reynoldswriting.com Blog

If you’re a freelance writer, you probably have some war wounds. If you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you probably qualify for disability. At this point the non-writer replies, “Wait a minute. It’s writing, not coal mining. You sit in a chair and phrase things for a living. How get you possibly get hurt doing that?”

Well, putting aside mundane physical issues such as carpal tunnel syndrome or eyestrain for the moment, the average freelancer faces all kinds of emotional and financial bumps and bruises in the call of duty. Freelancers who focus on pitching stories or submitting fiction manuscripts have built up many layers of calluses from rejection after rejection — it’s part of the job description, regardless of writing quality. In the marketing world, copywriters seeking new clients may find themselves negotiating hidden booby-traps. Over the years I’ve gotten to the point where I can see some of these potential dangers lurking on the horizon from pretty far away, though once in a while I still get tripped up.

Anyway, here are a few red flags I’ve learned to identify. Hopefully they will help writers steer clear of bad situations while also helping well-intentioned business owners avoid throwing up one of these flags inadvertently.

“We just thought we’d pick your brain on the subject.” This usually means you’re being asked to contribute your expertise for free. You’ll have to decide, on a case-by-case basis, how much information you’re comfortable offering up on a writing project without the meter running. True, the client or prospect can’t use that information as well as a professional writer could, so if they’re smart they’ll hire you to do the actual heavy lifting anyway. But look out for the client who throws out this comment and then hangs on your every word, notepad in hand, and pumps you for an increasing level of detail about exactly what you would do — or you may not end up doing it.

“If this works out for everybody, we have tons of future work for you.” Expect a request for a severely discounted rate or perhaps even a deferred payment, with the “tons of future work” hanging in the air like some great mythical creature that’s certain to appear if you just make the proper sacrifice to it — that sacrifice being an acceptable pay rate. Stick to your guns. If the client truly does have a serious need for your future services, he will understand their value and pay accordingly.

“Write this sample story to show us how you’d write the assignments we’d be sending you.” While some of these requests are no doubt legit, it would be easy for a fly-by-night company to suck in a bunch of free “samples” like a literary Hoover — without actually hiring any of the submitting writers or paying for the articles. Your best bet is with the company that asks for a couple hundred words about your family dog, favorite tree, or some other topic that obviously doesn’t benefit them except as a sample of your style.

Don’t get me wrong, the outstanding majority of my writing experiences have been good ones. But recognizing a few of those red flags when they do pop up sure helps. You don’t have to be paranoid — just keep your eyes open.

Visit my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

So you’ve decided to hire a professional writer to help you with your marketing content. It’s a no-brainer, right? Assuming you’ve taken the right steps to make sure you’ve got the right person, you can now set yourself on cruise control and let the writer write. Right?

Well, not quite. No matter how much of the creative burden you offload to the writer, you still have an important task to perform — communicating what you need and want to your creative team. If your writer (or graphic artist, or web designer, et cetera) receives wrong or incomplete information about your mission statement, corporate values, target market or the other things that make your business tick, you’ll get marketing content that misses the mark. Effective communication with your writer will help ensure strong, effective copy just as effective communication with an architect helps ensure that your home ends up with the right number of bathrooms. “Hey, the house looks great now that it’s built. By the way, did I mention we’re a family of twelve?” Oops.

Some items you want to make sure you discuss with your writer include:

Priorities. Writers love background information, so by all means Continue reading ‘How to Get What You Want from a Copywriter’ »

“I want this marketing content to really communicate who I am and how I feel — only in better words.”

I hear that all the time, and it’s a very smart request. Many a crestfallen business owner has to come to grief trying to reconcile colloqueal-sounding speech with written text. As I mentioned in a previous post, written English simply doesn’t work the same way spoken English does, and some of the wittiest, most entertaining speakers I know couldn’t write their way out the proverbial paper bag. Me, I’m the opposite. I’d much rather write than talk. I’m not the worst speaker in the world, but every time I stand in front of an audience and give a presentation I keep wishing I could just email it in. Writing is my comfort zone. I’m weird that way. Fortunately for my career as a copywriter, I’m not in the majority.

