The Storyteller's Art

Putting Narrative to Work 

What is the single most powerful technique in copywriting?

You'll hear different answers from different experts, but something that all would agree on is that using narrative - telling stories - is right up there.

Before looking at a classic example of narrative in action, here's a bit of theory about why narratives work so well.


The love of stories is deeply embedded in human culture. Since time immemorial we have gathered around camp fires, dinner tables and televisions to listen to tales of far away places and strangers' lives. And as we've listened we've found ourselves becoming emotionally bound to their trials and tribulations. Whether we believe a story to be true or pure fantasy, if it is told well we quickly become engaged by it in a way that no other literary form can achieve.

From Harry Potter and Star Wars to 1984 and The Shawshank Redemption, we're as fascinated by tales of other people's lives today as we've always been. Even in our modern fast-paced, low attention span world, a good story is worth putting everything on hold for.

If as a copywriter you can tap into that inbuilt fascination, you've got your reader hooked. Then it's just a matter of using the story to point the reader in the right direction. That could mean imbuing a product with desirability, generating a sense of unease that a particular product can allay, or simply making the reader want to learn more.

Stories humanise text. They elicit emotion. They are something we want to share with others. In other words, they do everything you'd want from great copy. But writing effective copy that is also a great story is a tough job.

So to help you get the idea, I've included a fine, classic example below. This copy was for a super successful mailing for the Wall Street Journal. It allegedly made more than $2 billion in sales and has become a kind of industry exemplar.


Example: Sales letter for the Wall Street Journal

Dear Reader:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men
graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men.
Both had been better than avenge students, both were personable and both–as young
college graduates are–were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three
children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern
manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department
of that company. The other was its president.

What Made The Difference

Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in
people's lives? It isn't always a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn't that
one person wants success and the other doesn't.

The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of
that knowledge.

And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall
Street Journal. For that is the whole purpose of The Journal: To give its readers
knowledge–knowledge that they can use in business.

A Publication Unlike Any Other

You see, The Wall Street Journal is a unique publication. It's the country's only
national business daily. Each business day, it is put together by the world's largest
staff of business-news experts.

Each business day, The Journal's pages include a broad range of information of
interest and significance to business-minded people, no matter where it comes from.
Not just stocks and finance, but anything and everything in the whole, fast-moving
world of business... The Wall Street Journal gives you all the business news you
need–when you need it.

Knowledge Is Power

Right now, I am reading page one of The Journal. It combines all the important
news of the day with in-depth feature reporting. Every phase of business news is
covered, from articles on inflation, wholesale prices, car prices, tax incentives for
industries to major developments in Washington, and elsewhere.

And there is page after page inside The Journal, filled with fascinating and
significant information that's useful to you. A daily column on personal money
management helps you become a smarter saver, better investor, wiser spender.
There are weekly columns on small business, marketing, real estate, technology,
regional developments. If you have never read The Wall Street Journal, you cannot
imagine how useful it can be to you.

Much of the information that appears in The Journal appears nowhere else. The
Journal is printed in numerous plants across the United States, so that you get it early
each business day.

GREAT INTRODUCTORY PRICE!

A $28 Subscription

Put our statements to the proof by subscribing for the next 13 weeks for just
$28. This is the shortest subscription term we offer–and a perfect way to get
acquainted with The Journal. Or you may prefer to take advantage of a longer term
subscription for greater savings: an annual subscription at $107 saves you $20 off
The Journal's cover price. Our best buy–two years for $185–saves you a full $69!

Simply fill out the enclosed order card and mail it in the postage-paid envelope
provided. And here's The Journal's guarantee: Should The Journal not measure up
to your expectations, you may cancel this trial arrangement at any point and receive a
refund for the undelivered portion of your subscription.

If you feel as we do that this is a fair and reasonable proposition, then you will
want to find out without delay if The Wall Street Journal can do for you what it is
doing for millions of readers. So please mail the enclosed order card now, and we
will start serving you immediately.

About those two college classmates I mention at the beginning of this letter:
They were graduated from college together and together got started in the business
world. So what made their lives in business different?

Knowledge. Useful knowledge. And its application.

An Investment In Success


I cannot promise you that success will be instantly yours if you start reading The
Wall Street Journal. But I can guarantee that you will find The Journal always
interesting, always reliable, and always useful.

Sincerely yours,
Peter R. Kann
Executive Vice President/
Associate Publisher

PRK: vb
Encs.

P.S. It's important to note that The Journal's subscription price may be tax deductible.

