Copy Creation

Does anyone really listen to (or like) someone who only ever bangs on about how wonderful they are?

Of course not.

But, amazingly some websites effectively do that, they are completely self-obsessed and very tiresome as a result. Therefore the website does the exact opposite of what they were intended to do – they drive people away.

The simple truth is that all marketing communication needs to be audience-orientated, both in terms of visual and written content. And if you really understand your audience, knowing what interests, excites and motivates them, you’ll find it far easier to create engaging copy that they will respond to positively.

You need know how they might behave (and how you’d like them to behave) and write appropriate copy as a consequence. It’s just common sense.

Anyone can write copy, can’t they?

Well no, not really. Everyone wants to deal with people who are really easy to understand and get along with. Clarity is king. This is not as easy as it sounds, as it takes a lot of experience and know-how to make copy precise and engaging.

To establish trust (the most vital component in any commercial relationship) your brand needs to be consistent and have a recognizable tone-of-voice in all marketing materials. That means the ‘brand’ has to speak in one voice – rather than a mix of styles and intonations, or in impenetrable ‘marketing-speak’. Think about any successful household brand, the personality of that brand shines through. You could have that too.

You also have to think of the ‘hierarchy of messages’, delivering information in a measured way is very important. There’s an old analogy in the agency world – throw someone a tennis ball and they will catch it, throw them ten and they’ll catch none of them.

Some clients say, “Let’s just have bullet points, nobody really reads the text…”.

Well, they couldn’t be more wrong. Bullet points have their place, but if a brand can’t present itself in a coherent and interesting fashion then the audience could be forgiven for thinking that any on-going relationship would that brand would be a little more painful than it could/should be.

The simple message is this – when it comes to copy, good enough is never good enough. Invest in your copy content, it’s a valuable weapon.