This week I was speaking at the Non-profit Innovation and Optimization Summit (NIO Summit) in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s run by the amazing team behind Next After whose aim is to help non-profits attract and convert more donors by ‘turning the web into a living laboratory.’ Next After invest in a lot of research and […]
How to Kill Ambiguous Copywriting with 2 questions
A critical habit was drummed into me long before I knew I’d use it in pretty much ever aspect of my copywriting career. At school, English was by far my favourite subject, and even though I’d hope each assignment would pass with flying colours, it was the ones that needed work where I learnt the […]
Why I Prefer a Customer Monologue to a Customer Profile
When you struggle to write copy that connects you can feel it. You might not be able to put your finger on what it is, but you know it feels out of sorts. Like wearing ill-fitting clothes. You might be able to force it, but it won’t be pretty (or comfortable). Your copy should be […]
“The Workaround”: An alternative to pushy sales copy
Few people I know enjoy a hard sell. When someone is pushy, it’s easy to zone out because you’re not part of the conversation. There’s no listening, just someone telling you what to do. But I see and understand this from the other side. When you are so steeped in your product, it can feel […]
Have Your Copywriting ‘Best Practices’ Become Outdated Sneaky Tricks?
Last week I wrote about the customer disconnect, which happens when our copywriting focuses on what we want prospects to do and forgets why they would want to take that action. I want to share with you an experience I had firsthand when I realised the copy on the pages there to trick me into becoming a lead, and not […]
Does Your Copywriting Fail to Engage? Learn from Lego and ‘Camp With Consumers’
Copywriting is only persuasive if it makes a meaningful connection with prospects. This means seeing the world from their point-of-view and writing copy that reflects this. Unfortunately sometimes we focus too much on what we want people to do and not why they would want to do it. When this happen, you get what I call a ‘Customer […]
Does Your Copy Show Customers The Path of Least Resistance?
This week I’m in Fort Worth, Texas, after speaking at the NIOSummit: the Non-Profit Innovation and Optimisation Summit. Its purpose is to help non-profits use digital marketing, psychology and copywriting to help them connect with donors. It was an inspirational event. I love helping companies reach their target market, and to be in a room […]
Is your copy competitive or a commodity? Take the library book test…
Every now and then I find myself having the same frustration in my local library. I volunteer as part of their home delivery service, taking books to people who are housebound or find it difficult to get to the library. It’s a fantastic service, I love meeting my clients, getting to know their tastes and […]
The Right Tone-of-Voice = Not Sounding Like This Snarky Advert
I don’t know whether the world is getting meaner, or copywriters are looking for new ways to make the target market listen, but I’m noticing more adverts using a little ‘snark’ to get the message across. I passed this one today on my walk to work (sorry for the reflection): It reminded me of this copywriting […]
From Soothing to Insulting – 2 Adverts With Very Different Copywriting Styles
As most people reading magazines, I flip through the adverts to get to the good stuff. In this month’s edition of Glamour I was of course looking for an article that would help me perfect my brows, style, my liquid eye-line skills and most other make-up related things I struggle with. But this advert caught my […]
