Speedwriting: 12 tips for writing faster
Some writers have the gift of “speedwriting.” They are naturally blessed with the ability to write fast and turn out solid work without agonizing or extensive rewriting or editing.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people.
It’s not that I’m slow. I can move through projects at a good pace when I have to. But I simply can’t dash off copy with lightning speed and walk away as some do. Like this sentence, for example: I just now wrote and deleted three or four other sentences before typing these words.
Obviously it’s better to be a good writer than a fast writer. However, I think that just as you can learn to read quickly and maintain comprehension, you should also be able to write quickly and maintain quality. So I’ve been on a mission recently to boost my writing speed. This can help me be more productive, earn more, and have more time for other activities.
I’ve analyzed my writing habits and come up with solutions to boost my productivity. Here are a few of my ideas. Read more
SEO Copywriting: How important is it to you?
For copywriters, every advertising medium has its unique requirements.
Direct mail requires you to know postal specifications. Radio advertising requires you to write exceptionally lean. E-mail marketing requires you to deal with the eccentricities of spam and e-mail design.
Then there’s the Web. And one of the requirements these days, according to many gurus, is SEO, search engine optimization. The idea seems pretty simple: to rank well, a Web page must use the keywords people are searching for. Of course, in practice it’s a bit more difficult. In fact, it can be an arcane art that seems to change almost daily.
There are varying points of view on SEO. Many copywriters embrace it. But some think it’s overblown. I have my own ideas, but I’m curious …
What do YOU think? Is SEO important to you? Do you think a copywriter should make SEO a priority when writing for the Web? Or should it be secondary to good on-page copy? How far have you gone to teach yourself SEO?
Direct mail resources galore at USPS.com
If you create or use direct mail, you may know that the United States Postal Service has not always had a helpful website. There was a time when it was poorly designed and made finding information difficult.
But as the USPS feels the pressure to act (or pretend to act) more like a competitive business, they have shaped up their website nicely. Today usps.com is nicely designed and offers an easy-to-navigate treasure trove of resources for business mailers and consumer mail users alike.
Here are just a few of the key resources you’ll find when you click on the “business” button at the top left of the home page.
- Domestic Mail Manual — The DMM is the granddaddy of all mail guides. It covers everything you need to know about official standards, mail classes, services, rate eligibility, mail preparation, and more. This is the “bible” of mailing standards, so it’s a must-have for any direct mailer. If you mail internationally, you will also want the International Mail Manual. Time was when you had to order printed versions of these massive guides (and I still have a big DMM in my office), but they are now online and searchable.
- Quick Service Guides — The DMM can be a little overwhelming, so the USPS has put together dozens of short guides, each on an individual subject. These include guides for letters and cards, flats, parcels, nonprofit mail, periodicals, addressing, postage, special services, and more. The only problem with these guides is that if you don’t know what you don’t know, selecting the right guides can be tricky. Read more
Inside the mind of DM guru Steve Slaunwhite
Steve Slaunwhite is an award-winning author, speaker and recognized expert in the best practices of high-response copywriting. More than 100 Fortune 500 companies, mid-size businesses, and publishers have relied on his copywriting expertise for direct mail letters, email letters, ads, web pages and other marketing communications.
Steve has written several top-notch books, including Start & Run a Copywriting Business, 101 Writing Tips for Successful Email Marketing, and The EVERYTHING Guide to Writing Copy.
I’m pleased to have a chance to share a few of his thoughts with you.
Dean: What is the most common mistake you see direct marketers make?
Steve: Not studying the list or target market BEFORE creating the campaign. The list contains the people you’re trying to persuade. To have any hope of selling them, you need to know what makes them tick. Example: Instead of running the same ad in multiple publications, study the reader profiles of each publication and customize accordingly.
Dean: What does the future hold for direct mail and print advertising? Some say direct mail and print will disappear.
Steve: The old-fashioned print sales letter still works very well. Print advertising is not going to disappear because people still read print publications. However, there’s no disputing the fact that online advertising is growing by leaps and bounds. Wherever there are READERS, there will be advertising.
Dean: I’m glad you said that. Reading is a huge part of direct response advertising. A lot of readers are turning to the Internet now. What effect do you think the Internet will have on direct marketing?
Steve: I think the Internet is an expansion of direct marketing, not a replacement. Many of the same direct-response principles apply, whether connecting to a prospect’s desktop, laptop or mobile.
Dean: What is the most innovative thing you see happening or on the horizon in the direct marketing industry? Read more
The e-mail marketing problem you never knew you had (and why you can’t fix it)
If you’ve been doing e-mail marketing for more than a week, you know about some of the problems with this exciting new medium.
