I’ve lost count of the number of times a client has asked us to ‘work our magic’ on some copy for them. I think this speaks volumes about the mystery surrounding how copy works and what goes into producing it. But while I don’t have a secret stash of fairy dust or a magic wand (alas!) that I can just wave over a blank page – Abracadabra!-style – I do have a few tricks up my sleeve that can help improve your writing, whether it’s for a website, brochure, social media post or company profile.
1. Work out who your audience is
It sounds obvious but often we’re so caught up in what we want to say, that we forget to consider what it is our audience might want to hear from us – or even who that audience is. These days, there’s so much data around, especially in the digital space that you really should know who you’re writing for. What are their pain points? What do they need to know? What will interest them, keep them engaged, and help them decide that your product/service is right for them? If you can get into the heads of your readers, you’re halfway there. A good trick in writing sales letters, for example, is to imagine you’re writing to someone you know who fits your audience profile – your mother, brother, best friend etc. What would you say to them if they were in front of you? This is also a great way to ensure your tone stays conversational and you avoid jargon.
2. Hone your key messages
Are you guilty of overloading your audience with your copy? There’s a temptation to write about everything at once: ‘What we do is so complicated, and so different to everyone else, it’s really important that we explain it to people’. Take a look at your website’s homepage – if there are more than 2-3 key messages on the whole page, or more than one Call to Action (get in touch, sign up for our newsletter), it’s probably time to declutter. Same goes for a sales brochure or banner ad. If you give people too many balls to juggle in the air at once, they’ll probably drop them all.
3. Draft an outline
When you do have a lot to say, a tried-and-true method of distilling your ideas is to draft a rough outline of the content. This can just be a series of dot points, and it will help you to work out some kind of logical flow to your content before you’ve even started ‘writing’. Also, it’s a good way to see if you’re trying to say too much – if your outline is running to 3 pages, it’s time to go back to work out ‘who is my audience’ and honing your key messages.
4. Just write
This is probably the biggest difference between a professional copywriter and someone who needs to write something – the ability to just get on and do it. I remember Michelle Bridges of Biggest Loser fame once talking about ‘wanting’ to exercise. She confessed that some – most – mornings she doesn’t ‘feel like’ exercising, she just does it anyway, because that’s her job. It’s the same with writers – we don’t wait for the muse to alight on our shoulder. We just start writing and trust that experience, a tight brief and an immoveable deadline will do the rest. And you know what? The more you write, the better you’ll get. So don’t wait for some sign from the Universe. Just write.
5. Print and read
Ok, here’s the best tip you’ll ever get on how to write better. Read. Read other people’s blog posts, website content, company profiles, advertorials. If the writing engages you, if you want to read on, then figure out what they’re doing right and emulate it. Better yet, read your own writing – I mean really read it, don’t just skim it on your iPad screen. Print it out and read it aloud to yourself, away from your computer. I guarantee you’ll pick up glaring typos, clunky sentence structures and wordy, unengaging copy much faster on paper than you would in a digital version, and your writing will be better for it. And that’s when the real magic happens.
