Copy Unlimited blog » Copywriting

Seven simple ways to stand out from the crowd

Kevin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 06:00:02 +0000

Being different is easier than you think (but don’t tell anybody).

“Come again, this time in plain English?” said my poor baffled client.

The biz-speak had escaped my lips before I’d even realised.

You operate in a commoditised market place, I’d said.

He hadn’t taken offence. For comprehension precedes offence-taking, and we hadn’t even got to that initial stage.

So much for talking like you write.

“People can’t tell your stuff from other people’s stuff,” I translated. “To them, it’s all just stuff. You think it’s different, but they don’t.”

“But I don’t sell stuff,” he said pointedly, as if talking to a very slow learner, “we’re a service company.”

“Like I said – stuff,” I replied, though rather less pointedly.

And then I explained why his services are no different to a box of cornflakes.

Checking out the checkouts

Where do you shop?

Me, I’m a Tesco man. Why?

Because they check 1,000 prices every week so I don’t have to. And because their own-brand cornflakes – and bran flakes and chocolate-coated flakes with extra Type-2-diabetes-inducing sugar levels – are made by the same manufacturer as Asda’s, and Sainsbury’s and Waitrose’s.

They’re commodities. The only difference is packaging and price. Except the prices are the same nowadays, so it’s down to the packaging – which is more than just the box.

In the consumer’s mind, the difference is the look, the feel, the experience, the service, the story they tell themselves.

Because there’s always a story.

Successful established types shop at Waitrose. Sainsbury’s is for upwardly mobile professionals. Asda is for the cost-conscious lower-income bracket.

Cornflakes, cornflakes, cornflakes.

The only thing that matters is what you put on top of them.

Snap, crackle and pop

In a busy, competitive, crowded market place, you’ve got to stand out. You’ve got to have an angle, a story, a way into the customer’s imagination.

Or in other words, your cornflakes have to taste better than the next person’s, even if they’re essentially the same.

So how do you set yourself up as a cereal entrepreneur?

Be different, though not so different that you’re filed away in the prospect’s mind as too specialised, too expensive or too eccentric. See what everybody else is saying, and take a different line. Tell your story in a left-of-field way that makes people sit up and take notice.
Be a mind-reader – which is actually easier than it sounds. It’s just another way of saying ‘think like a reader’. What are they looking for? What problem are you solving? What frame of mind are they in? What signals will they respond to?
Be brutal – with yourself. Cut the waffle, reduce your ‘About Us’ web page to a couple of paragraphs, lose the company history. Stop gazing at your navel, and remember the plight of your prospect.
Be realistic and honest. Don’t say you’ll deliver by midday tomorrow if you can’t. Don’t say you respond to emails within two hours, if that puts you under pressure. Don’t guarantee satisfaction unless you’re prepared to go all the way. Talk is cheap – until you have to pick up the pieces, and then it becomes very expensive indeed. Not delivering on a promise is twice as bad as not making it in the first place, as the client tumbles from positive, to neutral, to negative on the satisfaction graph.
Be human. “I can’t put that into the bio,” said a client to me recently. He was referring to his first startup, aged eight: a gardening service for the horticulturally challenged. To him, it was embarrassing. To me, it showed a human side – a sweet little kid, moving, clipping and weeding – a world away from his rapidly expanding company in the City. But it was a way in for readers of his bio. It showed he was approachable, adaptable, friendly, helpful and not afraid to show his human side.
Be funny. Remember that joke you told at the party that broke the ice? The one that gave you a warm, fuzzy feeling and an instant connection with your new best friend? You can use the same approach in business copy. Avoid dodgy humour and salacious stories, though. Instead, show that you’re not afraid to laugh – or at least, smile – at your own expense. It’s all part of being human (see last point).
Be distinctive. Find a writing voice that speaks to people. Read aloud what you’ve written, because that’s how they’ll hear it in their head. If it sounds stilted and stuffy, that’s because it is. Try again. And if putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard causes you to lose your voice, try recording yourself instead. Do a sales pitch. Chat to an imaginary prospect. (Closing your eyes helps.) Now transcribe and watch the magic unfold on the page.

The bad news is that in a commoditised market place, it’s harder to stand out. The good news is that most people don’t make the effort. And the even better news is that it’s really not that difficult.

With a bit of thought, planning and effort, you’ll be fresher, crunchier and more appetising than everybody else.

It really is that simple – but keep it to yourself. Because if everybody’s different, nobody is.

