How to Write Ad Copy that Sells
November 27, 2006
When I write copy for my advertising clients, I always check to make sure the three key elements are in place. 1. psychology, 2. logic, and 3. creativity. These are three very different aspects of ad writing, which, when combined, produce a highly effective message. Master the technique of each, and create ads that really sell!
It doesn’t matter which part you address when. You can write out a first draft and then go back and insert the missing aspects, or you can craft your copy piece by piece and then put it all together at the end. For the most part, I tend to piece together my message, but you can work however you’d like.
Advertising wouldn’t be advertising without psychology. How else would you persuade or convince people that your product is outstanding in its category? What other way is there to go about creating a need for what you sell? Persuasion relies on emotional appeal, and emotions are driven by our psychological make-up. A long time ago, someone thought up the AIDA method, which is good enough to serve my purpose in explaining the psychology of advertising. It’s really very simple. A.I.D.A. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
Getting Looked Over, Without Getting Overlooked: Writing for Scanners and Skimmers
November 27, 2006
* Scanning and Skimming Practices *
Whether you’re writing e-mail messages or Web site sales letters, you need to know how to hold the attention of different types of readers. Even the readers that don’t actually “read.”
Most readers will either scan, skim, or both, especially when reading online or when reading long pieces. Optimizing the writing on your site for those who scan and those who skim isn’t extremely difficult, but it does require an attention to detail.
First, let’s take a look at what these terms mean. Scanning–involves looking for particular elements, such as headlines, subheadings, and text that is highlighted, bold-faced, or otherwise emphasized. Scanners read only the elements that “stick out,” their eyes moving from one attention-grabbing word or phrase to another.
Skimming–involves looking over the entire page but only superficially, like a speed-reader. Skimmers may see the same elements that scanners do, but they don’t focus that much on anything specific for very long. They glance over all of it, just trying to get the basic idea. Most readers do a combination of scanning and skimming. They might scan a page and find a headline that grabs their attention, then skim the paragraph beneath it. Only when they find something really interesting will they go back and read.
Article Queries That Sell
November 26, 2006
Queries are not written like business letters or emails; they are specifically designed to sell your articles.
Every query should be:
- Written for the appropriate market
- A fresh idea
- Skilfully presented
- Written in a competent style, and
- A good example of the writer’s research skills.
If your query starts with: …Please find enclosed an idea that I hope you’ll consider is suitable for your magazine…
What reaction do you think this will generate? Yes, a rejection slip. Why? Your letter was boring and didn’t grab the editor’s attention.
What I usually suggest to new writers is to write the article and then write the query. This has a twofold effect. First, you will know you can write the article, and second you can take information from the article to compile the query. When you become more experienced you can simply write the query and when it is accepted, write the whole article.
Here is a simple formula:
Dear (get the person’s name right)
Great Headline (Title)
Technical Writing for the Terrified
November 26, 2006
Introduction
Sometimes it may be beyond a companies or individuals budget to hire a professional writer to address their technical documentation. Although in an ideal world all technical documentation should be produced by a highly trained expert, unfortunately we do not live in an ideal. In the same way that many people will attempt to repair their own home appliances, many people will attempt to write quality technical documents. Just as fiddling with a toaster can result in electrocution, attempting to write technical documents from scratch without prior advice will ultimately result in failure. As a rough rule of thumb you should always seek to employ a specialist, but if for whatever reason you can’t and you are the poor unfortunate that has had documentation duties foisted on them, don’t despair. This brief guide outlines some of the core skills you will need to bring to your writing, technical conventions to be aware of, software packages you can consider, and definite things to avoid. Hopefully even if you have never written a sentence in your life about anything vaguely technical you will have at the very least, a broader picture of what technical writing entails.
What is Technical Writing?
How To Identify Your Own Style Of Writing
November 26, 2006
This article is to help identify which style, technique or strategy of writing that one may use. I will also help to understand the method in the way a writer writes and help in determinining which aproach may suite your needs.
I hope that this information will help all to become more effective in writing to help suite the needs of the reader as well as the writer by identifying which style is best for both parties.
Architectural strategy
Writing which comes ‘out of an architectural drawing of the thing you are doing’ no such dismissiveness is intended here. Academic writers in a study who used this very common plan-write-edit strategy reported that they consciously chose their writing strategies.
These writers were less likely than others to see writing as a way of thinking. In these respects these writers tended to be Planners. While most writers agreed that they wrote better when concentrating on the topic rather than on the way they were writing.
Architectural Writers showed an implicit awareness of the role of the unconscious as they exhibited the strongest tendency amongst all groups to think that it helped to leave their evolving texts and to return to them later.