If we were to write the same way we express ourselves in everyday speech, the resulting content would stink up the joint. Go ahead, give it a try and see what happens. Expect uncoordinated, stream-of-consciousness banter peppered with pauses, unfinished sentences, “Ums,” “Uhs,” and other literary gems. Trust me, you don’t really want to sound like yourself in your writing. You want to read like yourself instead.

What does that mean? It means that you have to use words and phrases that read as if you were speaking to us, when in fact the text is much more tightly organized, effectively worded, and compellingly presented than something that just flew out of your mouth on the spur of the moment. You have to conjure the illusion of your voice without actually replicating it. The result? The voice that resounds through the page or monitor evokes your personality, humor, concern, humanity, et cetera, only with language that works on the page instead of the stage.

Not sure how to swing this aural illusion? Try reverse-engineering it. Picture that finished web page or brochure in your mind as clearly as you can. Imagine how you would like your words to read. Is the tone professional or homespun? Is the message concise? Does every word contribute to the cumulative impact of the whole? Ask yourself, “How would I say this if I were the world’s greatest marketing writer?”

That’s you — only better.

“Which person should I be? Am I ‘I’ or ‘we?’ Or should we be ‘they?’ And are my clients ‘you’ or ‘them?’”

No, this isn’t a transcript from a nuthouse. I have this kind of conversation with clients all the time. It’s actually a very sensible and important conversation, too, because we’re discussing what kind of “person” works best for which situations.

By “person,” I mean grammatical person, in the sense of first-person, second-person, or third-person pronouns. We use these pronouns a zillion times a day in everyday writing and speech, usually without giving them a second thought, and yet these simple little words contain tremendous power.

Pronouns shift perception. You can make me, your reader, see you as an individual, as a team, or as a large, impersonal corporation by merely swapping out a word. You can address me directly or have me see things through your eyes. Powerful gadgets, pronouns. But with great power comes great responsibility, and all pronouns are not created equal depending on the task you want them to perform in your marketing content. That’s when I get into mind-bending conversations with my clients about “we,” “I,” and “they.” So which person makes the strongest impact? It depends:

First person singular: First person allows you to present yourself as an individual. If you’re a sole proprietor serving as a trusted advisor for your clients, talking them directly as “I” can build trust and open an imaginary (and later, hopefully, real) dialogue between you and your reader. Many small businesses live or die by their owner’s image and personality, using “I” as a powerful tool for getting that image across.

First person plural: A.k.a. the “Royal We.” If you’re speaking for a team, “we” presents a collective image of that team. Companies of any size can use “we” to give the impression of a unified group effort dedicated to fulfilling the customer’s needs. Even sole proprietors sometimes describe themselves as “we” or “us” to puff themselves up a bit, because in some professions being the only guy at the helm makes you look non-competitive or unsuccessful. Small businesses may shift between “I” and “we” to speak as the boss occasionally while still giving the impression of teamwork.

Second person: “You.” Employing the reader’s perspective shows that you understand their feelings and needs — and remember, from their point of view it’s all about them anyway. “You” enables the reader to imagine about how the product or service impacts their quality of life. “You can have it all! Change your life today!” Et cetera.

Third person: In some cases a larger company, or a small company that wants to appear large, can opt for more formality by referring to the company employees as “they,” with formal bio blurbs describing individuals in terms of “he” or “she.” This works well for a bio or mission statement in a fancy-pants panel program, business plan, and so on. It also lends gravitas to a person in a relatively sober-minded profession such as medicine or law. But occasionally I’ll warn a client against third person, because it also puts up a kind of wall between writer and reader instead of creating the comforting bond some businesses need to establish.