Size really does matter

Kevin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:00:02 +0000

…or why shorter is better than longer, every time.

“I think we need more copy,” lamented a client a while back.

“No problem,” I said. “What is it that’s missing?”

“Nothing,” he said with a slight hint of confusion. “Nothing at all. It’s just that we need more. Because more is better, right?”

No prizes for guessing my response.

The idea that more is better has taken root largely because of all the arachnocentric babble that’s out there. Or put another way, copy written for search-engine spiders.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Search engines are important, and SEO-optimised copy is essential these days. But you can be optimised and concise – because quality trumps quantity every time.

And humanoids – your clients, my clients and clients in every galaxy out there – like quality and conciseness.

Trust me. They just do.

The long and the short of it

So cut it down and make it better. But how?

Halve it, improve it. Treat this one as a game: anything you can say in page, you can say in half a page. Anything you can say in half a page, you can say in a paragraph. You know that euphoric, out-of-control feeling when get when you’re slashing weeds with a machete? (Or is that just my weird fetish?) Well that’s the adrenaline rush you get when you slash what you write. So get slashing.
Try keeping everything ‘above the fold’ - a newspaper term that’s now been carried through to computers. Can you say everything you need to before people have to click the scroll bar or hit Page Down? (And remember, more and more people are browsing on mobile devices with smaller screens.)
Bullet-point it. Why? First, it’s less intimidating when you’re trying to write. Second, it helps you focus. Third, you can always expand it later if you need to.
Get to the point fast. Imagine you’re at somebody’s front door and they say you have 30 seconds to do your thing. What would you say in that precious half-minute? Lead with that.
Don’t be yourself – be them. Your reader, that is. Just because you write it doesn’t mean they’ll read it. Remember how you read? Well guess what? That’s how they read too – skipping, skimming, half-understanding, looking for pegs, stepping-stones and bite-sized chunks.
Keep it simple. When you’re writing, keep your sentences under control. Avoid too many subordinate clauses, and if you don’t know what they are, then count the number of commas in your sentence. More commas mean more subordinate clauses – which in turn means confusion.
Put it through the ‘why should they care?’ test. You’d be surprised how much copy is simply padding. Like cotton wool in a box around expensive jewels, it hides what you most want people to see. They don’t even register it in their rush to find the good stuff. So don’t hide the good stuff.

And when you’ve said what you’ve got to say, stop.

(See how satisfying it is? Second only to slashing weeds.)

Should you mention the competition?

Kevin — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:00:40 +0000

Venturing into enemy territory: risks, rewards and pitfalls

Many years ago, I worked for WordPerfect Corporation as a sales rep.

Day after day, I found myself talking to, presenting to and trying to convince large corporate customers that WP was the best choice for them.

And day after day, one question kept coming up: how it stacked up against Microsoft’s offerings.

The answer was pretty well.

This was before the days of suites, so it was WordPerfect going head to head with Word. And feature for feature, WordPerfect won hands down.

Except I wasn’t able to say that.

Head office had decreed that you couldn’t talk about the competition. Ever.

Partly, it was a psychology thing. Why bring them up if you don’t have to? And why get negative if you don’t have to?

And partly, it was a culture thing. WordPerfect was headquartered in Utah, and virtually everybody who worked there was a Mormon. So you rose above the fray, and turned the other cheek.

You may think it was a handicap. And sometimes, it was.

But on the whole, the approach worked well. We sales reps kept the moral high ground, showed our wares, always talked about the things we had that the competition didn’t (hint, hint) and left it at that.

And it worked – for a time.

Then, suites came onto the scene, WordPerfect was left behind, and the rest is history. Belatedly, they revoked the ban on mentioning the competition, but the company’s fate was sealed.

The future belonged to Microsoft. So I jumped ship and joined them.

“WordPerfect’s a bit of a religion,” I told the sales and marketing director at Microsoft who interviewed me.

“Don’t worry, ” he said. “We’re very good a converting people. And we burn the heretics…”

He broke off, paused for effect – and cracked a broad smile.

There and then, I embraced the faith.

Love thine enemy

So… mention or don’t mention? It’s something I’m often asked when I’m writing copy for clients.

It’s a simple enough question, but the answer is (you guessed it) complex.

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of mentioning the competition.

First, the pros:

It shows you know who they are.
You send out a message that you’re not scared of them.
You let people know you realise they have a choice.
You take the initiative and set the terms of the debate.
You get there first – and first impressions count.

