m3article12

Confident copywriting

- How to sell more through clear communication

Written communication is still the prime instrument of influence in the business world. The channels may have changed – these days emails, the internet and even texting are overtaking the use of letters and printed materials - but the skill of using informative, persuasive and memorable words is more important than ever.

Every day we are all bombarded with more information than we can deal with, so in order for your sales and marketing messages to stand out and generate the outcomes you require, they have to be clear, concise and, most important of all, be of value to the reader.

So, every business needs good copy on an on-going basis, whether it is for sales proposals, promotional material, advertisements, press releases, newsletters, speeches or your website. Which items you focus on will depend largely on your nature of business, and ultimately on your customers. It should be less about what you want to send them and more about which items they want to receive. What will they be prepared to read? How do you know? Well, the best way, as with everything, is not to assume, but to ask them.

Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should

The main problem with copywriting in the small business sector (though regrettably it extends into larger businesses and the public sector, too) is that everyone thinks and believes they can write. Of course, that’s true to a degree, but just because you can string sentences together doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the aptitude to write the sort of copy that’s required for sales and marketing. After all, we can all draw – but that doesn’t mean that most of us are any good at it!

A number of problems occur in business with self-written copy:

You’re too close to it, so you may have difficulty sorting out the wood from the trees in terms of what you need to say.
You’re looking at it from your own perspective, which means you tend to focus on what you want to sell rather than what your potential customer wants to buy.
You tend to give too much detail about the product or the process when what your customer wants to know is what benefits they are going to get.
You may underrate the importance of certain elements such as spelling, presentation or layout, which may mean that your end result looks unprofessional and amateurish.
You will probably find that you spend hours or days agonising over what to say and how to structure your copy, which means that that you start to lose sight of what reads well.

Needless to say, the most effective way to counter these problems is to employ a professional. Freelance copywriters are easy to track down and a good one should be able to produce the copy you want quickly and at a reasonable price. It can be well worth the investment when you consider how important their copy is to your sales process.

A dozen basic rules for success

However, whether or not you choose to employ a specialist or persevere with writing your own copy, there are a few basic rules that you need to be aware of and which, in fact, apply to every type of communication, written or spoken:

Be succinct. Short is invariably better than long. Don’t take a paragraph to say what you could encapsulate in a sentence and make sure you don’t repeat yourself – unless the repetition is for deliberate effect.
Keep it simple. You know what you’re trying to say or explain, but your reader may be coming to it completely fresh and with no knowledge whatsoever. So use simple words, put together in a logical sequence. The Plain English Campaign www.plainenglish.co.uk can be a useful resource for helping you identify where you may be going wrong.
Aim for clarity. Will your reader know immediately what your message is, what the benefits are to them and what they are supposed to do next? Test your copy on others before you finalise it, and if the feedback isn’t great, then re-write until it is absolutely crystal clear.
Adopt a different perspective. Think about who your reader is. Decide what you would want to know and why, if you were in their shoes.
Write about the benefits, not the features. You may find the parts or process of your product or service absolutely fascinating, but your prospect may not be interested. What they do want to know is what that product or service can do for them – the problems it will solve and any other benefits they will receive from it.
Be accurate and honest. Identify and stress your strengths but remember that it is always better to under-promise and over-deliver, so avoid hype and sensationalism. Unless you are sure you really are the best, cheapest, or truly unique, then don’t use those words. They are tired and meaningless without supporting evidence.
Don’t use jargon. Selling isn’t about impressing them with technical terms. Whatever you write should be able to be read and understood by anyone - whether or not they have any knowledge of your particular market, product or service. Don’t patronise, but do use accompanying footnotes, diagrams or even a web link for those who may need further background information.
Ensure your copy is appropriate for the communication channel and the audience. For example, there’s a vast difference between what is needed for a short, punchy advertisement and that which you would put in an annual report; or between the sort of words you may use internally with your own employees and those that are for external consumption.
Be consistent. Whatever you write should be viewed in the context of your broader communications programme. Is what you are saying in one place consistent with what you are saying elsewhere; is the tone the same, do you use the same terminology and stress the same benefits? This doesn’t mean you can’t make changes but it’s surprising how many businesses have huge inconsistencies between, for example, their website and printed promotional materials.
Be logical. Particularly with longer copy, for example websites, manuals, sales brochures, it’s easy for logic to fly out the window in your enthusiasm to make sure you’ve included everything. Your reader may end up struggling to find information, unclear about what to read first, unsure about what is essential information and what can be disregarded. Once again, get an objective view from others before you go live and be prepared to make significant changes.
Make it memorable and intriguing. A slogan, promise, guarantee, explanation or similar which is different, engaging and meaningful will hopefully stick in your reader’s mind and make them want to find out more. But you must be sure that it really works; ‘intriguing’ can easily cross the line into ‘confusing’.
Use humour with care. It’s rare that humour works well and achieves a consistently positive result in business communications, so generally it’s best to give it a wide berth. At worst you may offend, at best your copy may just seem pathetic and amateurish.

(c) Dianne Bown-Wilson, The M3 Consultancy

www.m3consultancy.co.uk