So, which person does the job for you? They all can, depending on the emotional impression you want to make on your reader. Once you’ve know what impression you want to make, you can attach the right person to the right job.

The first act had gone fine. The audience members hadn’t leaped to their feet in an ovation, but at least they were still there when the intermission lights came up, and most of them showed signs of consciousness. So far, so good, I thought from my self-imposed station on the lighting grid catwalk, where many playwrights prefer to hide during a production of one of their works.

My playwriting teacher knew where to find me, of course. “They like the play,” he said. “The only thing you need is a new curtain line.”

“New curtain line?”

“Yes. The closing line of the act isn’t strong enough. You need to put something else there that will really resonate with the audience on the way out, something that will draw them back for Act Two.”

“Uh…okay.” I wouldn’t have minded having this conversation sometime before the midpoint of opening night, but sometimes you really can’t tell what’s working in a script until you put it on its feet in front of an audience. So after the show I went home, thought up a new line for the leading character to end the first act with, and the next night the whole scene — in fact, the whole show — worked noticeably better.

Copywriting has its own version of the “curtain line.” It’s known as the call to action.

The call to action consists of that final compelling statement in which you force the readers to react to what they’ve just absorbed in a specific way. Maybe it’s time for them to pick up the phone and place their order. Maybe it’s time for them to fill out the request form for more details. Maybe it’s time for them to whip out their credit card and make that payment. The point is — it’s time. You’ve delivered a compelling message to them; now it’s time for them to respond appropriately.

A good piece of copywriting has a shape to it, much as a well-written act in a play has a clear structure. An effective act grabs the audience from the beginning, ratchets that interest level higher and higher, then leaves them in the most powerful, congruent emotional state possible — the precise emotional state you want them to experience. Copywriting builds in a similar manner, ending with such an emotional punch that the reader feels compelled to take the next step.

So when you write that marketing piece, save the best for last. Rally the troops — your readers — with a rousing call to action. Challenge them to act on that feeling you’ve just planted in them. Turn those prospects into customers, and customers into repeat customers. Get what you want the easy way — by asking for it.

Curtain!

Barton Fink is a serious author, and therein lies his problem. In this 1991 film by the Coen brothers, Barton (John Turturro) has just made his first big splash as a New York playwright. It’s 1941, and Barton has a burning desire to write meaningful plays about “the common man.” He has high ideals, so it’s no wonder that he hesitates over an offer to write screenplays for Capitol Pictures in Hollywood. When he shows up at the studio’s gates, the manic, overbearing head of the studio, Jack Lipnick, immediately assigns him to a wrestling picture for actor Wallace Beery. The premise: “Big men — in tights!”

In the course of the film, alongside a series of bizarre, surrealistic events that I wouldn’t think of spoiling for you, Barton takes it on himself to bring a little “common man” nobility to the wrestling-picture genre, crafting a literate, sensitive story of the wrestler’s inner struggle — a man “wrestling with his soul.” He delivers the finished script to the studio as the finest thing he’s ever done.

And of course Lipnick hates it. “It’s a wrestling picture. The audience wants to see WRESTLING, and lots of it!” He all but fires Barton, keeping him on the payroll on the odd chance he can be molded into the kind of writer the studio can use — one that makes the product he’s asked to make.

And you know what? Lipnick is right. He’s right because he understands that his audience is right.

We have to give audiences what they want, not what we think they need — or what we think is profound or brilliant or funny. Playwright George S. Kaufman once recalled being furious with an audience for never laughing at a “hilarious” line, until it finally dawned on him that maybe it would be easier to fix the line than to fix the audience. He ended up doing all right for himself.

If the writing gets the desired result, then it’s right. If it doesn’t, then it’s wrong. This simple rule holds true for playwriting, for screenwriting — and for copywriting.

Heck, it’s even true for wrestling. They use writers too, you know.

It would appear that Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, has announced his intention to “hang up the ears” and retire, not only from the character but from a six-decade career as an actor.

