Posts Tagged: copywriting

You’ve Got Mail: Writing Effective EDMs

We’ve all received them. We occasionally read them. However, most Electronic Direct Mailers (EDMs) end up in the recycle bin. So, how can you set yourself apart from the pack, and ensure that your letter, flyer or email compels the recipient to read, rather than tossing it? Here are some simple tips to help you get that response:

Put important information upfront

Don’t bury the lead. Put what you are offering and the key information upfront, so readers won’t have to work to find out what you want.

Apply “Me-Marketing”

What’s in it for me? Answering that question early on not only helps you to resonate with your audience, but helps them feel that they are understood. Make it more person and appealing by adopting a conversational tone that uses “you” rather than “I” or “we”.

Draw Attention to the Important Parts

Emboldening, underlining or italicizing words can help draw your readers’ attention to the bits that matter most.

Make your EDMs mobile responsive

With people increasingly using mobile devices to consume content, it’s vital to make sure your EDMs are mobile responsive. Make sure your images are maximum width rather than a specific width (to accommodate larger mobile displays such as tablets) and adopt a one-column layout which frees users from the need to scroll horizontally.

Build a Flow towards the Call to Action

Think about your call to action before you even start writing. By structuring your EDM around the call to action, you can make it the crescendo of the EDM.

Keep these pointers in mind as you craft effective EDM copy to nurture your prospects.  

 

Reference:

https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/10-writing-tips-for-your-direct-marketing-campaign

6 tips for writing Electronic Direct Mail to nurture your prospects

https://www.campaignmonitor.com/dev-resources/guides/mobile/

http://www.verztec.com/blog/index.php/2016/02/how-to-create-electronic-direct-mail/

Image source:

http://www.salesneuron.com/feedback.php

Say What? When Taglines get Lost in Translation

Almost every brand has a tagline. But what happens when companies try to enter new markets? It’s not as cut and dry as merely putting their company slogan through the translation filter. Corporate taglines not only need to be converted into a different language, but also from one culture to another. If not, when these marketing campaigns cross oceans, they could mean something entirely different.

Read on to find out hilarious examples of taglines that got lost in translation.

  • Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

When KFC expanded into China in the late 1980s, it’s iconic slogan “It’s finger lickin’ good!” was translated into a not so appetising Mandarin tagline, “Eat your fingers off”.

  • Pepsi

Similarly, Pepsi’s tagline “Come alive with the Pepsi generation” didn’t go down too well in China. It came out as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead”.

  • Coors

While beer lovers in America could identify with Coors’ tagline “Turn it Loose!”, the Spanish translation “Suffer from diarrhea” gave people a stomach-churning feeling.

  • American Dairy Association

The famous “Got milk?” marketing campaign got Spanish customers all puzzled when it was translated as “Are you lactating?”

Converting taglines into other languages goes beyond merely doing a word-for-word translation or hitting the “Google Translate” button. It’s essential to work with translators who understand the nuance of the language, and can maintain the original intent and style while adapting it to have the same impact in another language.

 

Reference: http://www.jaywingpr.com/news-views/2013/lost-in-translation-15-advertising-slogans-that-didnt-translate-well/

Image source: http://www.jaywingpr.com/news-views/2013/lost-in-translation-15-advertising-slogans-that-didnt-translate-well/

 

Hitting the Mark with Tighter Writing

Writing in a bold, direct way can help you to communicate and ultimately persuade more effectively. Whether it’s an Electronic Direct Mailer, marketing collateral, press release or website content, tightening up your writing can help your company get noticed and stand out from the crowd.

With readers’ short attention spans in today’s information-rich world, what you write has to compete for attention from social media and other digital platforms. How can you compete better with more effective writing? Read on to find out.

Write shorter

Readers are impatient nowadays. Cut out unnecessary detail and repetition. Writing concisely shows that you respect the reader’s time as more valuable than your own.

Move key insights up

If you don’t grab your readers’ attention quickly, they’ll probably move on to something else before you’ve even made your key points. So, front-load your key insights. This increases the chances that readers will stick around to see if you can prove it.

Replace jargon with clarity

When you’ve been in a particular industry for some time, you may unconsciously use technical jargon in your writing. While it may make sense to you as an insider, your layman readers may not be able to figure out what you mean. Explain what you mean in plain English. If you do need to use a technical term to make things clearer, define it first.

Cut out weasel words

What are weasel words? They are words that are intentionally ambiguous, such as “generally” and “most”, which make your writing sound weak. Deleting weasel words strengthens your writing, making it sound bolder and clearer.