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Copywriting, Content and Social Marketing Dates

Marketing Communications Training Dates
February to May 2013

Dates have now be finalised for courses up to the end of Spring this year:

7 February:  Creative Copywriting Training, London SOLD OUT

1 March:  Social Media Marketing, London

27 March: Essential Copywriting Course, London

30 April: Content Marketing Training, London

30 May: Creative Copywriting Training, London

And of course we're delivering in-house courses UK-wide throughout the year.

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How the Internet is Changing our Minds

Is the Internet Making us Stupid?

Is the Internet changing the way we read? The way we think?

That's the argument posed in this article by Nicholas Carr, which appeared in The Atlantic magazine back in 2008 and became a kind of niche classic. Three years later Carr fleshed out the idea into the popular and well received book, The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember.

If you're in the business of writing for the web this book or (if you've less time or inclination) the article are well worth a read. And, of course, if Carr is right and our brains really are being rewired as a result of our exposure to the internet, the implications for our relationship to the written word in general - not just online - are massive.

I won't provide a full rerun of his arguments here, as the article is available free of charge and is only a click away, but in a nutshell Carr argues:

• Compulsive internet usage is limiting attention spans, making concentrating for more than a few paragraphs difficult for many readers;
• Instead of reading online articles and webpages from top to bottom, we skim, skip and hop from site to site at a prodigious rate;
• Hyperlinks and other netty things seduce us to leave a page before we've fully absorbed its contents;
• Our thinking is becoming superficial and broad rather than holistic and deep;
• Knowledge is becoming a collection of linked factoids, rather than rich and integrated.

But this isn't a new problem. Carr argues that technology has always influenced the way we read, write and think: Socrates bemoaned the invention of writing because it reduced the value we ascribe to knowledge gained from experience (wisdom); the printing press was thought to be a force for intellectual laziness because it made books less valuable (and less revered) objects; and Nietzsche believed that when he started to use a typewriter instead of a pen his style became more terse and 'telegraphic'.

Nowadays the digital technologies of the web, as well as offering their much vaunted opportunities for greater user engagement, also present a much greater risk of reader disengagement because of the sheer volume of information that lies, seductively, only a click (or a movement of the eye) away.

So what does this mean for us as digital age communicators? Now more than ever we have to be aware of the tendency of our readers to lose interest, get distracted or click away from our writing. That means redoubling our efforts to make every paragraph - every sentence - give the reader a little pay-off. Every paragraph has to end leaving the reader wanting a little bit more. We need to deploy short paragraphs that are easily digestible, and use easy to navigate presentation (lots of subtitle, bullet points etc.) to help guide the wandering eye to the meat of what you're saying.

For the most part, these are the rules of good traditional copywriting.

And most of them apply as much to offline writing as for digital media. The habits of mind formed through our interaction with our machines influence how we engage with the written word in all its forms.

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Copywriter's Personality Disorder

Using Personality in your Copywriting 

One of the easiest things to get wrong in copywriting is the use of 'personality'.

Essentially, the personality of a piece of copy is a result of the copywriter's attempt to create an impression in the reader's mind of the kind of person (or more usually, the brand) doing the writing. We achieve this through careful use of tone, language, imagery and style.

Personality in copywriting can be one of the most important elements of brand development. Without stating them explicitly it can be used to convey abstract characteristics like 'cool' or 'reliable' or 'friendly'. A carefully chosen and consistent personality can be one of your brand's greatest assets.

To help settle on a personality type, and to aid in keeping it consistent over numerous pieces of copy, some copywriters like to identify a particular celebrity to use as a kind of spirit guide in their writing. For instance, you might decide Jamie Oliver's down-to-earth, approachable personality is just right for selling your brand. Everything you write should be tested for how it would sound coming out of Jamie's mouth. Does it sound like something he could say?

Not to inject a little personality leaves your copy dull and lifeless, sounding like it was written by the morose Marvin the Android from The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy (we've all read copy like that... and too often). But using personality is risky. It needs to be done well.

Here's an example that I think shows just how easy it is to get this wrong. It's from the side of a bottle of traditional cream soda (a very nice drink). You can see exactly what impression they are trying to create - linking their product to a homely, nostalgic golden age of the past - but it's done in a ham-fisted way that breaks one of the golden rules of creative writing: show, don't tell.

The way life used to be... 

... Take a step back to the good old days, when everything was simple and we lived life without a care in the world. Days were filled with effortless fun and the demands of modern times were a million miles away.

OK, so here the brand personality is being told 'at' us, not shown to us - it's just too blatant. We're not being shown through language that builds an image in our mind. And because the language used is not concrete it leaves it open to the reader's interpretation. The images I had in my mind when reading this were of children working in factories and down the mine; I don't associate the 1870s (when the company was established) with some kind of golden age at all. I don't think anyone really believes there was a time when 'days were filled with effortless fun' do they?!