Writing Helpful Help ? A Minimalism Checklist
November 25, 2006
User documentation is all too often written by programmers for programmers. It tends to focus on the product’s features, rather than the user’s tasks. Generally, programmers aren’t in the ideal position to be writing user documentation. They’re too close to the bits and bytes, and they’re too far from the user. To them, what the product can do tends to be far more important than what the user can do with the product.
It’s a subtle ? but vital ? distinction. Research shows that the key to effective user documentation is writing task oriented help. Even better, write your help according to the minimalist theory. In the documentation world, "minimalism" is a fancy word for a commonsense practice. In basic terms, it means write to your reader and keep it simple.
The theory itself has a lot of twists and turns. If you want to read a great ? but slightly wordy ? book on the subject, check out the book "Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel", 1998, edited by John Carroll.
In the meantime, if you can tick every item in the following checklist, you’ll be well on your way to usable online help that both your readers and your managers will thank you for.
What Makes a Freelance Article Writer Successful?
November 25, 2006
Knowing exactly what an editor wants.
Unfortunately, many new writers struggle with finding ideas and when they do get one, don’t know exactly what to do with it.
New writers turn their ideas into articles and send them to newspapers and magazines hoping editors will buy them. In some cases, articles are published without writers knowing they have been accepted. And, payment is never received. This is definitely not the right way to become a well-published freelance writer. How can you write an article if you don’t know what the publication wants? That’s just a waste of time.
Research is the key.
Research the publication first. Find out what type of articles it is accepting and dissect the articles thoroughly. You need to know everything about the magazine and its articles. Who the editors are, how to submit articles, whether queries are required, article word count, style, tone, number of quotes used. There’s an art to publication research, but it isn’t difficult.
Articles must fit a particular magazine’s house style if you want to be published — It’s that simple.
Working on the Internet: Role of Proofreading and Copy editing OnLine
November 25, 2006
When one is in a creative state, rarely can one also be in a detail state. Thus, mistakes in correct grammar, spelling and continuity of all details, may happen. Also, proofreading our own work can be very difficult, for all of us. This is because the same mental processes that went into composition are the ones we use to correct our work. Hence, so many websites are launched every year but so many of them fail to work perfectly as these sites have not been tested with a Proofreader’s fresh eyes and impartial knowledge of English.
Proofreading and Copyediting process involves reading the content for english grammar, spelling, story, flow and understandability. It also involves checking consistency in visual design, testing links, and ensuring accurate reading. Let us now discuss about some points for Proofreading and Editing Websites and Online Documents.
Tips for Editing Websites and Online Documents:
1) Create consistent text formatting:
Check whether the overall “look” of text on a page presents any obvious problems with various common fonts and type sizes. At this stage of the process, basic HTML skills are very valuable to the online editor in order to go into the HTML document and make minor changes directly , if required.
Power Writing 101: Tips and Tricks to Get You Taken Seriously!
November 24, 2006
In my ten years as an advertiser, I’ve encountered plenty of folks with a flair for writing. They were born having some idea of where to put the words within the sentence, and the sentences within the paragraph. They usually know what words to use ? when to say ‘bloom’ instead of ‘grow,’ or ‘confused’ instead of ‘befuddled.’
But having a flair doesn’t make them an expert in the field.
I’m an expert ad copywriter. But I can’t write a journalistic piece to save my life. I have no experience in this area, and it’s just not my bag. So I happily leave this task to the reporters. Likewise, a retailer, marketer or salesperson should leave the writing to the writer. Yet they seldom do.
A copywriter is forever trying to explain why he inserted a word where he did, or why he chose one expression over another. Frequently, a client or employer takes a writer’s carefully constructed piece and turns it into a wordgarbage wasteland. An atrocity… of verbosity!
10 Sure Fire Ways To Get More Ezine Subscribers
November 24, 2006
1. Place testimonials for your ezine on your site.
Your testimonials will help you to increase your circulation by showing your visitors how your ezine has helped your subscribers.
2. Give your visitors the chance to see what your ezine is all about before subscribing.
For instance, you could provide an archive of your past issues on your site or you could make a sample issue available by autoresponder.
3. Write articles.
Your articles will increase your subscriptions by showing people that are unfamiliar with your ezine what kind of valuable content they can expect from you.
Promote your articles by submitting them to article directories, article announcement lists, and also to ezine publishers directly.
4. Swap articles with other ezine publishers and webmasters.
Publish other ezine publishers’ articles in your ezine in exchange for those publishers running your articles in their ezines.
This can help you to successfully increase your subs by getting your articles run in targeted ezines on a regular basis.
You can also participate in ad swaps where you post other publishers’ or webmasters articles on your site in exchange for them doing the same for you.
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