Avoid passive writing

Using the passive voice can make your writing sound vague and uninteresting. In contrast, adopt an active voice to make it easier to understand. Introduce the subject first. For example, instead of saying “Colgate is recommended by Dentists”; rewrite as “Dentists recommend Colgate”.

Harnessing the power of these writing tips can help you to communicate more directly to your audience while making every word count.

 

Reference: https://withoutbullshit.com/blog/10-top-writing-tips-psychology

Image source: http://www.nikkielledgebrown.com/writing-concisely/

What A Difference A Word Makes

what-a-difference-a-word-makesWhat makes an advertisement, brochure or website appealing? How do you attract eyeballs with great content? Creating powerful content that speaks to your target audience involves more than just stringing together random words or phrases. Naturally, it starts with using the right choice of words – words that can captivate and hold your readers’ interest.

 

Certain words do appeal to our attention more than others, carry power when they are used and most importantly, have the ability to jolt consumers into action. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

 

Words like “limited”, “sales end today” and “while stocks last” create a sense of urgency among customers, making your products or services seem more valuable and scarce. This can make people desire them more for fear of not being able to acquire it. On the other hand, words like “now” draw people in through the prospect of instant gratification.

 

Undeniably, words such as “free” and “new” have a definite appeal. Attracting consumers through complimentary offerings may entice them to find out more about your website, advertisement or brochure. Meanwhile, the novelty effect associated with the word “new” could draw curious customers to find out more about this fresh new merchandise or service.

 

Last but not least, do not forget to personalise your message to include words such as “you” to entice your consumers, because there is an unspoken power that comes from invoking their sense of self.

 

Try it the next time you craft content to market your business and reap the results of using powerful words.

 

Image source:

https://www.zazzle.co.nz/word_power_round_sticker-217562175423359680

Why The Pen is Mightier

pen-is-mightier

Why should I buy your product? Why should I listen to you? These are questions that go through your customers’ minds when they see your website or marketing material. And these are issues that businesses need to address when persuading their potential clients to use their goods and services. Persuasion is not an easy skill to acquire. But if you break it down, there are three key techniques to convince your audience: using emotion, authority and logic. Advertisements, websites, brochures and blogs all use these in one form or another. Let’s take a look at what each of these persuasive strategies mean and how they work.

 

Persuasive strategies How to apply them Example
Emotion Appeal to emotions. You can play on others’ feelings of justice, sadness, anger, nostalgia and fear. This is most effective when it connects with an underlying value of the reader. There’s no price that can be placed on peace of mind. Our advanced security systems are guaranteed to protect your family so you can sleep soundly at night.
Authority Appeal to the authority of person or an organisation. It is how well you convince the reader that you or your company are qualified to comment on the subject. Our expertise in roofing contracting is evidenced not only by our 100 years in the business and our staff of qualified technicians, but in the decades of satisfied customers who have come to expect nothing but the best.
Logic Appeal to logic, rationale or reasoning. Information may be presented factually and based on statistics. Logic can also be used to enhance your authority by making your company seem knowledgeable. The data is perfectly clear: this investment has consistently turned a profit year-over-year, even in spite of market declines in other areas.

 

These persuasive strategies can be used on their own, or in combination with each other. Keep in mind the context, your target audience and objective when employing them. Check out the video below, and see if you can spot how these modes of persuasion are used. Try using them in your next brochure.

 

 

Image source:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/239113061439372391/

 

So, You’ve Been Asked To Give A Speech…

Giving speechGiving a speech can be a nerve-racking experience. But with diligent preparation and careful thought in crafting out your speech, you can get a leg up on delivering a great speech. Want to know what it takes to write an effective speech? One that will not only grab your audiences’ attention, but also leave them on the edge of their seats? Let’s check it out.  

Craft a Memorable Opening

The start of your speech is when the audience is most receptive. So, seize that opportunity to create a memorable opening, as it helps to engage your listeners early. Tell a humorous anecdote that illustrates a key point in your speech. Share a shocking fact or statistic.

Focus on a Few Key Points 

Don’t try to put too many ideas into your speech. Research shows that people remember very little from speeches, so stick to just two or three takeaways that your audience can bring back at the end of the day.

Write Like You Talk

Remember, you’re writing a speech that people will hear, not an article for them to read. So adopting a conversational tone would make it easier for your audience to follow your speech. Use short sentences. It’s better to write two simple sentences than one long, complicated sentence. Also, avoid using big words. Keep the language simple, like how you would when talking to someone.  