Sure, I watch Star Trek. Writers spend a lot of time cooped up at home, and yes, most of us are okay with that. I enjoy cruising through the galaxy at warp speed with the Star Trek gang, mainly because it allows me to pretend that I’m getting out of the house occasionally. But even if I couldn’t care less about the franchise, there’s no denying that it has developed into a formidable chunk of pop culture over the past half-century. So even those of us who don’t know about it kinda-sorta do.

Anyway, Nimoy’s announcement got me thinking about the show, and about Mr. Spock’s home planet, Vulcan. You see, Vulcans have this ability to “mind meld” with people. They grab your head and perform a kind of telepathy on you, reading your thoughts and feeling your emotions (which must stink on ice for Vulcans who mind-meld with humans, since they really aren’t into the whole emotion thing). For a moment, the Vulcan sees the meld-ee’s point of view in perfect clarity, “becoming” that person long enough to achieve a deep level of empathy.

Vulcan must have fantastic marketing departments. Want to know your target audience? Invite a representative of that demographic into your office, plant a hand on the subject’s noggin and blam, instant market research.

We poor humans have no such skills, at least not readily on tap, as far as we can measure. Yet we who market ourselves must perform this very task — we must get inside the heads of our audience, as best we can, and see through their eyes. We must feel their pain or frustration, recognize the things that make them smile, or look at that product or service as if we’ve never seen it before and have no idea what it could do for us.

It’s an acting technique of sorts. Actors train long and hard to learn to inhabit another person’s skin, to make that fictional character move and talk and feel as a flesh-and-blood person by first asking, “How would I feel, what would I do, if I were this character, with this background, education, physical condition, mental state, et cetera?” Writers have to go into this mode as well. When we write fiction, we have to understand our characters so clearly that we can empathize with them from cover to cover — even if we don’t like them. We also have to understand our readers and know what’s most likely to make the right impact on them. And marketing writing requires no less.

So my challenge to you, when you’re planning that email blast or brochure or website, is to try to read the mind of your ideal prospect. Picture that person in your mind as completely as you can. Try to “become” that person long enough to get a crystal-clear idea of what that person wants, fears or needs. Then write your marketing piece to that person.

Live long and prosper.

In 1966, Yoko Ono exhibited a now-famous artwork called the “Ceiling Painting.” It was more than a painting, really — viewers had to climb a ladder and point a magnifying glass up toward the ceiling, where a framed sheet of paper awaited their gaze. On the paper was written a single word: “YES.”

Why “YES?” According to the artist, it was a reaction against the prevailing negativity in the world, an attempt to fight back with a positive attitude by “activating the ‘Yes’ element.”

I like that way of putting it, because the “Yes” element may well be the most important one in the copywriter’s Periodic Table. “Yes” carries power. “Yes” affirms. “Yes” indicates agreement. “Yes” gives permission.

I hear a lot of “pain and reward” talk when people discuss copywriting techniques. “Create the pain, then take it away.” Paint a dismal picture of the reader’s current problem, then part the clouds to reveal the radiant glow of your solution to the problem. But during the recent economic crisis, I found that the last thing people wanted from a marketing message was a pain statement — they had plenty of pain already, thank you. Adding yet another dismal picture to their gallery of misery served merely to turn them away.

What worked instead? The power of “Yes.” Going against the prevailing funk to snap people out of it. Starting positive and staying there, while cranking up the excitement level until it was the reader’s cue to buy or call or whatever. A pain statement can work well in a relatively cheery economic environment, because there you’re going against the grain to get the reader’s attention. But when people want to feel better, give them what they want!

“Yes” also gets people agreeing with you. A string of “Yes” answers to your questions can prime your audience for the big “Yes” at the end: “Do you need a change?” YES. “Are you ready for that change to happen?” YES. “Do you want to make that change happen today?” YES. “Then whip out that credit card and call us right now!” YES!

