Writing in an brief and effective manner to convey your thoughts to your audience is a challenge, especially when it does not involve Twitter or Facebook. A majority of businesses and organizations do not have the luxury of an inhouse advertising expert or the need of a full-service advertising firm. The task of writing marketing materials usually falls to an internal employee who has been identified as the best writer on the staff, regardless of position or responsibility. Here are a few copywriting tips to consider if you have been selected as your company's one-person marketing section:
1. Do not write a word until you have studied your product or service and dug out every possible benefit you can, along with selling points.
2. Discuss your ideas with anyone in the company who will listen and give you feedback.
3. Build your outline.
4. Visualize the prospects in your market and talk directly to them, as if you were selling in person. (You are, in fact, selling through the written word).
5. Write your copy as if you were talking to just one prospect, not all readers. Try making a promise to your prospect, and then prove that you can deliver what your promise.
6. "The more you tell the more you sell." There is no such thing as too much copy.
7. When you read your copy, does it sound like a real person wrote it or does it sound like it was generated by "Hal" from 2001: A Space Odyssey?"
8. Leave out the jargon. It is a good idea to leave difficult to comprehend words entirely out of your copy.
9. Use the "Grandmother Test." If you grandmother read your letter or copy, would she be able to understand it?
10. The part of marketing copy most read by all readers is the P.S. If you do not use a P.S. at the end of your copy then you are missing an opportunity.
P.S. Never write or send a marketing letter without a P.S.
"The bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you refuse to take the turn." -- Unknown
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Jeff,
ReplyDeleteYou left out the most important rule. Ask for the sale. You can make the most persuasive case in the world for your product, but if you don't close with directly asking the prospect to buy, many won't. Make it clear and obvious how to take that step and ask them to do it.
That goes for other types of business communication as well -- it's a rare e-mail that wouldn't benefit from a sentence at the end reiterating what action you need or want the recipient to take, how, and by what time.
So, add "ask for the sale" to your rules. ;-)
Best regards,
Scott Walker
P.S. Don't forget to add "ask for the sale".