Good copywriting often requires “bad” writing!
Some of the worst copywriters are “writers” who enter the commercial copywriting profession. Why? Because they’ve learned the formal rules of writing so well, they can’t break free of the grammar and style shackles. They’re forever obsessing about what is correct rather than what is effective.
On the other hand, some of the best copywriters are salesmen or businesspeople or other folk who would normally have no credentials to write much of anything. They aren’t fixated on rules as much as they are on results.
To illustrate what I mean, here are some writing rule breakers that are often part of effective copywriting.
- Write in the second person. Speak directly to the reader with words such as you, your, and yourself.
- Keep most paragraphs short. Ideally, they should be no longer than 7 lines, especially in letters. If a paragraph gets too long, break it into shorter chunks. Forget standard paragraph development.
- Drop in one-sentence paragraphs. They’re punchy and add variety.
- Begin sentences with conjunctions. This includes and, also, besides, furthermore, likewise, moreover, or, else, otherwise, but, however, nevertheless, so, then, and therefore.
- End sentences with prepositions. In ordinary conversation, do you say, “With whom are you going?” or “Who are you going with?” Allow yourself the freedom of putting of, for, with, and other prepositions at the end of a sentence. Strive to be natural, not slavishly correct.
- Add occasional fragments. This helps add excitement. Urgency. Picks up the pace. And creates a firm tone. Don’t overuse this technique, though, or you’ll annoy readers.
- Use intelligent redundancy. Free gift, actual fact, call anytime 24-hours a day, and other such constructions may get you poor marks in English class, but in the real world they help to emphasize your point and clarify your meaning.
Read the full article or or browse my Direct Marketing Article Archive. I’m adding articles all the time. Read them. Digg and Stumble them. Share them. These are all articles I’ve published over the years in Direct Marketing Magazine, DM News, Target Marketing, and other publications.
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7 Responses to “Good copywriting often requires “bad” writing!”
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Fascinating Dean! I never looked at it this way…Thank you for the perspective.
I really like your stuff Dean. Another great post.
You used an expression here we both adopted. That term is “salesman.”
In fact, for years I have told general agency leaders about the difference between general agency writers and direct response writers in this way: “A skilled direct marketing copywriter is a salesman in disguise.”
In truth, all commercial writers should sell. But general agency copywriters are not evaluated based on sales. Their reputations are built on something else entirely.
What you talk about here deals with the core of what a direct response writer is all about — generating sales.
Albert Lasker said that advertising was “salesmanship in print.” Later he applied the same idea to other media.
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Great ideas, although I worry that sometimes people can take this too literally and become sloppy with their writing which just makes them look stupid.
Connexion,
Any copywriting advice misapplied will make someone look stupid. But I don’t see anything in my post or the full article that could be considered “sloppy” writing, unless you apply strict, formal rules, which are inappropriate in most advertising. Could you give me an example?
[…] January 2008 by gradgirl From Direct Creative Blog: “Some of the worst copywriters are ‘writers’ who enter the commercial […]