Now the cons:

People might not know who the competition is – until you tell them.
You might sound defensive – or worse, offensive.
You could be tempted to use negative tactics, doing the competition down. And often, that shows you in a bad light, not them.

So as with most things, it’s a finely balanced choice. And one I was faced with a while back, when I looked at putting Google AdSense on my site.

As you may know, AdSense is context-sensitive advertising, which appears in a box on a blog or website. The ads are tailored to the content of the page, so they’re directly relevant to what people are reading about.

And when they click the ads, you get a percentage of the revenue.

But just look at my site. How many times do you see the words copywriter and copywriting?

Lots. So all the ads were for other copywriters.

Now some people I know actually do this. They’ll happily have competitive adverts sitting on their site, knowing that if they don’t win the business, at least they’ll win the advertising revenue.

Fair enough. I thought exactly the same.

But I also thought:

The ads are distracting.
It could end up cheapening the site.
People might think I’m mercenary, trying to squeeze every last penny out of them.
I’m not selling directly on the site, so ‘selling’ other copywriters gives the site a different feel.
It could plant a thought that wasn’t already there, because suggestion is incredibly powerful. (Try not to think of a white horse. See what I mean?).

So on balance, I dropped the idea.

Horses for courses

So what should you do? The answer depends on the context.

Take Budgens, the UK convenience store chain. They know they can’t really compete with the giants (Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Asda). But equally, they can’t ignore them.

So they selectively mention them. Walk around the store, and you’ll see Tesco price match on certain products. They’re directly mentioning their biggest competitor – and consequently their biggest threat.

But they’re doing it in a positive way. And that’s the key.

Now of course they don’t match on every price, because they can’t. But if they plant enough of those little cards around the store, they create the impression that they’re as good value as Tesco.

And that’s enough.

So take a leaf out of Budgens’ book. And some of the other clever companies out there, who know who they’re up against, and always come out fighting.

Be positive. Don’t say ‘unlike some companies…’ as it’s a negative proposition. Don’t denigrate the competition – it always leaves a bad taste in the mouth
Don’t be mealy-mouthed. If you mention the competition, mention them. Don’t resort to indirect references like ‘the leading brand’. It’s coy, and creates the impression of timidity at best, and dishonesty at worst.
Lead from the front. Find your USPs and trumpet them from the rooftops. Mention them again and again. If you can’t compete on price (and that’s a zero-sum game) compete on service, attitude, attention to detail, speed, range or something else that really sets you apart.
Say it without saying it. When Monarch Airlines lets you choose your seat without having to endure the ‘unseemly scrum’ at the gate, they’re indirectly mentioning their cheaper rivals easyJet and Ryanair. Monarch are more expensive, but the scrum is stressful and people realise that. So maybe the extra is a price worth paying.
Be confident and assertive. If you talk consistently about your strengths, you show purpose, determination and single-mindedness. If you keep the moral high ground, you show people you’re not insecure. And confidence sells.

So there you have it. As I said, simple question, complex answer.

But if somebody put a gun to my head – or worse, threatened to make me eat toast liberally smeared with Marmite – and asked me to come down on one side or the other, what would I do?

I’d say don’t mention the competition. Or at least, nor directly. A positive sell is always a positive experience.

And you can always mention without mentioning. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

Enough said.

How to write a press release in 7 easy steps

Kevin — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 06:00:18 +0000

Read all about it! (And they will, if you get it right.)

L was breathless.

“I need to get the news out!” she burbled. “How quickly can you knock out a press release?”

I took a deep breath and counted slowly backwards from five. Perhaps a bit too slowly.

“Kevin?” she said tentatively. “Are you there?”

I was, and I asked her what the momentous news was.

“Our new website’s live!” she said brightly, brimming over with the pride of a new mother. “It’s finally up and running. We’ve got to tell people.”

L is a friend first, and a client second. So I gave it to her straight, without the usual preamble and diplomatic tact.

New websites are not news. I don’t care how strong the labour pains have been, or how difficult the delivery. The newborn simply doesn’t merit a mention, because of one simple but brutal fact.

Nobody really cares.

Think you need a press release? Put yourself (as you always should) in the reader’s shoes, and ask yourself if a similar story, coming from another company, would attract your attention or interest.

See what I mean?

Writing a press release isn’t really all that complicated, if you follow a few simple steps.

1. Hook your reader

All great stories have a hook – and a press release is a story. It may be only a page long, but it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

So what’s the story?

