Bare necessities for a well dressed copy
What is copywriting? Well to give you a head start on it in a simple manner – ‘Copywriting is the art of creating a valuable piece of information in order to publicise or promote a brand, idea, concept or a person.’ But is it everyone’s forte? No. In order to be a good copywriter, one needs to follow certain ground rules. But then again one must know how to manipulate those rules in ones favor. Here are a few tips in order to get eyes stuck to your copy.
1. Know your audience – Does a copywriter write for himself? If your answer is yes, you had better get your facts right. Besides you, there are thousands who would have to actually pay heed to your ad. So you need to know who you’re talking to. Imagine a sales agent pitching his product in the middle of the street to a homeless pauper! Insane, isn’t it? So rather than being defensive as to how great a copy you wrote, ponder upon the fact that the actual judges to decide are out having a cup of tea, catching a flick at a theatre, eating some grub at a restaurant, glued to the television, working continuously, sleeping soundly in bed and so on. If you can trigger their instincts and preferences at first, well you got almost half your job done. So before you write something, ask yourself one question, ‘Would I read this?’
2. Keep it short – Remember it maybe your job to create a good copy, but it’s not the audience job to read it. No one has the patience to wile away their cherished minutes to read about something someone has to say. So the trick here is to keep it as short as possible. What line would you prefer to read while driving? A line that says – ‘Please do not drive fast as there are people commuting and it may lead to fatal accidents’ or ‘Go Slow’? Obviously the latter right. Well millions of others would also think likewise. So just before your instinct tells you to go about and explain your copy vividly, don’t. Because chances are the opposite person might not lend a listening ear.
3. Keep it long – You may want to get of that chair of yours and hunt down the guy who wrote this right? I am well aware of the fact that I did say to always keep your copy short and you may wonder as to why am I contradicting myself? F.Y.I., I am not sipping on mohitos in the Caribbean while I write this. But it’s not always that a copy should be short, because at times detailed information becomes essential. Imagine your clueless mind after reading an ad in the tabloids that say – ‘Need Help’. For who? What? And when? But if you read an ad that said – ‘Poor children need your financial help for their education as their parents are jobless’. Okay now you got yourself a painted picture, and if necessary, you may want to act upon it.
4. Mind your language – Besides being one of the points in this article, it also is the name of a famous British soap opera of the 70’s. You may even want to consider catching a few episodes as it could provide some simple and basic but great insights as to how should one read, write or speak. You wouldn’t want your audience to take offence to what you say and in the process compromise on your ad sale now, would you? Certain words, statements, remarks or comments tend to rub people the wrong way and hence it becomes vital to be aware of what you would want to say. People’s sentiments are as fragile as the head of a new born. Damage can be caused if not handled with care and concern. Your choice of words will call the shots as to whether the one reading is bowled over by it and would want to glue their eyes to that page. It should make them want to leave everything that they were doing at that moment and first act accordingly. Sometimes a common word used daily, like ‘Notice’ still does grab the attention of everyone. A line that says – ‘I am eating a pizza’ does not trigger your taste buds. But how about a line that says – ‘I am lying on my couch peacefully binging on a large sized macaroni with extra cheese pizza, topped with salami slices, accompanied with oregano and chilly flakes and a chilled Pepsi alongside’. Now you want to pick up your phone and call for a pizza, don’t you? Words can create or destroy brands and personalities.
5. Keep a child in mind – As you may know that the attention span of a child (in minutes) is about his age. So if you’re speaking to a 5 year old toddler, you would have to grab his attention with whatever you have to say in 5 minutes flat. This point should be kept in mind in most scenarios, if not all, as it would help you to give a more detailed or simpler version of your product and spare your audience from pulling their hair strands out and banging their heads on walls! As you would lure a child into listening to you, with a lollipop, you have to chalk out ways to get the audience to pay attention to you like an obedient child.
6. Making the complex simple and the simple complex – No I am not trying to frustrate you by these points as they are important insights to creating a great copy. One must learn the art of creating a complex line from a simple one or a simple line from one that is complex. Based on the kind of people you are directing your copy towards you must understand how to alter your lines. This would again re-emphasize the very first point. Decorating your copy is like lighting up a wedding – the better the work done the better the outcome. One should keep in mind that every copy is not for the same person as it varies all the time. Hence the tone, flow and vocabulary of your copy should also complement the brand it is written for.
Copywriting is an infinite concept that never ends. Only fools are know-it-alls. Just when you think you have learnt everything there is to know about copywriting, you might want to reconsider. The most important thing to do in order to create better copies is just one word – WRITE! The more you do, the more you’ll learn. To you this may seem the end of an article. To me, it’s just the beginning.
