| |
| |
|
Copywriting Information |
|
|
|
Creative Copywriting?
There is a difference between creative writing and copywriting. It took me a while to come to terms with this but it's true, there is a difference. When I first started my home based business on the Internet I read a lot of advice about publishing articles and doing copywriting to advertise your website. There was always a distinction drawn between copywriting and creative writing. I did not understand this: surely copywriting is creative? Eventually the logic dawned on me: all copywriting is creative writing but not all creative writers can write decent ad copy. If you have never studied that particular branch of philosophy, it's like all roses are flowers but not all flowers are roses. When I came to understand this difference, it explained for me the reason why I can write at length on any subject (stopping is the hard part) but tell me I need to write an advertisement and I go all bashful and tongue-tied. Give me a subject or, indeed, no subject at all -- just a blank page is sufficient to set me going and I'll hammer away at the keyboard until... Until when? Actually, I never really stop, just pause from time to time. Advertising copy is a different matter. I can sit for ages resisting the lure of the blank page if I know that what I need to do is copywriting to use for advertising. This inability to write ad copy caused me problems because I wanted to advertise my home based business and various individual affiliate programmes. Plenty of pre-written ads come with most decent affiliate programmes and it is an easy matter to copy and paste these but I wanted to use fresh material instead of advertisements that everyone had seen a hundred times before. I blame my inability to write advertising copy on my upbringing: modesty and understatement were encouraged and boastfulness was the eleventh deadly sin. It seemed to me that writing advertisements for myself was akin to bragging. Eventually, I overcame my distaste for self-proclamation and tried my hand at some copywriting. When I compared my efforts with the pre-written ads, it was obvious that something was absent. My advertisements were dull and flat, uninspired and uninspiring. Then I discovered the secret: copywriting is a craft not an art. It is has rules which need to be learnt and practised. A course of online copywriting lessons was not hard to come by. In fact, I ended up reading several such courses on the good old Information Highway. Rules are fine, I have a good memory. Examples are not hard to come by and it was easy to make a collection of snippets from the copywriting courses. I learnt about the importance of writing an attention grabbing headline. I can manage that, there are plenty of examples to borrow. I got to grips with selecting buzz words such as amazing, customised, effortless, excellent and, the best one of all -- free. So far so good. Use sentence fragments -- not so keen on that idea but, when you think about it, that's how conversation goes in real life, so I'll do it. Sell the sizzle not the steak --yeah, I get it. Offer benefits, not features --yeah, yeah, I can do that. Things started to look better and better as I became familiar with the rules and I began to daydream about becoming a copywriter (like in the film "The Guys" with that nice Anthony La Paglia). My daydream ended abruptly when I found there was one rule of English grammar I could not bring myself to break. The very thought made me shudder and give up any idea of a copywriting career. I can cope with all the fragments, buzzes and sizzles. But I could never begin a sentence with "and". This is one of a series of articles published by the author, Elaine Currie, BA(Hons)at http://www.huntingvenus.comThe author's monthly newsletter is available free from mailto:networkerhvm@ReportsNetwork.comYou may republish this article only in its entirety and with all hyperlinks intact.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Buy My Book for $27 and Ill Give You Bonuses Worth a Gazillion Dollars! Subhead.. Copywriter Trick Unveiled: How to Write Better Copy Faster "Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book. Website Advertising: 10 Tactics To Make Your Ad Copy More Impactful If your ad is not generating a lot of sales, the reason may be because it is not effective.Here are secret website advertising tactics to make it more impactful and therefore generate more orders:1. The Truth About Negative Commands (Dont Read This!) Everyday when I read promotional emails and advertisements, or listen to television commercials and dialogue in shows and movies, or hear people around me in everyday life use commands such as the following examples, I feel dismayed for them.This is because I understand something that many others do NOT!And, since learning what I now understand, while I am BOMBARDED every day from all directions with commands like those listed below, in all their variations, I feel worse and worse for not speaking up!I feel especially badly for all those advertisers out there who are ignorant about this, because I also realize they are often sincerely excited about what they are sharing and are working very hard to attract the attention of others. How to Write a Sizzling Sales Letter, Part 1 When you sit down to write a sales letter to your prospects, it can be difficult to know just where to start. Regardless of the purpose of your letter, it has to accomplish several things:capture the attention of the readerspeak to the reader's individual needsgive good reasons why your prospect can trust youcommunicate your offer succinctly and clearlyencourage your prospect to act nowAnd furthermore, it has to have sizzle. 10 Tips for Writing Web Copy One of the most important aspects of a website today is the webcopy - sometimes called the sales letter.In days gone bye, banners and graphics were all important but now it's the words that do the selling. Writing Tips for Your Website Now that your website is up and running, it's time to add content. Fresh content will make your site interesting and keep people (and search engine crawlers) coming back. What Is Persuasive Copywriting And How Can It Help Your Business? Persuasive copywriting is what draws the attention of prospective customers. They see your product and are drawn it. Copywriting and Your Five Senses In its most basic form, copywriting is, among other things, the art of conveying a message in writing for the purpose of persuading someone to do something. This is especially true when writing descriptive copy. Organizing Your Data to Write Better Copy Last quarter I talked about interviewing / gathering data. So now you've got several thousand words of notes, hopefully digitally recorded. Writing Suitable Copy for the Press Summer is finally here and school is out, but learning for the rest of us continues. Whether you're a seasoned PR professional working for a top agency, a novice just beginning a career, or a mid-level manager working in-house at a small business, the time comes when we all could use a refresher course in properly writing suitable copy for the press. Prevent Procrastination With Positive Pressure My wife and I recently bought a house.It's currently being built and moving day is slated for December. How to Write Adverts that Forces People to Respond Think for a moment some day and consider the kind of advertising you see in your post box, on the TV, on your computer, on the radio, etc. Then ask yourself this question, "Would I buy this or not?" If you say "No," then ask yourself why. Want a Sticky Site That Sells? Forget Content! An interesting debate is currently raging among copywriters, web designers and content developers about the differences, if any, between writing copy for the web versus writing content.According to prolific copywriter Nick Usborne of ClickZ. Copywriting 101: Exclamation Point, Friend or Foe? My name is Ann and I'm a grammar geek. There, it's out and I'm relieved. Copywriting Makeover: Making An Emotional Connection - Part 1 of 2 One statistic shows that over 80% of all buying decisions are emotional. That means your copywriting should be, too. Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy - 4 Steps to More Sales You've identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers?Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your customers (http://www.divinewrite. Copywriter Rates, Getting The Facts Beforehand Have you ever had the experience of hiring a freelance copy writer only to find that the project takes longer than expected, or that the fees they offered are 'flexible' in the wrong way for you to benefit. There is no doubt that copywriter rates differ greatly from one to another. Four Simple Steps to Improve Your Sales Copy You know what it's like, you're reading the sales material about a product you're considering buying, but, as you read, all these questions seem to pop into your mind, but there's no-one there to answer them, so you shelve your plans to purchase.If it happens to you, you can guarantee it also happens to your customers when they read your sales copy. The Biggest Mistake Copywriters Make Most of the sales pieces people ask me to rewrite seem to offer great products and services. In fact, some of their offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down.
|
| home | site map | ZLX.com Index Page |
| © 2010 |
