Copywriting 911

become-a-better-copywriter

All of us heard about ‘good’ and ‘junk’ writers – about authors who deliver content of the requested quality and quantity within the deadline, and those who behave like babes in the wood, mixing up words, dates, clients… Both groups position themselves like ‘pros’, yet only one of them tells the truth.

Want to know right now which one you belong to? Look through this list and mark each statement with ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
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Copywriting Guidelines, 3d installment.

Military Copywriting

Attention!

Dress up right, DRESS!

If you didn’t play toy soldiers as a child, you have an opportunity to repair this omission in copywriting business. Actually, the profession of copywriter is multi-faceted by nature: we trill away like nightingales while writing a sales letter and generate buzz like rappers when we create a blog post.

This time let’s imagine your are an officer who drills his/her soldiers, teaching them to take the right stand. Each copy of yours contains a message, and you strongly expect it to be perceived by readers, I mean, scanners – because most of people on the Web just scan through the text. To deliver your message to the destination point you should structure the text, so that any scanner can pick your ideas at once.

Ensure that your words are drawn up in paragraphs like soldiers in battle lines. Click to Continue »

10 Steps to Stylish Writing

April 9th, 2008

Copywriting Guidelines, 2nd installment

Stylish Copywriting

“A good style should show no signs of effort.
What is written should seem a happy accident.”

W. Somerset Maugham

The key point of this quote is the word ’seem’ which means that those ‘happy accidents’ are thoroughly prepared. Inaccurate spelling here, a missed punctuation mark there – and things can turn into a ’serious’ or even ‘fatal’ accident for your copy. I’m not going to say that WHAT you write is less important than HOW you do it, but repeated stylistic mistakes can divert all of your prospects, unless they are completely illiterate themselves or blind (the latest survey showed they weren’t).

Tame your style before it starts ‘biting’ your income. Enhance your copy in 10 easy steps: Click to Continue »

This is the first installment of the Copywriting Guidelines – the series of effective tips which will help you to become a better writer.
You should store this remedy in a safe place (away from the sun, water and competitors) and use it according to the prescription. The drug doesn’t have any side effects but should be taken regularly to see the improvement.

Punctuation Guidelines

Let’s start with such powerful language tool as punctuation. While words exist to describe the multi-faceted world, punctuation allows to understand the description.

NB: If you still believe that punctuation was introduced by aliens to mess human civilization and has no importance, read the famous panda joke from Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss:

A panda comes to a cafe, eats a sandwich, then draws a gun and starts shooting into other patrons.

“Why?!”cried the surviving waiter from behind the counter, as the panda was moving towards the exit. “I’m a panda, said the animal, tossing a badly punctuated wildlife manual over his shoulder. Look it up.”

The confused waiter opens the book and reads: “Panda. Large bear-like mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

So, learning punctuation rules you may not only impress your readers but – who knows? – save somebody’s life ;) Click to Continue »

Make Promotion, Not Spam

March 24th, 2008

Copywriter + Client = Love?

Since times immemorial, when the art of promotion was invented, the humanity has succeeded in its development, but one question still remains unsolved: how not to go too far while praising the product? In other words, what words look authoritative and quite persuasive for prospects, and which ones just annoy them, being referred to as “spam”?

Just look around and you’ll see: spammy promotion is literally everywhere. When a salesman knocks at your door and, breathless with delight, informs you that “you’re so lucky today”, because he’s come to show you the best lawnmower in the universe - what do you feel? Do you like this person? I bet, you are ready to kick the poor fellow downstairs, staying completely ignorant about his great product. Click to Continue »

What Does Google Dance?

March 11th, 2008

Google Dance?

From time to time Gogle looks not so much like a search engine – a lifeless tool meant to process users’ queries, – but more like a Terpsichore whose movements make people hold their breath and watch her with awe. Actually, Google has performed its enchanting/inconceivable/troublesome (odd ones out) dance since 2000, but each time it’s something matchless and unpredictable, regarding both the date of upgrade and the results.

Such intriguing issues as technical background, Matt Cutts’ explanations, notorious updates like Jagger and PageRank jumping have been already studied inside out on the Web, so, let’s keep aside mere words and concentrate on another topic: each user knows that dancing is Google’s nature, but has anybody ever wondered what dance does it perform exactly?

Looking through the related forums I classified people’s opinions according to the list of dance style categories. Click to Continue »

Infectious Marketing Virus We, homo sapience, could never live tranquilly since the very start of our species. Various natural disasters and catastrophes always lay in wait for us. We, poor and so vulnerable humans, have always suffered from viruses and diseases. Hardly did we manage to overcome one illness when the next coil of history came along with the new disease.

Every age has had its lash. And if plague, pneumonia, cholera and malaria belonged to the horrors of the Middle Ages, and cancer and AIDS became the horrors of the New Age, the Digital Age brought an infinite quantity of viruses not harmful for the people themselves, but striking their pockets.

We all unconsciously become the victims of various marketing viruses when surfing the net. With every other click of the mouse a bunch of them attacks us as hungry predators. Most of them irritate us, but others evoke the interest and even sometimes make us part with some dollars.

This post is for those who want to tame the marketing virus and make it work for them. Do not think that it is easy! The competition is great and every day thousands of new viruses are launched and almost the equal number fails. Here is some advice on how not to be a loser in viral marketing. Click to Continue »