If you want to grow your business online, what is the one thing you need the most?
Attention.
And for most businesses, they jump right into posting content without considering how social media is a game of inches. Small tweaks. Small iterations in the messaging of your copy-writing can trigger massive improvements in generating attention online and then converting into higher profitability.
Copywriting is one of the most important aspects of advertising. Every business writes online, but not every business copywrites.
Copywriting establishes trust, authority, builds relationships, and gets people talking, sharing, and buying.
Legendary ad man David Ogilvy once said,
“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”
This one picture made me realize how bad I was at copywriting. Then it made me a much better copywriter.
Tighten up your prose with Hemingwayapp.com. 'The Hemingway Editor cuts the dead weight from your writing. It highlights wordy sentences in yellow and more egregious ones in red.'
Thanks Mark for showing me this tool.
The Three Core Components To Good Copywriting
The Concept
The Tone and Voice
The Assembly
☞ The 'Concept' is the idea behind the copy. The intention. It could be the headline for a Facebook Ad, a Tweet, a press release, or a blog.
☞ Tone and Voice 'Reflect your attitude about your audience. Voice is who the audience hear talking in your writing, and tone is the way in which you are doing the writing.'
"Copy is not written. Copy is assembled.” –Eugene Schwartz
☞ The Assembly is where the magic happens. The assembly is a process for iterating your copy to be the most succinct and informative. It requires small tweaks to the wording and phrasing. It's about re-packing your copy's Concept to be most interesting to the reader.
Harry Dry created the @GoodMarketingHQ Twitter account. "The finest real world marketing examples" as the bio says.
One of his tweets showed a side-by-side comparison of a small tweak to a Facebook Ad copy. It represents the Assembly process in copywriting well.
The concept behind the Ad copy didn't change.
The relatability behind the brand's tone and voice didn't change.
But the way the information was packaged was altered.
Here's how David Perell summarizes business-writing.
Twitter is an amazing platform for learning copywriting. Twitter users try to pack as much relatable information as they can, but they only have 280 characters to do it.
Matthew Kobach (Director of Social for the New York Stock Exchange) once said,
"The first 'line' of a tweet is a sales pitch to get the reader to read the rest of the tweet."
His statement rings true for the Ad world. The first line of your Ad copy is the sales pitch to get your audience to read the rest of your Ad.
Rule Of Thumb For Writing In The Future
Place yourself in the position of the audience. Be extra skeptical. Would you read the entire tweet? Would you read the entire copy? Would this copy keep you from scrolling?
If not, maybe there's some small tweaks that you can make.
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