Many people believe that writing is just writing. It doesn’t matter what it’s for, it is basically the same animal. It can range from fiction, sales writing, promotional writing, poetry…

But if you treat every form the same you’ll come unstuck. Your writing style must be adjusted according to its format and desired effect.

For example, if you’re writing the next best seller, your writing has to entertain, enthral and envelop your readers’ curiosity to hold their attention until the last page.

But website copywriting should be interesting, relevant, engaging and must sell. It should also be search engine optimised too.

Fiction writing is all about painting a picture with similes and metaphors. But website copy is about selling and driving traffic – there’s no room for arty language; it should be simple.

Once upon a time, a website copywriter…

When someone lands on your website, all they want to know is what’s in it for them? That sounds rather selfish but it’s true. After all, they landed on your website because they are looking for something. So it is the job of your website to satisfy that need.

It is vital you get your message across quickly, clearly and without fuss. So leave your flamboyant fiction tendencies at the door and stick to good old fashioned plain speaking.

• Don’t use arty similes or metaphors – tell the reader what your product is, what it will do for them and how to buy
• Don’t use jargon – it should only sneak in if it is absolutely necessary, but even then keep it to a minimum
• Be brief – only use as many words as you need to sell.
• Use simple language – big words and complex sentences will not result in greater sales. Instead of using terms such as ‘in the interim period’ stick with ‘between’

If you want your website copy to sell keep your writing simple and conversational. This will help build rapport with your reader and so build that all important trust.

If you want to write flamboyantly, write a novel. But make sure you keep that style of writing away from your sales writing.

Social media marketing is something that every business should be doing no matter what its size.

It is a way to promote your business online to an unlimited market place.

Social media isn’t just about PR, it can also be used to montior your brand, what people are saying abou you and your customer service.

If you don’t do it, why don’t you do it? Any of these sound familiar?

My time is precious

It may not be expensive in a monetary sense, but social media can be very time hungry.

“I can’t afford to spend that amount of time playing with social media.”

You’re not alone. Many businesses feel that way but can you really call it playing when it can bring in business to your company?

How many other activities offer:

• Unlimited PR opportunities
• Direct contact with your customers to gain insightful feedback
• A way to constantly monitor your brand
• A way to respond quickly to negative feedback
• The chance to ‘talk’ directly with your customers at any time

At one time your customers could only phone you when you were in the office - and then mobile phones came along and changed the face of business.

There was a time when had to wade through a pile of mail every morning and could only deal with clients via a phone or snail mail - and then email appeared and changed the face of business.

Social media marketing is just the next step in communication development.

Embrace it and win

Learn to make time and your business will benefit hugely.

Establish what you need to do within your business to adopt this new form of technology. Should you Tweet, blog, Facebook, article marketing? Perhaps a combination?

Next you have to work out who will do what. Although you may want one person to deal with your Twitter account (continuity of voice helps to generate a strong bond with followers and potential clients), there is no reason why you can’t share the blogging responsibilities.

Some companies decide they have no time to do this themselves and so farm the work out. As a copywriter I would be happy to help you, but blogging is your opportunity to get your opinions out to your readers; to build a direct relationship with them through your words. As such using someone outside your company may make this difficult. But at the end of the day it’s going to depend on what you want to achieve from your blogging.

You could use guest bloggers to bring in fresh ideas and content although you will need to ensure they understand what your blog is about and issue them guidelines to ensure they follow your subject matter.

Don’t get left behind by your competitors. They can all see the value and are using it to great effect – they know what their customers want (and don’t want) before you do. They can quickly deal with negative feedback and turn it to work in their favour.

Come on, isn’t it time to redress the balance and got stuck in?

You’ve heard the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, well I hate to say it but people do. Not only that, but they’ll also judge you and your company by your written content whether in emails, on your website, blog, articles or brochures.

Going back to your school days, wasn’t it always the best looking kids that got to be Head Boy or Girl, or head of the sports team?

Looks do matter (even though we try to convince ourselves that in today’s ‘equal’ society it doesn’t) so you have to make sure all your marketig materials are as good as they can be - in content and aesthetic appeal.

Be attractive

To me, as a copywriter, the copy on your website or blog is paramount. Of course, your website designer will tell you it’s your sites design and your graphic designer will tell you it’s your brand, logo and print materials.

But it is your copy that does the hard work engaging with your reader and getting them to place an order. But if you don’t have a good looking website or blog no one is going to hang around to read it.

Mind you even if you have a stunning website but your copy is shocking, they’ll leave so you have to attack both issues and get them right if you want to be successful.

There are many things you can do to make your website gorgeous, but rather than listing them all, let’s take a look at the things you should avoid and all costs.

• Think about your copy

Understand your audience. They have a specific needs which you must identify and satisfy.

Don’t try and talk to everyone. When you write your copy just have one reader in mind. If you try to cater for everyone you’ll end up with a confused mess that won’t tell anyone anything.

As for the length of your articles and blog posts, be sensible. Your reader is going to be time limited (aren’t was all?) and so although they’ll want answer to everything they won’t want to site and read their way through an encyclopedic work. So make sure your copy is well balanced and complete but keep it relatively brief.

