing as an industry has come a long way from the time when they every product is of national importance and addressed the mass in their campaign always using the stilted tone. But today, the use of personal ‘you’ is very frequent and very effective as well. Tell your audience that you offering something which holds huge importance to them. The implication is that you care for your clients your product makes their life a little better.

Keep the message short and precise: Check the two versions of a copy pitching for an app.

1) By installing our application, users can get easy access to the internet through their existing browsers or even through their own browsers and it will give them an enriching experience.

2) Experience a better browsing with our application. Use your own browser or ours, seamlessly.

Though dealing with the same theme, the two contents are way apart. Comparatively, the second piece of writing is more powerful as it grabs the attention of the audience quicker and drives the point most unwittingly.

Quickly point to the edge: The above sample exemplifies another point of a forceful copywriting. Notice how the marketing speech has been presented in both the versions. In the first case, the introduction of the fact that the app works well with any browser, has been presented in a callous way; but in the second version, the central advantage of the app has been conveyed in a way that it hits the nail on the head.

Reiterate your motivating point: If you think there is something that is important to the audience, begin the speech with it and return to it again. If something needs to be said, it needs to be said again. The audience likes to know what how a product or service helps them. When you say it they are happy that they have got it. But when you say it again, they are assured it is there in the product.

Presentation: Your copywriting will be effective only when it makes a scratch on the minds of the audience. Suppose you are selling car and there are hundreds of companies with similar cars. If your ad campaign shows the car whizzing past a pool drenching a couple of joggers in the early morning, then where is the catch? Everyone highlights speed in some similar way. But try this one.

Your car swish through an ordinary driveway in a decent speed and suddenly the car breaks down. When the driver gets out and opens the engine hood, to his horror, he finds the engine is missing. Then follows your marketing speech—

“A car powered by our brand runs 50 km without engine and breaks down. When we supply the engine, it just runs”.

The audience is taken just the way you are. It’s presentation.

Copy writing needs to focus on these elements.

February 24 2011

A few significant approaches in your copywriting to make it a success

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Copywriting is overtly an attempt to grab the attention of the audience at the earliest. It is about a communication and relationship-building mechanism by speaking to the audience in a persuasive manner. But if you find the closest analogy of this communication in formal closed-door conference, where the audience must make a nod even if one’s attention is straying, you are on the wrong path. The audience is not tethered to your campaign and compelled to give a positive response to.

copywriting

Now, get to the right thing. Despite the wide recognition of the miraculous capability of creativity in web copywriting and content marketing, creativity can be notorious in undoing the whole effort of yours. Indulgence in imagination, sweeping generalization, vague comment can mar the copy if the readers or the audience don’t find anything worth considering. Specific things arrest their attention more than any generalization. So it is more important to focus on details and have a systematic and methodical approach in writing.

Accept the sacrifice to make a copy hammering: Writers who are pro-creative (don’t read a double meaning) may not agree with the proposition that a substantial part of their creative output holds nothing for the target audience. They attempt to make the content cosmopolitan in nature appealing and catering to one and all at the same time. But if a copywriter means to communicate the product to a specific segment of the market, he must restrain his creative abundance and exclude things that are secondary to the target reader. Though it appears a sacrifice, professional content marketing requires it. Don’t try to make an ad a looking glass for all.

Don’t count on consumer imagination: Your use of abstraction in copywriting can cause the readers’ distraction. They neither understand nor are interested in understanding how you conceptualize your product. It may gratify you to convey that massage or concept in a complex idea. But the target audience will not understand that complex idea unless it is supported with a story or event that audience can easily visualize. Moreover, they are prone to examining what your product is capable of doing. In other words, they want know how it will benefit them. Therefore you can spurn the concept behind your product and write its function instead.

Use persuasive story-telling: The idea of using story-telling manner in your copywriting may entice you so thoroughly that your copywriting ends up being an inconsequential sequence of events. The audience will be in soup without getting to know what the ads means for them. Rather than putting the whole-hog of the story in your write-up, you can select a pivotal point that you feel is most important. You can describe your product around that plot. You can work a little more on that narrative to make it reflect a broad spectrum of specifications and functionalities of the product.

