I was chatting with someone about insurance direct marketing the other day, lamenting the fact that most insurance offers are hideous exercises in jargon and corporate speak.   

The person I was talking to wondered whether it was OK to use corporate-style language when marketing business-to-business, as opposed to business-to-consumer. I said no.

How come? Because people are human beings, even when they have their work heads on.

Whether we run multinational companies or spend our days reading ‘OK’ magazine and drowning in daytime telly, we invariably prefer clear, simple marketing communications that get the point across quickly and creatively without making  a meal of it. With no jargon and no convoluted corporate speak.

It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to. Good communication is about clarity, simplicity and brevity… every time.

(Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu/profile/barunpatro for the royalty-free, fee-free image)

How come?

• it’s written in perfectly Plain English
• it takes a wonderfully fresh, easygoing conversational tone, writing the way you’d speak
• it employs a quirky turn of phrase without going into wacky personality overdrive and scaring people off
• it’s warm and human
• it’s succinct and short, yet gives the information needed to make an informed buying decision
• it’s laid out in readable chunks, search engine friendly as well as easy on the human eye

From a freelance copywriting perspective, it’s spot on. Well done to whoever wrote the site – I salute you!

Here’s a link: Danson Digital web design, Brighton. 

Some people make a meal of the smallest copywriting job.

Here’s a classic, found inside a prestigious CMS created by a blue chip brand who should know better:

In here you are able to manage all your blog posts.  You can create new blog posts and edit existing ones. All blog post trackbacks are also managed from here.

Gosh. What a mouthful. It’d be much clearer and simpler if they just said:

Here’s where you create, edit, manage and track back your blog posts.

I’ve always disliked the phrase ‘selected items’, as in 10% off selected items. Because the word ‘selected’ implies restrictions, it sounds very negative.

It’s even worse when people add ‘only’ to the equation; 10% off selected items only sounds horribly negative and tight fisted. Tight as a gnat’s chuff, if you’ll pardon my French.

Here’s how I’d open the phrase up and make the offer sound generous. I’d say 10% off specially selected items. So it sounds like you’ve made an effort choosing special items to put on offer. Subtle… but better? I think so. It’s amazing how much difference a word can make – nuance is powerful stuff!

There’s much more to money spinning website content than slavishly following the rules.

Yes, an experience copywriter takes all the practical ins and outs of commercial writing into account. But there’s more. They’ll also take care of the emotional side of your sales proposition.

How? In four ways.

Elegance of expression is one thing. You can crowbar all the facts in, add your key words and phrases and use lovely, clean, crystal clear language. But your copy can still read like a dog. Without elegance the strongest commercial proposition comes across as clumsy and lumpy. Elegant expression isn’t something you can learn on a course. And it’s nothing to do with logic. 

Flow is another thing. It’s difficult to pin down exactly how to create copy that flows properly with an invisible rhythm. But you notice when copy doesn’t flow. You find reading an uncomfortable, jerky experience and you keep losing the thread of the argument. Moving or changing just one word can make the difference between a stilted sentence and one that inspires people to read on, enquire further or buy something. 

Then there’s friendliness and approachability. Some copywriters feel colloquialisms and cliches are a total no-no. In others’ experience - mine included - familiar language is wonderfully disarming, humanising a sales message to bring it within emotional reach. Obviously it depends on your target market. A copywriting professional will know intuitively when to bring cliches and colloquial language into play and when to avoid them like the plague.  

Lastly there’s tone of voice, another critical tool in the professional copywriter’s kit. There’s no excuse for overly-formal language, whoever you’re marketing to and whatever you’re selling. Your tone can make the difference between a truly inspiring and thoroughly off-putting piece of communication.  

Here’s five top tips for clear, compelling communications whether you’re marketing, advertising or simply communicating with people.