If instead they had written about butterflies flitting over a Victorian garden where children played whilst their parents poured glasses of cool, refreshing cream soda they might have been closer to the right track. Then they'd be showing us idyllic, not telling us.

But this is slightly off subject, as this clumsy attempt to create a brand personality is not quite the same as the personality of the writing itself. Again, they missed the mark here. The writing is just not in keeping with the sepia toned vision of an innocent past they are trying to generate. Phrases like 'a million miles away' and 'take a step back to the good old days' just sound too modern. They create a distance between the reader and the image they are trying to create because we are clearly hearing the voice of a modern person, not a voice that reflects the personality of the age they are depicting.

What they have written with this bit of copy is the effect they want to have on the reader. You can imagine the meeting about what they were going to write: 'we want consumers to feel like they've taken a step back in time, to a past where everything was rosy and nobody had a care in the world'. But instead of using copy to conjure that image, they've just told it to us (with a couple of flourishes).

I think the above example was probably inspired by the outstanding success of the copywriting style used by Innocent Drinks, who blazed the trail with evocative, personality driven copy that has created a powerful, unique and instantly recognisable brand. Since their success we have seen many attempts to emulate them, few of which have met with great success.

Here are a few tips for avoiding a major personality disorder in your copywriting:

1. Get someone honest to read it back and give you feedback on the impression it creates with them. Perhaps ask a friend of a friend - someone who doesn't know you and is less likely to worry about criticising your work!
2. Use a spirit guide to contain your writing style.
3. Show your brand personality, don't tell it. Don't say 'we're professional', be professional. 
4. How about using your own personality? At least it will be consistent! Depending on the product (and your personality) this might be the best way to avoid schizophrenic copy. 
5. Read your copy aloud. Does it sound like natural language? or is it too wordy or clunky? Remember, it's personality because it comes from persons - make sure it sounds that way.

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The End of a Great Year

Happy New Year!

A big thank you to everyone who has attended our courses and visited our blog over the last few months.

It's been a year of change for us, with this new website, new courses and new trainers. We're looking forward to an exciting 2013 with even more developments in the pipeline.

Courses already lined up for the first few weeks of the year include:

Creative Copywriting 7 February

Social Media Marketing 1 March

Essential Copywriting 27 March

And the first of our new Content Marketing Training courses will be running in April.

We wish you all a happy and prosperous 2013.

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Content Marketing Training - London 2013

New Content Marketing Training Course Launching Soon
 

Content marketing is quickly becoming one of the hottest topics in online marketing. We've received a steady stream of enquiries about content marketing training throughout 2012.

As a result we'll be launching a specialist online content marketing course early next year. Read on for a sneak preview!

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the generic name for a set of marketing tactics based on the creation and publication of useful or interesting information for you company's target audience. In a nutshell, content marketing works by increasing engagement with the brand, building trust in your expertise, and providing incentives to return to your website regularly, persuading visitors to eventually becoming customers.

Disseminated through social media, SEO, direct marketing and digital PR, online content marketing builds relationships with savvy modern internet users who don't want to the hard sell. Instead they want useful content they don't have to pay for... but in return, we marketers get their undivided attention and the opportunity to become a trusted resource or go-to expert. In the long run, this is where the pay-off lies.

The New Content Marketing Training Course
 
As a result of the burgeoning interest in this exciting subject we've been developing a new course specifically looking at online content marketing. The programme will combine various topics covered in some of our existing courses with new modules hot off the press.

The content marketing training programme will examine:

• Choosing the types of content best for you and your market
• Selecting the media platforms that are best for your valuable content
• Identifying useful topics, themes and customer needs
• Content writing and copywriting techniques
• Promoting your content via SEO, social media and online PR
• Outsourcing content production - pros and cons 

We expect the first content marketing training course to run in London in the early spring. It will also be available in-house anywhere in the UK.

If you are interested in attending the course, or if you would like to receive full details as soon as they become available please sign up to the blog for a weekly update.

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Copywriting Books Reviewed

Stocking Fillers for Copywriters

If you prefer to take your copywriting training in literary form, here's a post for you.

It's true that most books on copywriting cover the same ground - the basics of copywriting are fairly universally agreed - so choosing a book often comes down to personal taste. I chose these two because they are both well written and useful books, but offer distinctly different perspectives. Which one you would find most useful will depend on your role, experience and business type. The two books I will be discussing are Andy Maslen's Write to Sell and Ian Atkinson's Copy. Righter.

Content and Style

For a start, both of these are British authors, and the style and approach is refreshingly un-American. Not that American copywriting is any worse than British - it certainly isn't - it's just that much of what passes for great American copywriting doesn't always feel right for a UK audience. At the risk of playing cultural stereotypes, Americans are a more brash, assertive people who like big, bold claims; Brits are culturally a bit more reserved and don't like to feel their being 'sold at'. Atkinson's book in particular steers a somewhat different path to the influential American approach.