• Make it easy to read

It’s not just your website site design that should look attractive, your text should too. But I’m not talking about which font to use, I’m referring to the use of short paragraphs, bulleted lists, headings and sub headings.

If your reader is faced with a wall of text that extends down their screen which the have to scroll through, they will be severely turned off.

By breaking up your copy up into manageable chunks, they can dip into your copy and read the most relevant parts to them.

Make it easy to read using a high contrast between text colour and background – go for black on white or white on black.

• Be engaging

Your headline must grab your readers’ attention. If it doesn’t you may as well forget everything else I’ve mentioned as no one will be reading your copy anyway.

Produce dull copy and no one will read it; write about yourself and no one will read it; fill it with jargon and no one will read it. There is only one thing you must keep in mind – what does your reader want to know. To give you a clue it will probably have something to do with ‘What’s in it for me?’

• Less is more

Don’t overdo colours and graphics in an attempt to make your copy stand out and look appealing. Going over board will end up looking messy. Stick to a few colours that tie in with your company’s image.

Basically, keep it simple.

This is important because…

Getting your copy or design wrong could kill your site. Remember to consider both elements and ensure they work together.

Before we get going I just want to make one thing clear – the term ‘keyword density’ should be confined to the rubbish bin.

There, I’ve said it.

It is often used by ‘SEO experts’ who claim to understand the ins and outs of Google’s algorithms – well if that were true, they’d know that ‘keyword density’ was a nonsense.

So where did it come from in the first place? Well the basic thinking went along these lines:

“If I use my keyword more often, its density will be higher; if it’s higher Google will regard my copy as more relevant than anyone else’s. So, the more keywords I cram in the better.”

Oh boy, how wrong can you be?

Working along these lines, you completely disregard any competition from other websites for the same keywords. So what do you do? You go and check out those sites, work out their keyword density and then beat them.

The problem is the more you do this the more you head towards SPAM. And when this happens you can kiss goodbye to legibility, clarity and usability.

If you think I’m talking a load of b******t then answer me this. If all you had to so was fill your site with keywords, everyone would do it, the internet would be full of gibberish and no one would use it. It’s not and they are – so who’s right?

The search engines aren’t daft – keyword density ignores keyword distribution, contextual relevance, links, navigation, usability etc.

So I guess you’re wondering how you can create SEO copywriting that the search engines love.

It’s all in semantics

Let’s get one thing, the research you do to find your keywords and their use is important. If you write naturally, a pattern of keywords will be used along with synonyms, verbs and nouns which all construct meaning.

You also have to know where to put your keywords (H1 tags, META tags, title tags, navigation, anchor text links etc.) but they alone won’t tell the search engines what your page is about.

The answer to that is semantics.

Researching related words

Basically there are two ways to identify related words:

1. Guess – not very scientific
2. Use the Google Tilde search

All you have to do is type your keyword into Google’s search box preceded by the tilde sign (~). In the results you will see bolded words and terms which Google identifies as being related to your keyword/search phrase.

So if you searched ‘ink’ Google suggests the following:

• Inkjet
• Cartridge
• Inks
• Toner
• Paint
• Pen

All you have to do is pick the relevant terms to produce a list of related words that can be used within your text.

By using semantics you website copywriting will become more relevant in Google’s eyes. And the more relevancies you show, the higher you are likely to be ranked.

But don’t forget this is just one part of an SEO strategy and shouldn’t be relied on in isolation.

Crystal Balls make life easy, especially for the marketers amongst us.

But as they are total figment of our childhood imaginations, we’ll just have to make do with research and copywriting cunning.

Direct mail isn’t easy to write.

Oh yes it is!

No, it isn’t. Because if you think all  you need is a bit of blurb about your product, a price and a way for your customer to order, you’re not going to be very successful.

Basically speaking, for your direct mail campaign to work you must have a brilliant:

• List
• Offer
• Copy
• Format

There are a few ‘magic’ ingredients that are required to make your direct mail letter rock. And as I’m feeling rather generous today, I’ll tell you what they are…

Get your offer out – fast

This is so often overlooked.

Get your offer into your heading and mention it again and again and again. A copywriter is a bit like a storyteller – they’ll create drama by showing the reader what their life would be like with your product and how it would benefit them.

To achieve this you can use two different approaches:

1. A desirable product

If you are selling something people want (e.g. jewellery, holidays, cars etc.) give your reader a vision of owning your product in the header and opening paragraph. Tell them you are offering  them something that will fulfil all their dreams and desires.

2. Overcoming pain

This is great when your product overcomes a problem faced by your reader (e.g. ill health, higher taxes etc.) Begin by describing their pain, then introduce your offer which is the cure and follow up with evidence of how your product will cure their pain.

Carrot and stick

Copywriters love this one. It is a way of telling your reader that great things will happen if they respond to your letter. Of course, bad things might happen if they don’t.

For example, if you’re selling a new brand of washing powder. your offer is that it’s been scientifically proven to get laundry clean first time:

Carrot – buy the washing powder and enjoy amazingly clean clothes every time and you’ll be successful in everything that you do.

