Copy Writing

Sooner or later you'll come across websites and newsletters with references to advertising copy writers. Most will say something like "Normally it would cost you $1000 dollars for Chuck X to write a 500 word sales page" OK, if money's no object hire Chuck.

But it's better to write your own copy as it reflects your personality and that's all-important when it comes to marketing. Potential customers like to think that what they're reading is written by you.

There are skills to writing copy, or anything else for that matter, and the two main requirements are:

Correct spelling
Good grammar

Without getting these two right, you'll never succeed in copy writing. If you can't spell, use a spell checker; if you've no idea of basic grammar either learn it, use a grammar checker or ask someone you trust to read it.

Essential aids are a dictionary and a thesaurus. Repeating the same word or phrase too many times becomes boring. We all have our favourite words that we tend to over-use.

Copy, according the the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is material for a newspaper or magazine article or the text of an advertisement. So copy writers are people who specialise in writing advertisements.

Bending rules of grammar

Writing for the Internet is more informal than that used in printed media, but words spelled wrongly still stand out and although some rules of grammar can be bent, they shouldn't be completely broken. Badly written copy is a turn-off and will rejected by many potential customers

Reading from the screen is more demanding than reading from the printed page. To assist the reader, paragraphs should be kept short with clear space between as in this report. Sentences should be of varied length so as to maintain interest and prevent boredom. To this end it is permissible to begin a sentence with words that are taboo elsewhere, like 'but', 'and', 'or', or any other word that makes sense and seems reasonable at the time. This adds emphasis and often helps the flow.

Please your reader

Some words give a warm glow to the reader, others turn them off. Words like free, amazing, great, good, profit, easy, bonus and so on are good, and it's not hard to see why; they all promise something. Whereas words like difficult, pay, cost, loss, are not good; they all depict the down side.

People reading your ads are looking for information and how the product can benefit them. Write as though you're writing directly to the customer and use 'you' and 'yours' a lot. Try to get the customer to identify with the product.

Potential customers typically click on to a sales page looking for clear information; what can this product can do for them, so put the greatest advantage or selling point right up there at the top of the page, where it must be seen.

Use of coloured fonts and boxes, together with relevant graphics can all make a sales page interesting to look at and read, but please don't make it boringly long as so many of the "top copywriters" do. And be sparing with those tables of potential earnings that are so hard to read and harder to believe.

Above all, fill your copy with good information; alter it and repeat important points if you like; people often don't take stuff in the first time. Then make sure that you state the price clearly near the end, offer ways to pay and offer a guarantee. Most companies that will accept payment for you insist on a guarantee being given anyway.

Finally, when you're looking at ad pages, check out those that impress you the most and ask yourself why you like it. Personally, if I click on a page that is three feet long with loads of garish fonts and filed with buzzwords like 'jaw-dropping', 'no-brainer' and 'mega', I find out what the product does then zoom down to the end to see the price. Usually by that time I've lost interest anyway.