Lists filled with undeliverable addresses, wildly inconsistent spam filtering rules across e-mail servers, and inconsistent rendering of design by different e-mail readers are some of the most common issues that will plague you.
But there’s one pernicious problem you probably don’t know about. It’s lurking behind every e-mail marketing campaign you launch. And it can cause you enormous grief.
The worst part? You can’t do a darn thing about it.
I’m talking about the system administrators who sit in front of computer screens and make on-the-fly decisions about your e-mail.
The politically correct line is that marketers and Internet tech guys are on the same side, both wanting to block spam and assure the delivery of properly conceived e-mail marketing. The reality is that many system administrators are antagonistic to the commercialization of the Internet. And they’re not at all happy about your using e-mail to sell things.
One such system administrator recently told me, “CAN-SPAM isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. What you have to watch out for are system administrators having a bad week.” In his opinion, ANY e-mail you send that isn’t specifically requested is spam. Period. End of discussion.
That probably strikes you as extreme. But it’s not uncommon. For some, spam has come to mean just about any e-mail that people don’t want, whether the sender follows the rules or not. Read more
Why pissing people off can be good advertising
Many advertisers put a lot of emphasis on the “likability” of their ads. The idea is that if people like the ad, they’ll buy the product. But is that always true?
There’s nothing wrong with people liking your ads, but I’m not so sure that likability is a prerequisite for selling. Consider the infamous “Head On” TV ads.
(If you can’t see the video here in my feed, click on to the blog to watch.)
Likable? Hardly. It’s one of the most hated ads on TV. It’s so disliked, it has become an icon of annoying advertising. The company even acknowledges this in follow-up ads where the commercial is interrupted by “viewers” who say, “Head On, I hate your commercials, but I love your product.”
Personally, I love these ads. Well, I don’t love them exactly. I think they’re annoying, too. But I wish I’d written them. Why? Because they’re pure genius. They do exactly what they’re supposed to do — burn a brand into your brain so when you’re at the store you’ll recognize it and buy it. Can you think of any headache medicine with a commercial this memorable? I sure can’t.
I would love to have sat in on the meeting where the ad team presented this idea to the Head On people. “You want to do what? Say it how many times? You’re joking, right?”
Likability? I don’t put much faith in that. I like what works. Sometimes that means creating an ad people like. Other times it means creating an ad that pisses people off. The question is, do you have the guts to do what it takes no matter what that is?
I touched on this in a popular article I wrote some years ago about a lesson my grandfather taught me with a dead chicken. In that article I quote Charles F. Kettering, inventor of the electric self-starter for cars, who once said, “My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. … You can be sincere and still be stupid.”
I think that’s what I really like about that Head On ad, and it’s what I like about all effective advertising. It does the right thing at the time it has to be done. Unflinchingly. Unapologetically.
Can you think of other ads past or present that were annoying but effective? Have you created annoying ads, mail, or promos of any kind that worked like gangbusters?
My artless radio ad formula for generating sales, leads, and traffic
I’ve been analyzing and writing a number of radio ads recently, and it occurred to me that the scripts I’m producing are, well … artless.
What I mean is that they’re nothing like the funny, off-the-wall radio spots most radio ad writers go for. In a nutshell, I like to have an announcer read a straightforward pitch, talking directly to the listener. No sound effects. No jokes. No back and forth conversation between friends.
There are good reasons for this. In direct response radio, you usually have 60 seconds. You can’t say much in 60 seconds so you have to get to the point fast and make every word count. And unlike printed ads, you can’t go back and review anything. Your audience either gets it or they don’t. When it’s over it’s over.
Plus, what are people doing when they have the radio on? Just about anything except listening to the radio. Driving down the road. Cleaning the house. Eating in an office cafeteria. Running in the park. It’s nearly always background noise for another activity. So in my opinion, a radio ad isn’t a good place for witty dialog and complex sound effects.
Here’s my advice for writing a basic radio ad: Read more
The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the secret for coping with the incompetents around you
There’s nothing more exasperating than being an expert and having to deal with someone who isn’t but is quite certain he or she is. I experience this frequently and I know you do too. And guess what? There’s actually a name for it: the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Wikipedia defines the Dunning-Kruger Effect like this: “… the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.”
Sound familiar?
Here’s a good example. Long ago I was interviewing for an ad agency job in Las Vegas. When the guy who owned the small agency found out I was interested in direct response, he began explaining to me that no headline should ever, EVER, be more than seven words. Seven was the magic number. And the magic number was seven. Six, maybe. Sometimes five. But never eight. And certainly not nine. 10 was right out.
When I asked him why, he took on the air of superiority that I didn’t have a name for then and repeated that seven words were magic.
Yup, Dunning-Kruger Effect. Read more
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