Exclude some customers: It is for the sake of making the ads more acceptable object-oriented that you must see through the consumer market and decide which customer is likely to benefit from the product and which does not fit into your expected customer profile. When the copy writer is concerned with making the ads dramatic, he must induce the customer with the belief that the product is meant for him exclusively, and not for others. An address to everyone is tantamount to an address to none.

Let the customer manage the general from the specific, if he finds it convenient. Your copywriting should avoid discussing the meta-topics. A customer finds it easier to grab a specific function of a product and then relate it to his or her own needs.

February 12 2011

How to give another last touch to your copy

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You have jot down a superb blog on a topic you have a sound knowledge of. You are at odd with the friend who says, “Well! The writing is not bad”. Bury the write-up in your cupboard for a few days. Then get it out and go through it. It is like discovering the blemishes of your spouse post marriage. ‘The writing is imperfect’.

website copywriting

No need to knock your head against the wall as such. When you are creating a blog or content for any purpose, you are a busy-bee focused on how you can get your concept over the page while maintaining a commendable language standard, and incorporating subtle effects which you think will spice up the thing for the reader. But there is always a scope for further improvement, no matter how much you champion your copy. Below are some guides on how you can locate the loop holes and give a finer polish to the write up.

Make your content speak for itself: Have you ever considered that literally every idea will sell, even if it appears meaningless to you. It is all about presentation and how you can project a simple nothing in way that the target audience appreciates it. It must sound real.

If you go through most of the corporate blogs all your love for reading will die on the spot because of the hackneyed jargon used in them.

Instead of depending on an overtly formal style, you must try to give a personality to the copywriting. See, if the content has a flow in language, examine whether the heading captures readers’ attention, and there is a consistent line of argument in the whole. A reader will build trust on a brand because of the virtue of the content’s sheer readability.

Sleep over the draft: Don’t take literally. As said earlier, once you have done up with the stuff after an hours-long labor, you have pontificated your views, shown your panache, got on the pinnacle of glory (obviously self-assigned). But there are chances that the reader will not like the piece in the least, perhaps.

Go for a small hibernation and let the copy bid the night alone. If you go through your craft the next morning you will realize that you are not the same person you used to be. You will get new insight into your writing with the daybreak and find a number of unguarded follies in the write-up and feel like editing. After the edit, the copy will be a little better than its nightly version.

Get a friend to read it aloud: You may be in love with the idea to tease the reader with your diversion in language. To that purpose, you have landed some vocabulary on the content to strike the reader the head. You think it’s a boho touch you have managed, but in reality it can madden the reader and make your blog a complete trash.

If you get a friend to read it, its phonetics elements will be clear to you. You will find out the words that have a bass sound and may suck readers’ enthusiasm and soak their spirit. You will be able to include necessary changes then.

Consider a sentence stretch: You don’t earn a bad name for the death of a reader who runs out of breath. Make sure that the sentences you have created are crisp and express the meaning succinctly. Forging marathon sentence by using clauses or parentheses is not a commendable virtue. If you are writing for the US audience, then take it to your blood to offer sentences that are small and easy-moving.

If these simple requirements are properly addressed your content will amuse the reader and do the job that precedes amusement.

February 04 2011

Difference between Copywriting and content marketing

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Apparently, Copywriting and Content Marketing both are about creating content that is aimed at making the reader aware of your product or services. In a very simplistic vein, it can be said that while content marketing involves a tutorial job—creating an awesome report to give the reader a comprehensive knowledge of your product, copywriting must be a call to action—a specific response like making a purchase or at least checking your merchandise in store.

But a closer understanding of these two concepts will shed light on the fact that getting the difference of the two requires a little more than focusing on their apparently mutually exclusive definitions. In fact, these two concepts are inextricably interrelated.

Communication: Be it content writing or copywriting, building a rapport with the reader is probably the most crucial factor in your whole effort.