• don’t use a long word when there’s a short alternative. Use free instead of complimentary. Use expect instead of anticipate. Use buy, not purchase 
• slash ‘n burn! If you can cut words out, do it. Say miss, not miss out on. Say men instead of male personnel. Say free instead of for free 
• express yourself actively instead of passively. Active is always shorter and it’s much more personal. When you express yourself actively you ‘own’ what you’ve written rather than distancing yourself from it. Say we will write the report rather than the report will be written. Say I’ll get in touch straight away instead of you will be contacted straight away
• avoid jargon when there’s a plain English equivalent
• buy Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelsons’ excellent little book Writing that Works – How to Improve Your Memos, Letters, Reports, Speeches, Resumes, Plans and Other Business Papers

If you’ve ever doubted the power of words, here’s the science bit.

In September New Scientist magazine reported on the physical and psychological benefits of being happy.

Part of the article was dedicated to ‘mood boosters’, science’s top five ways to achieve happiness. Top of the list? Writing about positive experiences and emotions. 

• one study showed that writing about a positive experience increases your satisfaction with life. Better still, the results last for at least a fortnight
• a second study proved that writing about your emotions for two minutes a day improves your physical health, with participants consistently reporting fewer health complaints than the control group

The written word is a powerful psychological tool. Words have a much broader, deeper reach than simple communication. They affect our behaviour at a profound, fundamental level. 

As a freelance copywriter I take research like this seriously, adding fresh knowledge to my bank of expertise. Anyone can write content. But it’s much more of a challenge to write commercially powerful content – stuff that inspires and sells. One more sensible reason why it’s best to hire an experienced freelance copywriter!

We switched to EON last year. I’ve been really impressed by their direct marketing in general – and their copywriting in particular. 

Their website is written beautifully in perfect plain english. Their tone of voice is full of personality. In fact everything they’ve sent so far, whether by email or snail mail, has been a triumph in rock solid customer communications.  What’s so good? Here’s the email they sent me a few weeks ago… short but very sweet. Well done EON! 

Important information about access to your online account

We’re always looking to improve our service to our customers and give the best online experience we can.

To ensure that we can continue to provide this great experience we need to upgrade our systems now and again. We’ll be doing this on the evening of Friday 16 July until lunchtime on Sunday 18 July. While we’re doing this you won’t be able to access your account details online.

As we’re updating all our systems and not just our website, we might not be able to help with your query over the phone either as we won’t have access to all your account details.

We’re sorry if this causes you any problems. You will be able to log in as normal before or after these dates.

If you’d like to talk to us about this you can contact us before Friday 16 July at eonenergy.com or call us on 0845 301 5933.

There’s a great story in the news this week about an Aussie cook book in which one recipe asked readers to add freshly ground black people.

Obviously it was an innocent mistake. They meant black pepper. But these are strange times, and political correctness is king.

As it happens the publisher had to destroy 7,000 copies, which cost a fair few dollars. If they’d been unlucky, and the mistake less obviously innocent, they could have faced legal action.  

Once, long ago, I printed 60,000 direct mail leaflets with the signatory T. Bollock. It should have said T. Bullock. It went down like a fart at a Bar Mitzvah. Luckily I wasn’t sued either. But it just goes to show - you can’t be too careful!

Spellcheckers check spelling, but not context. The word ‘people’ isn’t a spelling mistake, nor is ‘bollock’! The moral of the tale – get someone who knows their stuff to proofread your copy or content before approving it for upload or print. 

Email opt outs are usually negative, which is probably why most marketers prefer to make them as unobtrusive as possible.

Because people tend to respond very well to honesty and transparency, I prefer to give email opt out text fair prominence. And I like to make it positive. That way it reinforces the brand I’m writing about and adds to it’s credibility.

Here are three examples of positive email opt outs:

1. I’m sending you this offer because I genuinely believe it’ll help your business. If you don’t want to hear from me in future, just let me know and I’ll never darken your doors again!
2. I found your contact details on your website. I hope you don’t mind me emailing you.  All you have to do is let me know and I won’t bother you again. Otherwise I’ll keep sending you exciting, relevant stuff !
3. We’re a respected organisation and we  only make genuine offers. We respect you too. If you’d prefer not to hear from us we’ll take you off our special list straight away.