On Wednesday 10th March, Custard was invited to present a workshop on writing persuasive copy for Off To Work‘s Event School 2013.
There is nothing more satisfying than delving into your mind to resurrect what comes naturally and spill out your thoughts into a presentation.
Sophie and I relished the challenge to talk all things copy and to reinforce the power of the written word to delegates from the event industry. From explaining why copywriting is now more important than ever, through to using emotion to sale your product or service, we delivered a two-hour workshop to help bring copy back to the forefront of marketing.
So why does copy matter so much and why is it so important to get it right? In simple terms, what you write says everything about you and your company, it conveys your brand personality and enables you to connect with your target audience, captivating, inspiring and compelling them to engage.
When you write copy you want to provoke an immediate, emotional response to capture the attention of your customers and stand out from your competitors – all of this from the structure and deliverance of words. It’s therefore important to invest time in writing good copy and as a result, we thought we would share our tips and expertise with you over the next few issues of our newsletter.
In this issue we share our essentials of good copywriting.
• Know your audience – research your customers
• Explain how your product or service benefits the reader
• Help vs. sell – remember you are building trust
• Demonstrate credibility – back up claims with facts and proof
• Make a promise to the reader and keep it
• Make the headline pop!
• Keep it lean, scrub it clean – check grammar and spelling
• Recycle, re-purpose, reissue – ask yourself “what else?”
• Your agenda may not match your customer’s on any given day
• Rewrite a single message in multiple ways
In the next issue we will tackle construction – how to structure your copy for maximum effect.
By Petra Clayton, managing director, Custard Communications