Have you done something amazing? Launched a revolutionary product? Signed a big deal? Been given an award? Poached somebody from the competition?

Too often, press releases waffle and miss the point.To hit the mark, the press release needs to pass the Why should they care? test.

Make it very clear why this is important, and what it means to the reader (yes, that’s right – you’re turning features into benefits).

2. Create a strong headline

The very best press releases – like the very best books – grab readers immediately and don’t let them go.

And here’s how you do it:

Lead with the strongest angle on your story. Intrigue if you have to, but don’t tease. Make them want to find out more.
Use evocative language with strong descriptive words (major win, big success, significant victory).
Interpret the news for people, just like newspapers do. So Acme Widgets acquires major European widget network could be followed by a sub-heading that says Merger with Le Widget promises wider selection, faster delivery and lower prices.

Don’t forget to include keywords in your headline, as most press releases now appear on the web more than in print.

3. Structure your story

Under your headline, give the essential facts of the story in the opening paragraph.

In essence, it’s the elevator pitch. If somebody read only this paragraph, would they still have a pretty good idea what the story was about? If not, rework it until that’s the case.

Break up your press release with sub-headings & bullets, so it doesn’t look too daunting. Nothing puts off editors and readers like a sea of text with no pointers to guide the eye.

Vary the content, so you’re seamlessly blending facts, quotes, statistics and interpretation. If two parties are involved (you’ve hired somebody, merged with a company, signed a big deal) include quotes from both, but not one after the other.

Remember, variety makes for readability.

Follow a clear storyline, and don’t deviate from it. If you find yourself giving irrelevant facts, or veering off-course, stop and ask yourself what this has to do with the story.

4. Explain and simplify

Don’t assume that your readers are familiar with your company, history or positioning.

Drop in key facts with a light touch and link them to the story (‘Since its foundation in 1997, Acme has grown year-on-year by at least 25%. This latest acquisition will allow the company to continue that impressive growth.’)

Avoid jargon and buzzwords, especially if you’re writing for a general audience.

5. Remember that less is more

You’re sending the press release to busy editors. They’re writing for busy readers. Everybody’s attention span is reduced by email, social networking, text messages and on-screen discomfort.

So make it short, concise and abbreviated.

Kill your darlings and use simple, clear English. Write from the top down (as journalists do) so that if editors cut from the bottom up (as they invariably do) your story doesn’t suffer.

6. Wrap it up

All stories have an ending, and a press release is no different, so make sure it doesn’t fizzle out.

Create a clean, strong, confident ending. It could repeat why this news is important and set out the next steps. Or you could finish with a positive quote from you, your client or your new partner.

Just as in articles, some of the most effective and satisfying ends are ones that refer to the opening (thus ‘closing the circle’).

Lastly, give clear contact details, followed by a brief positioning overview of the company (‘Founded in 1997, Acme Widgets is the UK’s leading widget manufacturer. It provides comprehensive widget solutions for some of the top FTSE 100 companies…’) together with key figures and USPs.

7. And finally…

When you’re happy that the press release is attention-grabbing, relevant, well structured, sparingly written and pleasingly finished, stop.

Yes, that’s right.

Stop.

Don’t send it yet. Instead, do something else (a bit like clearing your palate when you’re between courses). Then come back to it again with a cold, objective eye.

Read the press release out loud to see how it flows. Check grammar, spelling, names, phone numbers and email addresses to make sure you’ve got them right.

And then?

Get it out the door and move on (and good luck, by the way).

News arrival

So what about my friend’s new website?

You won’t be surprised to hear that it didn’t make the front pages. Mostly because I didn’t actually write a press release about the site launch.

But also because she let slip that she was in the process of signing a big deal with a client who normally wouldn’t look at a small company like hers.

So why did they? Well it was because of a clever little extranet facility her new website had. Not a major focus, and not even one she thought would be a big draw.

But it was – and there and then, we had the hook we needed.

Cue press release.

Keep it straight and simple

Kevin — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:00:45 +0000

Make sure your writing doesn’t hide your meaning

Just the other day, a client picked me up on something I’d written in a case study.

Productivity increased dramatically, though costs went up only marginally.

“Shouldn’t that be costs only went up marginally?” he said tentatively. He was sure, he said, that it sounded wrong.

He was right – it did sound wrong. But in fact, it was right.

Getting in touch with my inner pedant (it doesn’t take much searching) I explained that the adverb (only) should directly precede the word it modifies – in this case, another adverb (marginally).