Stick – stick to your normal powder, wear dull clothes, amount to nothing while everyone else looks amazing and is incredibly successful.

As you can see, direct mail is far more than just writing a letter. Your words have to convince your reader instantly.

Although there are many different uses for the direct mail letter, they all have common characteristics that make them successful.

Of course, your list and your offer will also have a big impact on your success rate but the characteristics I will be talking about are those that make the letter powerful, engaging – a sales force to be reckoned with.

So, that must mean the copy. How you write your letter will determine whether you successfully engage with your reader. A lot depends on the words you use…

Be personal

When you are in a face to face selling situation, the first thing the sales person will try to do is build rapport. That is exactly what your letter has to do. Use language that will engage your reader and address them directly.

Remember this letter isn’t about your company, it’s about what you can do for your reader. You’re intruding on their privacy so ensure you show them that you understand their problem and will help them solve it. After all, if you want them to spend time reading your letter you have to make it worth their while.

You can do this by:

• Using ‘you’ and ‘your’ to build rapport.
• Highlight the benefits to show them what’s in it for them
• Use simple language – if you try to be clever you’ll simply turn them off
• Make sure you reflect their needs and hopes within the letter

Tell them a story

Use the good old fashioned story template to sell your product. Tell them how their lives are at the moment and then tell them about your product and how it will make things better. Make them the hero in your story and by taking action they will make everything better.

Don’t be woolly

If you’re vague in your claims no one is going to believe them. Use facts and figures to back things up; use testimonials and case studies to show what effect your product could have.

And now?

Once you’ve grabbed their attention, built rapport and convinced them your product is for them, make sure you tell them what to do next. If you won’t all your hard work would have been wasted.

Make sure your call to action is commanding – call now, email now, book now etc. Also tell them what will happen next – delivery in 7 days, we’ll call you within 24 hours…

As you can see creating a strong direct mail letter is not as straight forward as it would seem. But if you constantly keep your reader in your mind, you will be able to create something centred on their needs that will get them to take action.

Sally Ormond is a freelance copywriter who works with companies all over the world. Her copywriting services have helped numerous companies increase their sales and enjoy greater visibility within their market place.

Direct mail has always been a very effective marketing tool – but only if you get it right.

It won’t have a place in every business, especially with the advances in online marketing. But it is still very much alive and well.

If you dabble in direct mail and want your campaigns to be successful, there are three elements you should use to maximise your chances of success:

1. Make sure the content of your letter appeals to your target market
2. Make sure it is written to inspire your audience to take an action
3. Make sure you can monitor its effectiveness

Let’s take a look at each one of  these areas in more details to see how you can give your direct marketing campaign the edge.

Your target audience

Do you know who you are trying to reach?

A blanket mailing may well reach thousands of households but it’s unlikely to be the most effective way to run your campaign.

Your campaign should be targeted at a specific market segment and it should address the issues that they face. Make sure your content is benefits orientated explaining how your product will have a direct positive influence on your reader.

As an aside, the four most important aspects of your direct mail campaign are:

• Your list
• Your offer
• The format
• The copy

As you can see your list (i.e. the people you are sending it to – your target audience) is right at the top. This is because no matter how great your copy is or your offer, if you send it to the wrong people you won’t be successful. Knowing your audience is key to the success of your campaign.

Take action

If you don’t tell your reader to take an action, your direct  mail campaign won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. Just as with your website copy, once you have your readers’ attention and made them want your product, you then have to tell them what to do.

Plus make it easy for them, enclose an SAE, give them a free phone number etc. If they can respond easily they will. Make it difficult for them and they won’t bother.

And the results are…

If you don’t measure your results, how can you improve?

Monitor it by adding a code to your order form, giving a code to enter into your website when ordering, a specific 0800 number or mark your SAEs with a code that’s easily recognisable.

However you do it, monitoring your results will help you shape future campaigns to ensure you get the most out of your investment.

So next time you embark on a direct mail campaign, make sure you cover all three of these elements. Over time your campaigns will be honed to perfection but remember anything can be improved.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

Is there really a difference between producing copy for on and offline purposes?

Well, let’s think about that for a moment.

What’s the most important thing to focus on when producing sales copy?

Your reader.

Once you know who you are writing for, what do you have to remember?

To sell the benefits of the product or service you are writing about.

There is only one question your audience wants answered – What’s in it for me?

This is true whether you are writing website copy, brochure copy, newsletter content or direct mail. Essentially the elements for on and off line copy are going to be the same – it should always be focused on your reader.

The basic formula

There is a basic formula to keep in mind when you are writing sales copy. You may have heard of it already – AIDA:

• ATTENTION – use a strong headline to grab your readers attention
• INTEREST – capture their interest by selling the benefits immediately
• DESIRE – make them want it by using testimonials and case studies
• ACTION – use a strong call to action – buy now, call now etc. Use time limited offers to create a sense of urgency (e.g. get 25% off – offer available until xx/xx only)

Basically, whatever media you are writing for, the basic principles of copywriting remain the same.

Always write for your reader – what problem do they want solved? If you answer that you’ve made a sale.