Amateur writers are often in love with the notion of starting with a flowering introduction followed by flamboyant body content. But in terms of reader benefit, such contents have little value. It does not communicate the vital info—what they are getting for their money.

Creating a catchy headline is the foremost element that a content writer should get the hang of. Content marketing involves creating report on white paper, or blog or using viral video. When the entire write-up lacks a meaningful heading, the reader’s eyes will not trail beyond the first paragraph. Just as the package tells one about what is inside, in similar way, the heading will make the reader infer what follows and how it may benefit him.

Call to action: As said earlier, copywriting is more focused that content writing in terms of reader response. While content marketing acts as a tutorial, the function of a copywriting is pecuniary—increasing sale.

There is no doubt that winning the trust of the reader is the undisputed objective of both copywriting and content marketing. But copywriting proceeds to another level, where sale is the main concern.

If the copywriting principles combine with those of content marketing, more number of readers will subscribe to your content, or you will have more requests for email newsletter service. Moreover, your readers will share your stuff with others. This will drive your revenue.

Engaging the reader: Though the above discussion may lead readers to believe that copywriting principle should be the ‘be-all and end-all’ of good content marketing, you have to depend on pure content to substantiate your advertising claims.

If a content marketing write-up looks like an ad, the reader, who is looking forward to a good reading experience, will not go through the whole stuff.

Though incorporating copy writing skills is a bare necessity for your business, only good content can make it search engine-friendly.

On the basis of these advantages and limitations of copywriting and content marketing, it can be concluded that they have differences but from your business perspectives, these differences crisscross boundaries. It will be better to understand the objective first and then to build into necessary characteristics in your content.

January 29 2011

How to become a good copywriter

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Website copywriting may appear to be a very interesting job to do but when you try a hand on it, you are likely to feel the complexity and the challenge writing out a copy involves. Copywriting significantly differs from article or blog writing as you cannot show an overflow of powerful writing. You have to sum up the message within a few lines and your creativity must combine with precision.

Remember the ‘Hari Sadu’ ad of Naukri.com and see how articulate the ad was to convey the message that employees hardly leave bad jobs–they leave bad bosses. The vigor of your ad consists in the conceptualization. You have to pair the verbal expression with situation and other props around the sets—if it is a visual ad you are working on. When you are ready to pride on your genius, we will also acknowledge the return of worn-out years. But to get started, you can develop certain skills to have expertise on verbal expression.

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Learn your words: A few words are all that you need to get the small write-up. Therefore you have to have a good grasp over vocabulary so that the right expression pops-out of your head at the right moment. For instance, you are writing an ad for a car and striving to glorify its steering. Fingers are running across the scalp, the floor is strewn with paper bits. And you end up writing ‘get your hands on the steering and you are in thee sky’. A great flight indeed but not impressive! Try this ‘the steering is sure to give a road feel’. See, how banal it is and you are making business on earth. Use words that express.

Read a lot: Your expertise over language will help you to certain extent. It will provide the base for honing. But you must learn a little history, a bit of popular culture. Consumers like to relate an ad to something not explicit in the ad. Let your copy instigate viewers’ imagination.

Exploit emotions: You have to admit you are a professional and draw the consumer’s attention by any means. If you have been assigned the task of writing a copy for a cosmetic, you have to play with the emotion women folk feel towards this ancient faking mechanism. You must know that they want to be persuaded they have faces that drive artists to paint so many bad portraits of them. Don’t use the names of chemical ingredients of the product. Focus on the miracle women indulge in.

Use your experience: Take up things from your daily life. Every moment your life takes different shapes and gets different experience. You have got the habit of thinking about the weird little cries of a friend, the vacant look of your distant cousin, or the swaggering of your old nanny. These are useful material to you if you get it right.

This is an era of digital advertising and it has gone a sea change. Even if you are writing an ad to be printed, you have to show your creativity that people may scratch and smell the thing on the paper. That is why your copy writing should conform to the present trend and practice.