Ten Great Copywriting Tips (But What Do I Know?)

A recent visitor to the site wrote me and asked me for tips on great copywriting. Well, Lord knows if I’m the most qualified person to be answering that question, but since you readers seem to stick around and since my copywriting methods seem to be effective, I suppose I’m no worse off in answering this question than any other writer out there. So, without further adieu here are my personal ten tips to great copywriting:

1. Write According to the Medium

Writing for the Web is different than writing for TV, which is different than writing for email and different than writing for print, and so on. Recognizing that fact and adjusting your writing style according to each medium is a must-do.

2. It’s All About Them

Know who you’re writing for (your target audience), and craft your copy with them in mind. Put yourself in their shoes — what’s their level of comprehension about your subject matter? What about it makes it appealing to them? In what tone of voice and with what kind of vocabulary should you be delivering your message? Do some homework and research your audience to develop this understanding.

3. The Fewer the Words Allowed, The Longer It Will Take to Write

“Tight copy” means that you’re limited to number of words you can use and you’ve nailed it when writing it. The greater the restriction on word count, the greater the likelihood that it will take you longer to write. It’s easy to say not much of anything with a whole lot of words; it’s harder to say everything with only a few.

4. Lead With “The Good Stuff”

If you expect your audience to read through all your copy, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. If you’re a GREAT copywriter, then maybe you’ll keep your reader engaged the entire time. If you’re a novice copywriter, you’ll have more success if you get the important points across early on, which not only gives the reader a reason to stay engaged, but also better ensures your overall chances of communicating your message.

5. Cut Out the Excess

All good copywriters look to trim unwanted words and sentences from their writing. If I can say in one sentence what someone else has had to take three to say, I’m doing a damn good job.

6. Chronology Counts

There’s nothing I hate more than disjointed copy. If the information you’re trying to present has any timeline whatsoever, unless you have a specific purpose for jerking the reader back and forth through time, be sure to put your facts into chronological order. Confusion just leads to disgust which leads to abandonment of your message.

7. Create A Picture In the Mind’s Eye

Compare these two sentences:

A. The big man sat down at the table to eat dinner.
B. Otis lumbered into the room and before even manipulating his girthy 350-pound frame in between the worn wooden table and onto its entire three-person bench, his pudgy fingers dug into a plate of heaped high with mashed potatoes and hot, steaming gravy.

Now, I’m not saying that you need to replace a short, precise sentence with a lengthy one — you just need to be sure that what you’re writing has visual impact. I bet everyone has a pretty good sense of what Otis from Sentence B looks like, right?

8. Use Active Voice

This one is tough for me, too, but my college writing professors tried diligently to pound it into my head: avoid the passive use of verbs (ex. In the passive voice, the past participle of the action verb *is used* in conjunction with the verb “to be” — note my passive voice when saying “is used”). Passive voice sentences can usually be corrected by flip-flopping them. To correct my previous sentence, I would say, “Passive voice sentences use the past participle of an action verb in conjunction with the verb ‘to be’.”

9. Be Consistent

Consistency is another good grammatical rule that applies to great copywriting. Don’t keep switching points-of-view and tones of voice. If I start out by writing in the first person (”me and you”), I shouldn’t switch to “him and them” midstream. Likewise, if I start off bold and brash, I shouldn’t end up stoic and sanitized by the end.

10. Teasing Is Not a Bad Thing

Copywriting is different then other forms of writing because it’s great at teasing the reader. Of course you want to compel your readers to take action — this often gets accomplished by very direct language. But copywriting can be equally effective when it teases the reader into wanting to know more, but without revealing it all. The reader is then forced by their own curiousity to seek out or stay tuned to learn the conclusion.

READER FEEDBACK: Reader Peter Gorman adds an 11th:

“Be clear. Specific nouns can avoid confusion or vagueness that pronouns (it, them, they, etc.) can cause. Also once a noun has been selected to identify an activity, place, or product, stick with that word/noun. An attempt at cleverness — different nouns for the same subject — can confuse a reader.”

Thanks, Peter! Everyone is welcome to provide feedback. Send your remarks to mailto:feedback@webadvantage.net.

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