Posted on July 16th, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
Grab the tail of a current event and hang on
Occasionally, a news story will resonate with your business. So grasp the opportunity and tell people about it!
Putting your slant on a local, national or international news story will bring readers, responders, visitors and customers.
Here’s an example.
You are a building firm. A local scandal has just surfaced. A rash of cowboy builders, insisting on cash up front, have disappeared leaving customers’ jobs unfinished. You write letters to your local papers, send out a press release, email your local radio station and write a blog post on your website: Top ten tips to avoid the cowboys.
The result? You get a letter printed. Another local paper prints your press release and uploads it to their website at the same time. And people searching for details about the story online run across your blog post.
Posted on July 14th, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
Learn to blow your own trumpet!
You don’t need to sound like an egotistical maniac. But when you’re writing marketing and communication materials, you do need to sound confident in your business’s abilities.
Here’s an example. Which do you think is strongest: 1 or 2?
1. We’ll try to help you find the best deal. You might find you could save money!
2. Save money! We’ll help you find the best deal.
They both say the same thing. But 1. sounds doubtful and uncertain, while 2. sounds confident and sure.
You might be sounding uncertain because you want to stop people complaining if you can’t actually keep your promises. If so, put your caveats elsewhere instead, expressing them honestly and clearly. Even caveats can be written to sound positive!
Posted on July 10th, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
1. Marketing is… THE CREATIVE APPLICATION OF LOGIC
Marketing can be tricky. Get too creative and you alienate and confuse people. Apply logic at creativity’s expense and you bore them into a coma. Remembering this simple definition will help you stay on the right side of both tracks.
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the logic bit is a clear, simple sales message or proposition
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the creative bit is the successful expression, and communication, of that message
2. Marketing is… SELLING STUFF
This might sound obvious but you’d be surprised how often businesses forget that marketing is all about selling stuff. Stay focused on commerce and avoid dangerous things like ego and aesthetic over-sensitivity!
Posted on July 8th, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
Be clear, be concise, be brief and shout LOUDLY!
If you want your advert to pull in enquiries and sales - and why else would you bother advertising? - your copy and design need to be carefully constructed. Here’s the basics.
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write a short, eyecatching, inspiring header
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put the header at the top of the ad using a large font size
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don’t use fancy typefaces, they just confuse matters when you need to look sleek
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compress your sales message into as few words as possible - no more than three short sentences
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make it as exciting and stimulating as you can but avoid sounding like bad American direct mail
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put your sales message below your heading, set in a font size that’s easy to read at a glance
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write a strong, compelling call to action and put it below your sales message
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include contact details - in your order or preference - at the bottom of the ad, again using a nice, readable font size
As you can imagine, a successful direct response advert is rarely a pretty thing. Loud headlines, easy to read text and prominent contact details don’t often make for a minimalist masterpiece. And you won’t win any design awards. But it’ll bring in more business than a complicated, airy fairy, verbose ad using a stylish yet fiddly font.
In other words, leave the pure brand advertising to the big boys who have more spare cash than commercial sense!
Above… one I made earlier, just for fun.
Posted on July 3rd, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
Powerful it is. Harmless it isn’t. Treat the media with great caution.
A recent New Scientist article (Oil Shock - you ain’t seen nothing yet - June 28th 2008) explores the outcome of a sustained world oil crisis. The potential consequences are so frightening that Governments are busy drawing up emergency plans. In one exercise, experts simulated what would happen if a ‘psychological avalanche’ struck… in other words, if everyone screamed at once. Here’s an excerpt from the simulation:
‘A small, distant country one day finds it can no longer import enough oil because of a spike in prices or problems with local supply. The news media whip this up into a story suggesting an oil shock is on the way, and the resulting panic buying by the public degenerates into a global grab for oil.’
The remainder of the article goes into horrid detail about what happens next. But I’ll stop there. My point is that the media’s ability to create unfounded panic is being acnowleged at the highest levels all over the world. Governments are planning for the fact that the media is capable of, even reasonably likely to, bring about an international human disaster of unbelievable proportions. Needlessly, for all of us, everywhere.
How scary is that?!
I’m not saying that sending a crap press release to your local paper or radio station will result in apocalypse. But it’s wise to be aware that people put an inordinate amount of faith in what the media says. So take care what you let them get their hands on, and think twice before you write!
Posted on June 27th, 2008 in copywriting and marketing with no comments
Drayton Bird’s direct marketing ‘must read’ book list
The late David Ogilvy said that UK direct marketing guru Drayton Bird ”knows more about direct marketing than anyone else in the world.” If you’re deadly serious about making money from your marketing, you could do a lot worse than invest in Drayton’s top seventeen DM classics.
I’d argue that it is not worth doing a marketing campaign - under any circumstances - unless you are going to seek a response of some kind. Advertising agencies will disagree. But I’d rather spend my cash on direct marketing and know exactly how many quids my investment has attracted, than on a TV ad produced to enhance a brand with no empirical evidence of return on investment… whatsoever.
Drayton Bird would agree and, gentleman that he is, I’m certain he won’t mind my reproducing his direct marketing ‘must read’ list here.
- E-mail Marketing Made Easy, Malcolm Auld
- Secrets of Successful Direct Mail, Richard V Benson
- Commonsense Direct Marketing, Drayton Bird
- How to Write a Sales Letter that sells! Drayton Bird
- Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples
- Eicoff on Broadcast Direct Marketing, Al Eicoff
- Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins
- Profitable Direct Marketing, Jim Kobs
- Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy
- Maxi Marketing, Stan Rapp and Tom Collins
- The Great Brain Robbery, Murray Raphel
- How to Advertise, Ken Roman and Jane Maas
- Writing that Works, Ken Roman and Joel Raphelson
- How to write a good advertisement, Victor Schwab
- Successful Direct Marketing Methods, Bob Stone
- The Solid Gold Mailbox, Walter Weintz
- The End of Marketing as We Know It, Sergio Zyman
If you don’t have time to wade through this lot, sign up for Drayton’s daily Helpful Idea email, on the premise that a little bit of wisdom goes a very long way… visit Drayton Bird’s site.
And here’s a link to my copywriting and editing website, helpinthecity, for those times when you need an experienced freelance copywriter with a direct response focus and twenty years’ experience…