Does the “Yes” element work? John Lennon thought so, in recounting his first glimpse of the future Mrs. Lennon’s painting: “I would have been quite disappointed if it had said ‘NO.’”

Last week I missed a blog entry. I think this is the first or second time in over a year. However long it’s been, the streak is over.

It was just one of those things. I was deep into other work, including ghost-blogging for clients so THEY wouldn’t have to miss their regularly scheduled posts, when I turned my weary eyes to my blog stockpile and saw — nothing. The cupboard was bare. I had nothing to post.

Of course I could’ve whipped up an article quickly; professional writers are pretty good at that sort of thing. Or I could’ve just posted the following week as if nothing had happened (okay, technically “nothing” is exactly what happened, but you know what I mean), whistling to myself and avoiding eye contact with studied nonchalance. “Last week? Huh? By the way, here’s this week’s article.”

But I’m doing neither of those things. I blew it. I dropped a blog post. And it’s significant, because it shows that anyone can get behind the 8-ball on blogging, even those of us who should know better and are in the business of keeping others from making that very same mistake.

What’s the big deal? First of all, each blog post represents fresh content. Google loves fresh content. Additionally, every post you publish gives you something new to link to from your various social networks, forums, of other online hangouts. More links on heavily-traveled websites equals more inbound traffic to your site. So with every blog post we skip, we’re blowing off potential new readers.

Second, an irregular blog won’t sustain a regular audience. I know people — business owners, yet — who blog maybe once every four months, twice a year, or at crazy random increments. They can’t have a regular readership, because there’s nothing regular to read — how can the target audience possibly guess when the next post will come out? They can’t, so they don’t try. That blog becomes invisible. Regular readership comes from regular posts — once a day, once a week, once a month, whatever. You have to condition your audience to come back for more, and that includes their knowing when to expect more.

So today I’m working on my blog stockpile. Hopefully you’re doing the same, or you have a writer who offers regular ghost-blogging services to keep you in articles. If your website serves as a virtual stock-ticker or provides other kinds of up-to-the-minute news, then your blogs may have to come more frequently. But a stockpile of solid, timeless articles will help ensure that you never have to feel this kind of embarrassment.

So do as I say, not as I do.

What is a blog, anyway? There’s no set answer. In the good old days, a “weblog” consisted of little more than online diary posts occasionally sprinkled with recommended links that the blogger had stumbled across that week. These days, a blog can be:

-An informative article
-A rant
-A review
-A debate topic
-A request for info or help
-A news item or alert
-A humorous interlude
-A meditation
-A lecture

…or just about anything else that fits the needs and personality of the blogger.

A business blog, of course, has its own requirements. The tone of the blog has to match the tone of the company’s overall brand or message. A dark-humor piece about death, for instance, might not work too well on a funeral home’s website. (An extreme example, but you get the idea.) A business blog that includes helpful information related to its field can help the business or its owner build a reputation as an industry expert while converting tire-kickers into customers and fans.

How long should a blog post run? Speaking as an expert in the field — I have no idea. I hear all kinds of things from various sources that have their own opinions. My answer is, “Long enough and no longer,” depending on your subject matter and your audience. The posts I write as part of my Blogger’s 4-pack product tend to run about 300 words each, give or take, which strikes me as a nice compromise between an easy-to-read blurb and a full-blown article. Darren Rowse of Problogger recommends a broad range of 250 to 1000 words for SEO purposes while pointing out out that no one really knows anything. Your mileage may vary.

Does a blog always have to include articles? Not at all. Blog posts can take the form of video clips, photo galleries, podcasts, or any other media that can be uploaded and accessed by the reader. And there’s nothing wrong with the old tried-and-true recommended links. I tend to write articles because, well, I’m a writer. A videographer might choose to post videos. A painter might choose to post image files. Whatever gets you more web traffic and boosts your reputation, do it. Or hire me to do it. Either way, happy blogging!