Both books are written and laid out in the best copywriting traditions: short, punchy paragraphs (more than 5 lines is a rarity in both books), lots of bulleted lists, short chapters and bucketfuls of acronyms and aide memoires. Both inject humour to keep the reader engaged, although Atkinson's attempts at drawing a laugh are braver, and as a result more likely to instead draw a grimace or groan.

To aid the most impatient readers, the 'copywriting case notes' and 'copywriter's toolkit' capsules that pepper Maslen's book serve almost identical purposes to Atkinson's 'for example' and 'handy hint' asides. In both cases these help the reader in a hurry glean a useful idea or two without reading a section from end to end. It all helps to break up the blocks of copy and keep the reader engaged.

Personal experiences are also important elements of both books. Atkinson's are mainly drawn from his experiences as an agency copywriter, Maslen's from his early career and latter experience as a freelance copywriter and copywriting teacher. Real world examples are more numerous in Copy. Righter, with a whole section devoted to explicating a number of successful marketing pieces the author has worked on. This section also benefits from including many (black and white) photographs of the materials in question, helping develop the reader's understand of the relationship between copy and design.

There is also a more explicit emphasis on psychological theory in Copy. Righter, and more contextualisation in terms of the typical preoccupations of agency copywriters such as brand and visual identity.

Copy. Righter is divided into 4 main chapters, two of which offer a step-by-step guide to the fundamentals planning, structuring and writing good copy, with the remaining chapters providing a useful list of quick tips to give your work an extra polish, and a summary of seven real life campaigns Atkinson has worked on. Write to Sell is a step-by-step 'how to' guide from cover to cover, moving through three chapters on planning and thinking about writing before being told we are ready to start putting pen to paper.

Which is for you?

For inexperienced copywriters looking for a hand-holding experience Write to Sell is the right choice. It has a simple, straight forward approach and focuses on the nuts and bolts of good copywriting.

If you are already a proficient copywriter and you're looking for extra polish, or some more nuanced thinking about brand, persuasion and psychology it has to be Copy. Righter.

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B2B Copywriting Tips

Tips to Give your B2B Copywriting Wings

What are the differences between business-to-consumer and business-to-business copywriting? How should you adapt your style to pique the interest of someone buying on behalf of an organisation rather than for themselves?

Experienced and award winning copywriter Gillian Heggs takes us through some essential thinking for generating high response rates to B2B copy. Gillian delivers our Essential Copywriting Course.

B2B v B2C copywriting – what’s the difference?

This is a question that often causes debate. In my opinion, there are actually a lot of similarities between business-to-business and business-to-consumer, with key copywriting principles that apply with both. After all, you’re still writing for people. For me, it’s often more of a question of the different needs of the target audience and the marketplace. Here’s why, from a B2B perspective:

Who are you talking to?

When you’re selling something to a consumer, the chances are they’re making the buying decision by themselves, or perhaps just with their partner. This often isn’t the case in business. There may be several people involved in the buying process, from marketing to purchasing to senior managers, which means thinking about providing the information they all need (not necessarily in the same piece).

It’s a fast moving world

In the usually busy world of business, it’s important to provide information clearly and concisely, with plenty of solid facts that enable someone to make an effective buying decision fast if they need to. Include reassurance and evidence too so they can outline their decision to managers or colleagues if necessary.

WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)

A B2B audience may well be thinking about ‘WIIFM’ in a wider business context. For example, will this enable me/us to offer our clients a better service/save money?

The competitive marketplace

It’s likely that B2B customers are going to check out several suppliers when they’re buying in products or services, so do bear in mind that you’re writing in a competitive environment –and the implications of this. For example, is it enough to have ‘me too’ copy that any of your competitors could have? Have you expressed any unique selling points (USPs) and your key messages? Is your call to action clear and easy to use?

Feature or benefit?

As a general copywriting rule, we need to make sure readers understand what something means for them; which usually means giving them benefits as well as features.

For example:

Feature: this table has four legs

Benefit/feature: This table is very stable due to its four legs

However, if someone’s an expert in their field, which they may well be in a B2B situation, the feature may be just as/more important to highlight because they know what they’re looking for. Having said that, benefits can STILL help to remind people about the reasons for buying, and I would always think hard before deciding not to have them in. For example, do readers understand all the benefits of your products or services?

Gillian Heggs is an award winning copywriter with over 25 years of front-line experience working with organisations of all shapes and sizes. She's also a committed copywriting educator, and is a qualified trainer and coach. Gillian delivers Word Power Training's Essential Copywriting Course. You can read more about our copywriting training here.

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