There was a short pause on the line, as he took this in. And then brushed it aside.

“OK,” he said, ” I see your point, but can we change it to costs only went up marginally?”

And that’s what we did.

In this case, it didn’t make any difference. Wherever the word only went, the sense was unchanged. And more often than not, people put it in the ‘wrong’ place. But it sounds right, and that’s all that matters.

When it comes to copy, anything that slows the reader down, makes them stumble or read something twice should be avoided.

It all comes down to the golden rule of copy: write as you speak.

Client 1. Kevin 0.

More or less (or fewer)

That said, pedantry isn’t always misplaced. Often, paying attention to the little things makes a big difference. It’s all a question of balance.

Take less and fewer. In most cases, you can use them interchangeably without affecting the meaning.

(It’s worth noting that it’s always best to try to get it right. Somewhere out there, somebody will be put off by these small things, which they think are indicative of bigger ones – customer service, attention to detail, follow-up of enquiries etc.).

The rule is pretty easy to remember: less is always followed by a singular noun, fewer always by a plural. So less waste but fewer expenses.

Less units were sold than we expected is wrong, but it’s not a show-stopper. It can still be understood by your readers, as there’s no ambiguity.

Sometimes, however, it radically alters the meaning of the sentence.

Here’s an extract from an article from The Times talking about the positive effects of the recession. The journalist is quoting Nicholas Taleb, the author of the must-have-but-soon-forgotten business book of 2008, The Black Swan (the bold is my addition):

Taleb also looks forward to “less confident businessmen on cellphones in trains, airplane lounges and restaurants, less arrogant bankers and economists needing to prove they are not parasites by paying attention to the material world”.

So let’s see: is that businessmen who are less confident, or fewer businessmen who are just as confident as before? And the same goes for the bankers – less arrogant, or not as many of them?

There’s no way of knowing.

Cutting a dash

The same confusion can be caused by the humble hyphen. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter whether you use it or not. You can leave it out without affecting the meaning.

As I did just last week, when I put together a long piece on search engine optimisation. Each time I wrote the phrase, I cringed a little to myself. It should really be search-engine optimisation, but nobody writes it like that.

So hyphenless it remains, and the meaning is still clear.

But that’s not always the case. A client of mine a while back had a website that was peppered with the phrase risk free hosting.

He read it as a statement: hosting without risks. I read it as a command: Take a risk on free hosting! (no cost, no guarantees, you get what you pay for – and you pay nothing).

When I pointed this out, there was a sharp intake of breath. And the quick addition of a hyphen, so it became risk-free hosting.

The same problem cropped up with child health researcher, a phrase I saw in source material I was reading for a white paper. Immediately, I imagined a 10-year-old kid with a clipboard interviewing people about their medical problems.

In the white paper, I changed it to child-health researcher – somebody who specialised in the area of paediatric care, and whose age is largely irrelevant.

I encountered a similar problem with copresenter, in a US client’s copy aimed at the UK market. I saw somebody who didn’t like policemen (cop resenter). She saw somebody who shared the stage with a colleague (co-presenter).

We added a hyphen.

It’s not about you

The key consideration with all copy is how easily it can be read by your reader. And for that, you can either stick to the rules, break the rules or just bend the rules.

But here’s a rule you should never forget: simple copy works best.

As soon as you try to dress it up, you’re sending a message out. This is about me, you’re telling your readers. Just look how clever I am.

If in doubt, leave it out. And that especially applies to foreign, obscure or high-flown expressions. Here are just some of the toe-curlers I’ve seen recently in marketing copy:

Pyrrhic victory to mean a minor victory. A Pyrrhic victory is one where your losses are so heavy that even though you won, you’re virtually ruined. It’s a technical win, not a real one. So when a marketing agency boasts of a Pyrrhic victory, run for cover.
Beg the question, followed by a question. This doesn’t mean the same as raise the question or pose the question. It means to use circular logic (‘We don’t need a nuclear deterrent because we’ve never had to use it.’).
In extremis doesn’t mean in extreme circumstances, or when the going gets tough. This now-ubiquitous Latin expression means that you’re at death’s door, so you should probably have ‘extreme unction’ (where a priest anoints you with holy oil before you pop your clogs).

The message is clear. Pay attention to the little details, and strive for absolute clarity. Tell a simple story in simple language and put your ego in your pocket.

That way, you’ll win over the reader.

Every time.