Imagine Your Reality

This week’s radio show is a half hour show about books I’ve been reading and how applicable they are to business, marketing, and related topics. Next week’s show is with Feroshia Knight from the Baraka Institute.

For today’s newsletter, I want to focus on the importance of good copy for your writing. What I do mean by copy? Copy is a specific type of writing. When you read a magazine ad, you are reading copy writing. When you got a website and see the sales writing on the site, that’s copy writing.

For both business and writers, copy writing is an essential element of your marketing. It not only informs, but it also persuades. Good copy writing expresses why someone should want to buy your product or service, but it isn’t too pushy or over the top. In fact, what I frequently observe of bad copy writing is that it tends to exaggerate the benefits that someone will get by buying a particualr product or service. Bad copywriting is like a bad salesman…it oversells the product or service.

So what makes good copy?

Writing which is coherent and to the point. It should state the case for the service or product without condescension or exaggeration. It should offer a description of what the service or product is as well as a list of benefits the person will obtain from said service or product. It should be short and to the point.

For writers, one of the best ways to learn how to write copy is read the back cover blurbs of books you enjoy reading. You’ll note that that they have a very limited space. They have to be able to offer a summary and description of what the book is about (and in some cases how the reader will benefit from reading the book) in a few paragraphs and perhaps a bulleted list of selling points. The backcover blurb is a concise statement that either convinces someone to read the book or put it back on the shelf.

Inevitably whether you are a writer or business owner you will have to write copy. Even if you write up a workshop description, you are writing copy. It is important to learn how to write effective copy. While I’ve mentioned looking at and/or practicing writing a backcover blurb for a book, here’s another exercise to try:

If you enjoy going to conventions or simply know someone who is offering workshops, take a look at the workshop description, and while reading it, pay attention to your emotional response. If your response is one of disinterest or reluctance, ask yourself what about the writing makes you feel that way. If your response is one of interest or enthusiasm again ask yourself what made you respond that way. Copy writing ultimately focuses on appealing to the emotions of a person. The goal is to make a person want to buy or attend something and the way to do that is to appeal to the emotions of a person. By reading the copy that other people have written you can learn about what styles work and don’t work.

The next step is to actually start writing copy. When yo uwrite copy, don’t copy and paste from what other people have written. Sit down and write it out and then test it on a few people. If they don’t find it interesting, test it one a few more and if the response is the same, revise the copy and try again. You’ll quickly get a handle on writing copy and a as a result will get people interested in what you have to offer.