​Your top 5 tips - tasters for winning copy | Blogs | IDM

​Your top 5 tips - tasters for winning copy

5 tips to ensure you write brilliant copy – plus plenty more to discover on the IDM’s Copywriting: An Introduction course

If you want to produce positive, persuasive and successful selling copy, you need a system – one that you can use time and again as a prompt for the production of copy that’s truly brilliant, compelling and effective. On the IDM’s Copywriting: An Introduction course, you’ll learn about a neat, easy-to-remember system that will be your constant companion for writing great copy – especially when you’re under time pressures – plus this system is applicable across every kind of media you can think of, from digital to print, from TV slots to radio commercials.

The course also teaches you a lot more: how to be creative on demand; how to respond to the needs of your customers; how to get your messages right – and how to write in a concise, no-nonsense way that hits home with force and directness. Just as a taster, here are 5 Top Tips to remember when you’re writing copy:

1. Ban the ‘w’ word!

That’s ‘we’, just in case you’re wondering. The less you use ‘we’, the less you’ll be talking about yourself, the seller – and anyone wrapped up in themselves makes a poor parcel! (“At Addle, we’ve got lots of great offers!”). Boring. Instead, flip it round to the needs of the customer: “You need choice. You need variety. You need value for money. You need Addle.” See? Change “we” to “you” and it’s far more persuasive.

2. Write tight!

Bad copy waffles, wanders, repeats (and repeats) itself. By all means write your first draft the way you want and to the length you want. But then edit. And edit again. Try and shrink your original copy by at least 50% and it should be just right.

3. Write for one person

When you’re writing copy, you’re not broadcasting, you’re narrowcasting, addressing thousands or millions of people – but individually, one at a time. So write like you’re having an individual conversation: warm, personal, human – so that it doesn’t even come close to reading like selling copy.

4. Structure your text

Headline and first para – describes the benefits of your products and service. Answers the question: “What’s in it for me, the customer?” Second para. Describe product features that support the benefits. Third para. Summarise, wrap up and Call to Action – that’s it. Job done.

5. Remember the Golden Rule

If you were ever to have a Copywriter’s Tattoo, make it this one, in huge Gothic letters, right down your forearm, just to remind you: “Before you tell them what you want to tell them, tell them what they want to hear!” That’s the whole copywriting deal; simple as that.

Find out more at the IDM’s Copywriting: An Introduction course.

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