Repeat Yourself

Have you ever sat through a speech, and somewhere along the way your mind starts to drift off? We’ve all been there. In speech-writing, repetition is one of the keys to leaving an impression. Drive home key words, phrases and themes. Always look to tie back and reinforce earlier points in your speech. Repeating critical points can help your audience to remember key ideas.

End Strong 

The fact is, the concluding portion of your speech is what your audience will remember as they leave the room. So recap your biggest takeaway. Tie everything together. Share a success story. Make a call to action. End with a memorable quote.

So, keep these tips in mind when preparing for your next speech, and leave your audience spellbound.  

Harnessing the power of emotional marketing

emotional marketing image

Emotions. They help us to connect with one another, but they can also spur us to action. When it comes to writing marketing campaigns, studies show that emotions rather than cool-headed logic play a greater part in inspiring customers to make decisions. So what is emotional marketing? It involves harnessing emotions to influence audiences’ intent to buy. Getting consumers to feel happy, in awe, sad, afraid or angry lie at the heart of emotional marketing. 

When selling your product or service, it can be easy to get caught up in spelling out its features. Logically, we would think that is what our customers will benefit from and focus on right? However, do not overlook the critical role that emotions play in rousing customers to share with their peers and ultimately buy. Check out the commercial below and see how emotions can be used to great effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtMkhfQfa4

You say Tomato I say Tomahto

You say Tomato I say Tomahto

English-is-confusing-2

(Source: writeshop.com/blog)

Have you ever wondered how confusing English pronunciation can be to someone who doesn’t speak the language? If you grew up learning and speaking English, it shouldn’t be a problem for you. But if you were asked to explain the rules of pronunciation, I guess most of us would have forgotten them from our school days, although we subconsciously apply them in our everyday conversation.

That’s the thing − while English does have pronunciation rules, there are exceptions to the rule. And sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it these rules. Why are there so many words that begin with a silent “K”, such as “knife”? Or even a silent “G”, such as “gnaw”? If it’s not pronounced, what’s the point of including that letter in the first place, if it only adds to the confusion of both native speakers and learners? Apparently, words like “knife”, “knee” and “gnat” are examples of Viking words with letters that used to be pronounced previously, so they are still spelt the same way, but the pronunciation has changed. So although these letters are silent, they still remain so that you can see their history and origin. What’s more, words that end in the same combination of letters aren’t necessarily pronounced in the same way. Why is “trough” pronounced “troff” and “through” pronounced “throo”? Check out this video to see what we mean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZV40f0cXF4

So one of the quirks of English pronunciation isn’t just a question of learning the rules – it’s about learning the many exceptions to the rules.

Say the Right Thing

A website that has beautiful pictures, great layout and a good font selection will certainly attract attention. But if the content is poorly written, the attention will be for the wrong reasons. It is, therefore, important that you always focus on saying the right thing.

Make it personal

Speak to your customer. You may have thousands of visitors to your website but each visitor is an individual. So ensure that the content and word choice maintain a one-to-one conversation between your prospective customer and you.

Less is more

Keep your selling short and simple. Avoid complicating things for your visitors. They are likely to be easily distracted with many things that compete for their attention.  You might want to consider testing your content on a platform with a word limit to create your descriptions. If it goes beyond that limit, edit it down. But don’t forget to keep the meaning of what you are trying to say.

The honesty test

You might want to test your content with your team before publishing it. You could get your colleagues to read and comment. Even better, test your content on your spouse, children, best friend, online friends or just anyone you think is able to represent the type of visitor you hope to attract to your content. Get them to give you feedback about how the content made them feel, the impression they got and how it can be improved.

Copywriting is a delicate process and saying the right thing can make a difference to the success or failure of your website, and eventually, your business.

Copywriting for Reputation Management

Suppose your company has been doing well world-wide. The profits have been on an upward trend and both employee and customer satisfaction are at an all-time high. Suddenly, the media breaks with news that there have been major lapses in the company’s products. This bad press is now starting to affect the company’s reputation and might possibly affect the bottom line.

So what do you do? It is no longer merely about engaging a traditional PR company to fight this fire and write all the good things about your business. Instead, you need quality writers. You engage them to write enough positive, high-quality articles that will appear in search engines, respected blogs and other media platforms.

The key to gaining attention is not to write pieces that are too long even if they are very detailed and comprehensive. It is better to write something short, sharp and to the point. This likely to be most effective in the blogging world, where you hope to slowly chip away bad press one bit at a time.

Remember that the aim of this copywriting in reputation management is to push the negative content to a page at the back, even if it cannot be entirely eliminated.